|
作者：傑奇•艾倫•朱利安諾 博士
我們的母親是美麗的
她綠色的膝蓋無邊
她棕色的擁抱永恆
她藍色的軀體
告訴我們一切
--愛莉絲．華克
美國的建國者可能從未料到，現今國家管理體系會變成這樣。今天，傲慢的政府機關的主要資格條件似乎是維護私人財產及主要企業的既得利益，因此這些決定美國人民及其子子孫孫生死的人，已經越來越成為最不夠格做這些判斷的人。
最近幾個星期以來我們看到，新政府的成員認為世界衛生組織所簽署的砷化物污染標準對於美國來說太嚴苛。
這些人最近一次學習科學知識的時間，是在多年前的大學時代，而他們竟對全世界衛生專家說：因為會造成（製造污染）企業的負擔，所以那樣的污染控制不會被執行。
布希總統（照片提供 白宮）
布希總統相信全球暖化只是一時的流行，並領導美國離開討論限制溫室氣體排放的京都協議談判桌，抵抗全世界的科學家及領導人。他告訴全世界，美國拒絕成為此解決方案的一員，因為它會損害到美國的經濟，即使美國是地球上排放溫室氣體最多的國家。
雖然美國人口不到全世界人口5%，但是所產生的廢棄物、有害物質及溫室氣體，卻接近全世界的25%。
布希總統也關閉了白宮專門處理愛滋病政策及種族關係的特別辦公室。另外讓婦女團體瞠目結舌的是，他也宣佈白宮將不會重開處理婦女權益的特別辦公室。
當布希總統違背他「要求燃煤發電廠減低二氧化碳排放」的競選承諾時，伴隨而來的是危害我們的健康，並危及全世界人們的未來。
能源公司增加對「我們希望逐漸被淘汰的燃料」投資的方便之門已大開，美國政府伸出雙手擁抱煤炭，這最骯髒的燃料。而同時，這個國家的能源供應商，已經開始擴展這過時、骯髒的發電方式。
在紐約的Niagara Mohawk's Dunkirk蒸汽站一輛鏟煤車，此一燃煤發電場產生60萬瓩的60赫電力(照片提供 大衛•帕森攝影，國家再生能源實驗室) 。
美國超過55%的電力是由燃煤所產生的，然而境內超過600座燃煤發電廠並未符合空氣清淨法（Clean Air Act）所明文規定的空氣品質標準。事實上，早在1990年老布希總統主政時所通過的法案，就已經將它們特別排除在此規定之外。
大部分這些發電廠所使用的煤，來自於印第安保留區的巨大露天礦場，大到甚至可以從人造衛星軌道看到它們。亞利桑那州的摩哈維發電廠及納瓦伙發電廠，從1974年起就開始污染全球的空氣，光是摩哈維發電廠在滿載時每天就要用掉18,240噸的煤，兩個電廠加起來每年要用掉1,200萬噸的煤。它們可以說是這個國家最大的污染源，連太空人在月球上都可以看見這些燃煤電廠所產生的污染烏雲！
亞利桑那州的Black Mesa，是霍皮族印第安保留區及數千名納瓦伙族人的家園。皮博迪集團（Peabody Group）想要在此擴張露天煤礦，美國政府就帶頭強制搬遷那些原住民；甚至早在1863年之前他們已居住於此，當時美國騎兵曾試圖消滅這裡所有的族人。這個地區於是成為破壞地球的濫用資源倫理的典型例子。
接近亞利桑那州佩吉區的納瓦伙燃煤發電廠（照片提供 北亞利桑那州立大學）
近1萬2千名原住民被迫搬離他們的祖居地，他們遷到新墨西哥州-美國史上最嚴重放射性廢棄物外洩事故的地點。剩下的3千人，大多是老人，繼續被迫遷離Black Mesa；有關煤的遺害，這次事件是鮮少被提到的。
【文章連載】
■只為了目前幾百萬瓦的電力
我們會毀了將來 (上) (下)
全文與圖片詳見：http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-
03-30g.html
Environmental News Service 版權所有 (環境資訊協會 鄧國光 譯，李欣哲、蔡麗伶 審校)
中英對照譯稿請見：http://e-info.org.tw/issue/energy/2001/
sub-energy01101601.htm |
|
By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
We have a beautiful
mother
Her green lap
immense
Her brown embrace
eternal
Her blue body
everything
we know.
-- Alice Walker
The modern day American system of governance has an attribute that the founding fathers of our country may not have anticipated. Today, the primary qualifications for assuming public office seem to be personal wealth and a vested interest in major industries. So, the people making life or death decisions for the American people, their children, and the children of tomorrow, are increasingly becoming the least qualified to be making those judgments.
The last few weeks have seen members of the new presidential administration deciding that levels of arsenic pollution that have been endorsed by the World Health Organization are too low for Americans.
People whose last science class was years ago in college are telling the world's health professionals that since such controls would be a burden to polluting industries, they will not be implemented.
President George W. Bush (Photo courtesy the White House)
President George W. Bush, who believes global warming is a fad, has gone against the scientists and leaders of the world by directing the United States to leave the negotiating table for the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas limitation agreement. He has told the world that the U.S., the largest producer of the planet's greenhouse gases, refuses to be part of the solution because it would hurt our economy.
The U.S. has less than five percent of the world's population, yet we produce nearly 25 percent of the world's waste, hazardous substances, and greenhouse gases.
The president also closed the White House special offices on AIDS policy and race relations and, in a move that has stunned women's groups, announced he will not reopen a special White House office on women's issues.
In the wake of President Bush's decision to renege on his campaign promise to require coal burning power plants to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, he has imperiled our health and compromised the future of people all over the world.
The door has now been flung wide open for energy companies to increase investments in a form of fuel that most of us had hoped was on the way out. The U.S. government is embracing coal, the dirtiest form of fuel, and energy producers around the country have begun expanding this archaic, filthy form of power generation.
Moving coal at Niagara Mohawk's Dunkirk steam station in New York. This coal-fired station produces 600,000 kilowatts of 60 cycle power. (Photo by David Parsons courtesy National Renewable Energy Lab)
Over 55 percent of the nation's electricity is generated by the burning of coal. Yet more than 600 coal fired power plants around the country don't meet the air quality standards mandated by the Clean Air Act. In fact, they are specifically exempted from the mandates of the 1990 law, passed during the administration of President George Bush, the present President's father.
A large percentage of the coal used in these plants comes from strip mines on Indian Reservations that are so huge, they can be seen from Earth orbit. Since 1974, the Mojave Generating Station and the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona have been polluting the world's air. The Mojave Generating Station alone uses 18,240 tons of coal per day at full load. Combined, the two plants require 12 million tons of coal a year and are the largest polluters in the country. Astronauts saw the pollution cloud from these coal fired plants from the Moon!
Black Mesa, Arizona, home of the Hopi Indian Reservation and several thousand Navajo is a classic example of the abusive ethic that is destroying our world. Because the Peabody Group wants to expand its coal strip mine, the U.S. government has been leading the forced relocation of the native people who remain at the site, a place they have inhabited since the U.S. Army tried to wipe them all out in 1863.
The coal-fired Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona (Photo courtesy of Northern Arizona University)
Nearly 12,000 native people have been forcibly moved from their tribal lands to a contaminated site in New Mexico, home of the largest radioactive waste spill in U.S. history. Efforts continue to remove the remaining 3,000 people, mostly elders, from Black Mesa. This is but one rarely mentioned legacy of coal.
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/
2001L-03-30g.html |
