The Hypocrisy Of Plutocracy

Even for those of us not yet born when it started and too young to remember much about the Vietnam war during the ’70s that are just now learning the full extent of it, judging by the shape our world is in at the present time, the following is indeed a correct statement.

“The Dirty F*cking Hippies Were Right“~ by Joeyess

“There’s a black granite wall in Washington DC that bears 58,260 names on it…

all of those whose names are carved on that wall are DEAD. For what? Freedom?

If this country had listened when kids were screaming to stop that slaughter, that wall would have been one helluva lot shorter.

“The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for (Missing In Action) during the War.”
(click photo for Veterans Today article)

Yet, we as a nation STILL wage wars of choice. Wars encouraged by plutocrats that never have to fight them.

Peace is never discussed. Peace has somehow become a pejorative.

Peace is no pejorative. Peace is essential to the survival of the human race…

and those who advocate for war, are a dangerous and fearful group who should be marginalized and disavowed. War is always the last choice. The “dirty fuckin’ hippies” were RIGHT.

Now the oceans have been rising, the polar ice is melting at alarming rates, the climate is changing in irreversible ways, our survival as a species on this planet is on a precipice.

The science on this is clear, humans are now in trouble. Because of our reckless stewardship of what we dominate, we have polluted this fragile jewel that hangs in space, our only HOME.

The food we buy is contaminated…

the toys we give our children as presents for Christmas are tainted with poison…

the water we drink is rife with carcinogens…

the fish in our seas, lakes, and rivers, are so full of mercury, it’s only recommended that we eat them once per week.

We have now come face to face with our own extinction.

I hate to say, “we told you so”, but the “dirty fuckin’ hippies” were RIGHT.

We’ve elected sociopath after sociopath for the last thirty years at every level of government…

many of them, slaves to corporate parasites that gorge themselves at the public trough, while the most vulnerable people in our society, the sick, the young, and the elderly, go wanting.

Billions of dollars of profits are being snitched up at the expense and suffering of our neighbors by the jackals that comprise our pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies…

both of which pipe their diagnostic wisdom and fake concern right into our homes via TV and radio commercials.

These legal drug dealers now sell their wares with impunity, and the insurance gamblers perform a slick game of “three card monte” right in our living rooms…

most of these drugs have a list of caveats that would make even the most dishonest used car salesman blush…

and the insurance hustlers change the rules of the game just when it’s time to pay up, profiting from the suffering and pain of others, profiting from human frailty…

universal healthcare, it’s too expensive we’re told. Gasbag talking heads on TV and radio have been complicit in this deception while being handsomely compensated for their assistance…

I’ll say it again, the “dirty fuckin’ hippies”… were RIGHT.

Big box discount stores descend upon small towns of American like alien ships filled with cheap products bought at low prices from countries that pay their workers slave wages…

plutocrats love this business model, mom & pop shops can’t compete with prices set by these huge corporate parasites and to no one’s surprise, plenty of small businesses in these tiny hamlets fail, leaving towns filled with empty storefronts…

and even in some cases, forcing these same small business operators to go to work for the very people that ruined their livelihoods…

small towns of America are subsequently decimated by this invasion, often helpless in stopping it.

Wall Street has cannibalized itself. Still hungry, feeling the pangs of their greed, they’ve now come to the government for their daily meal and still, without a hint of irony, a spokesman for this ravenous tribe, mounts a soapbox and has the temerity to rail against the evils of socialism… turns out, the socialism is for them, and the capitalism, is for us.

Abbie Hoffman once baited these banksters by throwing cash onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, to no one’s astonishment, they demonstrated their insatiable greed. The gluttons couldn’t help themselves, they stopped trading, got on their knees, and swept up the free loot.

Wall Street should have been reined in long ago.

I’ll say it again, the dirty fuckin’ hippies were RIGHT.” — Joeyess

Love Canal Tragedy Remembered Decades Later As History Repeats Itself In Riverview Florida

Love Canal Toxic Waste Began Surfacing From Underground After Heavy Rainfall

Love Canal became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly been used to bury 22,000 tons of toxic waste by Hooker Chemical Company (now Occidental Petroleum Corporation).

The city of Niagara Falls began using the land as a landfill for chemical waste disposal and later the U.S. Army began burying waste from chemical warfare experiments. The Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation acquired the use of the site for private use in 1947 and buried 21,000 tons of toxic waste there over the next five years. After the site was filled, Hooker sold the Love Canal for one dollar to the Niagara Falls School Board in 1953, and the land was approved for residential use.

“Thirty-five years after Love Canal became a symbol of the dangers of toxic waste in residential neighborhoods, the legal and medical issues there are still playing out.” (as will happen with Riverview)…

Did the EPA learn NOTHING from The Love Canal tragedy? Did they “forget”? Or, are they just sellouts of humanity that don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect their families, while being paid off to turn a blind eye until the point where it can no longer be ignored with a subsequent bigger payoff in the form of a monetary “fine”, a mere slap on the wrist to the repeat offender while ignoring their repetitive careless contamination? These are questions that should be PUBLICLY ASKED of the EPA regarding their complicity in allowing land developers, (consisting of attorneys who know how to skirt the law), to have built a residential community on a similar toxic waste site in Riverview, Florida, ignoring the deadly consequences (until it becomes profitable not to).

Source: Environmental Research Foundation

To understand the ongoing battle in Riverview, it is important to fully comprehend the tragedy at the Love Canal. This heartfelt and thorough assessment By Eckardt C. Beck, Administrator of EPA Region 2, 1977-1979, was found on the EPA’s own website. Yet, to this day, the Love Canal has subsequently been swept under the rug again, as history repeats itself in Riverview, Florida.

The Love Canal Tragedy

by Eckardt C. Beck
EPA Journal – January 1979

Quite simply, Love Canal is one of the most appalling environmental tragedies in American history.

But that’s not the most disturbing fact.

What is worse is that it cannot be regarded as an isolated event. It could happen again–anywhere in this country–unless we move expeditiously to prevent it.

It is a cruel irony that Love Canal was originally meant to be a dream community. That vision belonged to the man for whom the three-block tract of land on the eastern edge of Niagara Falls, New York, was named–William T. Love.

Love felt that by digging a short canal between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers, power could be generated cheaply to fuel the industry and homes of his would-be model city.

But despite considerable backing, Love’s project was unable to endure the one-two punch of fluctuations in the economy and Nikola Tesla’s discovery of how to economically transmit electricity over great distances by means of an alternating current.

By 1910, the dream was shattered. All that was left to commemorate Love’s hope was a partial ditch where construction of the canal had begun.

In the 1920s the seeds of a genuine nightmare were planted. The canal was turned into a municipal and industrial chemical dump-site.

Landfills can of course be an environmentally acceptable method of hazardous waste disposal, assuming they are properly sited, managed, and regulated. Love Canal will always remain a perfect historical example of how not to run such an operation.

In 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company, then the owners and operators of the property, covered the canal with earth and sold it to the city for one dollar.

It was a bad buy.

In the late ’50s, about 100 homes and a school were built at the site. Perhaps it wasn’t William T. Love’s model city, but it was a solid, working-class community. For a while.

On the first day of August, 1978, the lead paragraph of a front-page story in the New York Times read:

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.–Twenty five years after the Hooker Chemical Company stopped using the Love Canal here as an industrial dump, 82 different compounds, 11 of them suspected carcinogens, have been percolating upward through the soil, their drum containers rotting and leaching their contents into the backyards and basements of 100 homes and a public school built on the banks of the canal.

