AMERICA’S ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT CARD ARE WE MAKING THE GRADE? USES WATER RESPONSIBLY B- PRACTICES FLOOD CONTROL C SAFELY DISPOSES OF GARBAGE B PROTECTS THE SOIL C PRACTICES ENERGY CONSERVATION D TRIES TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING D WORKS TO END AIR POLLUTION B TAKES STEPS TO SAVE OZONE LAYER A- SAFELY STORES NUCLEAR WASTE C- Harvey Blatt OVERALL EVALUATION C America’s Environmental Report Card © Reprinted with permission of King Features Syndicate. America’s Environmental Report Card Are We Making the Grade? Harvey Blatt The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England ©2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MITPress books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail special_sales@mitpress .mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MITPress, 5 Cambridge Cen- ter, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Sabon by Graphic Composition, Inc. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blatt, Harvey. America’s environmental report card : are we making the grade? / Harvey Blatt. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-02572-8 (alk. paper) 1. United States—Environmental conditions. 2. Pollution—United States. I.Title. GE150.B58 2004 363.7'00973—dc22 2004040261 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface vii Introduction ix 11 Water: Is There Enough and Is It Drinkable? 1 2 Floods: Too Much Water 33 3 Garbage: The Smelly Mountain 51 4 Soil, Crops, and Food 71 5 Energy Supplies 95 6 Global Warming: The Climate Is Changing 127 7 Air Pollution and Your Lungs 155 8 Skin Cancer and the Ozone Hole 177 9 Nuclear-Waste Disposal: Not in My Backyard 195 10 Conclusion 219 Appendix A: Sustainable Energy Coalition 239 Notes 247 Additional Readings 261 Index 271 Preface We didn’t inherit this land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. —Lakota Sioux proverb I am located in Israel, and you may wonder why a foreign-based scientist would be writing about America’s environment. Good question with a simple answer. I am a relative newcomer to Israel, having moved here from my lifelong home in America in 1994 after retiring from decades of teach- ing geology in American universities. One of my concerns as an American had been the nation’s health, both figuratively and literally: figuratively in terms of dwindling oil and gas supplies and its effect on America’s eco- nomic health, and literally in terms of the effects of pollution by oil and gas on human health. Since coming to Israel, my environmental interests have broadened be- cause of this country’s chronic water shortages, pollution problems, lack of landfill space, agricultural difficulties, predicted increased aridity be- cause of global warming, and relative nearness to Chernobyl. Israel was upwind from Chernobyl and suffered no ill effects from that disaster, but it certainly spiked my interest in the effects of radiation on living organ- isms. However, the focus in this book is on America’s problems. I am still more familiar with these and feel I might be able to help its citizens under- stand the causes and possible solutions to the nation’s environmental ills. As the seventeenth-century cleric/poet John Donne said, “No man is an island,” and this certainly applies to the publishing of books. The list of people who are part of the process includes the author, numerous manu- script reviewers, several types of editors, designers, and production people at the publishing house, and last but certainly not least, you the reader. viii Preface Without readers, the publishing of books would wither. So this book is dedicated to you, the reader, in the hope you will find its contents inter- esting and useful. I hope you will feel better informed about America’s en- vironmental difficulties when you finish it. Harvey Blatt Jerusalem, Israel Introduction Environmentalists make terrible neighbors but great ancestors. —David Brower America’s environment is in danger. According to public opinion polls there is rising concern about many kinds of environmental deterioration. High on the public’s list are water pollution, toxic waste, air pollution, global warming, and radiation from nuclear power plants (particularly af- ter Chernobyl). In a Gallup Poll in 2001, 75 to 81 percent favored setting higher emission and pollution standards for business and industry, setting higher auto emission standards for cars, more strongly enforcing federal environmental regulations, and spending more federal money on develop- ing solar and wind power. A majority were opposed to expanding the use of nuclear energy. Protecting the environment was given priority over eco- nomic growth, 57 percent to 33 percent. The public’s wishes are clear. But they are not optimistic about their desires being fulfilled. In 2000, 72 per- cent of public school parents polled believed the environment would be- come dirtier during their child’s lifetime. An astonishing 95 percent of all adults want environmental education taught in our K-12 schools. The in- tensity of the American public’s concern about environmental deteriora- tion is perhaps best shown by a 2002 Gallup poll that indicated 63 percent of us would even be willing to roll back President George W. Bush’s 2002 tax cuts to protect the environment. Now that’s real concern! The scientific community is also concerned about our incessant down- grading of the environment. However, the public and the scientific com- munity do not always agree on which deteriorations are most serious. Part of the disagreement stems from how we define risk.Scientists, engineers,