Sunday reads

Just some of the news I’ve been catching up on today:

Maggie Lee at the Macon Telegraph  has an article about last Monday’s carbon pollution rules and the shift already underway towards renewal energy sources in Georgia.

Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal Constitution points out that the world didn’t come to an end years ago when Atlanta’s air quality was classified as “non-attainment” and the city was required to take action to reduce smog and other problems (the article concludes behind their pay wall).

The AJC is doing a series of articles on climate change and the impacts already seen on Georgia’s coast called “A rising tide of concern.” The articles are behind a pay wall and include this: “David Stooksbury, the former state climatologist, said the unwillingness of leaders to address climate change is dangerous.’I don’t think that most of our elected officials understand the long-term seriousness of what climate change will do to the agricultural economy, public health and the environment,’ Stooksbury said. ‘It will be much cheaper and better for the state if we follow a well-developed plan starting now rather than waiting until we must respond.’ ”

Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources is quoted too, stating, “Last month the wildlife resources division of the Department of Natural Resources issued its State Wildlife Action Plan, or SWAP, which states unequivocally that “climate change presents unprecedented challenges.”

The AJC reports that Governor Nathan Deal had no statement on climate change. Senator David Perdue, who lives in a mansion on one of Georgia’s Barrier Islands, Sea Island, told the AJC, ““the scientific community is not in total agreement about whether mankind has been a contributing factor.”

The rising tides will eventually wash away the sand Perdue and others have their heads buried in on this subject and many others.

 

Fracking for the Cure

pink drill bit

There’s just no saving the Susan G Komen organization from itself. For the second year in a row, Komen has lined up to get a $100,000 check from Baker Hughes, a fracking company. Baker Hughes is so committed to helping find a cure for breast cancer that it is shipping out 1,000 drill bits painted in a specially commissioned Komen Pink, packed in pink boxes with a fact sheet on breast cancer tucked inside, to rig sites.

The fact that Baker Hughes uses fracking chemicals that contain known cancer causing agents clearly isn’t worrisome enough for Komen to turn down a check.

Kudos to Susan G Komen and Baker Hughes for creating the most phallic breast cancer prevention campaign I’ve ever seen. I can barely wait until October 2015 to see how they top this one.

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