Greenversations, the official blog of the EPA, has some excellent postings and is worth following - I subscribe to that and all the EPA email updates as they are excellent - dozens a week. Today, Greenversations highlights The Pollution Prevention Act Turns 20, suggesting "If companies, communities and consumers make a concerted effort at eliminating wastes at the source, then perhaps the theme of P2 Week in 2020 can be the arrival of the zero-waste society, one where greenhouse gas emissions, toxic exposures in the home and workplace, waste disposal in landfills and underground wells, and nutrient dumping in our nation’s waters are all a rapidly fading memory."

It is the responsibility of the citizens to make that happen through our actions, VOTING and choices today. In Northeast Ohio, with an EXCESSIVE SHARE of toxic release point sources, and pathetic EPA performance, we need NEW elected officials committed to a 0-waste 0-harm P2 2020 vision - willing to stand up to the big polluters and shut them down - shut down Mittal for real.

From Climate Progress - A detailed look at climate sensitivity - Debunking the dangerous anti-science fantasy of the 'lukewarmers'

The amount of warming we are going to subject our children  and countless future generations to depends primarily on three factors:

1. The sensitivity of the climate to fast feedbacks like sea ice and water vapor (how much warming you get if  we only double CO2 emissions to 560 ppm and there are no major “slow” feedbacks).  We know the fast feedbacks are strong by themselves (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius” and detailed analysis below).
2. The real-world slower (decadal) feedbacks, such as tundra melt (see Science: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting and links at the end).
3. The actual CO2 concentration level we are likely to hit, which is far beyond 550 ppm (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories are being realised” — 1000 ppm).

Given that the anti-science, pro-pollution forces  seem to be  succeeding in their fight to keep us on our current emissions path, it’s no surprise that multiple recent analyses conclude that we face a temperature rise that is far, far beyond dangerous:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer pimped the Opportunity Corridor into existence and has greatly disrupted our economy over that - the St. Louis-sourced publisher Terry Egger is the leader of the Opportunity Corridor whorehouse and bulldozing committee - flightless queen-bee-designee Terri Hamilton Brown exists for the Opportunity Corridor - ex-Con made Concilman Jeff Johnson pimps for it - RPM Prince Randell McShepard and Most-Made-Handmaid-to-the-Rich Ronayne Pimp for it - Gund top-gun Abbott Pimps for it - flabbergasting Cleveland Foundation flops Richards and Kuri pimp for it - and the usual suspects that profit from it pimp for it... Cleveland Clinic, all organizations UCI and all local universities, some churches and non-profits, the CDCs and their sponsors, the architects and contractors and their trolls, the unions... the web of crooks who have fucked up everything in this region for decades, and are the enablers of all the corruption now being dismantled with County and city government here, by the FBI. The state, county and city levels of government have failed and are being dismantled here, along with the entire statewide mafioso Democratic party regime and their networks of funders, contractors and colluders.

So when the incompetent, sell-out, paid-to-pimp Cleveland Plain Dealer proclaims in their latest pimping for the Opportunity Corridor that "The project is a top priority of elected, business and neighborhood leaders", I'd like to know EXACTLY who are the elected, business and neighborhood leaders that are not corrupt and benefiting financially from the Opportunity Corridor and are willing to step forward today, with the degree of corruption at all levels of leadership here, and say the Opportunity Corridor is the top priority for Cleveland and Northeast Ohio today.

I want to know, before the next election, which candidates for any offices are pimping that the Opportunity Corridor is the Top Priority of the region.

RealNEO readers are well aware that Ohio Democratic Congressman Sherrod Brown is obstructive of national environmental policy reform, while his brother is Chairman of the Board of a coal-burning powerplant in the impoverished urban community of Cleveland, and his wife disinforms citizens on related issues for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and global syndication. So, Ohio Democratic policy leaders are indebted to industry, and make poor environmental policy decisions. What should Ohioans and the world expect if these failing Democrats are replaced by Republicans, as seems likely...?!

Climate Progress today provides us with links showing "a comprehensive Wonk Room survey of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate finds that nearly all dispute the scientific consensus that the United States must act to fight global warming pollution" - it appears the world is in for a long, hot, globally warmed future ahead, thanks to failing leadership in America OF BOTH PARTIES... with Ohio front and center.

