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Supreme Court rules
Petition archive
07-07 Judicial Education Committee Members
In re amendment of SCR 32.01 filed 06/05/07 by David A. Flesch, President, Wis. Assoc. of Judicial Court Commissioners and Patricia M. Crowe, President, Wis. Family Court Commissioners Association.
Rule petition 07-07
|December 14, 2007
|In the matter of the Amendment of Supreme Court Rule 32.01 (Effective 12-14-07)
Past hearings
|November 27, 2007
|Public hearing
Responses to petitions
Any responses not available electronically


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Mr. and Mrs. William "Bill" Goldston Jr. will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on April 5.
The couple will be honored with a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. April 6 in Riverside Baptist Church's fellowship hall, Harriman. All relatives and friends are invited to attend; the couple requests no gifts.
Goldston and the former Carolyn Grigsby were married on April 5, 1963, in Rockwood, with the Rev. Carl Armes officiating.
Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Souther will celebrate their 71st wedding anniversary on March 22.
The couple was married on March 22, 1942, in Chatsworth, Ga. Their family said they have had a great life and still live indepedently at ages 92 and 87.
Their children and spouses are Joan and Dan Runyon, and Brad and Tanya Souther.
Grandchildren and spouses are Kevin Keith, Shannon Runyon, Adam and Pam Souther, and Ashley and Jason Harris.
There are three great-grandchildren: Hunter and Zoe Runyan, and Whitley Harris.
Beverly and Kevin Foster, Harriman, and Mike Redmon, Kingston, announce the forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Mikaela Morgan Redmon, to Jonathan Michael Bullard.
He is the son of James and Kelley Bullard of Harriman.
The ceremony will be on March 30 at Grand Vista Bay, Rockwood.
The bride-elect is the granddaughter of Margaret L. Hacker of Harriman and the late Auriel Graydon Hacker, and Clayton and Nell Redmon of Oakdale.
She is employed with Cardiology Associates of East Tennessee.
Michael and Sharon Bedwell of Knoxville announce the forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Karen Bedwell, to Stephen Stone of Powell.
He is the son of Rick and Adele Stone of Kingston.
The ceremony will be at 5 p.m. March 23 in Christ Covenant Presbyterian Church at 12915 Kingston Pike, Knoxville.
Mr. and Mrs. Bill Lybarger of Canton, Ill., formerly of Kingston, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Feb. 9.
Their daughters hosted a reception in their honor in Canton, and the couple is planning to take a trip to celebrate their anniversary.
Lybarger and the former Kathleen "Kathy" Weaver were married on Feb. 9, 1963, in Canton First Christian Church, with the Rev. Orville Wright officiating.
He was a Caterpillar Inc. human resources manager who retired in 2007 after 44 years of service. She is a homemaker.
Gavin Lee Young will celebrate his first birthday on Feb. 23.
He is the son of Ashley Giles and Jesse Young.
Grandmother is Teresa Johnson.
Leslie Denise Stevens and Jarryd Reece Ritter, both of Alexandria, Va., were married on Nov. 16 at Biltmore Estate, Asheville, N.C.
The Rev. Tim Lolley officiated during the 6 p.m. ceremony.
The bride is the daughter of David and Lillian Stevens of Kingston. She is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and George Mason University.
The groom is the son of Dr. Joel and Wanda Ritter. He is a graduate of American University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ruby Julian will celebrate her 95th birthday on Feb. 21.
A native of Harriman, she is the oldest member of Walnut Hill Baptist Church.
She is the widow of Homer Julian Sr. and the mother of Homer Julian Jr. of Rockwood and Tom Julian and his wife, Pat, of Knoxville.
Julian also has four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
Five generations of Carrie Burchfield's family gathering for the recent holidays are, from left, Burchfield, 85; her son, Carl Burchfield; her grandson, David Burchfield; her great-granddaughter, Whitney Burchfield; and her great-great-granddaughter, Aleah Jewel Burchfield.
Copyright © 2019
The Roane County News is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in Roane County and Kingston, Tennessee, and the surrounding area.

subset: commoncrawl


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Pinning Jell-O to the Wall
I happen to like words, a lot. But in the past few days the words in this campaign are beginning to cloud my mind.
Last week, I was sure I was going to vote for Naftali Bennett. Now I just don't know.
First of all, he's just not accessible. I like that he is "one of us" and that he's running his campaign through social media. But his social media people aren't answering questions put to Bennett by me and my friends.
The excuses my friends give me are:
- He's too busy.
- He has too many thousands of supporters to answer every question put to him.
- My questions aren't worthy of his response.
I Like Text
But I'm not seeing answers to my questions anywhere in the media and if my concerns aren't worthy of a response, maybe I shouldn't be voting for the guy. On the other hand, my Hebrew isn't great and Bennett's not putting a lot of stuff out there in English except for clips of interviews. Those are nice, but I like text.
Bennett's parents are American, so I would expect to see him try to appeal to the Anglo community by offering a plethora of English content. But there has been almost no English content put out by his campaign. Not on Facebook and not on the party website.
Confession: I wrote and asked if they could use me as an English content writer. Predictably, I received no response.
No Response
The one thing I really like about Bibi is that he always serves up an English translation of everything he puts out on Facebook. That way, there's no guesswork for an immigrant like me who never really got the hang of the Hebrew thing.
I was glad they finally put English subtitles to the clip with Bennett's annexation plan. That should have helped me pin down what it is he means to do. But the fact is I'm more confused than ever.
I have several thoughtful friends who are planning to vote for Otzma L'Yisrael. They are telling me that Bennett's annexation plan is just another thinly veiled land giveaway under a different name. And they are persuasive. As one friend put it: "I can't support Bayit Yehudi's platform of giving away Hevron, Bet Lechem, Schem, and more, in exchange for annexing [Area] C."
That gave me pause for thought. 'Is that what Bennett's plan really means?' I wondered, and felt more confused than ever.
I watched Bennett's clip again, the one with the English subtitles, and tried to see if what my friend said was true. I watched the clip from start to finish and when I was done, I was no closer to understanding the sense of the words I had previously thought I had so clearly understood.
What does self-governance imply? Could we, for instance, continue to visit Joseph's Tomb once a month under heavy IDF guard as we do now, once Bennett's plan goes through? I have no clue.
Last election, I voted for Ichud HaLeumi. I didn't like that they did provocative stuff. But I agreed with the essence of their platform which is actually right-wing and not just purporting to be right wing. At least with THEM, I knew they would not support land giveaways, which is my central issue.
But I really am fed up with the provocations, which is why I really didn't want to vote for Otzma L'Yisrael, this party's latest incarnation. I don't like this in-your-face burning of Palestinian flags. It doesn't get us any closer to our goals. It's immature. So I thought I'd give Bennett a chance. The problem is, as we get closer to the election, the picture of what it is he stands for, far from being clarified, has become a murky morass of words.
A little over a week ago, Bennett was in the news for saying he'd refuse orders to throw Jews out of their homes. After he got called on that statement by the Likud, he amended his statement and said he meant that as an individual, as a soldier, he would have begged off as a conscientious objector, but that the army as a whole must obey legal orders. In other words, he used words as a veil and after the fact, cleaned up the verbal mess.
Now we have the Bennett supporters saying, "That's what he meant all along."
They tell you to listen to what he actually said in the first place—as if this proves something—which it doesn't.
The other side says exactly the same thing: "Watch what he said in the first place and you'll see that's exactly what he meant."
Now it's not only Bennett. We have Gideon Sa'ar saying that Bibi didn't really mean what he said about a two-state solution in his 2009 Bar Ilan speech; that was just realpolitik rhetoric to avoid Israel's further isolation. To which Bibi responds that he meant exactly what he said in 2009, it wasn't just realpolitik and he really IS for a two-state solution.
So we get a lot of words, but it's all a lot like pinning Jell-O to the wall.


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More than just hugs: Therapy animals require training, the right temperament
PHOENIX – The children buzz in excitement, boisterous and barging in, their little hands covering seemingly every part of the Australian shepherd's body.
Callie doesn't flinch, calmly lying at the centre of this circle of chaos, lightly panting with what appears to be a smile.
Dogs don't really smile, but this one sure was at ease.
"She loves the attention," Callie's handler Jeanette Wood said during the visit to the Child Crisis Center in Phoenix. "She eats this stuff up."
Callie makes calm amid the clutter look easy, but it's not.