In an article prepared for the February, 1978 EPA Journal, I wrote, regarding chemical dump-sites in general, that “even though some of these landfills have been closed down, they may stand like ticking time bombs.” Just months later, Love Canal exploded.

The explosion was triggered by a record amount of rainfall. Shortly thereafter, the leaching began.

I visited the canal area at that time. Corroding waste-disposal drums could be seen breaking up through the grounds of backyards. Trees and gardens were turning black and dying. One entire swimming pool had been had been popped up from its foundation, afloat now on a small sea of chemicals. Puddles of noxious substances were pointed out to me by the residents. Some of these puddles were in their yards, some were in their basements, others yet were on the school grounds. Everywhere the air had a faint, choking smell. Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces…

And then there were the birth defects. The New York State Health Department is continuing an investigation into a disturbingly high rate of miscarriages, along with five birth-defect cases detected thus far in the area.

I recall talking with the father of one the children with birth defects. “I heard someone from the press saying that there were only five cases of birth defects here,” he told me. “When you go back to your people at EPA, please don’t use the phrase ‘only five cases.’ People must realize that this is a tiny community. Five birth defect cases here is terrifying.”

A large percentage of people in Love Canal are also being closely observed because of detected high white-blood-cell counts, a possible precursor of leukemia. […]

“We knew they put chemicals into the canal and filled it over,” said one woman, a long-time resident of the Canal area., “but we had no idea the chemicals would invade our homes. We’re worried sick about the grandchildren and their children.”

Two of this woman’s four grandchildren have birth defects. The children were born and raised in the Love Canal community. A granddaughter was born deaf with a cleft palate, an extra row of teeth, and slight retardation. A grandson was born with an eye defect.

Of the chemicals which comprise the brew seeping through the ground and into homes at Love Canal, one of the most prevalent is benzene — a known human carcinogen, and one detected in high concentrations. But the residents characterize things more simply.

“I’ve got this slop everywhere,” said another man who lives at Love Canal. His daughter also suffers from a congenital defect. […]

We suspect that there are hundreds of such chemical dump-sites across this Nation.

…without a doubt, many of these old dump-sites are time bombs with burning fuses — their contents slowly leaching out. And the next victim cold be a water supply, or a sensitive wetland.

The presence of various types of toxic substances in our environment has become increasingly widespread — a fact that President Carter has called “one of the grimmest discoveries of the modern era.”

Chemical sales in the United States now exceed a mind-boggling $112 billion per year, with as many as 70,000 chemical substances in commerce.

Love Canal can now be added to a growing list of environmental disasters involving toxics, ranging from industrial workers stricken by nervous disorders and cancers to the discovery of toxic materials in the milk of nursing mothers.

It is within our power to exercise intelligent and effective controls designed to significantly cut such environmental risks. A tragedy, unfortunately, has now called upon us to decide on the overall level of commitment we desire for defusing future Love Canals. And it is not forgotten that no one has paid more dearly already than the residents of Love Canal.

Source: http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/love-canal-tragedy

Contact EPA Here to ask a question, provide feedback, or report a problem.

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RIVERVIEW, FLORIDA – PRESENT DAY

Photo Credit: Davey Crockett “Article Elf“

Suffering illness and engaged in a fierce two year battle, long time resident of Riverview, Florida, Gina LaBruno, known affectionately by the children in her close knit community as “the water lady” has been fighting to raise awareness about the toxic water tragedy happening in Florida as the EPA turns a blind eye.

Below is LaBruno’s heartfelt response regarding some of those official’s outrage at being called on their apathy and dismissal of this life threatening issue:

I was told about some officials that were VERY upset that their names were displayed. My response:

“Well if you do not like what you see, then you obviously know there is something wrong in how this situation is being and has been handled. If you do not want your name tied into the wrong doers then you maybe should of not turned a blind eye. It is real simple If you are a government official then you have a job to “UPHOLD” the law and keep citizens “SAFE”. After all isn’t that what and why we pay/paid taxes for in this country? How has it that our government has put the environment to the back burner!! HOW??? All of a sudden one of the things we prided the “MOST” The beauty and cleanliness of our country is now being pushed aside as if it was never as important as “IT REALLY IS” at least in my mind it is one of the main issues that I can say I think of first when I think of the United States of America. I think clean drinking water and safe environment!!

How can you be a country that speaks of “GOD”(if at all one is religious) and then turn your back on all of the Natural Resources of this Earth! Just “PLEASE” I want to hear the answer to this from any of the officials in charge of our natural resources. Huh, I promise you I would not let any one of them give me a spin as to how they can fix this or how they think this is not a big deal what they are doing to the land and water!! This “IS” A VERY VERY SERIOUS ISSUE, that I feel VERY STRONGLY about. And it is a simple reality there is nothing “OK” about the damage they are causing. NOTHING! Money will not return the earth to it’s former condition. And without these resources “WE AS HUMAN BEINGS WILL NOT SURVIVE”!!!” –

Gina LaBruno

Click photo for link to, “Mosaic Toxic Waste Settlement In Works”. Excerpt: “The EPA accused Mosaic In 2005 and 2006 of mishandling contaminated process water at six of its operations, including Riverview.” – Yet, local officials in Florida continue to DENY that there is a problem with the water in Riverview, claiming it’s “safe” despite Mosaic’s legacy of “mishandling” toxic waste? What gives? Big money and slick corporate attorneys, no doubt.

Below is an article outlining serious health issues caused by decades of industrial pollution in Florida and the outright carelessness on the part of the local EPA that recognized the risks, yet ultimately took no action and allowed a residential neighborhood to be built on toxic land. Despite the EPA’s previous admission that “120,000 people living on 40,000 residential parcels could be exposed to unsafe radiation levels”, they turned a blind eye and allowed the development.

EPA Abandons  Major Radiation Cleanup in Florida, Despite Cancer Concerns

By Douglas P. Guarino

The agency’s approach to the Florida case lends further credence to the concern that it is backing away from its long-held radiological cleanup rules generally, Hirsch said.”The agency is lowering the EPA flag outside the building and raising the white flag of surrender,” he quipped.

Three Decades of Concern

Although government officials have said little about the Florida situation publicly, federal involvement at the sites surrounding Lakeland began in 1979. That’s when EPA scientists first warned their superiors that the area could pose a health threat.

The scientists noted that past phosphate mining had created elevated concentrations of radium-226 in the area’s soil. Radium produces gamma rays that can penetrate the body and increase the risk for a variety of cancers. Inhaling or ingesting the uranium byproduct can increase the risk of leukemia, lymphoma and bone cancer, specifically.

In addition, the decay of radium creates radon, an odorless, radioactive gas that can increase the risk of lung cancer by seeping into homes and polluting indoor air.

Given these risks, the EPA scientists advised that no new homes should be built on the sites until further studies were completed, but the agency took no action and residential development continued.

The Environmental Protection Agency paid little attention to the Lakeland area sites until the new millennium, agency documents show. By that time, agency officials estimated that as many as 120,000 people living on 40,000 residential parcels could be exposed to unsafe radiation levels.

In 2003, EPA officials deemed the potential problem at one Lakeland subdivision — an upscale development of about 500 homes called “Oakbridge” — to be so bad that they considered it a candidate for emergency cleanup action. Low-income and minority communities might also be affected, internal documents show — creating so-called “environmental justice” concerns for the agency.

