Author Archives: Duwa Alebdy

Posts by Duwa Alebdy

Kill Arthur and Pollute the Air

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Duwa Alebdy

“In our free-enterprise economy, the benefits are privatized but the costs of pollution are socialized.” Ricardo Navarro speaks the truth. The lesson you taught on Thursday I believe really shows this, because it consisted of the disgusting money-hungry companies as well as what exactly pollutes the air, and how that has an effect on all of our lives.

And I have to say, the story of Arthur Kill really reminded me of how greedy some people can be, especially when you put them together into a business company. Showing the amount Exxon made in profit is what did it. They made $40.6 billion in 2007, and then $41.1 billion in 2011. What. I cannot understand why they and so many other companies believe that getting rid of toxic materials by burning or whatever they choose, as long as they get rid of it, is “too expensive.” Really? It wouldn’t even take a billion out of your profits, but it’s still too expensive for them to consider. That just baffles me. Exxon was well aware of the fact that they were doing something wrong. They intentionally altered their test method because they knew what they were doing was creating a hazardous amount of benzene. Knowing this just makes it worse, and I can’t understand how they couldn’t be charged for lying (understatement) as well. But of course, it only took eight years until the court system did something about it, when in reality they really didn’t. It should not have ended with a consent decree, and it should not have only ended with a fine of $11.2 million. By that I mean the courts should have kept an eye on that money to make sure it was being put to good use. But now, we have no idea how the majority of that money was used. It might as well have been thrown into the air, along with the other pollutants in society.

Speaking of air pollutants, I mostly just think of cars and gas when I hear of it. I wouldn’t have thought of spray painting, out of all things! I of course instantly thought of graffiti, but it makes sense that living in such a big city would mean that all those buildings would be spray painted, instead of painted by thousands of hands. Excluding this (and several others) ignorant moments, I was aware of quite a number of things, thankfully.  For example, I think it’s pretty well known that lead affects brain development in children. I remember there being such a big deal a few years ago about children toys being extracted out of toy stores because the paint they were made out of consisted of lead, thanks to China. I didn’t know, though, that in 1996, gasoline that had tetraethyl lead was banned, leading people to believe that this made a decrease in blood lead level as well as in the atmosphere. But this isn’t actually the case, since a study was done in the Central Park Lake using four sediment cores to determine when the lead levels really did drop. Surprisingly, it was at a max. from the late 1930s into the early 1960s. So it wasn’t the gasoline usage then, since people were still using the tetraethyl lead gas a lot during this time. What was it then?

Unsurprisingly, we were left to wonder until the next class. Obviously, some members of the class will look it up (I just did). But I will try my best to act surprised during class.

That, and I will try my best to remember the most important event in history. Even though I have barely listened to them. (Sorry!)

The Acknowledgement Phase

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Duwa Alebdy

Once upon a time, there was a hypothesis created by the lovely Greeks called the Gaia Hypothesis. This hypothesis pretty much stated that the Earth is a living organism, just like you and me (and snails). So you would think that since the hypothesis was created way back when, that it should still be a general viewpoint in society today. But of course, I am getting ahead of myself there. Thanks to Rene Daecarte’s death (if only he was immortal) the world entered into its Modern phase. The Earth is now thought of as a machine and not an organism. You can definitely make the argument that society today, for the most part, still believes in this. However, there are those individuals that greatly stick out and prove that not all hope is lost. This didn’t start until the 1970s with James Lovelock, though. It’s horrible to think that centuries went past before people finally began to think about the horrific effect they were having on the environment, but I cannot (and neither should anyone) complain about the past. We should be thankful that at least now, people are finally caring! But wait just a second, are they really? Are people really caring about the environment now? Or have they just simply acknowledged the problem?