Being a therapy dog – or cat or horse or whatever – like Callie takes a special kind of animal, one with just the right temperament and personality. It also takes training, not just for the animal, but for the handler.
"You have to be a certain kind of person and have a certain kind of dog to do this," said Pam Gaber, founder of Gabriel's Angels, an Arizona-based non-profit that delivers pet therapy to abused and at-risk children.
Therapy animals are used at hospitals, nursing homes, schools, rehabilitation centres, institutions and in one-on-one sessions with therapists. They also have been brought in to comfort victims of mass-casualty events, including the Newtown, Conn., school shooting and the Tucson shooting that targeted former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
They come from a wide range of species, from cats and rabbits to barnyard varieties like horses, goats and pigs. Exotic birds, hamsters and Guinea pigs, even llamas and alpacas also have been used to comfort people of all ages.
The most popular and recognizable therapy animals, not surprisingly, are dogs. And it's not even close.
Pet Partners, a non-profit organization that promotes positive animal interactions as a therapeutic resource, has 11,000 therapy teams in 14 countries and 95 per cent of their animals are dogs.
"Dogs are social by nature, but they're also accustomed to going with us, going out and meeting people," Bill Kueser, vice-president of marketing for Pet Partners, based in Bellevue, Wash. "We take them on walks, we go with them to the pet store to get dog food. We integrate them in our lives in sort of a wider spectrum of activities than other pets and species are integrated."
A wide variety of breeds is used. Gabriel's Angels, which serves 13,000 children in Phoenix and Tucson, has everything from a 4-pound Chihuahua to a 190-pound English mastiff, though most of its animals are golden retrievers, labs or a mix with either breed.
But not every dog is suitable for therapy.
The key is temperament. Therapy dogs need to be relatively even-keeled and enjoy being around people.
If a dog cowers around new people, is too timid or overbearing, or gets jumpy when there's a lot of commotion, it probably won't be a good fit as a therapy dog.
"Sometimes the person wants it more than the dog," said Gaber, who started Gabriel's Angels after taking her Weimaraner, Gabriel, to the Crisis Nursery in Phoenix in 2000. "If they're in the corner cowering, let them stay home and sleep on your bed during the day if that's what they want."
The dogs also must have basic obedience skills so they're not jumping on people or pulling on the leash, and they must be able to follow commands without being distracted.
Most dogs in this line of work go through training, and are registered with organizations such as Pet Partners or Therapy Dogs Inc.
Pet Partners has its animals and trainers go through an eight-hour, in-person training program, or through an online course that typically takes six to eight hours to complete. Handlers learn how to read their animal's stress level and make the animal comfortable in a variety of environments.
Pet Partners teaches handlers about the types of people they might visit – whether it's seniors at a nursing home or troubled teens at a group home – and the kinds of procedures they might encounter, such as infection control at a hospital. They learn to work in conditions that they are likely to run into, such as being near wheelchairs or hearing loud, startling noises.
"You need to expose the animal to situations he or she might face when visiting a hospital or some other place," Kueser said. "Distractions, noises, crowded petting, erratic behaviour are things we model in the (trainer) evaluation to make sure these things aren't overstressing to the animal."
Therapy animals are usually reevaluated every two years.
Gabriel's Angels has an extra step in its registration process, doing background checks, fingerprinting and asking for signed affidavits from handlers who will be interacting with children.
To get Callie ready for her foray into therapy for kids, Wood took her to playgrounds and had kids feed her treats; walked her through Home Depot and PetSmart; took her on buses and trains – any busy place she could find.
"The most important thing is to desensitize them so they'll be comfortable in these environments," she said.
With kids practically climbing on her, running brushes all over her coat and occasionally gripping her fur, there's not much doubt Callie is made for this.


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The Particulars
The Harvard softball team will travel south to play four games in two days at the Winthrop Adidas Invitational in Rock Hill, S.C. Harvard's opponents will be Delaware St., North Carolina A&T, Western Illinois and Winthrop.
Winthrop Adidas Invitational
The annual Winthrop Adidas Invitational begins on Friday, March 8 and runs through Sunday, March 10. The seven-team field will compete over three days with all the games being played at the Winthrop Softball Complex. The field this year includes Harvard, Winthrop, Delaware St., Georgia, Kent St., North Carolina A& T, and Western Illinois.
Last Time Out
Harvard went 2-3 at the Florida Athletic Class Invitational to open its 2013 campaign. The Crimson opened the weekend with a slow start that led to a 5-1 setback to Jacksonville, but wasted no time in the second game of the day. Against Ball State, sophomore shortstop Emily Gusse hit a grand slam in the first inning and Harvard capitalized on two Cardinal errors to give the Crimson an early 6-0 lead en route to a 7-6 win. Day 2 mirrored the same results as the opening day as Harvard split games, falling to Eastern Michigan, 3-1, in the first contest and bouncing back for a 3-2 victory over host Florida Atlantic in the nightcap. The Crimson concluded its Florida stay with a 1-0 defeat at the hand of Michigan State.
Scouting Delaware St.
Delaware State enters the tournament with a 1-6 record. The Hornets begin the Winthrop tournament looking to snap a four-game losing streak with its lone win this season coming in the opening game of the UNF Osprey Invitational. In the game, which took place March 1 against St. Bonaventure, Delaware scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning for a dramatic 7-6 walk-off win. Jennifer Fischbach earned the victory in the circle for Delaware State, but the freshman has lost her last three contests. Classmate Jordan Stamps leads the Hornets' offense with five RBI and five hits this season.
Series History
Saturday's game marks the third installment between the Crimson and Hornets. The two programs met for a two-game series in April 2004, which they split, to keep the all-time series tied at one win apiece.
Scouting North Carolina A& T
The Aggies have dropped their past seven contests to enter the invitational with a 1-9 season mark. Second baseman Tiffany Macklin hit the game-winning two-run RBI single to center field, helping North Carolina to a 11-10 win over UMES in the North Carolina A&T Softball Invitational. Each of North Carolina's pitchers has seen action this spring with freshman Jankika May earning the lone win.
Series History
The Crimson and Aggies will meet for the first time Saturday.
Scouting Western Illinois
Western Illinois travels to South Carolina after an 11-day break since the 2013 Coach B Classic was cancelled. The Fighting Leathernecks opened the 2013 campaign with two wins in which they scored 10 runs, but dropped five straight at the Bama Bash including two to No. 1/2 Alabama for a 2-5 record. Sophomore Lia Romeo has recorded eight RBI on five hits and has scored two runs while junior Moinica Rondon has chipped in seven RBI on five hits and four runs. Senior Kelsey Michelini and freshman Kaceyee Hart each have a win in the circle for Western Illinois. Michelini has accounted for 11 of the Leathernecks' 18 strikeouts.
Series History
This will be the first meeting between the two programs.
Scouting Winthrop
Winthrop enters its fourth invitational, and second home invitational of the season with a 7-10 record. The Eagles most recently sandwiched a 12-10 win in a three-game series against Longwood Tuesday, March 5 at their home field, where they own an even 3-3 record this season. Chelsea Schoenfeldt has been an offensive sparkplug so far this season, registering 16 hits, including four home runs, for 16 RBI and 14 runs while senior infielder Kathryn Eberlin has connected on 14 of 45 at-bats, including four home runs, 12 RBI and five runs to lead Winthrop's offense. In the circle, sophomore Sutton Watson holds six of the Eagles' victories, and has tallied 52 strikeouts.
Series History
Winthrop scored a run in extra innings March 23, 2007, to secure the victory in the only meeting between the Crimson and Eagles.
When It Gets Back
Harvard will take its annual spring break trip when it heads to San Diego, Calif., for the San Diego Classic II, which begins on Friday, March 15. The Crimson opens the classic against Colorado State at 5 p.m. (EST).


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What's this here? A leaked prop from Tron: Legacy? A high-tech bug zapper? It's something much more basic than those, but still fit for a king.
What you're looking at is a high resolution photograph of the noble gas Argon, taken by Wikipedia user alchemist-hp. It's one in a series of 36 pictures taken so far, with the ultimate goal being to capture all 94 naturally occurring elements to fill in his clickable periodic table. Here are some others; try guessing what they are before looking at the label:
It's obviously evocative of the Elements app, although with the added benefit of being totally free. [Wikipedia via Make]


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Related Resource
Air Quality Management in the United States (January 2004)Report in Brief
The implementation of air quality regulations should be less bureaucratic -- with more emphasis on results than process -- and should be designed to protect ecosystems as well as people. The report recommends that The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) use an approach to target groups of pollutants instead of individual ones and that revised or new regulations also should consider how air pollution travels from state to state and across international borders. In addition, improved tracking of emissions is needed to accurately assess what populations are at the highest risk of health problems from pollution and to better measure the progress of pollution-control strategies.