Regional politics intervened, however, and the agency did little more in the way of studying the issue over the subsequent decade. Residents were not warned of the EPA concerns and no remedial actions were taken.

Phosphate mining industry officials, who represent the second largest revenue-producing enterprise in the Sunshine State, made it known in private meetings that they strongly opposed the agency declaring the parcels Superfund sites. Such a move could make mining companies liable for as much as $11 billion in cleanup costs, according to estimates of the potential scope of the contamination that the EPA inspector general included in a 2004 report.

State health and environment officials operating under Republican governorships sided with industry, taking the position that no cleanup action was necessary if residents were being exposed to less than 500 millirems of radiation per year. State officials said this approach was permissible under guidelines suggested by the privately run National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.

However, at the 500-millirem-per-year level, the cancer risk for humans is roughly 1 in 40, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry noted in a 2006 internal report it prepared regarding the Florida dispute.

EPA cleanup policy dictates that, in a worst-case scenario, no more than one in 10,000 people should be put at risk for developing cancer from manmade contamination.

Following 2010 news reports about the standoff, EPA officials began making preparations for an aerial radiation survey that was to enable them to get a better handle on the scope and severity of the problem. The plans stalled, however, after a group of Republican lawmakers from Florida — siding with state and mining-industry officials — pressured the agency not to conduct the survey. […]

This article was published in Global Security Newswire, which is produced independently by National Journal Group under contract with the Nuclear Threat Initiative. NTI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group working to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. – (End)

Source: http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/epa-abandons-major-radiation-cleanup-florida-despite-cancer-concerns/

Below is an NY Times article excerpt from 1983 that will shed more light on the history of Florida’s phosphate fertilizer industry (radioactive gypsum dump), and Gina LaBruno’s present day fight:

PLAN FOR BIG DUMP STIRS TAMPA FIGHT – 1983 – Source: NY Times

By REGINALD STUART

Published: December 12, 1983

TAMPA, Fla., Dec. 9— A company’s proposal to build a HUGE radioactive gypsum dump near a residential area with a school has brought on a campaign that pits Florida’s powerful phosphate and fertilizer industry against its growing health and environmental safety lobby.

Southwest Florida, which has vast deposits of phosphates, an ingredient in fertilizer, produces 80 percent of the nation’s fertilizer. Phosphogypsum, a waste product of the fertilizer process, has many impurities, including radium, and this waste is what would go into the dump that the company, Gardinier Big River Inc., proposes to build. For every ton of phosphate rock processed to make fertilizer, the industry reports, a ton and half of this byproduct gypsum, which is not the material used in wallboards, is created. […]

”We can store our gypsum or shut down,” said Harry Gray Gordon, vice president for industrial relations for Gardinier. ”If it shuts down,” he said, the decision would affect ”the rest of the industry with respect to the gypsum piles.” ‘Left the Factual Area’ […]

The 20-year-old lower middle income Progress Village and the school would be within a few thousand feet of the site, which is planned to cover 389 acres and to grow by 12,000 tons of gypsum every 24 hours until it reaches a height of 200 feet in 40 years.

The opponents to the dump have won the support of the Manasota 88, a well- financed environmental protection group from neighboring Manatee and Sarasota Counties. ‘No One Really Knows Hazards’. […]

Gardinier’s consultants have maintained that the radiation emitted into the air will be far short of any harmful levels. The company also says that health problems in its work force at an existing gypsum dump have not been out of the ordinary. “Leakage of tainted water would be minimal or nonexistent”, the company asserts, because of a plan to line the proposed site with a thick clay wall. Also the dump would be covered by grass to at least seven feet from the top.

The commission members have not taken sides publicly on the proposal, although they voice concern.

Janice Platt, 47 years old, the senior member of the county commission, said: ”I understand that Gardinier and the industry are concerned about economic impact, but environment and human impact have a price tag also. The old way of doing things is no longer acceptable.” – (End)

Photo Credit (click for link): Phosphate and Fluoride Industrial Waste In Florida

Further down, see the Wall Street Journal excerpt detailing the waste site Riverview land is on. There is extreme toxicity from the fertilizer plant(s) that, decades upon decades, continues poisoning underground aquafers with uranium and a host of other carcinogenic chemicals & toxic heavy metals. Like layers of an onion, this situation keeps getting more complex as we unravel this corruption to its core and get a much clearer picture of what Gina LaBruno has been up against.

Fact: “the half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.5 billion years, uranium-235 about 700 million years, and uranium-234 about 25 thousand years. Uranium atoms decay into other atoms, or radionuclides, that are also radioactive and commonly called decay products”, yet NIOSH deems the land “safe”? It’s easy to lose track of time, but, has it been 4.5 billion years already?…

One of the prominent toxins LaBruno’s lab results reveals is excessive amounts of BARIUM, (in addition to lead, mercury, fluoride, and a host of other toxins and pathogens). While barium can “naturally occur” in water, the excessive amounts revealed in LaBruno’s lab tests, indicate something more.

The land is a uranium waste site, but how would barium be in the water?  According to the World Nuclear Organization, nuclear fission results in uranium becoming BARIUM, “the fission reaction in U-235 produces fission products such as Ba, Kr, Sr, Cs, I and Xe with atomic masses distributed around 95 and 135”. Source:  Physics of Uranium and Nuclear Energy –  Uranium becomes Krypton and Barium. That explains the unnaturally elevated levels of barium that correspond with the deteriorating health of the residents of Riverview.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

U.S. Edition

Sunday, January 25, 2015 As of 8:02 PM

Waste Lands

America’s forgotten nuclear legacy.

Gardinier, Inc.

Last updated: October 29, 2013

Riverview, Florida

This site handled (or was contaminated by) uranium, according to government records. The Department of Energy initially considered cleaning up this site under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, but determined that it didn’t have the authority to do so. See below for more details.

Other names: U.S. Phosphoric Plant, Uranium Recovery Unit • Cargill Fertilizer, Inc. • U.S. Phosphoric Products ● Note: The summary above has been automatically generated from details below.

Government Assessments

“U. S. Phosphoric Products constructed and operated a small scale pilot plant for uranium recovery; and Gardinier investigated a process for the recovery of by-product uranium from wet process phosphoric acid.”

Source: Department of Energy

“Under contract to the AEC, Gardinier (under the name U.S. Phosphoric Products) operated a pilot plant from 1951 to 1954 which recovered uranium from phosphoric acid. From 1956 to 1961, it produced uranium by recovery of U3O8 from phosphoric acid. Maximum production was 60 tons of uranium concentrate per year. The uranium was ultimately used in weapons production.”

Source: Department of Energy via NIOSH

Radioactive Materials / Other Materials of Interest

• uranium

Source: Department of Energy “Considered Sites” database and/or other government records. Note: May not be an exhaustive list; Department of Energy records focus on “primary” materials handled while under contract with its predecessor agencies. FUSRAP* Status: Considered but eliminated

“Eliminated – No Authority” *Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. Source: Department of Energy

NIOSH* 2011 Evaluation: Potential exists for significant residual radiation (in 1955 and from 1962 to time of study)

“Following a site visit in April 1977, ORNL personnel performed a complete radiological survey of the site from December 14-19, 1977. The final report stated that the contamination at this site has been identified as uranium and radium in concentrations exceeding NRC guidelines for the release of property for unrestricted use at some points inside the process building and in the outdoor area near the process building and pilot operations building. Radioactive material other than that used for weapons production was processed during or after the time of DOE contracts and exposure to workers in that facility cannot be clearly attributed to either DOE or non-DOE sources.”