Good work Democrats - you had control when we needed strong environmental policy leadership and you failed to lead well - now our environmental harm is a crisis and you will lose the positions CITIZENS fought so hard to provide you, to be replaced by "brain-dead" Republicans who shall lead America as Republicans always have, for the rich. As national-level politicians are all rich, big-shot politicians of all parties make out better with the nation in the control of Republicans, so are unlikely to care. Real Democrats are poisoned and die unnecessarily as a result of the failure of sell-out Democrats, putting worse Republicans in office. Read about them and weep...

Honestly is the best policy.

The chart above shows citizens of Northeast Ohio have the worst level of mortality from coal fired power plants in America - based on an online risk assessment tool accompanying the September 2010 Clean Air Taskforce study The Toll From Coal - An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America’s Dirtiest Energy Source. As the introduction states: "Among all industrial sources of air pollution, none poses greater risks to human health and the environment than coal-fired power plants – perhaps most consequential of all from a public health standpoint – fine particle pollution."

Fine particles are especially dangerous because they can bypass the body’s defensive mechanisms and become lodged deep in the human lung. Indeed, research also indicates that short-term exposures to fine particle pollution is linked to cardiac effects, including increased risk of heart attack. Meanwhile, long-term exposure to fine particle pollution has been shown to increase the risk of death from cardiac and respiratory diseases and lung cancer, resulting in shorter life-expectancy for people living in the most polluted cities compared to people who live in cleaner cities. And although research suggests fine particles reduce the average life span of the general population by a few years, the life of an individual dying as a result of exposure to air pollution may be shortened by 14 years.

The hopeful news for Northeast Ohio in this science is:

Because most fine particle-related deaths are thought to occur within a year or two of exposure, reducing power plant pollution will have almost immediate benefits.

The worst news is, considering the greatest harm to human health comes from fine particle pollution, and Northeast Ohio has many more sources of fine particle pollution than just the 500 major coal power plants considered in the data of this study (think Mittal), it is an understatement to say the air pollution situation in Northeast Ohio is far worse than it appears in this Clean Air Taskforce report, and there Ohio is ranked the second-worst America gets... and the Cleveland-area is the 8th most toxic metropolitan area in the county...

mor·tal·i·ty
   /mɔrˈtælɪti/ [mawr-tal-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the state or condition of being subject to death; mortal character, nature, or existence.
2. the relative frequency of deaths in a specific population; death rate.
3. mortal beings collectively; humanity.
4. death or destruction on a large scale, as from war, plague, or famine.
5. Obsolete . death.

There is an important story on AlterNet about how evil industrial political operatives known as Trolls corrupt social media to influence public knowledge and so behavior - in this report, addressing scum polluting free speech worldwide via a conceptually and functionally defective Internet content management and rating system called Digg.... read Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered. In brief (full posting below), "A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year."

Of course, we've had extensive problems with Trolls on realNEO posting inflammatory or misleading content and comments, via accounts established to inflict harm - a crime I have asked County Treasurer Rokakis to have the State Attorney General investigate, as Rokakis was party in one of these crimes, with Roldo and Oengus - I do not believe Rokakis ever initiated the investigation as promised, and I will investigate that.

I'm exploring where to base ICEarth brightest greenest development in Ohio, going forward, and am open to suggestions. I already know I will co-locate in Austin, Texas, and in Colorado and California... but where shall we operate from in Ohio?

According to the American Lung Association, 24,000 people a year die prematurely because of pollution from coal-fired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, 12,000 hospital admissions and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power plant pollution. It is therefore not surprising to read, in The Place My Father Didn't Want Me to See, an article by Plain Dealer Columnist Connie Schultz, published in Parade Magazine this Labor Day weekend, that Ms. Schultz' father died of a heart attack after having worked as a mechanic in a coal fired power plant for 34 years.

As Ms. Schultz writes: "I never knew what Dad did at the plant, but I saw the toll that 34 years of hard physical labor took on him. He had surgery on his shoulder, his hand, his spine. At 48, he had his first heart attack and bypass. He retired in 1993, right after the last kid graduated from college. But the damage was done. A few years later, another surgeon shoved stents into his arteries. The next heart attack killed him. He was 69." She further observed, from once having visited her father at his plant: "I stared at my father, covered in sweat and coal ash, and for the first time had to consider why he was so often angry for no apparent reason."

