Tuesday

Tuesday

You know what’s not complicated?  Reducing mercury contamination of aquatic wildlife and human exposure.  This is an issue in the Everglades.  What’re the main sources: point sources (i.e. power plants, concrete industry, etc.)  How do you eliminate the particulate matter that contains mercury?  Clouds.  I’m not even lying.  http://www.tri-mer.com/wet_scrubber.html It’s really sweet, cheap, and effective.  If the USEPA moves to implement Proposed Rule 75 FR 31938, or at least puts down a final draft, small emitters will be forced to reduce their emissions, but I don’t think this impacts large power plants.

Why won’t this get implemented quickly?  Politics. Reducing heavy metal emissions by forcing plants to add on this new thing will kill jobs- the jobs of the people making the raw materials for CCS, Tri-Mer, the fisheries who will have the future option of harvesting and eating fish that are currently hazardous. 

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I finished a really crappy draft of my proposal, sans budget, proper referencing, and other formatting issues.  Wahoo!  If you have too much free time and actually read this, I’d be very happy to send it to you.  I will eventually develop a non-diary/stream of thought style, I think, that will be more reader accessible.  But, that sounds like it will take editing.  We’ll see.  For now this replaces a little black book I was using last semester.

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I thought the talk by Tim Wise was going to be a joke, but he has a very thorough understanding of American history, academic research, and philosophical argument to make a case for institutionalized racism in favor of “whiteness.”  Two people with a Tea Party-esque demeanor yelled at him for a bit during questions and then left.  He tried to discuss with them in a calm rational manner, but this was difficult.  One interesting point that can be read between the lines is the dysfunctional relationship between Lehigh and the surrounding community.  One of them mentioned how you must be filthy rich or know rich people to get into/afford Lehigh.  I think the Lehigh-South Bethlehem relations are broken, and this might be an example of some of the opinions.  After my first month here I thought the same thing, then I learned about the many Alumni scholarships and remembered about college loans.

Another poignant quote from someone on me talking to God about this is not how my life’s supposed to be.  I need sleep for multiple reasons.

With love.