“Documentation reviewed confirms the presence of residual contamination outside of the period in which weapons-related production occurred, which is indistinguishable from non-related residual contamination. The facility, affected areas and conditions appear to still remain. USDOE documentation indicates that the state of Florida was notified of the conditions, actions taken are unknown.”

*National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Source: Report on Residual Radioactive and Beryllium Contamination at Atomic Weapons Employer Facilities and Beryllium Vendor Facilities (Aug. 2011), Appendix A-2. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, as part of a federal program to compensate individuals for health damage from work in the atomics-weapons industry, analyzes information about scores of sites around the country. It looks for evidence that a site engaged in activities that might have exposed workers to harmful amounts of weapons-related radiation. […] (End).

Mosaic Fertilizer Mine Near Riverview Florida – Photo Source: Protect Peace River

Current occupant/owner: Mosaic Co.

Current occupant/owner comment:A spokesman for Mosaic Co., the current operator at the site, said “there was a uranium extraction facility within the Riverview fertilizer manufacturing complex that operated during the 1950’s under a supply contract with the U.S. government. The facility was subsequently demolished and disposed of in keeping with prevailing regulatory requirements. In the approximately half century since it ceased production, there has been no evidence of any residual contamination associated with the site or operations of the facility.” Notes:Map marker indicates approximate center of former (demolished) uranium recovery plant, based on site diagrams from a 1981 Department of Energy report.

Documents

• FL.05-1 – Memorandum; Picario to Brown; Data Re Restoration, Abandonment or Selling Building and Certain Accessories on Property of U. S. Phosphoric Products; East Tampa, Florida — Contract AT(49-1)-534; July 6, 1955  (PDF), DOE Office of Legacy Management*
• FL.05-2 – ORNL Survey (DOE/EV-0005/21); Radiological Survey of the Former Uranium Recovery Pilot and Process Sites; Gardinier, Incorporated; Tampa, Florida; March 1981 (PDF), DOE Office of Legacy Management*
• FL.05-3 – Letter; Whitman to Wallo; No Authority Determination; December 5, 1984 (PDF), DOE Office of Legacy Management*
• FL.05-6 – Memorandum; Faulkner to Ludiecke; Negotiation of Termination of Uranium Production Contract with Tennessee Corporation; February 12, 1960 (PDF), DOE Office of Legacy Management*
• FL.05-7 – Radioactive Material License No. 396-2, Amendment No. 4; Gardinier, Inc.; August 22, 1975 (PDF), DOE Office of Legacy Management*
• FL.05-8 – DOE Letter; Wagoner to Freedman; No Authority Determination; November 8, 1994  (PDF), DOE Office of Legacy Management*

Document title and URL extracted from Department of Energy “Considered Sites” database.

Source: http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/site/172-gardinier-inc/

Mosaic Phosphate Mine near Riverview Florida – Source: Tampa Bay Times

Despite decades upon decades of mishandling toxic waste and blatant disregard for health of people, wildlife, and nature, Mosaic, like Monsanto, has the audacity to claim to be “helping feed the world”. This video put out by Mosaic’s public relations spin team is a propaganda piece designed to deceive the public, all the while poisoning Florida. Sickening.

Mosaic has a long history of mishandling toxic waste, yet somehow, despite all, they continue to evade responsibility for the toxic drinking water contaminated by their chemicals leaching into Riverview wells making residents ill.

Letters sent to LaBruno by City Officials and the EPA (scroll further down to view), claim the water is “safe”. Despite these “bureaucratic assurances”, the decreased land value in the Villages of Bloomingdale (VOB), specifically Riverview, Florida, suggests otherwise; refer to the history of the Love Canal at the top. Additionally, LaBruno found in her research that it was an ATTORNEY who approved the land for development, failing to have a proper Environmental Impact Report done prior to approval, which begs the question, “was that an intentional oversight”?

Furthermore, “why was it an attorney, not a biologist, who surveyed the land”?…

Source: http://bloomingdale.tampa4u.com/

The low land value of Riverview in comparison with the surrounding areas, is a dead giveaway, reminiscent of the Love Canal. Developers swoop in looking to make a quick profit, and build land on a toxic waste site, skirt legal and moral responsibility, then sell the plots for cheap, disregarding of the fact that families, men, women, and children, are falling ill and dying. What’s worse? The EPA has been turning a blind eye, (until, of course, it may suit their needs not to).

According to NIOSH, there is “no residual contamination”…(remember, the same was said at the beginning of the Love Canal tragedy too). WHY would property value be so much cheaper in Riverview? More importantly, WHY are families falling ill and dying, if it’s “safe”? It seems if the developers have enough capital, they can do anything they want and get away with it, as long as they can turn a profit, they care not if it’s at the expense of the health and well being of the residents that occupy their toxic land.  According to the study in this Tampa Patch article, harmful contaminants are found in the drinking water in Florida, “what’s legal isn’t always safe when it comes to drinking water”: https://patch.com/florida/southtampa/harmful-contaminants-found-florida-drinking-water-study

 

Screenshot taken ONE YEAR AGO: January 28, 2015

Source: http://bloomingdale.tampa4u.com/

The new screenshot below reflects the price for a three bedroom two bath home in Riverview, (albeit a little less square feet than the previous Riverview listing), is $45,000 less and both are still significantly lower compared to two & three bedroom homes elsewhere in Florida. Any price is a bad investment considering the contaminated well water in Riverview is making its residents deathly ill.

UPDATED Screenshot taken January 22, 2016

 Source: http://bloomingdale.tampa4u.com/

Toxic water IS being pumped into resident’s homes in Riverview, on a development 1.76 miles from the largest fertilizer plant in the U.S., regardless of its profiteers claiming otherwise. Refer to the previous quoted article, PLAN FOR BIG DUMP STIRS TAMPA FIGHT – NYTimes.com 1983, that fight was lost and the plant was built under the “assurance” that there would be “no risks”. As a result, there are now Illegal, un-permitted wells on a TOXIC aquafer, proving that there are serious health and environmental risks, yet officials continue to look the other way; refusing to take LaBruno’s legitimate, well documented concerns about the water (consisting of bad odors, discoloration, burning / lesions, and causing illnesses including cancer, and death), seriously. Despite installing expensive filtration systems, LaBruno states there has been no improvement in the water, or her health.

LaBruno asks, “how come MOSAIC never sodded those gypsum stacks before 7/2014, when by law those stacks when no longer being ored are to be sodded?This is a rule that has been in place for a significant amount of time. Why when I am pushing and causing a stir is this when they decide to SOD those stacks FINALLY?
http://archive.flsenate.gov/data/Publications/2005/Senate/reports/interim_reports/pdf/2005-154ep.pdf

Below is a letter from an Environmental Supervisor that claims to have examined the water stating it’s “safe”, but according to LaBruno, this official was not only apathetic and dishonest, but extremely rude and condescending.

June 13, 2012 – Response LaBruno received, dismissing her concerns. Below is LaBruno’s statement of what really happened.

