OntheWilderSide

Biggest Response Yet to a Driving Change Alert! If You Haven’t Already Been A Part of Better World Club’s Lead Delistment Campaign, Drive Change:Like A Lead BalloonEPA Proposes Delisting Lead As A Pollutant

Is it just us, or have the folks at the EPA been taking crazy pills lately? Their latest foray into the enchanted forest of illogic and whimsy: They’re actually considering dropping the health standards for lead pollution in our air.The agency claims eliminating these standards might be justified “given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976” as an air pollutant. The “changed circumstances”, apparently, being the 90 percent drop in airborne lead concentrations over the last 25 years. The EPA is thus arguing that regulating lead worked so well that it’s now time to stop regulating it.Lead levels in air have mostly fallen because lead was banned as a gasoline additive in the 1970s. Auto manufacturers had asked for the ban because it damaged catalytic converters.

The bottom line is that lead is still poisonous. It still kills people, and it still causes a host of health problems, including birth defects. These circumstances have not changed.

The EPA is currently accepting public comments for this proposed policy reversal. Click here to send the EPA an email and let them know that lead should continue to be regulated as a pollutant.

Here’s a letter from Timothy J. Lafond, the Environmental Committee Chair of the Battery Council International. The BCI is the lobbying face of the lead battery industry. Timothy obviously cares a lot about the EPA, because he has several suggestions for making the agency more “efficient”. According to the BCI, the best way for the EPA to be “efficient” would be for them to stop regulating lead pollution.

Haiku Activism!

The true spirit of Bushido calls for a balance between the art of war and just plain old art. Once you’ve signed a petition for the EPA, why not show your sensitive, artistic side by sending them a haiku? It’s the honorable thing to do.

In the EPA we trust
To do right by our precious air
Not by the oil industry

– Marie F.
Telford, PA

Ready To Take The Ultra-Low Carbon Car Challenge?

It’s Easy – First, We Replace Your Regular Coffee With Folgers Crystals…

Wait, That’s Something Different

Ah, those Brits. Most countries, after having produced the Industrial Revolution and the Spice Girls, would be content to rest on their laurels and let others do the innovating. Not our friends across the pond.Zytek, a British automotive engineering group, has produced the world’s first commercially viable diesel electric hybrid vehicle. The car was developed with aid from the “Ultra-Low Carbon Car Challenge” program. The ULCCC is a government-supported program that encourages entrepreneurs to develop an affordable, five-door vehicle with CO2 emissions of less than 100g/km.Related Links:

– Check out New Car Net for more info on the Zytek diesel hybrid.
– Read more about our love affair with Great Britain in the January 2007 issue of TravelCool, BWC’s monthly travel enewsletter.
– Are you a sucker for punishment? If so, we also wrote a story on Peugeot’s proposed diesel hybrid in the July issue of Driving Change.

More ‘Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is’ in ‘Kicking Asphalt’:

– BWC High-Mileage Review: Biodiesel!
– Why American?

Filed under: Action Alert!, activism, Ecology, Global Warming, Green Party Websites, Long Island Politics, Our Favorite Radio Stations, Recommended Poetry Tagged: | book of the month