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Toxic Chemicals More than 58.1 billion pounds of toxic chemicals entered the environment between 1988 and 2001. Toxic chemicals are responsible for many illnesses, including cancers, birth defects, and neurological disorders, as well as ecological damage. Today, more than 20,000 pesticide products are registered in the United States. Pesticide use has a particularly adverse effect upon farm workers and their family members, who often suffer elevated levels of leukemia and stomach, uterine, and brain cancer. Each year some 1,000 farm-workers. poster yourself
Waste Disposal: In the early 2000s, U.S. residents, businesses, and institutions produced nearly 230 million tons of municipal solid waste. An average of 4.4 pounds of this waste is created by each person’s every day. About 30 percent of waste disposal is recovered and recycles or composted, 15 percent is burned at combustion facilities and the remaining 56 percents is put landfill. Water Pollution: The bay has heavy concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the estuary from rainwater runoff that carries agriculture fertilizers to the area. As a result, algae grow rapidly in the water. The algae blooms in turn block sunlight and reduce oxygen levels for other aquatic life.
Environmental, Energy, and Miliatry-Industrial Problems: Underfunded government Agencies often lacks the means to monitor pollution or enforce pollution-control measures effectively. After substantial progress in reducing some pollution during the 1970s, pressure from many industry leaders and business-oriented politicians for cutbacks in antipollution regulations, especially in the Ronald Reagan 1980s and George W. Bush (early) 2000s, slowed, and in many cases reversed, this progress against environmental degradation The Chapter, talks about the effects of environmental pollution, energy, and the military-industrial complex on the U.S society. Our discussion of the military-industrial complex furthers the idea that the U.S. military’s thousands of toxic waste sites and installation contribute substantially to our pollution problems. Nuclear power and related pollution creates some of our most serious environmental problems The chapter contrasting and comparing two broad perspectives on the environmental energy crisis confronting the United States: the individualistic perspective and the power-conflict perspective
Water Pollution (Cont''d) : Only 1 percent of Earth's water is drinkable, the rest being salty ocean water (97 percent) or glaciial ice (2 percent). Surface waters-streams, rivers, and lakes-supply half of the country's drinking water;the other half is supploied by wells. In 2000, the Environment protection Aagency (EPA) reported a significant proportion of the 97,321 violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act were health-based viloations.
Ways to prevent pollution include environmental taxes on certain products, such as ozone-depleting chemicals, and deposits paid at the time of purchase, such as on glass bottles or aluminum cans, to encourage recycling. Corporate support for recycling has often been weak,. However some private companies and local governments are taking action on the fight against pollution. The Military-Industrial Establishment as Polluter; Today the,military is the largest polluter in the United States-producing more hazardous waste per year than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined. Over a period of more than four decades, the military has created more than 27,000 known toxic waste sites at more than 18,000 installations.Almost a hundred of these are on the list of the most hazardous places in the United States.
Pollution Prevention Measures;
A major reason for the enormous pollution problems creatde by modern production technology is that the marketplace has mostly not allowed major environmental costs to be paid for out of private corporate funds. Eliminating production-caused pollution usually involves substantial costs that corporations generally are unwilling to bear. Most private corporations have resisted pollution controls which is labeled govenmental interference, because money spent for major pollution-control equipment will usually reduce profits, at least in the short term.
Private Profits and the Cost of Pollution;
Modest Government Action on Pollution; Numerous industry associates have been set up to keep government action on pollution and other environment controls at levels acceptable to corporate interests.Many of the largest corporations repeatedly violated pollution-control standards; only occasionally have federal agencies fined these corporations or forced plants to close. Even after the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars to clean up the toxic waste generated by private enterprise and government agencies, the process has barely begun.
Global; The idea that poor nations should forsake opportunites for growth in order to attack problems caused largely by the imprudence and prfligacy of the rich is often seen as an attempt to preserve the global distribution of wealth and power.' The sharp contrat in the position of developed and developing countries has potentially serious consequences for international relations and for the world's environmental health over the long term.
Air Pollution; In jusst one recent year (2001), U.S. industries emitted nearly 1.7 billion tons of toxic chemicals into the air .single General Motors plant pumps more than 1,000 pounds of toxic material into the environment every hour . Air pollution causes losses to property-such as deteriporation of paint on houses and cars- and to human health.
Citizens Fighting Pollution; There are several activist groups against the fight against pollution. Some groups target government bodies and agencies. Groups have addressed pollution issue s with law suits , demonstrations and using court action and lobbying government have forced government authorities to take action to reduce pollution. Much of the country's worst pollution affects Americans of color. 'Despite the fact that people of color are heavily overrepresented in metropolitian areas with the largest number of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites, some studies found that majority of sites which have been scored and slated for cleanup on the {EPA's} Nationals Priorities Lists are in white communities