“This woman has a horrible attitude she is mean and I have several complaints about how she has spoken to resident’s that have called to complain. At one point at the end of May 2012 she lied to a resident-Renter, telling this woman that she had just come out there for a visit 2 weeks prior and that the water was fine! Huh, Therese had not EVER been out there at that point! Therese never came to VOB before June 13, 2012. Therese has even yelled at the Tallahassee officials as she was so adamant that there was no need for them to come and do a sight investigation. The official that made me aware of Therese’s attitude said she had not heard someone who works for the state ever raise their voice like that.​” —

This was in June of 2012, once I had figured out that the water was bad. I went and searched for the property and I found the wells, I then was very adamant to get county officials out to figure out the situation. But instead the Florida DOH official that came out, falsified her report to the Region 4 Official. And when she did that I went and I DUG the well lines till they were visible then, the next morning when day light returned I went and took a video… How can Hillsborough County officials claim they did any type of proper checks to the water lines when this is what was on the property?!
Mind you that there are “NO PERMITS” for wells in that area! That is a superfund area, and Mosaic Fertilizer has been producing Phosphoric Phosphate from this area since 1924. Then they added the Sulfuric Acid Process a little over 20yrs ago. If you read the link I have posted to this page you will see that this is some of the most TOXIC land in the country!!! TOXIC. And they know it is. So how did they get the permits to build on that land, and then get away with building outside of code regulations?
I hope that with every message I write with every piece of information I show, I hope that it creates an understanding, that we MUST PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO OUR COMMUNITY’S WE MUST QUESTION OUR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS. WE MUST PARTICIPATE WITHIN OUR LOCAL DISTRICTS AND ATTEND THE AGENDA MEETINGS, this is the only way to prevent this type of activity from happening right in front of our eye’s. Please be patient I will be adding a lot more information. I am juggling many aspects of this crisis right now, so my time is always taken up~ If not by this then by our everyday life, and unfortunately that is the part I am fighting to get back.” –Gina LaBruno

Below is a photograph of chemical stains that appeared in the toilet bowl only 4 days after it was cleaned. According to LaBruno, Riverview is not getting safe drinking water, they are getting RECLAIMED water (for extra pressure) mixed with WELL WATER from illegal wells.

The next photograph is the bathtub drain, showing chemical stains, and excessive hair loss, one of the most prevalent symptoms, along with chronic fatigue, edema (swelling), skin lesions, decreased immune function, infections, cancers, and a host of other health complications caused by the toxic water.

We’ve all heard of Hinkley, California and Erin Brockovich. It is not unusual for entities that believe they’re above the law to “poison people and lie about it”.  That is why LaBruno contacted Erin Brockovich for help with this ongoing battle.

Gina LaBruno – Community Health Book / Erin Brockovich

Fighting for over a year now.

The development that myself and my 11yr old son lived in for 4 yrs is feeding toxic water to the resident’s of this community. Which is in Riverview, FL it sits 1.76 miles from the MOSAIC Fertilizer (Cargill Co.)

GYPSUM Stacks and Cooling Ponds. This company has resided there since 1924 and they make a lot of fertilizer and energy product there. This is also where the Fluoride for the the potable water sysytem’s is made. And it is made with the waste from creating the fertilizer. Fluorosilicic Acid is the man made version of Fluoride.  This company is known to be a top violator of pollution.

Having so many spills through out the land and the air, it has made the ground water aquifer “EXTREMELY TOXIC”.

The developers and the CDD to the community have placed ILLEGAL UNPERMITTED WELLS on the property. The land is DELINEATED making the aquifer TOXIC. These developers and county officials are allowing well water to be given to the residents in place of the potable water supply. And they are doing it thru a cross connection with the reclaimed water line.

The amount of people whom have fallen ill is not just a coincidence. What it is, is a violation of FEDERAL LAWS. 

Cancer, Extreme Fatigue, Anemia, Hair Loss, Vision Problems, Breathing Issue’s, Skin Rash’s, Tumor’s, Teeth Cracking, Sudden Heart Attacks, 9yr old that was not ill had a stroke. And death. Resident’s with diabetes seem to be the one’s that have fallen ill the fastest and the hardest.

The local government officials are telling lies and helping the developers to cover this up. They have lied to their lead officials out of Tallahassee, and the Tallahassee officials have ignored the blatant lies, they have ignored the photo’s and water test result’s.The federal officials that were lied too are also running this issue thru circles. NO ONE, NOT ONE GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL HAS STEPPED IN AND DONE THE RIGHT THING. NOT ONE, “YET“

I have had 14 water tests done. Test results show we are not receiving potable water, I have taken videos of the well lines that are tapped into to the county water main lines. I also took pictures of the water meters on those water mains for months because those meters are not ticking.  Yet they were still billing for water usage!!

I hope that by posting this issue here tonight I can help bring light to this very serious problem occurring through out  the U.S.

Bringing awareness to each other is all we have right now. We have to step out of our comfort zones and into the local government offices by attending the agenda meeting’s paying attention and voting before certain amendments and changes are passed. This is how  “We The People” can pull our selves and our government out of this awful mess. 

It is the TAXPAYER’s Dollar and we have a right to “CHANGE” what we do not like.

I will take any suggestion’s from others that are going through similar issues. 

STAY STRONG, STEP UP, FIGHT HARD, BELIEVE IN YOURSELVES. IT IS ALL UP TO US COMING TOGETHER AND PUSHING FOR WHAT THIS COUNTRY PROMISED!

THE TAKING OF THOSE TAX DOLLARS FROM EVERY PAYCHECK WAS/IS TO BE USING IT FOR OUR WELL BEING KEEPING THE INSIDE OF OUR BORDERS REGULATED.“

Gina LaBruno, “the water lady“, strong advocate for bringing attention to this serious matter, hopes to find resolution for the residents suffering illnesses due to the toxic water cover-up, herself included. Deeply concerned for the well being of the residents of Riverview, and keeping the lines of communication open in her community, LaBruno had this to say:

“She, (Riverview resident), has told me that since my last visit the water has gotten very bad again and that the neighbors are even discussing this with her. She cannot remove the red ring from her toilet bowl or from her bath tub. She has been sick now for weeks. Also there is a former property manager who 5 weeks after starting there became VERY sick and had serious breathing problems. I met with her silently and informed her of the issues asking her if she had been drinking water from there and she told me yes! She was making the coffee from the tap water. I expressed my concern about this and she also expressed her findings and concern on how things were operating in within the HOA and the CDD. She then put in her 2 week notice and has had a horrible time ridding herself of the illness she is suffering . I have not spoken to her over the last two weeks but I intend to get an update from her soon.
Also there is more information I recently found out about a resident owner that has lived there since the community opened, her husband and her 19yr old daughter both have died.” 

– Gina LaBruno

Gina LaBruno’s water test’s and the DEP water test’s prove the water is not potable drinking water, all lab results have been well documented and cataloged for future reference.

Below is an article by George Glasser that Gina LaBruno has expressed deep appreciation for, since Mr. Glasser sheds yet more light on this seriously compound contaminated water issue:

Semantics, Politics or Fraud?
George Glasser

EXCERPT: “In April, 2000, the Palm Beach Dental Director, Robert Dumbaugh, found himself in a dilemma in his push to fluoridate the drinking water of the small town of Wellington. When local activists revealed that the product used to fluoridate is, in reality, captured pollution from the production of phosphate fertilizer, Thomas Reeves, the US National Fluoridation Engineer, remained silent on the issue, refusing to answer any questions about the origin of the fluoridation agent.”

“So, during the one day field trip to the Cargill Fertilizer facility, Graziani and Dumbaugh had managed to redefine the nature of FSA pollution effluent”!

However, the US Environmental Protection Agency has a different view of the captured pollution. In 1999, the EPA established that all facilities producing phosphate fertilizers in the United States must use the maximum achievable control technology (MACT) to reduce emissions of hydrogen fluoride, and heavy metals, including arsenic, beryllium, radionuclides, chromium and lead, as well as methyl isobutyl ketone.

