Environmental Enforcement: EPA Orders Disposal of Seized E-Waste Bound for Vietnam · Environmental Management & Energy News · Environmental Leader
Two recycling companies have been ordered to properly dispose of computer waste they attempted to illegally export from Minnesota to Vietnam, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday.
The EPA alleges that the companies attempted to export hundreds of computer monitors to Vietnam for disposal, through the Port of Seattle. The agency is imposing a $31,600 penalty against the companies for violating federal hazardous waste laws.
According to the EPA, Toronto-based Metro Metals Corp., and Avista Recycling, Inc., a recycler based in Minnesota, arranged for the export of a shipment of 913 discarded computer monitors to Vietnam in early December.
GOP Seeks to Block GHG Regulation Funding · Environmental Management & Energy News · Environmental Leader
House Republicans on Friday continued an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), introducing spending legislation that would prohibit the agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions.
The continuing resolution (CR) would also cut funding for energy and climate research, ClimateWire reports for the New York Times.
The CR would fund government operations through September 30. It seeks to slash $100 billion from the fiscal 2011 budget that President Obama proposed last year.
The latest revisions to the CR have vastly increased proposed spending cuts from the $32 billion originally proposed by House appropriations committee chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky, pictured).
What the hell is wrong with these people?
San Francisco Passes Energy Audit Mandate · Environmental Management & Energy News · Environmental Leader
San Francisco’s city council has adopted regulations requiring commercial property owners to publish data on the energy performance of their buildings.
The Existing Commercial Building Energy Performance Ordinance, approved by the city’s Board of Supervisors, requires owners to measure and rate the performance of their buildings and publish the results. They will need to benchmark their energy use using a free online tool provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and will need to file annual results with the city, UPI reports.
Owners of commercial buildings over 10,000 square feet would have to conduct energy audits every five years.
Quote of the Day
“Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm.”
–Aldo Leopold
Quote of the Day
I’ve been your age before, but you’ve never been mine – so pay attention.
-Ice-T
Quote of the Day
The days where we’re just building sprawl forever – those days are over.
-President Barack Obama
BART – Now Less Service For More Money
Last year in 2010, BART management and officials surveyed customers to find out how they wanted a surplus of funds to be spent. For some reason unknown to me, a majority of customers chose not to get a rate discount in order to get more amenities. So far seats have been eliminated, carpets have been removed, and vegetation has been decimated at the San Leandro BART station and that’s about all I see for what might be considered improvements.
Unfortunately, these so-called improvements have not made life any better or easier for riders. Now there are insufficient hand-holds for riders on nearly every car on every train, yet the management cannot send out workers to install more straps. The vegetation removal did not address the trash the still collects and the landscape in the parking lot is an eyesore and unsanitary. Speaking of unsanitary, BART officials still absolutely refuse to send a worker to the parking lot in San Leandro to hose down the bird crap under the track. It is disgusting, but they don’t care.
But the biggest abomination is the imposition of the one dollar parking fee at San Leandro that now makes the cost of my round trip to San Francisco over $9.00 a day. I have now noticed that the parking lot is never full and most of the cars that used to park there are no longer parking at the station. I hope that the measly amount of revenue that BART is hoping to collect on the backs of the riders makes their bloated salaries justifiable now.
Today, a whole train load of people probably wanted to kill the train operator. Not only did the Richmond train pull some strange and unexplanable incident that caused the San Francisco train to be delayed pulling into San Leandro, but a rider caused the doors to jamb, which in turn made the train operator force everybody onto the tracks until the problem was solved. I was a half hour late for work.
And for this wonderful service I now have to pay an extra $5.00 a week.
Ambam the Gorilla Walks Upright
Apparently humans aren’t the only ones who know how to multi-task. Ambam, a Western Lowland Gorilla, has recently become famous for walking upright on his hind legs, MSNBC reports. Phil Ridges, a keeper at Britain’s Port Lympne Wild Animal Park, speculates that Ambam may have begun walking on his hind legs when he had his hands full with logs – the gorilla probably discovered that he could both walk and carry items at the same time.