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HARTSVILLE, S.C. – The Coker Cobras blanked the Jaguars of Georgia Regents University-Augusta 8-0 on Wednesday (April 16) afternoon in NCAA Division II baseball action.
Six different Cobra pitchers combined for the shut out. Freshman Forrest Arnold (4-2) earned the win with a solid two innings of work. He held the Jaguars hitless and scoreless with a strikeout during his time on the mound.
Sammy Song and Jack Leech led the way for the Cobras at the plate. Song drove in three runs on a triple, while Leech was 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs. Fico Kondla also picked up two hits including a double with two runs scored. Ernie Kirkwood and Will Winslow each drove in a run for the Cobras as well.
Coker scored the first runs of the game in the bottom of the third thanks to a two-run triple by Song and an RBI by Winslow. An RBI single by Kirkwood and a RBI sacrifice bunt by Leech in the bottom of the fifth put the Cobras on top 5-0. Coker tacked on two more runs with a sacrifice fly by Song in the sixth and an RBI single by Leech in the seventh for a 7-0 final.
The Cobras will return to action on Friday (April 18) and Saturday (April 19) as they host Brevard College in a three-game South Atlantic Conference series. Game one will take place on Friday at 3 p.m. at Coker's Tom J. New Field.
McDonald's Players of the Game – Sammy Song, Jack Leech & Forrest Arnold


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What is it about today's theological liberals that they are so keen on quoting John Henry Newman in support of their own disobedience? I had forgotten how utterly contemptible the National Catholic Reporter (aka, says Father Z, the "fishwrap", ie wet and stinking) really was; I suppose, since the only time one normally reads it is in the often admirable articles of John L Allen, that one sometimes takes away the impression that if they publish him they can't be all that grossly subversive of Catholic values and teaching. But they really are, as we see exemplified by an editorial on women's ordination this week which is really an excuse for yet another incitement to rejection of papal authority.
But why are they so keen on recruiting Newman of all people in their crypto-protestant revolt? Either they quote him out of context or just make it up. In this case, I think it's almost certainly the latter, since Newman just didn't think what they say he did: "Blessed John Henry Newman," according to the NCR's "editorial staff", "said [just where exactly?] that there are three magisteria in the church: the bishops, the theologians and the people." This little pseudo-Newmanian gem is called in aid for an incitement to an anti-papal political campaign: "On the issue of women's ordination, two of the three voices have been silenced, which is why the third voice must now make itself heard. We must speak up in every forum available to us: in parish council meetings, faith-sharing groups, diocesan convocations and academic seminars. We should write letters to our bishops, to the editors of our local papers and television news channels." And so on.
It's not particularly interesting to be told that the Fishwrap is viscerally opposed to papal authority and wants to stir up lay disobedience to it, we all knew that. But to have Newman constantly invoked in this anti-Catholic cause is becoming increasingly irritating. "The pope," said Newman "has for centuries upon centuries had and used that authority, which the Definition [of infallibility] now declares ever to have belonged to him … It may be objected that a representation such as this, is negatived by the universal [anti-papal] sentiment, which testifies to the formidable effectiveness of the Vatican decrees, and to the Pope's intention that they should be effective; that it is the boast of some Catholics and the reproach levelled against us by all Protestants, that the Catholic Church has now become beyond mistake a despotic aggressive Papacy, in which freedom of thought and action is utterly extinguished. But I do not allow that this alleged unanimous testimony exists… I say there is only one Oracle of God, the Holy Catholic Church and the Pope as her head. To her teaching I have ever desired all my thoughts, all my words to be conformed; to her judgment I submit what I have now written, what I have ever written, not only as regards its truth, but as to its prudence, its suitableness, and its expedience. (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 10)"
How about them apples, "NCR editorial staff"? How on earth did you ever come to believe that Newman could with any integrity be used in support of your anti-papal campaign? You, too, like the protestant and liberal Catholic opinion of Newman's own day, really do believe that, like the great and Blessed Pio Nono, the present Pope has established "a despotic aggressive Papacy": and now as then, Newman would have been utterly dismissive of your disobedience: "On the law of conscience and its sacredness," he wrote (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 5) are founded both his authority in theory and his power in fact … I am considering here the papacy in its office and its duties … [Catholics] are not bound by the Pope's personal character or private acts, but by his formal teaching."
And the Pope's formal teaching on the question of women's ordination is absolutely clear, and you are bound by it. If, that is, you wish to continue in full communion with the Catholic Church. In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared the question closed in his letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: "in order that all doubt may be removed," he pronounced, "regarding a matter of great importance… I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." In 1995, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, though "itself not infallible, witnesses to the infallibility of the teaching of a doctrine already possessed by the Church… This doctrine belongs to the deposit of the faith of the Church. The definitive and infallible nature of this teaching of the Church did not arise with the publication of the Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis". Rather, it was "founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium", and for these reasons it "requires definitive assent".
Clear? Got it? That is what the magisterium of the Church says. Oh, and let's hear no more about these fictional "three magisteria" of bishops, theologians and people: apart from anything else, the very idea that Newman would ever have said that the Church's theologians constitute one of three "magisteria" beggars belief, less that he would ever have said it than that anyone could ever have remotely imagined such a thing: are you sure, NCR "editorial staff" that you weren't thinking of Hans Küng? That would explain it; they've obviously got it into their heads, these theological liberals (the Tablet are always claiming Newman for themselves in just the same way) that Newman was a kind of Victorian version of Hans Küng. Well, sorry; it just ain't so. Hands off.


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League, Union meet Monday to discuss CBA proposalby Corey Masisak
Members of the NHL's bargaining committee met with representatives of the National Hockey League Players' Association at the League's office in New York on Monday to resume negotiations toward a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Both sides expect to reconvene Tuesday.
The NHLPA presented a response to the League's offer, which was delivered Thursday, during a meeting that lasted approximately three hours.
"Their response was a comprehensive one, dealing with a full slate of issues that we raised in the proposal we put forth," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "We're in the process of reviewing their response. We will do that tonight and our expectation is that we will contact them [Tuesday] morning to arrange to get back together -- hopefully certainly by mid-day."
Bettman confirmed previous reports that the "puck needs to drop" by Jan. 19 for the League to play a 48-game schedule this season. Games have been cancelled through Jan. 14, along with the 2013 NHL All-Star Game.
NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr was joined by six players for the negotiation session Monday -- Chris Campoli, Shane Doan, Rick DiPietro, Ron Hainsey, Jamal Mayers and Martin St. Louis.
According to numerous reports, the NHL's latest offer Thursday would set contract limits at a maximum of six years (seven for a team retaining its own player, provided the player has been with the club for the equivalent of a full season), allow teams one compliance buyout before the start of the 2013-14 season and cap the variance on year-to-year salaries in a contract at 10 percent.
The NHL's previous offer reportedly included contract limits of five years, no compliance buyouts and a maximum of five percent annual variance on salaries. Those reports said compliance buyouts would not count against the salary cap for the team initiating the buyout, but a portion of the buyout would be factored into the formula that determines the players' share of hockey-related revenue (HRR).
"We gave them a response today," Fehr said. "We met for a couple sessions that weren't terribly long and there was something to work on for both sides. ... This discussion was for us to respond and for them to ask questions and us to explain a number of the points we made. We expect to hear from them tomorrow."


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Reader Comments
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Yeppers, 16 May 2006 @ 7:00pmI got the First P-O-S-T in!
wulfman (profile), 16 May 2006 @ 7:20pm
XM is greatI have XM and dont use it for the Music so does that mean i have to pay ? i listen to talk and drama. the RIAA needs a life
mad as hello kitty, 16 May 2006 @ 7:31pmTHis is money hungry crap! Next they will be suing us for saying Sony, BMG, Atlantic and so on. Just stupid. Its yours you paid for it. If I wanna record the radio I will. SHould I pay more for my radio then? NO, idiot thinkers. This is what keeps people, me atleast, from buying from some of these companies.
