Rendering № 11

The article published on the website of the newspaper "American Thinker" on October 24, 2012 is headlined "Environmental Protection:The Enemy of Green". The article carries a lot of commentaries of how he laws, regulations, and mandates designed to protect our environment may actually be harming it instead.

To emphasize the seriousness of the situation, the author of the article Anthony J.Ciani, writes that the new environmental challenges are almost imperceptible, and until the development of highly-advanced, highly-sensitive atomic mass spectroscopy systems, immeasurable. So, analyzing this situation, it is necessary to emphasize that to combat these nearly invisible and immeasurable problems, new regulations and mandates have gone into effect. On the other hand, these new regulations and mandates may actually be hindering our attempts in dealing with the more measurable and easily observed problems, as well as our economy.

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or the better understanding of the situation, as well as the environmental issue on the whole, the author gives some general facts: The Earth is like a giant conveyor system. The inside is full of useful things and nastiness, which are emitted from holes in the ground as gases and solids in the form of volcanic ash and lava. It is also an open secret that pollution is caused by human activity when we dig up these resources and put them back on the surface of the Earth, faster than water and life can put them back inside.. Examining another aspect of the problem, Anthony J. Ciani points out that Sulfur dioxide which is one of the big nasties, responsible for smog, haze, and acid rain. As an evidence he writes the following: We hear very little about acid rain nowadays, but it still exists. We still emit one-third of the sulfur dioxide we did at the peak of the problem, and our sulfur recovery technologies are just about maxed out. The best solution to the problem the author sees in usage less fossil fuel, which means alternate energy sources or greater energy efficiency, which requires technology, but technology often has issues with those more invisible environmental problems.

Giving appraisal to the situation, it is essential to makes point about the new enemy of environmental protection ,in Ciani’s ,  toxic metals. Metals are purified from ores that are extracted from the ground. Many different metals tend to be found in the same ores. For example, lead and cadmium are usually found with zinc, and zinc may be found with copper. Much of that zinc (with lead and cadmium) was once part of living organisms, and was concentrated into ore deposits during metamorphic transformation of the limestone (calcium carbonate) that was created by those organisms. There are many many controversions about what has a radical crusade against toxic metals gotten humanity. From one point of view, one company wrote a proposal to the Department of Energy to investigate a way to make cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells more efficient. However, one reviewer said, "nothing with cadmium is any good." The proposal was not funded, probably beaten out by a shrimp treadmill, but at least that reviewer prevented all of that cadmium getting from our environment back into our environment. So, the author makes the conclusion that whether it is used to make solar cells or not, all of that cadmium comes as a byproduct of zinc smelting. It has to go somewhere.

According to the news studies, the limits on allowable toxic metals get even lower, and technology gets even more expensive. To lay stress on the situation, J. Ciani asks the rhetorical question, using some statistics: Did you know that about 70% of children and 50% of adults are calcium deficient? What have those studies actually been measuring?

As examples, the writer compares the situation in the USA and China - Many people think that businesses move to China for the cheap labor, but this is simply not the case. The difference is that China does not attack its businesses: the business of China is business. To start a factory in America, you need millions of dollars in lawyers and several years to get through all of the permitting and regulation issues. Meanwhile, all of the unskilled Chinese labor is more than qualified to run a clean shop, in China, if you choose to run a clean shop.

The report concludes his article with some suggestion about different solution of this topical problem such as getting rid of certifications and listening to the concerns of small businesses.

All in all, I completely agree with Anthony J.Ciani who fully describes the picture of the situation today. I think that environmental issues are our general problem and it is in our interests to find the ways to protect our planet, or to minimize the harm at least. It is getting more and more difficult with the growth of the population, scientific and technological advance and people’s growing needs, but we should realize that to dodging responsibility to protect the Earth leads to the irretrievable consequences and it probably would become the fatal mistake of humanity.