ValleyWatch

November 22, 2011 by Brenda Goodman in WebMD Health News

Nov. 22, 2011 — There’s been a big spike in the number of people who need emergency medical attention after they guzzle popular caffeinated energy drinks, according to a new government report.

The report shows a more than a tenfold increase in the number of emergency room visits tied to the use of these drinks between 2005 and 2009.

In 2005, 1,128 ER visits were associated with the use of energy drinks compared to 13,114 in 2009. That number peaked in 2008 with more than 16,000 ER visits linked to energy drinks.

Beverage manufacturers fired back at the statistics, charging that they are misleading since they are being taken out of context.

Energy Drinks can lead to acute medical problems in those who consume them. Some like Red Bull® and 5 Hour Energy® are widely promoted as performance enhancers for everything from work habits to sex to athletics. Some like Four Loko have a mixture of caffeine and alcohol which can be particularly dangerous if abused. Photo © 2011 John Blair

“Of the more than 123 million visits made to emergency room facilities each year, less than one one-hundredth of one percent involved people who consumed energy drinks according to this report,” says the American Beverage Association in a statement.

“Even so, this report shares no information about the overall health of those who allegedly consumed energy drinks, or even what symptoms brought them to the ER in the first place,” the statement says.

Energy Drinks and the ER

While 44% of cases involved energy drinks in combination with alcohol or otherdrugs, the report shows most people who wound up in the ER told doctors they had downed only energy drinks.

“There’s been quite a bit of attention paid to those energy drinks that have alcohol with them. What we found was that there are actually more visits for those energy drinks that don’t have alcohol,” says Albert Woodward, PhD, director of the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Rockville, Md. DAWN reports, such as this one, are published periodically by the network.

“People may think that the alcohol-caffeine drinks are dangerous, but they may not have any idea that the caffeine-only drinks are also potentially problematic,” Woodward says. Continue reading →

November 4, 2011, The Mark

Humanity set a new standard in greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide gas produced on the planet by a whopping six per cent over the year before. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, we released 9.13 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2010 – that’s 512 million more tons of carbon than we did in 2009, and the biggest jump ever recorded. It’s also more than than any one country can produce in an entire year, with the exception of the U.S., China, and India. It also surpasses the “worst-case scenario” total envisioned by climatologists just four short years ago. Go us! Half of the new emissions came from the U.S. and China, while the rest of the world covered the other 250 million or so new metric tons. Canada was also found to be the ninth-leading emitter in the world, as it was responsible for 141 million metric tons of emissions in 2010. The top 10 emitters are:

1. China (2.248 billion metric tons)
2. United States (1.498 billion metric tons)
3. India (564 million metric tons)
4. Russia (461 million metric tons)
5. Japan (310 million metric tons)
6. Germany (208 million metric tons)
7. Iran (157 million metric tons)
8. South Korea (154 million metric tons)
9. Canada (141 million metric tons)
10. Saudi Arabia (135 million metric tons)

October 2011

There are a few things that make me pause and give thanks for the natural world I am fortunate enough to reside in. Rainbows, waterfalls, the beautiful Ohio River but none exemplifies that thankfulness like a sunburst over the Ohio River near my home in Evansville, IN. Photo © 2011 John Blair  shot with an IPhone 4S.

October 20, 2011, by John Russell in the Indianapolis Star.

The nearly finished Edwardsport new coal plant remains a scandal although much oif the vital information regarding the corruption that has surrounded the plant for the last two years remains secretive due to the collaboration of Duke Energy, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and the Daniels Administration. Photo© 2011 John Blair.

Want to read Duke Energy Corp.’s report to its board of directors about spiraling costs at its scandal-plagued $2.9 billion Edwardsport power plant?

It won’t be easy, even if you squint hard and hold the papers up to the light.

The LST, or Landing Ship Tank that transported soldiers to Europe during World War 2 is similar to those built in Evansville throughout the war. The LST 325 was found in Greece and brought back to the US to commemorate the valiant struggles of the men who rode their way to war on the ships. It has become a major tourist attraction for both vets of WW2 as well as historians. Shot with and IPhone 4S-Photo © 2011 John Blair

October 11, 2011-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

A  brownish pall seems omnipresent even on a clear day in Evansville, IN, a community with few of its own major pollution sources but is surrounded by numerous coal fired power plants that ship their power far from where it is produced.

Fine particles that emanate from the numerous power plants as they release large volumes of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide form to engulf the region and impact the health of residents both young and old.

Not all but most  regional “leaders” seem to dismiss the threat this pollution causes for their constituents and work to be able to actually increase the tremendous amount of pollution our dominant “export” industry is responsible for causing.

October 7, 2011-by Eric Betz in the Arizona Daily Sun 

A man walked into an NAU jobs fair at around 1 p.m. on Thursday and threw what appeared to be a cup of red paint at a Peabody Energy Corporation display booth, according to witnesses.

Shortly after that, another man walked in and released balloons that read things like “murderers,” the witness said.

One of the men jumped on a bike and rode away, the other changed clothes and took off running south.

It’s possible a third suspect was filming the incident, according to NAU spokesperson Tom Bauer.

The suspects were described as white males between 22 and 25 years of age. It’s unknown if they are students.

“Northern Arizona University strongly condemns this despicable act,” NAU President John Haeger said in a statement. “This behavior disrupted an event that benefits students by connecting them with potential employers. We will pursue the individuals involved and file charges against them.”

Peabody Energy Corporation is the largest private coal company in the world. The corporation settled a lawsuit in August that accused it of conspiring with others to cheat the Navajo Nation out of hundreds of millions of dollars in coal royalties.

Eric Betz can be reached at ebetz@azdailysun.com or 556-2250.

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The Edwardsport coal gasification plant can be seen for miles around the little community of Edwardsport Indiana at night. Photo © 2011 John Blair

October 6, 2011-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor.

Duke Energy has a long history in Edwardsport, IN. It is about to dismantle a small, very old conventional coal plant that has operated in one form or another since the turn of the 20th Century.

It is to be replaced by a very large, experimental Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle coal plant that will cost more than any power plant that ever came before it all paid for by Duke Energy’s ratepayers as a result a sweetheart deal struck by Duke and the Indiana Utility Regulator Commission in 2007.

That nefarious agreement, based on legislation passed by the state earlier that year forced Duke ratepayers to assume the entire risk for the plant which was originally supposed to capture and sequester carbon (CCS), a plan that has now vanished almost as if there was actually no intent to make it the promised “clean coal” plant it claimed to be.

Duke gained political support for the plant saying that it would be 630 megawatts with capture and sequestration and cost $1.4 billion. Indiana, with more than 94% of its electrical generation coming from dirty coal was eager to use what it called “home grown” energy from near by coal mines. 

Now the cost has risen to more than $3 billion and is no longer proposing carbon capture due to its huge cost which the US Department of Energy projects capital costs for CCS to add 50% to the total cost of a new plant’s construction. But the cost problem with CCS does not end there  since the power needed to do CCS takes anywhere from 25 to 40% of the power generated by the facility.

Opponents of the plant brought all this out during the approval process but were ignored by the regulatory agencies involved in approving the plant.

Duke, of late has lost its support of the local community as well. Recently a meeting was held in the Edwardsport Fire Station where residents of the area expressed their dismay at Duke’s failing credibility and their dismissal of community concerns.

Opponents, including Valley Watch, Save the Valley, Sierra Club and Citizens Action Coalition, continue to fight the plant in every way they can since it is a bad deal for people’s health and their pocketbooks. The outcome is difficult to determine at this date.