Manedible, 16 May 2006 @ 7:34pm
Greediness hurts in the long runI can see both sides to it. One, I am a musician myself, and I need every bit of money I can get. On the other hand, I know personally having music available for free on the internet is a great way to expand a user base, and the recording companies aren't losing too much money in that category. Third, people recording music has been possible ever since they had cassette players with the record button on radios. These companies are just hurting their reputation severely with their lame attempts to put DRM on disks and sue everyone. Someone really needs to curb the RIAA, and teach those congress men a little about the digital world, which most don't even know how to use and iPod. Oh well.
Re: Greediness hurts in the long runI can see both sides to it. One, I am a musician myself, and I need every bit of money I can get. On the other hand, I know personally having music available for free on the internet is a great way to expand a user base, and the recording companies aren't losing too much money in that category.
But this isn't about music being free on the internet, it's about people recording music off a stream they've paid for.
Tom McLernon, 22 May 2006 @ 9:31am
Re: Greediness hurts in the long runSo you try to earn a living as a musician? Do you actually write and perform your own music? To do this successfully you need a fan base, people who like and buy your music.
In the old business model the recording companies would sign you up, and record a disk, and then promote and distribute the hell out of the music on radio networks. Then pay the musician pennies on the dollar for album sales.
There are alternate possible business models now, promotion and distribution is still required to get the fan base and easy access to the music, but the recording companies are no longer required for this function.
Musicians could probably hire their own management and promotion company, to book promotional tours, have their own web site, and sell directly to the fans. And keep about 90% of the money generated, instead of less than 10%..
Jack, 16 May 2006 @ 7:58pm
xm radioIf this hadn't all been stirred up by so many people swapping music via Napster, Bearshare, and Kazaa(to name a few) to begin with we wouldn't be in this pickle now. Yes, we as the consumer should have the right to copy anything we pay for(backup copies), but the record industry has rights also. Most people seem to forget that the record industry releases music to make money and they have the right to protect their interests.
Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2006 @ 5:55am
Re: xm radiothe record industry... have the right to protect their interests
So do I.
MrScott, 16 May 2006 @ 8:08pm
Times are changing!I, for one, can fully agree with Manedible, saying that the artist should be compensated for their work. I agree with that whole-heartedly. BUT...since times (and technology) has changed, maybe...looking to other resources to distribute your music, art, movies..whatever the case may be, instead of going through the major labels, is the way to go.
Think back when the big labels were born. They were born to help distribute the artist's work. There was no other option to get this done back then. Most of us didn't have the internet to distribute our work, let alone know what that was, or have the means to get our work out to the public. It's funny how people won't take the time to research how to find other means of getting it out to the public, so they just rely of the big labels to do the work for them.
Here's an old business cliche'...if you want to make money, you gotta *spend* money. Think about that for a minute. Think about making a web site (or something similar) where you have to pay to download. I know there's plenty of sites like that making a good profit AND the artists are still making money at the same time. Problem solved? I don't think so! Seems that the *AA's want to get their greedy little grubby hands on ALL music and ALL video content and make MORE money off it. That's the bottom line. Times have changed and they *refuse* to adapt to it, and end up suing the people that have supported them for years. Kinda like something my father told me as a child...NEVER bite the hand that feeds you!
Until the labels adapt to the changing times and technology, this battle will never end!
The Toe, 16 May 2006 @ 8:09pm
Re:XM RADIO By JackI'm an artist also. XM already pays license fees to the RIAA to broadcast as do other types of broadcast systems. Are they going to hit FM radio too because someone hit the record button? I release music to make money but I'm not going to sue someone who has already paid the fee because I've become greedy.
Still optimistic, 16 May 2006 @ 8:11pm
Don't give up. The media is dead, long live the meOutrage follows laughable outrage. Let me get straight to the point. There are some of us out there building a better future. Programmers, artists, producers, businessmen and music lovers. But the orthodoxy won't quietly die overnight. Copyleft, creative commons, netlables, - people the future is coming on fast and big change is happening now!
This relies on your help and your intelligence.
1) Do not "pirate" music. Erase all that retro crap you downloaded to your iPod. Exchanging and circulating corporate controlled copyright music only keeps these criminal organisations alive, feeds their case and keeps you hooked to their drug.
2) Download music free from the internet. There are tens of thousands of bands and artists who give away their music for free, lots of it is very good, it's just not sanctioned by the bought and paid for mainstream outlets. Suport the REAL "indie" artists, filmmakers and musicians by buying their products direct using paypal etc.
3) If you are a DJ, radio or TV producer do not play or use tracks RIAA or major lable associations, get off your ass and go out there and find some of the millions of encumberance free tracks that great artists are hoping you will use. Bypass performance rights organisations and negotiate terms with artists directly.
4) If you are a band or artists NEVER sign a contract with a major company. All your work is protected under copyright by default, that's the law, you don't need any middle man. Get out there and market your stuff, the internet is an amazing tool.
5) Build your own networks through social and links oriented sites that allow you to exchange info on free music and media. The middlemen rely on your ignorance and disconnect with culture. Get with the program. If you still buy your music from iTunes or from a music shop you're in the wrong century.
6) Support the EFF, boycott.riaa and other advocacy groups aiming to dismantle and bury the established order of leeching criminal extortionists
Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2006 @ 8:13am
Re: Don't give up. The media is dead, long live thyawn ive never found an unsigned rock giving away free music online that was worth a crap.
i'll keep trying, but the only way to get anything entertaining is by dealing with the cartel, legally or illegally.
9Nails, 16 May 2006 @ 8:20pm
Making music less accessable to the publicNow the Recording Industry Ass. of America is just being greedy. $150,000 for every song? They're just polishing a turd and trying to sell it to a judge as gold and diamonds, when it's still just a turd. I really wish I was a judge on this case!
XM all ready paid fee's to play the music. Now they have to pay more for a feature that their customer *might* use?!
Someone please make the RIAA go a way! If you're and RIAA lawyer, please charge them more until they're bankrupt from their own stupidity.
Smitty, 16 May 2006 @ 8:29pm
What about fee's to the artists?CD sales for an artists have a working formula that can be described at the following link:
As you see, CD sales don't really benifit the artist as much as it benifits the label. How much of this new fee will be compensated to the artists? Will it be another fat zero?
Jone Doe, 16 May 2006 @ 8:38pmI think everyone should quit buying Sony products,
They were the ones that started all this chit.
They're electronics are a bunch of junk anyway.
Dwight Schrute, 16 May 2006 @ 8:52pm
From the news dept...In related news, RIAA/MPAA become saddened to learn they don't control rotation of universe...
Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2006 @ 7:13am
Re: From the news dept...Right -- that was Microsoft!
Riverrat, 17 May 2006 @ 7:34am
Re: From the news dept...But you know,they will never stop trying...And congrress,being the spineless jellyfish that they are will cave into their wants every bloody time.
some guy, 16 May 2006 @ 9:23pm
wowYou'd almost think the RIAA just hasn't been aware of Betamax. How about cassette tape recorders? How about my TiVo which, yes, can record the Sirius I get with my Dish Network subscription... oh wait, I can output that to my comp and make MP3's woohoo. :| Oh wait, I can just record straight from my satellite radio receiver to my home component system, my computer, or whatever.
Oh, so their argument is about mobile devices having recording capabilities then...
Did they sleep through the Sony WALKMAN, a mobile device that could also recorded FREE AM/FM radio that people weren't even paying for already, like they are with XM?
Don't hand me that music quality argument. AM sucks but FM sounds great to me! Satellite can be just as scratchy at times.
Guess what, no one will probably record the music because they aren't getting the entire album. All they have to do is tune in later and I'd bet they will hear the same damn song anyway so why bother recording. Besides, it's already PAID FOR.
The only reason this is happening is because people are sick of forking out way too much money for CD's in pretty packaging, and now there more alternatives. If Big Brother Music actually paid the artists a decent share, that's one thing, but they don't. You can't cry for the artists, they get the shaft on CD's anyway unless they are making cheapie burns in their basement, or they are Metallica.
Speaking of, Big Brother Music's offerings SUCK anyway. They promote garbage, tell youth it's cool to like some band, then they pay the radio stations to play garbage, and to cycle it every few hours at most. What's that about anyway? Perhaps people have finally caught on to scheme. I hear something 4 times a day on the radio, I know it's the best track that crappy band has to offer and that's why it's on the radio, so why would I want to buy the CD?! I've already heard their best so many times I hate it after a week of driving to and from work, so they expect me to buy the rest of that drivel?! Seriously! Satellite radio is at least a little better at diversity.