It’s also possible that Ambam wanted a height advantage to peer over the wall and spot when keepers were bringing him food. Lastly, Ridges suggests that by standing upright, Ambam’s hands don’t get wet when it’s raining. Quite good reasons indeed.
Ambam isn’t the first gorilla to walk on his hindlegs. In fact, this unusual upright walking style was also seen in Ambam’s father and sister.
Ambam is part of a group of critically endangered species at the park, which is run by The Aspinall Foundation, a group that also runs gorilla rescue projects in Congo and Gabon.
Click the link below to see the video at Huffington Post. It is amazing!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/gorilla-walks-like-human_n_814994.html
Boomers Facing Age Discrimination
Please, let’s be honest now. Baby Boomers such as myself do not want to believe that they are growing old. We have lived through an age when anything seemed possible and nothing could deter us from reaching any goal we set for ourselves. Sure, we were a bit cocky at times, but we were a sharper, more aware generation that never let anyone pull the wool over our enlightened eyes. We didn’t trust anyone over 30 and always questioned authority.
So how is it that now when we were blindsided by the banks and corporations that were running this country, and some of us lost most of our savings, homes and jobs can it be that we are facing age discrimination? Yes, it is true and blatantly so. Even though it is against the law, both private corporations and public government agencies are creating a system whereby knowledge, efficiency and experience no longer count. You must be young, pliable, agreeable until you are not, and most of all have an iphone glued to your ear or fingers 24/7. That is to say that you must have technological know-how even at the expense of conventional wisdom and communication ability.
In the last 10 years I have served on a Board of Directors for a supposed “professional” organization and worked in companies where the young are either enthusiastically willing to take direction and learn from their older co-workers/managers or they act stubbornly entitled to be on top before they can write a coherent sentence or memo and are willing to lie, cheat and steal their way to get you out. It is disheartening and discouraging to constantly be turned down for positions you are more qualified for or never even given a chance at an interview because everyone in the department is under 30. So my new mantra is: Don’t trust anyone under 30 – they are see you as a dinosaur and are passive/agressively taking over your position.
It is also shocking to hear about Planning Commissioners of a large city that create a lie to fire senior employees so they do not have to lay off the newer, younger employees that do not have seniority. Then they wonder why these same employees did not do a good enough job on a particularly thorny project. And there are the managers who will even tell you to your face that they are looking for younger hirees so they can replace the older workers they deem technology unfit. Then they wonder why one of those new employees, with supposedly all the proper credentials, cannot pass probation because their way was the better way so they should not have to listen to the trainer.
What will it take to turn this craziness around? A class action lawsuit against the government agency? Good luck fighting City Hall on this one. I tried and now I am even further black-listed when all the evidence pointed to clear age discrimination. Publicly shaming those individuals that make the comments? Good luck getting anyone to trust you after that. I have actually even tried privately shaming the head of the Human Resources Department for not complying with the law, but never even received a response.
I am now back in school and training for a new certification in the hopes that my supportive managers will create a position for me to be promoted into. I am in a science class with people more than half my age. When I chuckle at the teacher for his subtle humor, the other students look glaringly at me as if I am senile. But now at my age, I cannot care so much what the young and inexperienced think about me. It really doesn’t matter unless they are on the hiring committee. I may not have made it to the top of my last chosen career, but that isn’t for lack of effort and actually being expert in my field. Even Van Gogh didn’t become famous until after he died.
I’ve had a co-worker who is to be one of my trainers openly discourage me from the idea in front of my Supervisor. At least I know that my Supervisor was shocked, as later he told me not to pay attention to their comment. But it hurt and angered me nonetheless to be asked, “Why don’t you just go find a job in the work you were doing before?” As if I hadn’t been trying for over a year now.
So aside from “staying positive”, I would like to know what other boomers are experiencing, hearing, feeling about this issue. I cannot be suffering in a vacuum and there must be a way to stop this madness before we start a new “revolution” – we were very good at that in the 60s, so perhaps we will be even better at it “in our 60s”.
Quote of the Day
We must acknowledge that there can be no hope of gratifying the senses permanently. At best, the happiness we derive from eating a good meal can only last until the next time we are hungry.
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