That’s pretty much it honestly: we all know there is a problem, but barely any of us are doing anything about it. The prime example of this in my opinion has to be the Rio de Janeiro. I can only slightly understand if those not living nearby the ecological disaster don’t do anything about it. But come on, even those living right there do nothing too! You would think that seeing the toxic fluid everyday might make you want to do something about it and not give up, since it’s presence is a constant reminder. But I guess not! I guess 470 tons of raw sewage being dumped there, along with 10 tons of solid garbage and 5 tons of oil isn’t enough to make people care. Neither is not being able to swim there, because who would want to swim alongside human excrement and diapers? I love babies, but no thank you! I sincerely wondered how all of that was even possible, but of course when you, professor, stated the facts (that as of April 2010, it was surrounded by ferry docks, a port, 16 oil terminals, 2 oil refineries, 6000 factories, domestic trash dumps, discharge of untreated domestic effluent, and large amounts of agrochemicals) it became very clear. The Rio de Janeiro is obviously incredibly polluted, to the point where now most of the water is sewage, filled with microorganisms that can cause liver cancer. Something in the water can cause cancer! Isn’t that always a green light for things to be done? It’s sickening that $1 billion was given to have it cleaned, which was more than enough according to scientists, but thanks to the always productive government nothing was done. $1 billion was completely wasted. They’re probably going to regret that now that the Olympics will be done there in 4 years. Of course, only when the world is watching and criticizing will something get done. At least, I hope so! If they still won’t clean the Rio, then I guess we can all safely make the assumption that it will never get cleaned.

I mentioned earlier that most people are in the acknowledgement phase of environmental justice.  However, I would like to just give a shout out to the EPA, a group of people coming together to create an agency made to fight for environmental justice. They made two really important environmental programs in order to establish and maintain a healthy ecosystem, preserve & restore ecologically important habitat, attain water quality that supports recreational use, ensure that fish/shellfish are safe for consumption, ensure economic health & manage pollutants in estuaries. One of these programs is the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA: 1976), which then morphed into the Hazardous Waste Management Program (1984). What I found most important and interesting about this program is that it monitored facilities that produce, transport, treat, store, and dispose of hazardous wastes (actually reminds me of vertical integration). This was an example of cradle-to-grave legislation and obviously gave the government a lot of power over companies that use hazardous materials. I am honestly not politically knowledgeable enough to make a stance on whether or not the government should have this much power, but I can tell the big businesses do not like this at all. And like usual, they always seem to win in the end.

General Electric Co made 1000 capacitors at plants in Hudson Falls & Ft. Edward in the late 1940s. In 1976, the company discharged 209,000- 1.3 million pounds of toxic waste into the Hudson River. What did this toxic waste consist of? The infamous PCBs! Polychloriated biphenyl is so dangerous in particular because of bioaccumulation; they end up disrupting and changing the DNA of a countless number of organisms. Even with this obvious negative consequence, General Electric still used it because PCBs is its cheapest option and dumping it in the River was also its cheapest method of disposal. Burning it was much too expensive and once PCBs go into the air, Lord knows what will happen then! So there we were in 1976, with way too much (understatement) toxic waste in the River. What does EPA say to do? Why, they mandate a clean up! That’s right, they order General Electric to clean up the horrible pollution they caused and make the River nearly spotless like it used to be. How does General Electric respond? By doing nothing until May 15, 2009. In case you haven’t noticed, that is a 33-year difference since the EPA mandate. I was ecstatic to know about the EPA, since I thought, ‘Yes! Finally, something will be done about the environment! And here I was thinking no one was doing anything.’ But hearing about this specific situation, and knowing there must be countless more, just puts me right back to square one. It’s disgusting, in my opinion, to have a company who obviously committed a serious environmental crime to be able to put off such a critical project for so long now. And not only that, but the toxic waste is now being put under red clay and polyethylene in Texas, which apparently will last about a century. Is no one thinking about what will happen after a century passes?

These past few classes really showed me that most people are just simply acknowledging that yes; the world is facing through an environmental crisis (among many other crises that are apparently more important) but they are not really doing anything about it. And even if they do, they just barely do. It’s really pathetic how much that really needs to change.