Perhaps if they were to actually pull up some talent or something a little different that didn't follow the same spoon fed recycled fad pop formula that made them money 1, 2, 5, or 10 years ago, they might see more people start spending money. How many times can you recycle Korn with different band names? 10, more? How many times have I heard virtually the same band with a different name over the last 10 years. Too many. What's worse is listening to the radio in the last few years... you don't have to wait a year to hear the same tired band with a different name, just listen to the next track before you turn the radio off and that's exactly what you'll get!
I understand that record companies can't produce for artists without money, but they can certainly do it on much less than they enjoy today so it's not about that, yet. It's because some exec didn't get a pay raise last year. The more we won't tolerate it and don't buy their crap, the more they screw the artists so they can hang on to the cut they are accustomed to.
It's not just about their dying business model and their refusal to adapt to technology and find other painfully obvious ways to make money, it's because all of those other painfully obvious ways to make money don't allow for them to rip off the artists like they have been doing all these years. Their money streams will reduce to a trickle no matter what because they are a dying breed, just like traditional telecom companies. The only difference is, these idiots don't seem to want to try something new to keep the cash rolling in, because they know it won't be as profitable as they think it should be. awe, boo hoo. poor criminals can't keep extorting both us AND the artists at the same time. *sniff* *sniff*
The only real shame is good bands that don't get radio play (any band that does get radio play is guilty until proven innocent INHO) still want to hang on to the hand that feeds them so little. I'd love it if my favorite bands just put up a paypal link on their website; they could even pay the recording companies with that, only giving them what they think is fair for a change. Too bad they won't (or can't) do it.
If I ever get some decent recording equipment (actually home stuff is pretty cheap and can produce some very good quality recordings these days) and get my band back together, I'll join the ranks of so many great artists distributing free music on the internet. If I want money, I'll include a paypal link. If I want a good laugh probably too.... we sucked. Well no, we just sounded like radio bands. Yeah, we sucked.
joe stacey, 16 May 2006 @ 9:40pmi understand being a starving artist. i record music, i have $3.75 to my name and i just had Ramen for dinner again..
but, most of this money doesn't go to the artists.. it goes to the bloodthirsty businessmen whose livelihoods depend on the artists' creations...
it goes to the labels, the agents, the CEO's, not the artists..
Rick Bunker, 16 May 2006 @ 10:07pm
why is XM different than FM or cable music channelWhy does the RIAA want to treat XM differently than FM or the music channels on cable, which can of course be easily recorded? They are digital on the cable channels, too, and on HD FM radio, so it can't be that. Does anyone know their rationale?
Pesti, 16 May 2006 @ 10:26pm
Re: why is XM different than FM or cable music chaRationality assumes intelligence....RIAA obviously has none!
Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2006 @ 7:20am
Re: why is XM different than FM or cable music chaJust a guess, but out of those other options you listed, isn't this the only one where the broadcasting company is also the company selling the recording equipment?
They're not clamping down on TiVo for recording digital cable stations because TiVo and Comcast, for instance, aren't the same company. Harder for the RIAA lawyers to allege conspiracy when they have so subpeona more than one company. >snicker
Pippy, 16 May 2006 @ 10:19pmThe RIAA was once created to standardize recording specifications for records- pitch, groove, etc, so that the same LP would sound the same as others.
Today the RIAA is holding onto an old archaic business model which they can not control, and as a typical dying monopolist, is more involved in creating public policy than enriching the lives of their customerbase.
Tricon, 16 May 2006 @ 10:59pm
How long will it be until people get so fed up that they start buying directly from the artists or perhaps indie-labels? Looking at the future of the Internet and social networks, it would not be hard for bands to promote themselves. In some cases it has even been done.
Mike, 16 May 2006 @ 11:11pmXM already pays the record labels MILLIONS in royalties while FM radio pays absolutely NOTHING to the record labels! This is rediculous. They should go after the free radio and the new HD radio that will easily be pirated!
Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2006 @ 8:48am
Re: by MikeWhen did FM stop paying the record labels?
George, 16 May 2006 @ 11:49pmThe consumer pays the recording industry for music. The recording industry pays the artist. The artist are the ones complaining that they are not getting paid enough.
Hmmm. If the artist boycott the recording industry, the consumer and artist are happy. Music will be cheaper, since the artist are not use to getting paid that much and would be happy with a 300% raise. That makes sense to me.
Ryan, 17 May 2006 @ 3:44am
This is STUPIDHow can they just do that? They are money hungry, and XM will win in the long run anyway. Even if XM loses, and they have to pay up, the monthly fee will rise, and then they will lose listeners, which eventually will hurt the music industry, so really, they are suing themselves.
TheMajor, 17 May 2006 @ 5:40am
XM OwnerI, too, am a subscriber of XM. If they cave to the RIAA or if they loose a lawsuit and raise prices, I'll ditch the whole thing and go back to my 20GB portable player. I like XM for the variety, local traffic and weather, and so on, but paying more is outside my budget. If XM goes under, because I and others like me can't/won't pay more, then someone from the RIAA please tell me, HOW DID YOU WIN? If you shut down a source of revenue, how is that a good thing? I can't understand a business model that is so anti-customer. "Give me more or you can't have any?" If my local bar-and-grill did that, I tell them to shove it and eat somewhere else. I guess that's it isn't it, the RIAA doesn't think that there is a "somewhere else." Won't they be surprised one day....we can only hope.
Gary, 17 May 2006 @ 7:41am
RIAAThen I suppose we, those who have recorded music from FM radio over the years, owe them money also. I have given up on buying CD's, if we do not own the right to put them on anything we want to listen to, them the music should be $5 a disc!
Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2006 @ 8:06am
DVRBesides just being able to record from FM what about anyone who owns a DVR or a VCR?
Does this mean they will also sue anyone with a DVR/VCR who records music videos or music off of MTV or VH1 or one of the many other music channels (including those that play music and not just music video)
I can see it now the RIAA will file court orders to have the cable companies and other DVR device/service providers either release the records of people that recorded from certain channels...like music channels...and then go after the consumer for doing so or sue the device/service provider and demand more license fees…what a joke
Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2006 @ 9:36amOh my gawd!! Next they will becoming after us because we can record the songs on the radio to cassette tapes! Capitalism at it's finest!
an old guy, 17 May 2006 @ 11:23am
the past and futureEverything that I will ever need in music is already either out there for me to capture or is already here with me on cassette, CD and DVD. I am a "Classic Rock", "stuck in the sixties and seventies and eighties" (no Disco please), living in the past graybeard son of a bitch. There is no way they can charge me again for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger, Jethro Tull ..... etc, etc, etc..... My 26 year old son likes my music. My 3 year old grandson likes my music. My soon to be born granddaughter will like my music. They all like (or will like) most of my movies too. They get it all from me FOR FREE. They always will. Pure digital copies for free - forever. No rules or legislation can stop that.
I sit here in my personal office surrounded by technology. Digital sound and video. A powerful computer with massive amounts of storage. DVD player, VCR, cassette deck, 500 channel satellite receiver, high speed internet, dual direction digital/analog signal converter, two CD/DVD burners and software that allows me to snare and copy absolutely anything with no restrictions. I invest in, and keep up with, the latest copy protection busting hardware and software available. I will reproduce my music and video as long as I live and share it as many times as I can. For free. If I pay to see it and/or hear it, I can and will copy it and keep it for posterity. I will shift it from one format to another. If anyone thinks that is stealing then "oh, fucking well".
Are there really people who believe that they can take all of this away from me? Do they really think that the world is stuck in the past like me and my music? Can they really not see that the world is moving on and you either hold on for the ride or jump off and stay behind? It makes me ashamed that I may have helped this generation of money and power hungry sons of bitches come into existence. I am not, and will not, be one of them.
This is the only way for me to resist the forces that we all feel from big business and politicians. I will follow MY rules and regulations as to what constitutes "fair use". Screw those people who would control me. Catch me if you can, and then catch my children, and their children and their children. (Zeppelin anyone?)
This will all fade away and die after a few years - it always does. It will also come back again - it always does. The faces will change but the voices will remain the same. There will always be a new battle and something new to fight over. There will be new armies on both sides and it will go on and on.
Take what you have and pass it on. Buy new things if you like them, but only buy them once. Don't even think about trying "to sell me something that is mine". (James Gang "Rides Again")
And you better watch out - there may be dogs about. They watch over the sheep.
alternatives, 18 May 2006 @ 4:52amMost people seem to forget that the record industry releases music to make money and they have the right to protect their interests.
