(Re-posted from Huffington Post)

I became an environmental activist in the early 1970s just as I was completing my doctorate in ecology at the University of British Columbia. It was the height of the Cold War and the height of the Viet Nam War and we were compelled to take a very public stand against activities we thought to be catastrophic both for people and for the planet.

I joined a small committee that was meeting in the basement of the Unitarian Church. We organized a protest voyage against U.S. hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska and had tens of thousands marching in the streets. When that H-bomb was set off at Amchitka Island in November 1971, it was the last hydrogen bomb the U.S. ever detonated.

It was the birth of Greenpeace, the organization I co-founded, spending 15 years in its top committee, helping to lead environmental campaigns around the world.

But it’s ironic in the extreme that, as we mark the 100th anniversary of drinking water chlorination, my old organization and other activist groups aligned with it continue to oppose this most important public health achievement.  

Activist organizations like Greenpeace have access to a full century of observations on the results of water chlorination in the US, all the way back to September 26, 1908 when Jersey City, NJ became the first US city to chlorinate its public water supply.

It’s true, there were those back then who vehemently opposed the use of this “poison” in public water supplies. According to one official at the time, continued chlorination to eradicate typhoid was akin to being “between the devil and the deep blue sea, for at present we don’t know whether typhoid fever or the (chlorinated) drinking water is the worst.”

Thankfully from the perspective of human health, chlorination of water supplies spread rapidly. Today, chlorination is the overwhelming choice for treating public water systems.

The results are clear. This widespread adoption of chlorine disinfection across the U.S. has had very important results. Waterborne diseases like typhoid, Hepatitis A and cholera that once killed thousands of Americans each year have been virtually eliminated. Typhoid fever cases fell by more than 99 percent between 1900 and 1960. Related childhood mortality fell dramatically. And average life expectancy rose from 47 years in 1900 to nearly 78 years in 2006.

Yet, many of my old environmental colleagues continue to vilify chlorination of water by raising unwarranted fears about health risks of chlorine and disinfection byproducts. In fact, it was a Greenpeace decision in 1986 to support a world-wide ban on all chlorine use that turned out to be a breaking point between my old organization and me.

My strongly held view is that chlorine is essential for our health. It is that simple. At the time I explained to my fellow Greenpeace International directors that water chlorination was the biggest advance in the history of public health, and in addition that the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. As the only board member with an education in science, my words fell on deaf ears.

In short, my former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, giving me no choice but to leave the group as I could not support such a policy. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from water chlorination, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have continued to oppose its use for more than 20 years.

I believe the opposition to the use of chemicals such as chlorine is part of a broader hostility to the use of chemicals in general. I often cite Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, as having had a significant impact on many pioneers of the green movement. The book raised some legitimate concerns, many rooted in science, about the risks and negative environmental impact associated with the indiscriminate use of chemicals.

But the day-to-day water chlorination that occurs across America is not in the category of indiscriminate use. For Greenpeace and groups like it, the healthy skepticism learned from Carson has hardened over the years, and given way to a mindset that treats virtually all use of chemicals with suspicion.

After a century of use and the resulting eradication of waterborne diseases across the US and the world, those activists who continue, absurdly, to oppose water chlorination only illustrate the need for an alternative environmental policy based on science and logic – not misinformation and campaigns of fear.

After all, campaigns based on groundless fears distract the public from real environmental threats such as air pollution and tropical deforestation for example.

As we mark one of the key milestones in improving the public health of Americans right across the country, let’s always remember we all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But stewardship requires that science drive our public policy, just as it did a hundred years ago in Jersey City.  

(UPDATE: Woops… didn’t see that CarbonCopy already has a diary up on this… go visit his, too)

Sessions has ruled, and goes with Pollina’s first argument – the least radical one:

U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions III wrote that Pollina was a Progressive Party candidate when he collected contributions of more than $1,000 from supporters – and therefore can keep the funds even though he is now running as an independent.

Sessions criticized the offices of the Vermont Secretary of State and the Vermont Attorney General for an interpretation of the law in a “very limited way that is not supported by a plain reading.”

While the end result is no surprise (many of us argued that, when it came down to a fight, Pollina will not have to give the money back), in arguing what Markowitz and Sorrell have presented as the law on its own merits, the issue of whether or not there even is a law seems to have been sidestepped – for now. What that means in the short term is that Pollina gets his money and the barn door has not necessarily been thrown open for Jim Douglas to rake in bazillions and point at Pollina for having opened the door for him.

Although Sessions’ comments are, it must be said, strange. To say that Sorrel’s arguments are not supported by a “plain reading” of the law seems a little bizarre. $1000 per election (primary and general). Pollina is engaging in 1 election, hence a $1000 limit. That’s about as plain and simple as it gets. Sessions suggests that the “plain reading” would seem to allow for candidates to put out a press release claiming they’ll be running in a primary, collect the extra money, and then the next day say “oops, changed my mind.” By any reasoned standard, it would seem that the only objective measure of whether or not someone is participating in a given primary is whether or not they participate in a primary. Let x = x and all. Clearly Sessions is working from a more intangible definition of what a primary is than the traditional one – an election with ballots that include the names of participants. Weird.