Many of the hazardous air pollutants (or air toxics) released from the production of phosphate fertilizer are known or suspected of causing cancer or other serious health effects in humans and animals. EPA’s action was estimated to reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants by about 345 tons annually, representing approximately 57 percent reduction from current levels.

National Sanitation Foundation International, which “certifies” the fluoridating agent, stated in correspondence to Florida Department of Health administrator, Pepe Mendez, that because of the EPA’s proposed new guidelines for Arsenic levels in drinking water, there might be “more product failures” due to inherent arsenic in the fluorosilicic acid. They also stated that beryllium was also a problem.

Both beryllium and arsenic are Group 1(a) substances or known to cause cancer in humans. Scientists have found that arsenic is responsible for causing, prostate, bladder, kidney, liver, skin and lung cancers in humans. Beryllium is considered the only verified causative of osteogenic sarcoma, and the EPA’s maximum contaminate level of Beryllium allowed in drinking water is 4.0 parts per billion. Both, arsenic and beryllium are cumulative toxicants in the body. Lead, a neurotoxicant, is also present in the fluoridating agent. It, too, is a cumulative poison.

Source: http://ffo-olf.org/fluorideItsPollution.html

Below is a screenshot of a letter LaBruno received from the EPA telling her the water is “safe”:

Please help show support for the brave Gina LaBruno, and all of the residents suffering ill effects from the toxic water in Riverview, by liking her facebook page, sharing information, and speaking out. The EPA and other public officials must be held accountable for turning a blind eye to this atrocity. https://www.facebook.com/wateratVOB

What might it take for city officials to acknowledge this serious problem? How about a nice big drink of water from the faucet of one of the homes in Riverview?…

How about it, EPA, care for a sip?

Notice the chemical residue stains in the bottom of that jar:

“I am over here in RIVERVIEW, FL Collecting DATA about the water at my former Residence. The community is 1.76 miles from MOSAIC formerly GARDINIER and they make PHOSPHATE Fertilizer. Well this company also CREATED NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and the land they built this development on is said to be a former TOXIC DUMP SITE. I have been poisoned with BARIUM, MERCURY, LEAD, ARSENIC, and I am more then certain RADIATION . Many are sick. Many have died. The County and The Health Dept. are denying what is going on. And I have documented every step I have taken to get the proper attention yet “NO ONE” “NOT ONE OFFICIAL HAS SPOKEN THE TRUTH” Right Now in RIVERVIEW, FL. Please “LIKE” This Page and HELP SPREAD THE WORD. https://www.facebook.com/wateratVOB ” — Gina LaBruno

           “The Water Lady”

UPDATED October 2022

Pollution from Florida’s phosphate mining industry a concern with Hurricane Ian

By Curt Anderson

Published September 28, 2022

• SOURCE: https://www.fox13news.com/news/pollution-florida-phosphate-mining-industry-hurricane-ian

FILE – An aerial view of the location of the old Piney Point phosphate plant in Palmetto, Florida, on May 4, 2021. (Photo by Thomas O’Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (Photo by Thomas O’Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The polluted leftovers of Florida’s phosphate fertilizer mining industry, more than 1 billion tons in “stacks” that resemble enormous ponds, are at risk for leaks or other contamination when Hurricane Ian comes ashore in the state, environmental groups say.

Florida has 24 such phosphogypsum stacks, most of them concentrated in mining areas in the central part of the state. About 30 million tons of this slightly radioactive waste is generated every year, according to the Florida Industrial and Phosphate Research Institute.

“A major storm event like the one we are bracing for can inundate the facilities with more water than the open-air ponds can handle,” Ragan Whitlock, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group, said in an email Tuesday.

“We are extremely concerned about the potential impacts Hurricane Ian may have on phosphate facilities around the state,” Whitlock added.

FILE – An aerial view of the partially drained New Gypsum Stack South wastewater reservoir at Piney Point in Palmetto, Florida, on May 4, 2021. (Photo by Thomas O’Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images)(Photo by Thomas O’Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A leak in March 2021 at a stack called Piney Point resulted in the release of an estimated 215 million gallons of polluted water into Tampa Bay, causing massive fish kills. State officials, overseen by a court-appointed receiver, are working with a $100 million appropriation to shut down that long-troubled location.

“During the past six months, the receiver has made significant progress toward closing the facility,” lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a court filing Monday.

But the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued with other groups to close down Piney Point, noted that 4.5 million additional gallons of wastewater were released into Tampa Bay in August.

“The imminent and substantial endangerment to the environment and human health and safety posed by Piney Point has not been abated” since a judge ordered a six-month stay in the case.

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What’s in the Piney Point wastewater?

Experts fear the water could feed algae blooms that will choke out fish and could even be harmful to humans. Craig Patrick explains what we’ve seen elsewhere in Florida.

Piney Point wastewater leak: A history of the former phosphate plant site

Hurricane Ian is expected to make landfall in southwest Florida on Wednesday before cutting through the state — very close to many of the gypsum stacks.

State Department of Environmental Protection records show that Piney Point has about 24 inches (60 centimeters) of rainfall capacity. Another facility in the Tampa Bay area, operated by phosphate giant Mosaic Co., has just over 9 inches (22 centimeters) of rainfall capacity.

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Ian strengthens to Category 4 hurricane

Hurricane Ian is turned into a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph, just 2 mph shy of Category 5 intensity, early Wednesday morning.

A spill could seriously damage rivers and other wetlands near the stacks, according to Jim Tatum of the Our Santa Fe River nonprofit group.

“Valuable aquatic and vegetative resources never fully recover from a spill,” Tatum wrote on the organization’s website. “As the highly acidic, radioactive slime makes its way to the receiving waters, entire aquatic ecosystems are impacted.”

A Mosaic spokeswoman did not respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment.

Phosphate has been mined in Florida since 1883. It’s used mainly for fertilizer to produce food, animal supplements and a variety of industrial products. Land used in mining is required to be “reclaimed,” or brought as close as possible back to its original state.

The byproducts that wind up in the stacks, however, have few uses acceptable to federal regulators. They can contain radioactive uranium, thorium and radium along with toxic metals such as barium, cadmium and lead, according to the environmental group ManaSota 88.

Fertilizers are made from phosphate rock that contains naturally occurring uranium and thorium, which decay to radium, and radium decays to the radioactive gas radon, the Environmental Protection Agency says. Class-action lawsuits have claimed health effects for people living near the mining waste.

“Phosphate companies have had over 70 years to figure out a way to dispose of radioactive gypsum wastes in an acceptable manner, but they have yet to do so,” said Glenn Compton, chairman of ManaSota 88. –“

The Heartland Institute of Chicago EXPOSED by Yale University

 

The Heartland Institute of Chicago EXPOSED (along with others).

“Strange Bedfellows? Climate Change Denial and Support for Geoengineering”

By David Appell

Original Article Published October 30, 2013: 

Potential benefits of geoengineering, despite attendant risks, appeal to some interests showing little concern for the seriousness of the climate change issue generally. What goes here?

These days, an article headlined “Geo-Engineering Seen as a Practical, Cost-Effective Global Warming Strategy” would hardly be surprising.

But what is surprising is that the headline came from a group denying global warming exists: The Heartland Institute in Chicago.

Well-known for its aggressive contrarian position on man-made global warming, and widely lambasted for its “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” billboard featuring a picture of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, the Heartland Institute might seem unlikely to propose a solution to a problem it doubts exists. So why did the group run an article on geoengineering in the December 2007 issue of its newsletter Environment & Climate News?