If they can get the FBI to chase after violators, then why can I?
I'm stuck having to pay for my own investigations AND via taxation their investigation.
Brian Hageman, 18 May 2006 @ 10:14amI was just humming an Eagles tune. Can someone please send me a link to where I can send payment to the RIAA. I don't wont them to show up at my house, cut off my ears and lobotomize me because of non-payment of royalties.
Tony, 8 Nov 2006 @ 4:57amBut you know, they will never stop trying .....And congrres, being the spineless jelyfish that they are will forex cave into their wants every bloody time.
none at all, 8 Mar 2007 @ 2:13amThe recording industry had its day. It is obsolete. Perhaps we will revert to the norm for most humans for most of history, where the vast majority of musicians did NOT get paid for making music. It's high time mass culture finished rotting and was composted -we don't need sheeple OR music that caters to them.
For christs sake, you can't STOP most musicians from making music. If you like an artist's music, figure out how to send the artist money, tax free. If you feel the need to give their family charity, donate to their family. But don't fall for the delusion that they DESERVE to get paid forever, let alone that corporations that claim to *own* ideas deserve ANYTHING.
I'm a good lover too. Should I always charge for that? ICK.
Joe Ann and Kwiesi Davis, 1 Aug 2008 @ 9:09am
Getting Paid per the internet for your original piecesSUBJECT: We'd like to get paid for our original when people listent to them via the internet. What companies offers this? My grand son and I are an inter-generational performing arts team with all original music. I'd like to know "if a singer has original pieces that he/or she would like to upload to a record company on line and get paid for their on original stuff whenever music lovers download for listening in car, ipod etc.?" My grand son and I would like to get paid for our hard work in the entertainment industry.
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Related Information
In 1984, Toshiba developed a new type of semiconductor memory called flash memory, leading the industry into the next generation - well ahead of its competitors.
Later, in 1987, Toshiba developed NAND flash memory (NAND), which has been used ever since in a variety of memory cards and electronic equipment. The NAND market has grown rapidly, with flash memory becoming an internationally standardized memory device. Toshiba, the inventor of flash memory, has carved out a path to a new era in which we are all able to carry videos, music and data with us wherever we go.


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Photographer Mike Fuchs has a foible for snow and ice. On April the man from Berlin started his next polar expedition. He carries the Tamron SP 24-70mm F/2,8, with him, which has proven itself as a reliable partner in extreme conditions.
Tamron is developing an advanced new all-in-one™ wide-angle to telephoto zoom lens for full-frame DSLR cameras.
The previous two articles of our series "Image Structure" have dealt with the view frame and the (empty) space in a picture. In conclusion, it now gets a little less theoretical. In this article we want to inspire you to intensively deal with two main aspects of photography: Shooting distance and perspective.
Composition is the key to a good picture. In the first part of our series on composition we looked at the role of the viewfinder as the main composition tool in photography. A good photographer uses the viewfinder frame consciously to integrate or exclude certain elements.
January, with its dreary colours and subjects, doesn't exactly tempt you outdoors to take pictures. The days are short, the trees are bare, and life, for the most part, takes place indoors. It is, therefore, the perfect time of year to do some intensive work on some of the basic aspects of photography – composition, for example.


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Martorano and Merrill Named to ECAC Metro All-Star
- Martorano named First-Team, Merrill receives Second-Team honors
Cape Cod, Mass. - The Farmingdale State women's soccer team had two players named to the Eastern College Athletic Conference Division III Metro All-Star Team. Freshman defender Theresa Martorano (Commack, N.Y./Commack) was named a First-Team All-Star, while freshman forward Christina Merrill (Levittown, N.Y./Island Trees) was selected to the Second-Team.
Martorano led Farmingdale's defense which was ranked number one in the Skyline, with 15 shutouts and a 0.85 goals against average. The Rams allowed only a single goal in nine Skyline Conference games. Martorano, who started every game for Farmingdale State, also contributed with three goals and three assists.
Merrill, who played in every game for Farmingdale, scored seven goals and had Skyline Conference leading 10 assists on the year. She held a 0.43 assist per game average, which was ranked third in the conference. Merrill was second on the team and eighth in the Skyline with 24 points. In Skyline Conference games, Merrill was the leader with eight assists in nine games played, second in points (20), second in points per game (2.22) and ninth in goals per game (0.67).
The 2009 ECAC Division III Metro Women's Soccer All-Stars are as follows...
Offensive Player of
the Year
Jess Babice, Junior, Forward, Rowan
Defensive Player of the Year
Christine Foy, Sophomore, Defender, Rowan
Rookie of the Year
Lauren Dorsey-Spitz, Freshman, Forward, Bard
First Team All-Stars
Jess Babice, Junior, Forward, Rowan
Veronica Rhea, Sophomore, Forward, Rowan
Cassandra Esposito, Sophomore, Forward, Old Westbury
Lauren Dorsey-Spitz, Freshman, Forward, Bard
Abigail Katz, Freshman, Midfielder, SUNY Purchase
Shelley Gibney, Junior, Midfielder, Richard Stockton
Jennifer Campisi, Senior, Midfielder, Old Westbury
Christine Foy, Sophomore, Defender, Rowan
Theresa Martorano, Freshman, Defender, Farmingdale State
Kim Larie, Sophomore, Defender, Bard
Leah Tepperman, Senior, Goalkeeper, Montclair State
Second Team All-Stars
Rebecca Marszalek, Sophomore, Forward, Sage
Christina Merrill, Freshman, Forward, Farmingdale State
Danielle Esposito, Sophomore, Forward, Kean
Briann McDonough, Junior, Forward, TCNJ
Cosie Andujar, Freshman, Midfielder, Bard
Ashley Allain, Junior, Midfielder, Sage
Annie McCarthy, Sophomore, Midfielder, TCNJ
Ashley Panepinto, Sophomore, Defender, SUNY Purchase
Kristi Verzi,Senior, Defender, Rowan
Caitlin Toomey, Senior, Defender, Rowan
Brittany McDonald, Junior, Goalkeeper, Sage


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POPs Culture
POPs Culture
Between 1962 and 1970, U.S. soldiers and their South Vietnamese allies sprayed nearly 12 million gallons of herbicide over vast tracts of Southeast Asian forest and more than half of South Vietnams arable land. The program was designed to eliminate any cover that might conceal North Vietnamese Army units or Viet Cong guerrillas. The crews on the planes that did the spraying devised a slogan for themselvesa variation on a famous Smokey the Bear public service message back in the United States. They said, only you can prevent forests.
The herbicide came in orange-striped drums, so it was called agent orange. It was a mixture of two chemicals: 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, both of them commonly used herbicides at the time. As with complex synthetic chemicals in general, these herbicides contained trace amounts of various unwanted substances that arose as byproducts of production. Among the byproducts were some of the chemicals called dioxins. A 1985 report by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency called dioxins the most potent carcinogen ever tested in laboratory animals. More recent laboratory work has linked dioxins with birth defects, spontaneous abortion, and injury to the immune system. When those two herbicides were sold in the United States, they typically contained dioxin concentrations of about 0.05 parts per million. But agent orange had dioxin concentrations up to 1,000 times as high.
At the time, the spraying of agent orange seemed a relatively minor part of the conflict. The dioxins, however, will linger in Vietnams soil long after the war has vanished from living memory. Yet no one is really sure how much damage has been done. Medical doctors in Vietnam do not, by and large, have the resources to carry out longterm public health studies, but some doctors report that in sprayed areas, certain birth defects have become more common: anencephaly (absence of all or part of the brain), spina bifida (a malformation of the vertebral column), and hydrocephaly (overproduction of cerebrospinal fluid, causing a swelling of the skull). Immune deficiency diseases and learning disabilities may also be higher in sprayed areas. And if the human damage is uncertain, the broader ecological impact is a complete mystery.
In part because it is so vague, the agent orange legacy illustrates some of the worst aspects of dealing with dangerous synthetic chemicals like dioxins. For purposes of environmental analysis, dioxins are grouped in a loose class of potent toxins known as POPs, short for persistent organic pollutants. The full definition of a POP, however, is somewhat more complex than the acronym implies. In addition to being persistent (that is, not liable to break down rapidly), organic (having a carbon-based molecular structure), and polluting (in the sense of being significantly toxic), POPs have two other properties. They are fat soluble and therefore liable to accumulate in living tissue; and they occur in the environment in forms that allow them to travel great distances.