Not only is that a bizarre definition of plain reading, its an equally bizarre projection onto the legislative intent behind the law (that’s not really a law, but as I say, that li’l bullet was dodged).

Still, when all is said and done, its probably the least harmful decision that could’ve come down the pipe, despite the surreality of the decision itself. I’d like to think this will all get straightened up for next time – but not if its Jim Douglas back in charge, as he’s the one who set the stage for this in the first place, likely hoping to be able to raise even more scads of cash if he felt the need. Unfortunately for Douglas, this ruling means that, if he does want to start raking in dough and play chicken with the gentlemen’s agreement that seems to be in play around our mirage of a campaign finace law, Sessions’ ruling means he won’t get to have Anthony Pollina be his stalking horse for the inevitable fireworks that would follow.

( – promoted by odum)

Look for several major hedge funds to implode in the coming days.  They are getting hit with a triple whammy: margin calls, deleveraging and the ban on short-selling.  

Politically, I think it will be very, very tough for the Bush Admin to call for a bail out of a major hedge fund – normal Americans don’t have access to hedge funds and they are not generally understood.  Plus, Congress is out of session for the election period.

Rubin pulled off a private sector-led bail out of LTCM (hedge fund) that imploded in the late 90s, but Paulson is no Rubin….

The bloodshed on Wall street continues….  

Watching these things is like pulling teeth – and I should know, as I just recently had my wisdom teeth pulled (note to the kids: don’t wait til your 40 to have that done, if you can avoid it). I watched the big show on CNN today, and its true that its hard not to watch that silly ongoing tracking chart scrolling at the bottom. It sucks you in.

Anyway – this was clearly McCain’s strongest debate. He controlled much of the conversation in the beginning – but he did in the first debate too, and it wasn’t enough in and of itself.

I think the negatives we saw on display in regards to McCain – the anger, the stiffness, the meanness and a degree of pandering – were still on display, but all muted. Obama, I guess, needs to stand up at these things, as he was meandering more than he has in any debate since the primary, although he was sharpening up in the last half an hour or so.

So McCain had his best debate, Obama had his worst, and I’ll still bet that the any-second-now-snap-polls will give it to Obama, just by a smaller margin. We’ll have to see. The pundits, given the low expectations for McCain following all the recent, prematurely written political epitaphs we keep seeing, will probably give the advantage as far as “winning” goes to McCain, but I think the public feedback will force them to dial that back.

UPDATE: Well, color me surprised – the snap polls are bigger for Obama than ever. CBS reports their poll of uncommitted voters gave it overwhelmingly to Obama (53%), with McCain – at 22% – coming in behind “it was a draw” at 24%.

The truth behind these big numbers may be (and hopefully is) that the narratives of these two (Obama as winner, more presidential, McCain as loser, more erratic and scary) have settled into the undecideds’ psyches and impacting their perceptions, which would explain the increasing margin for Obama in these snap polls, even though McCain debated better than he has.

Cool.

UPDATE 2: And the CNN snap polls are even better. Independents gave it 57-31 for Obama, which was close to the overall average. And on every individual metric – leadership, likability – Obama just trashes McCain (no link yet on their website).

(Hey… check this out! – promoted by Christian Avard)

VTblogosphereTV continues to assault the public access airwaves in central VT through ORCA Media and the Burlington area through V-CAM.

Now playing is an interview with JD Ryan, GMD frontpager and publisher of FiveBeforeChaos. Okay okay, he is a man who needs no introduction, as evidenced by his recent cavorting and galavanting about with Congress critters.

This interview was a blast. JD’s concerned that he cracked himself up a bit too much, but he just has to face the fact that he is funny. The first bit of the interview can be found over at FIve Before Chaos. More will follow over there, but I’d like to treat GMDers with the last portion of the interview, in which we discuss the Governor’s race, IRV, and Films of Questionable Quality. It all closes out with some Clinton harvest funk for your viewing and listening pleasure.

I really want to resist JD’s negative assessment of the Governor’s race. It is going to be a strong Democratic year nationwide, VT is  one of the most progressive states in the nation, and Douglas seems incredibly vulnerable to me. His record of vetoes alone ought to lose the race for him. His “the business of government is business” philosophy seems an incredibly poor match for the troubles we face.

But I just heard Douglas’s latest nasty but effective ad

and it makes me think he has got this one sewn up. With the wildly fluctuating polls, Pollina’s attempt to make it a two MAN race, and the hand-wringing and recriminations already  apparent on the left, it is hard to muster any hope for this race. Even the Legislative “keep Douglas under 50%” scenario seems increasingly unlikely.

Still,  with all that, I wonder about the question I asked JD. If Doulgas is below 50%, at what point would it be legitimate to choose the 2nd place finisher?  To me, if he is below 40%, that is a sure thing to unseat him. If he falls between 40-45%, then I would see that as fine grounds to unseat him, if not a slam dunk. It is that 45-49.9% range that is the most troubling to consider, and right now it is looking like the most likely scenario.

thoughts?