Treece is (was) a small town in Kansas USA, founded in the early part of the century when drillers from the Picher Lead Company of Joplin, Mo, almost accidently discovered rich seams of Lead and zinc.  It no longer exists thanks to the kind of failures of responsibility and greed that make screwing the environment so easy for some people.

By the time of the 1920′s, the area was the largest producer of zinc and Lead in the country and this of course led to some interesting effects on the local environment.  Aside from massive problems of subsidence from the miles of tunnels which were dug under the town and surrounding country, massive ‘towers’ were constructed of the waste materials from the mining activites.  Crushed rock, known as ‘chat’ was disposed of in vast quantities and despite continually improving mining technologies, it contains enough traces of Lead and zinc that is has literally poisoned the surrounding countryside.

“The only thing polluted in Treece,” says Rex Buchanan, interim director at the Kansas Geological Survey, “is the earth, air and water.”

Some of the chat ‘towers’ are 200 feet tall and on windy days dust, containing Lead, blows across the Kansas prairies in such quantities that children in the area have 3 times the national average blood/lead levels.  People who put children’s lives at risk have to be top of the food chain when it comes to screwing the environment, can there really be a more devastating consequence?  Although it has to be said that these weren’t their own children of course and it’s always easier to do it to other people’s children than your own.

Water in the area turned orange due as the pumps that kept the mines drained were deactivated and children swimming in local pools, caused by subsidence, turned orange.  “We’d see kids with sunburns all over their bodies” said one local resident but it wasn’t sunburn, it was chemical burns from acids in the water.  Nice.  Saves on swimming pool entry fee and soap all at the same time.

So Treece was shut down and all the residents left.  The state had planned to turn the area into a wildlife preserve but the plans were shelved when they realised that nothing could really live there.

“That land is inadequate for supporting wildlife, or from what I hear, any other kind of life.” – Kansas Wildlife Department Employee

Awesome, if you’re going to screw the environment, do it properly right?

You might be wondering who paid for the residents to be relocated?  The answer is that if you’re an American, then you did.  The money for house purchases came from the Kansas Department of Housing and the Environment, funded by the tax payer.  You helped pollute Treece by using the products that the mines provided, and you helped pay for it to be closed down.  You might assume that the companies that profited from the mineral resources in the area also made a contribution but if you did then you really were born yesterday.

Technically you don’t score any points since someone screwed the environment on your behalf but it’s awesome screwing of the environment by companies that made a profit doing it, got away with paying for it and that had support from a population who didn’t even know about it but paid for it anyway.  And of course, children in the area are still paying for it.

The latest World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2012 report
(combined effort by the WWF, Zoological Society and GFN) makes interesting reading, including the inspirational (but not entirely unexpected) news that the environment is getting worse not better!

Don’t start feeling too pleased with yourselves though, some things are actually improving in the Western wealthy countries, a 7% growth in the Living Planet biodiversity index since 1970. Seriously? Don’t even know what that is? Good for you. You’re still not off the hook though.

The greatest growth in negative environmental impacts is of course in the third world countries and the only solace we can take from that is that we showed them how to do it. In fact, meeting Western needs has partially contributed to some of the environmental devastation suffered by some countries (think Shell in Nigeria, that sort of thing…) so we can take some of the credit but in terms of getting out there and actually screwing the environment, they’re starting to leave us in the dust and their potential for totally screwing the environment is huge, they’ve only just got started.

While we have plenty of clean water, most of the time anyway, they’re busy making sure that they’ve increased water useage to the point that massive and unsustainable demand is being placed on freshwater eco-systems, because of agricultural and domestic needs. Anyone fancy having a war over fresh water supplies? Watch this space…

The report shows that the biggest single drop in the living planet index is for freshwater species in tropical areas. Down 50% since 1970! The biodiversity index has dropped by 60% and these changes have actually accelerated during the last decade! The world’s cities have seen an average population growth of 45% since 1992 and urban dwellers typically have a much larger environmental ‘footprint’ than people living in the country.

Impressive stuff.

Download the Living Planet Report 2012 here.

All this takes place ahead of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference (it’s been 20 years since RIO???? …yikes) which takes place 20 – 22 June 2012 in… er… well, Rio. At the conference they’re going to discuss Sustainable Development and if you don’t know what that is by now you really should be ashamed of yourself, really, do some research…

The 7 critical issues to be discussed – 7 Critical Issues at Rio+20. So, be aware! Everyone of those topics is an area where the environment can be screwed and if you’re not sure how to do that despite all the advice on this site, just think backwards and do whatever they’re saying we shouldn’t be doing! It’s not hard to grasp although some commitment may be required on your part.

You have been warned.

Why?

Simple, he’s going to Screw the Environment royally. Check this out: Romney believes in a ‘market’ approach to the environmental problem. That translates to ‘money is more important than the environment’ and that’s exactly the attitude needed to screw the environment on a large scale.