If you put all five of these properties together, you can begin to see the potential for agent orange scenarios in many places. We know that POPs are very dangerous, but we can never be sure exactly who will be injured by them. In the 1970s, for example, a group of children developed leukemia (a usually fatal blood disorder involving uncontrolled production of white blood cells) in Woburn, a small town in Massachusetts. The leukemia had apparently been caused by solvents in the tap water. But why did the disease emerge only in certain children and not in many others who also presumably ingested the solvents? It often takes sophisticated statistical analysis to find any connection at all between contamination and injurythats one of the reasons its so difficult to assess the public health risks from POPs. But of course statistics cant capture the experience of contamination: such a threat can seem like an evil lottery.
The apparent randomness of the threat is exacerbated by the fact that injury is often delayed or indirect. Extremely toxic chemicals can bide their time, then poison their victims in ways that are very hard to see. Benzene, for example, is a common solvent. Its an ingredient in some paints, degreasing products, gasoline, and various other shop and industrial compounds. If youre heavily exposed to it, you stand a heightened chance of developing cancerand so may any children that you have after your exposure. Thats true even if youre a man, since fetal exposure isnt the only way benzene may poison children: it can reach right into your chromosomes and injure the genes your child will inherit. Benzene may do its damage without ever touching the child directly at all.
POPs are potent ecological poisons as well. And just as in the human body, their ecological effects often exhibit a kind of weird indirection. In the United States in the 1960s, for example, biologists began to find strong field evidence that the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and similar chemicals were dangerous. But the evidence didnt come from the organisms that had absorbed the pesticides directly. It came from birds of preyeagles and falconswho were suffering widespread reproductive failure. Too few eggs and egg shells so thin they cracked soon after laying: these were the results of a type of indirect poisoning known as bioaccumulation. The fat solubility of the pesticides allowed them to concentrate in the tissues of their hosts as they moved up the food chain, from insects to rodents to raptors. Even today, the North American Great Lakes basin is showing the effects of certain POPs, like DDT, which have not been used in the region for decades. Eagle populations are still depressed; tumors continue to appear in fish, birds, and mammals.
But there is one way in which the agent orange scenario deviates from the norm. Most POPs owe their presence in the environment not to the horrible exigencies of war, but to ordinary industrial processesplastic and pesticide manufacturing, leaky transformers, waste incineration, and so forth. POPs are an inevitable byproduct of business as usual. By design and by accident, we are continually introducing new chemicals into the environment without any clear notion of what they will eventually door whether we may one day find ourselves in a desperate scramble to remove them. And among the tens of thousands of chemicals that have been in circulation for decades, relatively few have been studied for their health and environmental effects. Consequently, no one knows exactly how many POPs there are, but its likely that many thousands of chemicals could qualify for the term.
And beyond their number is the question of their effect: while POPs are toxic by definition, their longterm health _and environmental impacts are still largely unknown. Even more complex than evaluating individual POPs is the looming need to understand what kinds of synergistic interactions could be triggered by overlapping exposureto multiple POPs or to POPs combined with other chemicals. Multiple contamination is the rule, rather than the exception, but virtually nothing is known about it. What we do know is that most of the worlds living things are now steeping in a diffuse bath of POPs. And that almost certainly includes you. No matter where you live, youre likely to be contaminated by trace amounts of POPs. Theyre in your food and water; they may be in the air you breathe; theyre probably on your skin from time to timeif, for instance, you handle paints, solvents, or fuels.
Currently, 140 nations are negotiating a treaty to phase out 12 specific POPs (see table, page 32). This so-called dirty dozen includes nine pesticides, one group of industrial compounds known as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and two types of industrial byproducts, the dioxins and their chemical cousins, the furans. The treaty is called the International Legally Binding Instrument for Implementing International Action on Certain Persistent Organic Pollutants and as its name suggests, it is a laudable but rather timid effort. Its supporters hope that it will eventually serve as a mechanism to phase out dozens of other POPs. But at least in its present form, it doesnt address the fundamental problem. If we want to reduce the risks from the vast and growing number of synthetic chemicals that are being released into the environment, we will have to rethink some of our basic notions of industrial development.
Every Twenty Seven Seconds
There are now over 20 million synthetic chemicals, and that number is increasing by more than 1 million a year. As a rough global average, a new chemical is synthesized every 27 seconds of the day. Very few of these substances ever go into commercial productionsomething like 99.5 percent remain academic curiosities, or rapidly forgotten attempts to produce a new pesticide, or solvent, or whatever. But every year another 1,000 or so new compounds enter the chemical economy, either as ingredients in finished products, or as intermediateschemicals used to make other chemicals. The total number of synthetics in commerce is probably now somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000. But the total number of synthetics in the environment is probably far greater than that, because of the byproducts (like dioxins) unintentionally generated during production, and because of the breakdown products that result from the decay of commercial substances.
Chemical innovation on this scale creates an enormous biological risk, despite the fact that many synthetic chemicals are probably harmless, and many naturally-occurring chemicals are extremely dangerous. To understand the risk, its useful to have a general sense for what usually happens with natural toxins. Most really potent natural toxins break down far more readily than POPs. Powerful natural toxins also tend to be geographically isolatedthey arent usually dispersed throughout the environment. And while its true that there are some natural forms of mass poisoning, such events are generally episodic rather than continualthink of red tide algal blooms along ocean shorelines, for example. Finally, apart from such mass poisonings, any really powerful poison produced by a living thing is likely to be trophically isolatedthat is, it will tend to affect only organisms that play certain ecological roles. To be poisoned by a toxic frog, for example, you almost have to be a frog predator. Dont mess with the frog and youll be fine. The toxic frog paradigm does not, however, apply to our current chemical economy, which is causing broadscale, chronic exposure to powerful toxins at virtually every ecological level.
Not all manufactured chemicals are organic (that is, carbon-containing); inorganic chemicals play key industrial roles as well. Sulfuric acid (H2SO4), for example, is a key feedstock for much chemical production, especially fertilizer. But most commercially important inorganics, like sulfuric acid, arent synthetic in the sense of being completely artificialthey occur in nature. And synthetic or not, only around 100,000 inorganic chemicals are known. Contrast that with the many millions of organic compounds now knownmost of them wholly artificialand you can begin to get an idea of the stupifying variety in molecular structure that carbon permits.
Large-scale industrial production of organic chemicals was well underway by the middle of the 19th century. Refineries in both Europe and the United States were using coal to produce keroseneor coal oil, as it was then called. In 1859, western Pennsylvania became the site of the worlds first oil well. As other oil fields opened in the United States, Europe, and east Asia, those coal refineries became oil refineries, and industry acquired a vast and extremely versatile supply of lubricants and fuels. Synthesis of completely novel compounds began in European laboratories at about the same time. DDT, for example, dates from 1874, when it was synthesized by a German chemistry student, although its pesticidal properties were not appreciated until the 1930s. The first plastics were synthesized from cellulose (the primary constituent of wood) in the 1890s. By the end of the century, organic chemistry had revolutionized a major industrythe production of dyes.
The key to that development was the realization that synthetics could be produced in abundance directly from oil, instead of from living plant products. With a cheap source of raw material at hand, synthetics offered an answer to war-time shortages of often much more expensive natural products. Vinyl, for instance, was developed in the 1920s as a rubber substitute; during World War II, it helped ease the demand for this essential plant producttires still had to be made of rubber, but vinyl worked well as a wire insulator.
In the years following the war, synthetics flooded one manufacturing process after another, since they were often much cheaper than such traditional materials as rubber, wood, metal, glass, and plant fiber. In some cases the synthetic displaced a traditional material outright, but arguably just as important has been the interest in combining old and newthe metal that has a specialty coating to make it more durable, the flooring laminate composed of resin and wood fiber, and so forth. In ways large and small, synthetics have transformed our built environmentsand not simply by replacing things that were made before out of some other material, but by allowing for the creation of products that probably wouldnt otherwise have existed, at least on a mass scale. Plastic, for instance, is as fundamental in electronics manufacturing as microchips. Today, synthetic organic chemicals flow through just about every pipe in the chemical economy (see table, page 35).