Written by David Schnare, at the time an EPA staff scientist and now a director at the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., the article is based on testimony Schnare gave to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier that same year. Schnare mentions the ease, speed, and relative low cost of geoengineering schemes like injecting sunlight-reflecting aerosols into the stratosphere, called solar radiation management (SRM). In particular, Schnare in that article cited research by scientist Ken Caldeira* of Stanford University (and now also the Carnegie Institute) and concludes “reducing greenhouse gases will cost around 2 percent of the gross domestic product, while geo-engineering (by putting reflective aerosols into the upper atmosphere) will cost about one-thousandth of that.” Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen’s 2006 article helped pave way for more serious consideration of geoengineering options.

But Schnare’s article, written just a year after Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen’s seminal and controversial 2006 article calling for serious active research into solar radiation management, ignores the many complications, side effects, and unintended consequences of SRM that worry many. Crutzen had specifically mentioned undesirable destruction of protective stratospheric ozone. And SRM does nothing to stop ocean acidification, instead creating a world never before seen, high in carbon dioxide while relatively low in temperature.

Only in the last sentence of his article did Schnare casually advocate a vigorous development away from carbon-based energy sources, writing “the most sensible approach would be a mixed strategy of geo-engineering…and vigorously developing a transition from carbon-based energy, to include research on scrubbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.”

Despite this article and others, and at least one presentation at its annual conferences, “Heartland doesn’t have a position on geoengineering,” according to Joseph Bast, the Institute’s president and CEO.

‘The Lomborg Maneuver’

The Heartland Institute is hardly alone in considering geoengineering as a solution to a problem it basically doesn’t see as a problem in the first place. Bjorn Lomborg and ‘Lomborg Maneuver’ — opposition to ‘real-world’ actions, but support for more radical approaches?

In recent years, Bjorn Lomborg has often downplayed the threats from climate change while pushing geoengineering as a short-term solution. So too have Newt Gingrich, the former EPA staff economist Alan Carlin, and the American Enterprise Institute, which earlier this year posted a seminar calling solar radiation management “an evolving climate policy option” on its website…a site chock-full of climate contrarianism.

One environmental group has taken to calling this straddle the “Lomborg maneuver” — “switching from opposing real-world action on climate change to supporting the most extreme possible action on climate change.”

How might one reconcile such seemingly contradictory positions? and why do they often come from politically conservative individuals and organizations? In his recent book, Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering, Clive Hamilton argues that this pair of positions maintains the dominant power structures of society, especially the roles of the energy mega-corporations that have a great deal to lose from any shift away from fossil fuels.

Hamilton, a professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia, writes “…these results are consistent with the more general argument that conservatives tend to take a more hierarchical view of society, as a natural order in which some groups are dominant and some subservient. Like a patient who will accept the doctor’s diagnosis only if the illness is treatable, a solution to global warming that does not destabilize a person’s worldview — but in fact validates it — makes recognizing the problem palatable. As the identity of conservative white males tends to be more strongly bound to the prevailing social structure, geoengineering is the kind of solution to climate change that is less threatening to their values and sense of self they are consistent with the ideas of control over the environment and the personal liberties associated with free market capitalism. Just as the need to defend a cultural worldview makes conservative white males prone to repudiate climate science, so that worldview will make them prone to support geoengineering solutions”.–

Hamilton cites research by Dan Kahan of the Yale Law School and others showing that facts must accommodate one’s cultural values if they are to be accepted. Kahan calls this the cultural cognition thesis — that cognitively, cultural values come before facts in assessing many public risk conflicts, and to be accepted, facts must accommodate those values. Kahan concludes “as a result of a complex of interrelated psychological mechanisms, groups of individuals will credit and dismiss evidence of risk in patterns that reflect and reinforce their distinctive understandings of how society should be organized.” Australian professor Clive Hamilton sees geoengineering as less threatening to conservatives’ ‘values and sense of self.’

This thesis helps explain many of the current sharp divisions over public policies, especially those with scientific origins such as climate change, vaccinations, and genetically modified foods. Those with values that place more emphasis on the individual would be expected to dismiss environmental and technological risks if solving them requires restricting industry and commerce. Those who more highly value egalitarianism and community are generally suspicious of capitalism’s disparities and its emphasis on individual initiative, and they therefore are more likely to advocate top-down regulation of commercial activity.

In the context of climate change and geoengineering, Kahan and his colleagues found that making their study participants aware of geoengineering’s potential to address climate change, while making them aware also of restrictions of carbon dioxide emissions, helped to overcome the cultural polarizations that dog the climate change issue. The researchers found too that their study subjects exposed to geoengineering ideas — in particular those who more highly value individualism were slightly more concerned about the risks of climate change than those who were not exposed.

All people are prone to the cultural cognition thesis, especially those at the more extreme ends of the spectrum. But not all realize that the thesis goes both ways. For instance, the conservative writer Jonah Goldberg — who often downplays the risks from climate change (he recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “OK, things have gotten a wee bit warmer outside”) while advocating a geoengineering approach — accused “global warming alarmists” of advancing solutions that appeal to their core cultural values. In an interview last year with RightWing News.com, Goldberg said, “One of the reasons why conservatives are right to be suspicious of global warming is that it confirms the exact same suite of policy approaches that these people were arguing for when they were worried about a population bomb. You know, managed scarcity, throw a wet blanket on capitalism, manage the economy.” But Goldberg did not acknowledge that his own beliefs and ideology might influence his attitude and approach to the climate problem no less than those he was criticizing.

Not Without Risks

The reality is that geoengineering itself carries risks, raises difficult ethical considerations, and poses the possibility of unintended consequences, so it is not the slam-dunk first choice solution to problems posed by a warming planet.

Ironically, some of those who say climate is too complex to be forecast, or who criticize models used in climate science as being incomplete or inaccurate, seem to have no trouble advocating geoengineering quick fixes which themselves carry climate and environmental complexities, or which would require extensive modeling to understand implementation and implications.

All geoengineering schemes have unwanted side effects, and some can be significant. Solar radiation management by aerosol injection into the upper atmosphere, for instance, mimics large volcanic explosions, like the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption that caused about one degree Celsius of global surface cooling for a year or two (returning to normal over the succeeding three years).

But that eruption also caused a 10 percent drop in worldwide precipitation, because it reduced evapotranspiration rates over land, and that situation didn’t return to normal for about three years.

There are concerns too that solar radiation management would reduce the essential Asian monsoon or cause drought in Africa. A recent modeling experiment by Simone Tilmes, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and colleagues found regional rainfall reductions of up to 7 percent when geoengineering reduced incoming solar energy so that climate forcings were at a pre-industrial level even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels quadrupled.

There is another large cost to geoengineering by solar radiation management: once undertaken to reduce temperatures, it must be kept up essentially forever or warming will resume in a very rapid and dangerous fashion (see figure on original post). Andrew Ross and H. Damon Matthews, in a study published in Environmental Research Letters, found that temperature would rise by up to 0.76°C in the first year after termination of a 40-year (2020 to 2059) SRM project, with up to another degree in the next two decades.

Climate engineering and the risk of rapid climate change. Andrew Ross and H Damon Matthews. 2009 Environ. Res. Lett. 4 045103. Permission: IOP Publishing Ltd, under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA license.