What is surprising is that Ms. Schultz does not offer her readers of this story the learning opportunity to understand that industrial pollution from burning coal kills 10,000s of fathers, mothers and babies in America each year - I don't know of studies proving "hard physical labor" does the equivalent. There is clear evidence that working with coal causes heart attacks, among a long list of health impacts... including mental illness. From a recent study in Korea: "When particulate matter (a common form of air pollution) spiked, the risk of suicide increased by 9 percent over the next two days, the researchers found. Among people with heart disease, the increased risk was even greater, about 19 percent." Beyond the physiological impacts of pollution, knowing you are being killed by pollution makes you angry... I certainly know that for a fact, as my family is being killed by a coal power plant in my neighborhood, and I have grandparents who died of industrial poisoning, and I am angry about all that. Angry at Connie Schultz' family.

Connie Schultz is married to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and his family is in the coal burning business, as his brother is Robert Brown... Chairman of the Board of Medical Center Company (MCCO), a coal burning power plant located next to University Hospitals, in University Circle, Cleveland, Ohio, which burns over 44,000 TONS of coal a year, emitting over 4,000 TONS of air pollution into surrounding neighborhoods.... killing people in my neighborhood unnecessarily.

I'm starting my deep research into the corruption that is Medical Center Company (MCCO) - Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown's family coal fired pollution factory in University Circle, Cleveland Ohio - and as I search the web for articles about Senator Brown's energy policy, I find good opportunities to educate the world about the harm his family pollution does here.

For example, the Breakthrough Institute has a posting about Senator Brown - The Sherrod Brown Test: Finding Consensus on Climate Policy... If we want to pass policies that will truly catapult the United States into a clean and prosperous energy economy, slash global warming pollution, and make clean energy cheap and abundant, we need to pass the "Sherrod Brown Test." - to which I posted the following clarification for the world:

You should disclose Senator Sherrod Brown's brother Robert Brown is Chairman of the Board of Medical Center Company (MCCO), which is a coal fired steam plant in a poor urban disadvantaged Cleveland neighborhood... burns 44,000 tons of coal a year... pumps over 4,000 tons of pollution into our air (since the 1930s) - all to heat private institutions like Case Western Reserve University (where Robert Brown is Treasurer), University Hospitals, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art - and they want a license to burn coal for 5 more years... and want to build an additional coal plant in the same neighborhood... Sherrod is the King of Coal in Ohio.

Susan Miller just sent me County Executive Green Party Candidate David Ellison's written statement to the Federal EPA protesting the burning of coal by Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown's brother (Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz' Brother-in-Law) Robert Brown's Medical Center Company (MCCO), which harms the health of my family and the millions of citizens of Northeast Ohio... spreading death and destruction worldwide.

Is David Ellison the only candidate for County Executive who formally protested the burning of coal at MCCO? That should be easy to determine.

I challenge the other candidates for County Executive... and ALL standing local politicians... to put forth their written positions submitted to the Federal EPA regarding burning coal at the politically-corrupt MCCO plant, in politically-corrupt University Circle, or withdraw from offices and races to represent citizens in government anywhere in the world, for cause (being murder).

real NEOans - did you notice difficulty breathing today... all week... especially near downtown?

NOACA has an explanation. The air in urban Cleveland is highly polluted and causing you harm.

Location

Case Study: Modus Operandi of Illuminati... Fabricate Crisis and Fear... Switch Idols on Braindead Citizens... Leverage Racism.

Witness!

If you ever come to question the intent and modus operandi of the Illuminati, just witness how they fabricated a crisis in the trading of LeBron James... creating instability and fear among millions of loyal Ohioans and Americans... and then witness how they just switched idols on hate-programmed braindead zombie Citizens of Northeast Ohio, fabricating broad public outrage against a talented, young black man to stir racial hatred against an entire class of new leaders, in an important swing election year.

Northeast Ohio clearly has some ot the worst air pollution in America, exposing residents to 100,000,000s of pounds of severe toxic point source and fugitive emissions from the Arcelor/Mittal combination steel-mill, coal powerplants, landfills and recycling facilities, refineries and 100s of other hazardous pollution point sources located throughout this 2 million+ person community - I'd like to know where in America more people are harmed more significantly by particulate pollution, on a daily basis, than in the neighborhoods surrounding Mittal and the industrial Flats... by no means our only toxic war-zone in the region.

And, our region has had defective air quality monitoring and so lax pollution control for the better part of the 21st Century.

Environmentalism here is "greenwashed" with "a pretense of concern about climate but policies dictated by fossil fuel special interests", as renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, describes the global state of inaction in response to global warming worldwide.