 

Duwa Alebdy

 

Only the Beginning

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Duwa Alebdy

Walking into class on the first day, several minutes late, I hear an orchestra playing. The first thing I think to myself is: rrrright, I’m in Alexandratos’s class. Where else would I get such an introduction? To be honest, I had forgotten who my professor was, but when I remembered, I also remembered why I decided to be in this specific MHC 200 class. Sir, I’ve seen you present powerpoints twice, once in front of all the Macaulay freshmen and once during Judith’s intro to science research class. After that second presentation I thought to myself the only way to stay awake and alert during MHC classes, (I have quite the habit of falling asleep), would be to make sure I have a professor who is creative and thinks way out of the box in order to keep the attention of his students and to make them think. So here I am, and I haven’t slept in class yet.

“Turn to page [pause, then said sharply] three-hundred and ninety four.” I’ve heard that line too many times, to the point where I am sure it is unhealthy. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for all the environmental issues you discussed on that first day of class. The environmental crisis is always something I know of in the back of my mind, but when asked about it, the first things I’d probably say are, “Oh, the polar bears! Oh, the ice bergs!” I would have never said, “34 billion tons of CO2 goes into the atmosphere every year.” “Only 10% of sharks, tunas, cods & other large fish remain.” “Between 1966-75, 38% of the Amazon’s deforestation was due to cattle ranching, and between 1990-2001, Europe’s meat imports from Brazil rose from 40-74%.” I would not have made a connection between this last fact and the movie, Supersize Me, which most individuals have watched and been disgusted by. I am proud to say that my consumption of fast food has decreased since that movie, but it was because of my health. It wasn’t because of the environment and how so much of it gets destroyed to create those unhealthy meals (that reason is now included in my boycott). By the end of the first lesson, I was once again considering all the different ways I could help the environment, which I believe is a natural reaction to hearing about the crisis. But I couldn’t help but think to myself: Duwa, you always do this. Horrible issues are brought up to your attention and you believe you can do so much to stop it and you will! You’ll organize your time and do your best to be involved in putting an end to all the issues, the environmental crisis being just one of them. In other words, time is the biggest concern for me. There are so many things wrong with the world and the way it is run, how can I put my two cents in and put a stop to them all?

The second class I feel branched a bit away from the problems of the environment and was going more towards ethics. What is right and wrong about what humans do to the environment? Is it okay for farmers to slash and burn forests for land? Is it okay to kill wild animals foraging on private/public lands? Obviously other animals do their part too and may destroy parts of another’s home in order to get what they want. But humans do this to a huge extent, mostly because we want more than what we need. We want those plasma TVs and cheap food, even at the cost of another. So many people don’t realize the consequences of their actions because it’s not affecting them as directly as it is to other organisms. But I find it interesting that anyone who is anthropocentrist doesn’t realize that assigning intrinsic value to only humans doesn’t benefit the species but hurts them. If you don’t care for the Earth, the Earth won’t care for you. Destroying your environment only leads to the destruction of self. I agree that we should follow actions that will benefit the Earth as a whole and not just ourselves. Who wouldn’t agree to that? But what does that mean? Does it really mean to follow those 8 points, one of them being for humans to only satisfy their vital needs? For humans to have a smaller population? How in the world will we be able to accomplish that? (What is a vital need anyway?) This class honestly left me with more questions and more confused than I was before, but it did also leave me with inspiration. There may be things that I agree and disagree with, but it’s still good to know that at least people were trying to do something about the issue. They weren’t just sitting around being all confused like I am.

But I do want a solution. I do want this crisis to end. However, I am stuck between either hearing of all the types of solutions there are and choosing from there or if I should just take the time to think up my stance on the issue and see if it fits with anyone else’s. The latter seems like something most people would recommend me, but unfortunately I am not as articulate as some people are (like my classmates!) and I would just continually contradict myself. So for now, I’m probably going to be confused for a while, but I don’t plan on keeping it that way.

And I do realize that this essay was all over the place, so please forgive me!

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