USA

USA Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Yesterday saw two very effective protest movements in the USA, one was in regards to SOPA/PIPA and the other saw the Obama administration reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

There are also concerns about carbon emissions from oil sands production in Alberta, a western Canadian province.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, a group that has protested the Keystone XL project, praised President Obama for taking a stand against the “fossil fuel lobby”.

“This isn’t just the right call, it’s the brave call,” Mr McKibben said in a statement.

The legislature of Nebraska passed a measure requiring state approval of any route before TransCanada could start construction.

The pipeline would also pass through the US states of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The White House had tried to postpone a final decision on the project until after the 2012 presidential election.

But during a congressional impasse on a payroll tax holiday in December, Republicans forced the Obama administration to agree to make a decision on the pipeline within two months.

Read more at the BBC

Greenpeace (amongst many others) is now asking Canadians to help them stop the next threatening pipeline the Northern Gateway pipeline.

United Republic: Creative Organization Grows from OWS

- Adam Clare

Democracy takes time, and it’s rough and tedious work, so it’s amazing that in the two short months since the Occupy Movement began an organization has sprung up that will help the movement. United Republic aims to support the Occupy Movement by championing the idea that political decisions should be based on reality and not on the claims of lobbyists.

Lawrence Lessig Welcomes Rootstrikers to United Republic from Rootstrikers on Vimeo.

We aim to transform our nation’s outrage over corruption, gridlock, and cronyism into a powerful political force that can demand and deliver lasting change. We will hold politicians accountable; expose how corporate lobbyists hurt ordinary Americans; build a coalition of supporters from left, right and center; and provide financial support to the best people and organizations working on solving the problem.

Already our coalition is growing. In the fall of 2011, we joined forces with Rootstrikers, a group founded by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig that shares the goal of ending the domination of Big Money over the political process. The group’s name is inspired by the Henry David Thoreau quote, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” And we’ve recently merged with the Get Money Out campaign, an effort started by MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan that shares similar goals.

Via bOing

USA Can be 100% Powered by Geothermal Energy

- Adam Clare

Here at Things Are Good we like geothermal energy and countries that use it. The USA could be on the list in the future!

Researchers from SMU that have received funding from Google have released a map that shows the potential of geothermal energy production in the continental United States. The conclusion is that there is more potential energy in geothermal than previous thought and the technology exists today to access it and provide more than enough energy for the nation’s consumption on geothermal alone!

In this newest SMU estimate of resource potential, researchers used additional temperature data and in-depth geological analysis for the resulting heat flow maps to create the updated temperature-at-depth maps from 3.5 kilometers to 9.5 kilometers (11,500 to 31,000 feet).

This update revealed that some conditions in the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. are actually hotter than some areas in the western portion of the country, an area long-recognized for heat-producing tectonic activity. In determining the potential for geothermal production, the new SMU study considers the practical considerations of drilling, and limits the analysis to the heat available in the top 6.5 km (21,500 ft.) of crust for predicting megawatts of available power.

This approach incorporates a newly proposed international standard for estimating geothermal resource potential that considers added practical limitations of development, such as the inaccessibility of large urban areas and national parks. Known as the ‘technical potential’ value, it assumes producers tap only 14 percent of the ‘theoretical potential’ of stored geothermal heat in the U.S., using currently available technology.

Read the rest of the article at SMU.

Better Primary Health Care

- Adam Clare

Health care is expensive no matter where you are and places like Uganda and the USA health care is even more expensive because they don’t have universal health care for their citizens. A company in California, MedLion, is looking to bring effective primary health care to the masses because some governments can’t afford (or refuse) to provide basic health care for their citizens.

This model of delivery that MedLion is using can be applied to countries large and small, rich or poor.

Fortunately, pioneers such as Dr. Qamar have shown there’s a better way. Dr. Qamar originally setup a concierge medicine practice catering to the well-healed. He remains the House Doctor for the world famous Pebble Beach Resorts. As much as he has enjoyed his Pebble Beach practice, Dr. Qamar wanted to serve a broader population so he opened a practice with a dramatically lower price point. For only $49 per month and $10 per visit, MedLion is able to provide high quality medicine at a price point nearly any family can afford.

In fact, MedLion has plans to open another clinic in 2011 in a farming community in California catering to migrant workers who can have difficulty finding a family physician. Dr. Qamar states, “For the same amount they may pay in co-pays with an insurance policy, we can offer complete primary care without the added cost burden of insurance. We believe that a farm worker deserves access to primary care just as much as an executive at Pebble Beach.”
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Dr. Qamar sees a resurgence of the primary care physician where the primary care physician can make a healthy living while not being shackled by insurance bureaucracy. “The gratifying part of being in a practice like ours is we can practice medicine the way we were trained while saving our patients a considerable amount. Many of my brethren in insurance-centric primary care share with me they believe they are only using 40% of their medical training when they are forced to have what I call ‘drive by’ interactions with patients. When they learn about how we practice, they are eager to transition their practices to our model.”

Read the full article here.

Thanks Liz!

Will the 9/11 First Responders Law Do the Job?

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

This is a guest post written by Barbara O’Brien.

In the final days of the 111th Congress, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation Act, also called the “9/11 First Responders bill,” finally passed. The Act will provide medical monitoring and care for those who worked on the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks, as well as for many who lived and worked nearby.

However, at the insistence of some senators, the final bill was considerably watered down from what it had been originally. More than $3 billion in funding was cut from s previous version of the bill, for example. Will the revised bill still do the job?

When the Senate passed the bill, initial news reports said that the monitoring and health care program would end after five years. However, the actual language of the bill provides for funding limitations for monitoring and health care after fiscal year 2016, which suggests the program might continue if Congress authorizes funding for it.

The monitoring issue is particularly critical. The collapse of the mammoth World Trade Center towers released thousands of tons of toxic particles into the air. For many weeks after the attacks, people who lived and worked in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn suffered burning eyes and hacking coughs from the foul air. Yet at the time, the federal government and the city of New York assured people the stinging fumes were not dangerous, just unpleasant.

Several days after the terrorist attacks, some independent researchers slipped past the police barricades to take samples. They found the air contained more than twice the number of asbestos fibers considered “safe,” as well as deadly levels of benzene, dioxin, and other toxins.

Why should people exposed to the toxins continue to be monitored? Asbestos in particular is a very slow killer. It has been well documented that the first symptoms of the deadly lung cancer mesothelioma may not show up for 20 to 50 years after exposure to asbestos. But early detection should prolong lives and make mesothelioma treatment and other medical care more effective.

The final bill does close the Victims Compensation Fund in five years, which is separate from the health monitoring and care part of the bill. It also provides for more stringent monitoring of benefits, which might make it harder for people to get into the program.

Today — more than nine years after the attacks — many rescue and recovery workers are suffering deteriorating health. A study published in April 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that New York City firefighters and emergency workers continue to suffer from severe and persistent lung problems because of their exposure to the World Trade Center debris. Some of these 9/11 heroes already have died.

Firefighters, police officers, and other responders who had been begging Congress for help for nine years called the passage of the bill a “Christmas miracle.” Let us hope the final version of the bill will do the job.

This is a guest post written by Barbara O’Brien.
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