The Robot's Thoughts

Today on my way to work (after class), I got passed by a Cadillac CTS V6. Its license plate read "TREEHUGGR".

The CTS is one of the worse (in terms of polluting) V6 cars on the market. It gets a combined city and highway mileage of 19mpg. It emits, on average, 9.6 tons of CO2 per year. It is not the car you drive if you consider yourself a treehugger. Especially since, if you can afford a Cadillac, you can certain afford a hybrid from Ford, Toyota, Honda, or Lexus.

Alternate license plate suggestion from me: "NATURAPER".

Labels: EPA, me trying to be funny, morgantown, ramblings

Discover Magazine did an article following up what many people are calling the 'real' 9/11 conspiracy. That of people like then Mayor Guiliani declaring that the air is safe for rescue workers to work in without respirators and special suits.

The towers each had over 1,000 tons of asbestos. Each computer in the tower had about 4 lbs. of heavy metals like lead. The tower's florescent lights all contained mercury. How many thousands of computers and lights were in the trade centers -- a pile that smouldered and burned for hours, releasing a giant toxic cloud of deadly aerosols?

The EPA actually refused to use their most accurate asbestos sampling equipment, choosing instead to use a cheaper, much less accurate test. Since the EPA ceeded authority to local organizations for the clean up, its very likely that a conflict of interest arouse: Wealthy
landlords of Manhattan don't want to evacuate tenants and pay $10,000 to $20,000 per apartment to clean up the asbestos, and as such, pushed local testing authorities to declare the air safe.

Parts of Manhattan might STLL be polluted. Something like 70% of first responders and clean up crews are showing clear cut signs of contamination and exposure to heavy metals and asbestos and fiberglass. So are a lot of residents that lived OUTSIDE the one square mile zone that was "unsafe" according to the EPA.

Its a depressing and frightening read. We really haven't moved past the 'duck and cover' days of the government. The reality of what happened on September the 11th, 2001, isn't at all like the fairy tale politicians like to tell when running for office and promising to protect us.

Labels: 9/11, EPA, government failures, politics, science