Such abrupt climate change can shock ecosystems, especially affecting marine biodiversity by giving advantage to mobile or opportunistic species. It would be even more abrupt and dangerous if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were to rise ever higher. Such threats would hang heavy over future generations, obligated to pay billions of dollars every year to continue to manage solar radiation for an increasingly out-of-kilter planet they did not create, having to carry the burdens of rapid and abrupt climate change were war, revolution, or economic distress to force a halt to the risk management effort.

And these are hardly the only reasons that geoengineering, though tempting, may not be the best solution to climate change, as scientist Alan Robock of Rutgers University wrote in his “20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea.”

‘Laudably Honest’

Of course, not everyone sees a problem with favoring a certain solution because it aligns with their cultural values. “I think it’s laudably honest,” says Eli Lehrer, president and co-founder of the R Street Institute, a Washington-based thinktank that, in its words, “supports free markets; limited, effective government; and responsible environmental stewardship.”

“Many want to use climate change to talk about a pre-existing agenda,” says Lehrer, who accepts the scientific evidence of manmade climate change and favors a carbon tax. “They may well be right. I’d like to do it too.”

Lehrer sees geoengineering as a common sense approach deserving of research, but to be undertaken only if the problem proves severe enough. “It’s probably the best solution to an extreme situation,” he says, adding that a goal of zero carbon emissions is not achievable or “worthwhile.” He disagrees with actually doing geoengineering any time soon, calling the potential adverse impacts “extreme and potentially dangerous.”

Humans vs. Nature

Since Crutzen’s 2006 paper, geoengineering is no longer a taboo subject, feared even for polite discussion, because it can offer an alternative way out of a nagging carbon problem — bariatric surgery instead of strict dieting.

Many scientists now are seriously exploring solar radiation management and ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, philosophers are weighing the moral and ethical dimensions of geoengineering, and even a few environmental groups have opened their minds to concepts once considered anathema. The newly released IPCC Working Group I Fifth Assessment Report mentioned geoengineering for the first time ever.

Geoengineering solutions retain the idea of human’s technical mastery over nature. Instead of human societies changing to accommodate the natural world they rely on, climate engineering — consciously or not — is the view that nature can be fundamentally bent and manipulated to accommodate humanity. Wresting with nature is, in a very real way, the story of human development, and taming the wild world has brought some (but by no means all) wealth, relative comfort and ease, and freedom from basic wants. At the same time, that insistence on control now poses risks to the planet as the most fundamental stage on which that existence plays out.

“There is something increasingly desperate about placing more faith in technological cleverness when it is the unrelenting desire to command the natural world that has brought us to their point,” Hamilton writes in the last chapter of his book. “Unless we understand why a certain kind of rationality seems to have failed, appeals to more reason are quixotic. After all, the separation of natural and human history and the dominance of a certain form of calculative rationality were each products of the same Enlightenment process.” — end

SOURCE:  http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2013/10/strange-bedfellows-climate-change-denial-and-support-for-geoengineering/

We can only speculate that The Heartland Institute of Chicago’s duplicitous actions are the direct result of funding by the fossil fuel industry, (big oil, coal, et al). They no longer disclose their funders to the public: “Regrettably, listing our donors in this way allowed people who disagree with our views to accuse us of being “paid” by specific donors to take positions in public policy debates, something we never do. After much deliberation and with some regret, we now keep confidential the identities of all our donors. This is standard practice by nonprofit advocacy organizations regardless of their philosophies.” http://heartland.org/funding

However, according to other sources, there is a definite monetary connection to big oil, coal, tobacco, and the pharmaceutical industry, (among others):

“The Heartland Institute does not disclose its funding sources. According to its brochures, Heartland receives money from approximately 1,600 individuals and organizations, and no single corporate entity donates more than 5% of the operating budget, although the figure for individual donors can be much higher, with a single anonymous donor providing $4.6 million in 2008, and $979,000 in 2011, accounting for 20% of Heartland’s overall budget, according to reports of a leaked fundraising plan. Heartland states that it does not accept government funds and does not conduct contract research for special-interest groups.

MediaTransparency reported that Heartland received funding from politically conservative foundations such as the Castle Rock Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.] In 2011, the Institute received $25,000 from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The Charles Koch Foundation states that the contribution was “$25,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2011 for research in healthcare, not climate change, and this was the first and only donation the Foundation made to the institute in more than a decade”.

Oil and gas companies have contributed to the Heartland Institute, including over $600,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005. Greenpeace reported that Heartland received almost $800,000 from ExxonMobil. In 2008, ExxonMobil said that they would stop funding to groups skeptical of climate warming, including Heartland. Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, argued that ExxonMobil was simply distancing itself from Heartland out of concern for its public image.

The Heartland Institute has also received funding and support from tobacco companies Philip Morris, Altria and Reynolds American, and pharmaceutical industry firms GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Eli Lilly. State Farm Insurance, USAA and Diageo are former supporters. The Independent reported that Heartland’s receipt of donations from Exxon and Philip Morris indicates a “direct link between anti-global warming skeptics funded by the oil industry and the opponents of the scientific evidence showing that passive smoking can damage people’s health”.

As of 2006, the Walton Family Foundation (run by the family of the founder of Wal-Mart) had contributed approximately $300,000 to Heartland. The Heartland Institute published an op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal defending Wal-Mart against criticism over its treatment of workers. The Walton Family Foundation donations were not disclosed in the op-ed, and the editor of the Courier-Journal stated that he was unaware of the connection and would probably not have published the op-ed had he known of it. The St. Petersburg Times described the Heartland Institute as “particularly energetic defending Wal-Mart.” Heartland has stated that its authors were not “paid to defend Wal-Mart” and did not receive funding from the corporation; it did not disclose the $300,000+ received from the Walton Family Foundation.

In 2012, following the February 2012 document leak and a controversial advertising campaign, the institute lost substantial funding as corporate donors sought to dissociate themselves from the institute. According to the advocacy group Forecast the Facts, Heartland lost more than $825,000, or one third of planned corporate fundraising for the year. The shortfall led to the Illinois COAL lobby sponsoring the institute’s May 2012 climate conference – the “first publicly acknowledged donations from the coal industry.” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute

There is prevalent double-dipping in the crude world. For example: “BP – Deceiving The Public About Geoengineering”: https://rebelsiren.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/bp-deceiving-the-public-about-geoengineering/

ICCC3 June 2009 VIDEO: “The conference’s key message, global warming is not a crisis was delivered directly to the nation’s capitol and elected officials”.

ICCC4 July 2013 VIDEO: “Reconsidering the science and economics”.

If The Heartland Institute and BIG OIL have their way, the planet will be rendered an uninhabitable wasteland, and all life, including the human species, will be EXTINCT. Shouldn’t we take better care of our home? HOME, the documentary: http://youtu.be/jqxENMKaeCU

More about The Heartland Institute: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/heartland-institute/

The Heartland Institute of Chicago – PERPETUATING PROPAGANDA FOR MONETARY GAIN
One South Wacker Drive #2740, Chicago, IL 60606

PHONE (312) 377-4000, EMAIL think@heartland.org

PROPAGANDA formal definition:
prop•a•gan•da, präpəˈgandə/noun
1. derogatory information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view; “he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda”. Synonyms: information, promotion, advertising, spin, publicity; disinformation, counter-information; historical agitprop; informal info, hype, plugging; puff piece; the big lie “the prophetic novel is about a government that controls the masses by spreading propaganda”; the dissemination of propaganda as a political strategy: “the party’s leaders believed that a long period of education and propaganda would be necessary”.