Daily Score Blog

Because Sightline has done a study on the high levels of PBDEs in northwesterners, people often ask us about what they can do to protect themselves and their children from the toxic flame retardants.

A good new resource on this topic is Green Guide's handy clip-and-save Smart Shoppers PBDE card (pdf). The card gives general tips on avoiding toxics in your diet and--most useful--lists computer and furniture companies that have chosen not to use PBDEs in their products, including Intel, Motorola, IKEA, and Lifekind. (Green Guide also has a good article summarizing the risks of PBDEs.)

It's worth keeping in mind, though, that ultimately the best way to avoid PBDEs--which have been found in everything from dust to grocery store food--is to phase them out of all new products and get rid of old PBDE-laden products. They are so ubiquitous that exposure isn't a choice. So consumers need to pay attention to policy as well, as the mothers from our study know well. (To see what your region is doing to phase out PBDEs, go here.)

Because of growing concern about the effects of global climate change, nuclear energy seems to be gaining a new lease on life. Of particular note: some enviros have switched sides and now support, at least in principle, moving toward more nuclear power. (See Alan Durning's most recent remarks on the viability of nuclear power here).

Today's news from Hanford provides some counterpoint. The Seattle P-I reports on a new study (pdf) from the Seattle-based Government Accountability Project (GAP). Here's the gist:

Radioactive dust in a Tri-Cities attic and plutonium-tainted clams in the Columbia River are red flags signaling that contamination from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is in the environment and moving into the food chain....

And,

Government officials know that radioactive groundwater is still flowing to the river tainted with radiation. It's still in the soil at the 586-square-mile reservation and has been detected in tumbleweeds that roll across the desert site.

What concerns [GAP] is the presence of the radioactive and other dangerous chemicals moving from the soil and water and into plants and animals offsite that can spread the contamination, increasing the risk of exposure for people.

But perhaps the most astonishing revelation of the article is this:

DOE officials and their contractors said the watchdog group's results were not surprising....

Oh well, then. Now I feel much better!

Even though technology has come a long way since the wild west days during which most of the damage was done at Hanford, this news should trouble us, given nuclear energy's new allure, for two reasons: first, the problem of waste storage apparently has still not been solved (see, for example, "Areas Requiring Attention" from this report (pdf) from the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board); and second, we would be depending on the same "officials and their contractors" to assure our safety that have been doing such a wonderful job at Hanford.

For a broader critique of nuclear power, see Jim Harding and Denis Hayes' excellent op-ed in yesterday's P-I.

In the midst of the recent climate pledging lovefest, it's easy to lose sight of the unhappy truth that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have already reached levels that effectively guarantee us at least several decades of global warming. While the Kyoto Protocol is worthwhile--to reduce global emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels--it is only a small first step toward putting brakes on climate change. To do that, scientists estimate that worldwide emissions must be reduced by at least 60 to 70 percent.   

Needless to say, achieving those levels of reductions will be a something of a challenge. We'll need to consume less, become more efficient, and develop alternative energy sources. We'll also need to figure out ways to capture greenhouse gas emissions--principally carbon--and prevent it from concentrating in the atmosphere and contributing to warming. The most talked-about way to do this is using carbon "sinks" such as forests and grasslands, which essentially soak up carbon that becomes trapped in the living biological material.

Another possibility--one that is thick with possibility and contradiction--is sequestering carbon manually. The BBC reports on pioneering technology that the United Kingdom is exploring that will capture up to 85 percent of power-plant emissions and then trap them under the North Sea in geologic formations that were once occupied by petroleum or natural gas. Sounds good, right?