Hansen prescribes action: "To the young people I say: stand up for your rights – demand that the government be honest and address the consequences of their policies. To the old people I say: let us gird up our loins and fight on the side of young people for protection of the world they will inherit."

But, he cautions: "It becomes clear that needed actions will happen only if the public, somehow, becomes forcefully involved. One way that citizens can help is by blocking coal plants, tar sands, and mining the last drops of fossil fuels from public and pristine lands and the deep ocean."

We have many horrific polluters here - where to get citizens forcefully involved to stop excessive pollution... where to block a coal plant? How?

I'll preface any praise of "Tremont West Development Corp. development director charged with assault" - coverage in the Plain Dealer of the assault of Guy Templeton Black, by Sammy Catania - by posting reporter Mark Gillespie's comment on his own blog about his own work - Mark Gillispie, The Plain Dealer - August 27, 2010 at 1:13PM - "xxoo: Thanks for commenting. I understand your concern, but this is not a news article that will appear in the print edition of The Plain Dealer. It is an item that has been posted solely to my Inside Cleveland Hall blog. Reporters who have blogs use them to post items that might not hold much interest to our broader readership but might have relevance to some Cleveland.com readers. That's the beauty of the digital age. Thanks again for reading and commenting".

Mark is responding to a TROLL on Cleveland.com that set up an account to post "xxoo August 27, 2010 at 1:01PM - So much ado about nothing. Is this really worthy of a news article - or is this just a gossip column?"

That is what is pathetic about poor use of technology in the digital age... it allows corporations and special interests to use TROLL accounts places like Cleveland.com to post anonymous diversions of public knowledge from fact to fiction, and to temper public response to news that is in fact deserving of outrage.

Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter Headquarters, on the fringe of the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas

A few days after attending the EPA public hearing regarding the renewal of the license for Medical Center Company to continue burning coal in University Circle - which was OPPOSED by representatives of the Sierra Club, Environmental Health Watch, Earth Day Coalition, Women Speak Out For Peace and Justice, and all citizens who testified - I met with Neil Carman, Ph.D., the Clean Air Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, in Austin, Texas, to discuss real NEO air pollution issues, the MCCO licensing situation, and next steps for improving the environment in Northeast Ohio.

Facts prove it is unsafe to live near the Arcelor/Mittal Cleveland Works steel mill, and citizens of Northeast Ohio have reasons to be concerned about 100s of other major toxic pollution point sources in the greater Cleveland area, yet our regional pollution monitoring has been broken since 2003, and is broken today, and citizens and the media do not care at all. How is it possible the people living in one of them most polluted places in America do not care about public health - about their own health? How did citizens here become such nihilists?

Northeast Ohioans must rise up from metal and soot ashes still being spewed upon us by excessively polluting toxic industrial forces that have corrupted local politics and destroyed the region and the lives of those living here... yet leaders and citizens here do not care.

Scene writer Michael Roberts provides the world a great service with his August 25, 2010, summary overview of the corruption and evil that has defined the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, Cleveland city hall, the Cuyahoga county commissioners, and "failed leaders in almost every quarter of the community", including at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Foundation, throughout the 21st Century - anyone interested in real NEO must READ "Port in a Storm - How years of bungling and self-interest robbed Cleveland of its future".

If you have ever doubted the most extreme claims of the failure, incompetency and corruption of our Mayor, County commissioners, and their appointees and co-conspirators in crimes, as expressed throughout the decade by Citizen Hauser and so many other honest real Northeast Ohio visionaries, on realNEO and elsewhere in the free-speech world...  read Roberts' excellent article on the Port in a Storm and realize the following observations are direct reflections on all leaders and citizens of the region, and we are pathetic:

"The real tale of the waterfront is one of conflict, greed, wasted public money, and sheer incompetence on the part of the port board, city hall, and the county commissioners."

It is such a sensitive situation that many sources with ties to it have requested anonymity for this story. Cleveland, it seems, is populated not by outspoken visionaries, but by many who suffer in silence, fearing ostracism or political and civic retribution.

In a way, it is a sad tale of a city adrift with failed leaders in almost every quarter of the community, people who have squandered the dream of a world-class waterfront and a better place to live.

Without Jackson's thoughtless indulgence, the fiasco would not have flowered. The Greater Cleveland Partnership stubbornly supported the plan and in doing so demonstrated its lack of business acumen; the venerable Cleveland Foundation funded a portion of the effort, displaying its lack of common sense.