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Buzz Cut: Electric Lawn Mowers Beat the Gas Guzzlers at Their Own Game
Categories: Air Pollution, Alternative Fuels, Green Lifestyle - Thursday Sep 27, 2007 10:14Read the full story in E: The Environmental Magazine.
The Electric Power Research Institute of Palo Alto, California, says that replacing one half of the nearly 1.3 million gas mowers in the U.S. with electric mowers would be the emissions equivalent of taking two million cars off the road.
Clean Burning Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
Categories: Air Pollution, Green Products - Thursday Sep 20, 2007 02:18“This site offers information to help you choose an EPA certified stove … or another cleaner burning hearth appliance (e.g., gas or pellet stove) and use it efficiently and safely.” Discusses stove and fireplace types, safe installation and wood-burning practices, impacts of wood smoke on human health and the environment, cleaner burning fireplace options, and related topics. Also includes a guide for implementing a wood stove change-out campaign. From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). [Courtesy of Librarians’ Index to the Internet]
Draft Lead Risk Assessment Available for Public Comment
Categories: Air Pollution, Environmental Health, Environmental Regulation, Publications - Wednesday Aug 1, 2007 08:32EPA is releasing a second draft risk report as part of the agency?s review of the national air quality standards for lead. Completing and reviewing a risk assessment is part of the extensive scientific and technical process EPA uses to review any national ambient air quality standard.
EPA has provided the draft report to the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC), a group of independent scientific and technical experts that provides advice to EPA. The CASAC will review the report at a public meeting in Research Triangle Park, N.C. on Aug. 28 and 29, 2007. EPA also is accepting written comment on the draft assessment until Aug. 29.
This second draft assessment does not include any conclusions or recommendations with regard to keeping or changing the current lead air quality standard. EPA must propose whether to revise or retain the current lead standards by May 1, 2008, and issue a final rule by Sept. 1, 2008.
As a result of removing lead from gasoline and other EPA regulations, airborne lead concentrations have decreased dramatically in the United States. From 1980 to 2005, national lead air quality levels have dropped more than 90 percent.
Main body of the report, appendices and fact sheet: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/naaqs
Cost of Pollution in China: Economic Estimates of Physical Damages
Categories: Air Pollution, Environmental Health, International, Publications, Water Pollution - Friday Jul 20, 2007 09:17Via Docuticker.
Cost of Pollution in China: Economic Estimates of Physical Damages
Source: World BankBuilding upon willingness-to-pay surveys for reducing health risks from pollution among households in Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities, the study finds that the health costs of air and water pollution in China amount to about 4.3 percent of its GDP. By adding the non-health impacts of pollution, which are estimated to be about 1.5 percent of GDP, the total cost of air and water pollution in China is about 5.8 percent of GDP.
The burden of both air and water pollution is not distributed evenly across the country. For example, China?s poor are disproportionately affected by the environmental health burden and only six provinces bear 50 percent of the effects of acid rain in the country.
+ Full Report(PDF; 5.8 MB)