Article by the Los Angeles Times
Blog By Luke Nugent
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| A diagram showing how mercury can pollute the air and water |
Summary
This article shows how dangerous mercury can be to humans, especially unborn fetuses. High amounts of mercury pollution are released by coal mines and processing plants every day. Recent studies show that almost one out of every ten birthing age women have damaging amounts of mercury present in their blood. This can lead to health problems, and many times causes their babies to develop with autism. Luckily, President Obama has recently taken a stand against this pollution by passing laws that regulate coal companies and force them to make pricey adjustments to their factories to make them more environmentally friendly. As well as mercury, these new laws will help clear the air of other dangerous pollutants, such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium. President Obama expects to face opposition and lawsuits by these companies, but he and the rest of the government are prepared to fight these companies off. These laws, and hopefully other laws presented in the future, will help us to maintain a safe and clean environment for everyone.
Opinion
I was very shocked by the fact the 8% of birthing age women have that much mercury in their blood. If so many babies are born with severe mental problems, what would our society be like? I think that this was a very good decision by the government. Too often, big companies such as coal companies think they are too powerful and important to care for the environment, and it is up to the EPA and the government to set them strait. I also didn't like how the costs for remodeling the factories would be present in the electricity bills. Those types of companies already make so much money, remodeling would not be a huge deal, and even if it was, they should still pay for it. I can't imagine what the world would be like if companies were allowed to do anything they pleased. One of my cousins has Autism, and it would be very sad if the reason they developed it was because of the mercury present in the air. They would have been able to have lived a more normal life if they were not born with the mental deficiency.
Questions
1) What would the world be like if companies could do as they please?
2) Do you think the government or the EPA should have more power in these types of situations? Why?
3) Are there more types of similar problems the government should be helping out for? Give examples.
4) Do you think similar laws will be passed in the future?
5) If they sued, is there any way the coal companies could win? Why or why not?
In your opinion you said something about what would life be like if everyone had a mental illness there was actually a movie called Idiocracy where ignorant people took over the world. It was awful I would not want to live in a world like that. It also uses a lot of money to try to raise a child with a mental illness unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteTo answer question number 1: It's obvious if companies could do what they please the economy would be much better, but the environment would be bad. The problem with the type of country that we live in is that we have two sides to every problem. Sometimes we need companies to be good, or we may not have homes. Although, if the environment was more important we could breath better, and live healthier.
When I first read the title of this article, I thought it was about cleaning the air on the planet Mercury. I was somewhat dissapointed when I started reading and realized my mistake but yeah. Overall, this article does make sense. On the news there has been reports on the increaseing amount of children born with autism. While reading this summary, I made a connection. I thought that the increasing amount of factories and the increasing amount of pollutants that factories give off could be realated to the number of autistic children being born. I hope the EPA does do something about this because when I grow up, I dont want my wife (If I get married) walking around exposed to all this murcury which could affect my beautiful child.
ReplyDeleteTo answer number 4: Yes I think similar laws will be passed. Hopefully the politicians of the furutre will care about citizens safty as much as Obama and the past few presidents have. Without new laws being passed, companies will most likely find ways around to old laws and will do what they want. Without new rules for companies, we will just give them the time that they want to find ways around old laws and such.
If everyone had a mental illness, would they really have a mental illness? Okay I'm kidding, but I think it is about time the government steps in looks over what companies are doing to our planet, and our people. They need to stop letting big companies rule over them because if they continue to do so who knows how far they will go. Without guidelines and rules, they could go mad with power. Every time we do one of these blogs about pollution I can't help but think of the Simpsons movie when EPA has to step in and stop the pollution but they really just fool the government and go crazy with the dome. I doubt that would happen in real life though, well lets hope it won't. To answer question four along with Nick, I agree. They should create more laws because with our depleting fossil fuels who knows what will happen with the future of energy and the crazy types of pollution it will emit. To pass the laws it would only be beneficial for our future society.
ReplyDeleteFrom this article I realized why there were so many autism commercials and it's because of the many babies that are being born with autism because of the mercury pollution. I'm glad that the president is actually trying to do something about this and get a safe or stable environment. It also seems that babies or unborn fetuses are usually getting effected by the air pollution.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: I will be answering question 1 and I think that if the companies could do what ever they wanted to do then the consumers would lose a lot of money. The water bottle industry would do so much more better since if we protested it really wouldn't do anything for them since they can do anything they wanted to do. The air pollution would worsen each year or month because of all the mining.