Romney wants to achieve the ‘target of energy independence’ and the only way to do that is exploit Oil, Coal and natural gas reserves in and around America.Yeah baby, say goodbye to the Arctic. Sarah Palin once voted against making the Polar Bear an endangered species because that would big time get in the way of drilling for oil in the Arctic, wanna bet Romney feels the same way?

Mitt Romney is against the Kyoto Protocol believing that it will result in jobs leaving the United States

LOL… what that means is that getting votes from American workers is way more important to him than the Global Warming issue. Sweet.

Here are some more quotes and what they really mean:

As president, I will unleash American innovation and productivity to make full use of our natural resources.

- I will Screw the Environment for profit (always better than screwing it for free)

I will permit access to our resources in the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf, western lands and the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

- I will Screw the Environment in our own backyard.

I will increase production.

- I will screw the environment even more than we have been doing so far.

I will modernize our outdated environmental laws

- I will stop anyone from getting in the way because that’s what the companies backing me want.

In my administration, coal will not be a four-letter word

- I will mine more Coal. Awesome, Coal is such a great way to cause huge environmental damage.

I will invest in new energy technologies

- I will find new ways to Screw the Environment.

We’re using too much oil,” Romney said. “We have an answer. We can use alternative sources of energy — biodiesel, ethanol, nuclear power — and we can drill for more oil here

– We need to drill for more oil.

And I will respect states’ proven ability to regulate fracking

- Fracking pollutes but I don’t want to stop that happening because it would cost my friends too much money. (See previous article – EPA Releases Draft Permitting Guidance for Using Diesel Fuel in Oil and Gas Hydraulic Fracturing)

I will pursue dramatic regulatory reform to accelerate the exploration and development of oil and gas, to facilitate construction of vital infrastructure and to preserve and expand crucial electricity capacity

– I will continue to encourage Americans to be the world’s greatest users per capita of natural resources and pass it off as ‘the American dream’ so they don’t feel bad about it.

So… pretty clear choice huh. A president who pays lip service to the greenies or one that will unashamedly screw the environment for profit and votes.

Vote Romney!

A quick shout out to Biogen UK Ltd, a leading ‘anaerobic digestion company’ (does anyone else think they should be hatching dinosaur chicks?) who recently got caught screwing the environment.

They were fined £5k and ordered to pay nearly £5k in costs for polluting one mile of a Bedfordshire stream by ‘allowing’ the release of poisonous noxious or polluting matter, namely liquid digestate.  Yuck. Messy.

Now that may seem like a pretty tame amount of pollution but we all have to start somewhere right?  And… of course the whole thing was an accident (wink wink) but the fact that they knew that the tank that leaked needed a new alarm system two months before the incident and that it had been pointed out in an audit unfortunately wasn’t over looked by the Environment Agency who said that this was ‘avoidable’.  Well of course it was!  But that’s not the point is it.

Biogen then tried to hide the incident which led to further complications but you can’t blame them, it’s always better to screw the environment for free if you can get away with it.  In this case the Environment Agency were on the ball and managed to catch them, which isn’t easy with river pollution incidents like this, rivers are great for carrying away the pollution (and therefore all the evidence) making them a great way to pollute and get away with it.

The EA Investigative officer had to work in the dark to collect samples to make the prosecution.  Dayum, get a life already…

So, Biogen pleaded guilty and it cost them.  Kudos.

Put your instinctive dislike of Steve Jobs and Apple products to one side, they have now become a way to screw the environment and be a consumer sheep at the same time!    Grudging acknowledgment – Apple fans, you were way ahead of the curve on this one and your lack of taste is forgiven on this one occasion.

It turns out that Apple’s $1 Billion Data center in Maiden, North Carolina is supplied with energy by Duke Energy, one of the few power companies in the good ole US of A that’s still building Coal fired power plants.  Let’s hear it for Duke!  Way to ignore progress, trends and public opinion and stick to what you know best guys!

The local, regional and global environmental impacts of the coal industry are many.  They pollute land Air and water and create huge amounts of toxic waste.  There are also severe adverse health effects associated with burning coal with coal particulates estimated to shorten approximately 1 Million lives annually worldwide which is 30% of all premature deaths associated with air pollution.  Wowzers, that’s screwing the environment in a RUTHLESS way!

Best of all, coal is responsible for 31% of global Carbon Dioxide emissions, the largest of any source, so assuming that the greenies are right about Global Warming (they have to right sometimes) then using coal massively contributes towards screwing the environment.  Awesome.  Using coal therefore has no effect (not a believer in Global Warming?) or it helps screw the environment up so it’s win win! And you do it whilst surfing on your trendy igadget.

So many lovely issues here, coal use, greenhouse gases, pollution of land air and water, rampant consumerism and even a little unethical sourcing of minerals to be used in computer circuitry thrown in, who knows, as well as the environmental damage, you might also be supporting the strip mining that causes so much misery and suffering in those African countries nobody has ever heard of that are suffering civil wars and genocide over the control of mineral rights to keep the supply heading West for all our shiny gadgets.

Who knew ipads could be so cool?