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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: DomKen
Maybe you're too young to remember much before the creation of the EPA. With little regulations on how businesses damaged the environment most went the do maximum damage route. Lake Erie is able to even have algal blooms because we stopped dumping an endless stream of industrial waste into it after the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.

Yay, for toxic algae blooms!!

Oh, wait. Now, if we could just get the zebra mussels, round goby and the asian carp to eat the toxic algae, it'll all be good.

You going to bring up the burning of the Cuyahoga, too?

And, no, I don't recall the specifics of the runup to the Clean Water Act of '72. Sorta difficult being born in '70. But, I do know that at one time the lake was so polluted that the fish were dying out and there was great consternation over that. I do know that much has been done to clean the waters and the rebound of the sportfish populations.

And now, agricultural runoff and wastewater overflow is feeding the toxic blooms that also threaten the fish.

What about certain herbicides/fertilizers impregnated into corn being traced back to have a large effect on bee Colony Collapse Disorder? I posed a questions several years ago about what GMO agriculture does to bee colonies. No idea if anyone ever studied it, or not, but there are things that are out there that help in one way, but hurt in another.

We were able to cross the country and make it livable in no small part due to air conditioning. The refrigerants used caused problems in the Ozone. CFC's were banned and HFC's were created as a replacement. Now, HFC's are contributing to global warming with greater effects than CO2 (in some cases, nearly 5,000 times as powerful). Where does it end? Do we do away with A/C?

At what point is it acceptable to continue to pollute as long as the benefits far outweigh the enviro-impact?

And, who's to say that Capitalism isn't taking care of the problem? Have there been increases in "green" companies or companies that clean up after polluters? Now, you're robbing those people of their opportunity to make a living.

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ORIGINAL: joether
And WHO allowed this form of tyranny to 'take up residense' in the USA? The GOP! The next logical step is for corporations to vote. Every corporation gets a vote. Think about that for a moment. How many dumby corporations could a very large, mutli-national corporation, that makes a gross profit in the tens of billions each year, create in an election year and VOTE the the way the management wishs (most of whom have voted under their own name)? Yes, people will say "It'll never happened"; Yeah, say that to the Jews of the Holocaust....

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This was either an act of total stupidity or great vileness on the parts of the 'conservative' Supreme Court members. It is alarming that so many conservatives support this ruling, but yet, rail anyone else that might try to turn the US Goverment into a tyrannical entity. That they feel its 'ok' to change whole sections of the US Constitution, but blast anyone else for thinking of just a minor change here or there. All the while, displaying a lack of knowledge on a multitude of imporant concepts in the nation: Education, Health Care, Enviromental Clean States, Rule of Law, etc. Notice, those things just listed would apply across the board to all Americans? It seems more and more that conservatives are taking the position of "If its good for American citizens as a whole; its bad for the GOP'.

change whole sections of the US Constitution

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Dont get me started on how often Republicans waste money by sending bills they know will fail to the Senate......

• A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
  
• Personal Responsibility
  
• Help for the truly needy
  
• Limited Government
  
• Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
  

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ORIGINAL: DomKen
My point was that there was no worries about algal bloms in Lake Erie before the Clean Water Act because industry had effectively killed everything in it. The cleanup isn't prefect but it is moving in the right direction hence the worries about the oxygen depleted dead zone caused by the algal bloom caused by fertilizer runoff.

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HFC's are only a GHG concern because of the elevated levels of CO2 already in the atmosphere. Otherwise the minute quantities released , assuming responsible manufacturing, would break down long before the concentrations reached troubling levels.

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But researchers say what's good for ozone is bad for climate change. In the atmosphere, these replacement chemicals act like "super" greenhouse gases, with a heat-trapping power that can be 4,470 times that of carbon dioxide.

Now, scientists say, the world must find replacements for the replacements -- or these super-emissions could cancel out other efforts to stop global warming.

"Whatever targets you thought you were going to make," said David Fahey, a physicist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "it will be undermined by the fact that you have . . . additional emissions that you hadn't planned on."

The colorless, odorless replacement chemicals enter the atmosphere in tiny amounts, often leaking out of refrigerators and air conditioners, or escaping when those machines break and are improperly dumped. They now account for about 2 percent of the climate-warming power of U.S. emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

That is still far less than carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning fossil fuels and accounts for about 85 percent of the problem. And it is less than the roughly 10 percent of warming from methane, which comes from sources including farm animals and decomposing trash.

But in recent weeks, these obscure gases have been given a higher profile in the carbon-dominated debate on climate change.

Last month, a group of scientists published a paper projecting that, if unchecked, the emissions would rise rapidly over the next 40 years. By 2050, they found, the amount of super greenhouse gases in the atmosphere might be equal to six or more years' worth of carbon dioxide emissions.

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Capitalism is only taking care of the problem because we as a society acting through our government are forcing corporations to behave better. The problem with Citizen's United is that shifting yet more power to those corporations, which is precisely what the ruling did, makes it more likely those safeguards on corporate behavior will be eliminated.

• A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
  
• Personal Responsibility
  
• Help for the truly needy
  
• Limited Government
  
• Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)