Not surprisingly, the volume of synthetic organic chemical production has moved continually upwards ever since large-scale manufacturing began in the 1930s. Global production escalated from near zero in 1930 to an estimated 300 million tons by the late 1980s. In the United States alone, production has soared from about 150,000 tons in 1935 to nearly 150 million tons by 1995almost a thousandfold increase. Cinema fans may recall the one word of advice given to the confused young man played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1968 film, The Graduate: Plastics. The trend was as clear then as it is now: U.S. production of plastics has increased 6-fold since 1960.
The chemical structure of synthetic organics varies enormously, of course, but when it comes to assessing the potential of any particular chemical to cause trouble, either in the human body or in the environment, one question is of overriding importance: does it contain chlorine? Chlorine is highly reactivethat is, it combines very readily with certain other elements and it tends to bind to them very tightly. (The big exception to this rule involves a looser association called an ionic bond. For example, sodium chloride, or table salt, is the product of an ionic bond between a chlorine and a sodium atom. Such a bond is weak enough to allow the two atoms to separate from each other in solution.) Carbon is one of the elements that chlorine will bond to, although in nature such combinations, known as organochlorines, are rarely abundant. (There are a few exceptions, such as salt marsh emissions of methyl chloride.) But chemists have found that by adding chlorine to carbon-based compounds, an even greater molecular variety becomes possible. Chlorines ability to snap firmly into placeand to anchor all sorts of chemical structureshas made it, in the words of W. Joseph Stearns, Director of Chlorine Issues for the Dow Chemical Company, the single most important ingredient in modern [industrial] chemistry.
Take a sophisticated chemical sector, like that of the United States, and consider the importance of chlorine in it. Chlorine is used to make thousands of chemicalssolvents, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, bleaches, and so on. Around 11,000 organochlorines are in production. The biggest readily identifiable category of these is plastic. Of the more than 10 million tons of chlorine that the U.S. industry consumes each year, about one-third goes to produce 14 different types of plastic. The most common of those is polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is light, strong, and easy to mold. PVC is used to make plastic wrap, shoe soles, automobile components, siding, pipes, and medical products, among other things. In less than a decade, from 1988 to 1996 (the most recent year for which figures were available), global production of PVC expanded by more than 70 percent, from 12.8 million tons to 22 million tons. In the use of products like PVC, you can see how thoroughly weve enveloped ourselves in organochlorines.
Although many organochlorines are not known to be dangerous, a substantial number of them do create major risks. In large measure, those risks are the result of three common characteristics. Organochlorines are very stablethats obviously part of their manufacturing appeal, but it also means that they dont go away. They tend to be fat soluble, which means that they can bioaccumulate. And many of them have substantial chronic toxicitythat is, while exposure over the short term may not be dangerous, long-term exposure frequently is. (The reasons for toxicity vary. Some organochlorines can mimic naturally-occurring chemicals such as hormones, thereby upsetting the bodys chemical processes; some weaken the immune system; some affect organ development, some promote cancer, and so on.) Stability, fat solubility, and chronic toxicity: does that begin to sound like a POP? Chlorine certainly isnt required to make a POP. Among the non-chlorinated POPs are various organometals (used, for example, in marine paints) and organobromines (used as pesticides and as liquid insulators in electrical equipment). But most known POPsincluding all of the dirty dozenare organochlorines.
Organochlorine pesticides are the class of products that has produced what are probably the most notorious POPs (see the table on page 32 for some examples). Its hardly surprising that pesticides are a major ingredient in our stew of dangerous chemicalsafter all, pesticides are designed to be toxic and they are produced in enormous quantities. Since 1945, global production of pesticides has increased an estimated 26-fold, from 0.1 million tons to 2.7 million tons, although growth has slowed in the last 15 years, as health and environmental concerns have inspired an increasing number of bans, primarily in industrialized countries. These restrictions have reduced the total quantity of pesticides used in the industrialized countries, but the toxicity of particular pesticides has continued to grow. Current pesticide formulations are 10 to 100 times as toxic as they were in 1975.
Today, pesticide manufacturers usually want their products to have a high acute toxicity and low chronic toxicity. Theyre looking for compounds that will kill quickly but that dont haunt the field indefinitely, so organochlorines, with their substantial chronic toxicities, no longer have the universal appeal they once did. Newer pesticides are less likely to contain chlorine. Thats obviously good, but not good enough, for two reasons: non-organochlorine pesticides also sometimes turn out to be POPs, and nearly all the old products are still with us anyway. They persist in the environment and most are still used in developing countries.
A more obscure array of POPs involves a family of organochlorines that have been used as liquid insulators in electrical equipment, as hydraulic fluids, and as trace additives to plastics, paints, even carbonless copy paper. These are the polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. For decades, the extreme stability, low flammability, and low conductivity of POPs made them the standard liquid insulation in transformersand since transformers are a near-ubiquitous part of every electrical grid, PCB contamination is now a standard form of landscape poisoning. In industrialized countries, PCBs were manufactured mostly between the 1920s and the late 1970s; they are still manufactured in Russia and are still in use in many developing countries. Scientists estimate that up to 70 percent of all PCBs ever manufactured are still in use or in the environment, often in landfills where they are gradually seeping into water tables. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recently published guidelines for helping officials in developing countries identify PCBs. But given their multiple uses and more than 90 trade names, simply finding them is going to be a mind-boggling tasklet alone cleaning them up.
But the overwhelming majority of POPs are not intentionally producedtheyre by-products, like dioxins and furans, two classes of POPs that result primarily from organochlorine production, the bleaching of wood pulp, and the incineration of municipal waste. A 1995 UNEP emissions inventory of 15 countries traced some 7,000 kilograms of dioxin and furan releases to incinerator emissionsthats 69 percent of the total releases of those substances in these countries. (Seven thousand kilograms may not sound like all that muchbut bear in mind that these are extremely toxic substances usually produced in trace quantities.) There are 210 known dioxins and furans. And among the byproducts of organochlorine production and use, its almost certain that many more thousands of POPs remain to be discovered.
Do we really need it?
Over the past three decades or so, attempts to regulate the chemical industry in the industrialized world have grown to a phenomenal degree. In the United States, for example, the effort now involves four federal agencies on a regular basis, and at least seven major pieces of federal legislation, which address pesticides, pollution, and attempt to promote cleaner industries. Any new synthetic produced in Europe or the United States is now subject to some degree of toxicity testing before it can be injected into commerce.
But despite this gargantuan bureaucratic effort, the current regulatory approach is no match for the threat. In the first place, most of the toxicity testing is done by the companies themselvesa practice that invites obvious conflicts of interest. Nor do current efforts offer a realistic possibility of dealing with the testing backlog. Tens of thousands of chemicals entered commerce in the decades before testing was requiredand we still have no clear notion of the risks most of them pose. Fewer than 20 percent of the chemicals in commerce have been adequately evaluated for toxicity, according to a 1984 National Academy of Sciences report. (Its perhaps a reflection of the magnitude of the problem that this 16-year-old report should still be widely cited.)
And then there is our uncertainty over what we ought to be testing for. The toxicology of synthetic organics is in a near constant state of flux, and the difficulty of establishing a causal link between exposure and injury opens the science up to all sorts of tendentious reinterpretation. Anyone familiar with the smoking and health debates will recognize this problem. Take dioxins, for example. Chloracnethe severe skin deformity that is the hallmark of dioxin poisoningwas identified more than a century ago, in 1899. In 1998, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) reduced its standard for tolerable daily intake of dioxin-like substances from 10 picograms per kilogram of body weight per day to 1-4 picograms. So a person who weighs 68 kilograms (about 150 pounds) shouldnt be exposed to more than 4 trillionths of a gram per day. For infants, the safe levels are even more minuscule. Yet just a couple of years ago, a consultant to the Chemical Manufacturers Association announced that dioxin has not been shown to pose any health threat to the general public.
Even where obfuscation is not an issue, advances in toxicology tend to create a second testing backlog, since thousands of previously-screened chemicals may need to be re-evaluated. In 1996, for example, the United States launched a major pesticide re-evaluation program, in the light of new research on how these chemicals can affect children, whose high metabolism and rapid rate of physical development make them more vulnerable to certain kinds of toxins. Thus far, screening has been completed on less than a quarter of U.S. pesticide registrations. (The United States regulates pesticides by designating specific uses permitted for each chemical; each such use is known as a registration.)
The shifting horizon of toxicology can call into question even widely accepted synthetics. The plasticizers known as phthalates, for example, are believed to be among the most common industrial compounds in the environment. Yet recent laboratory research in animals has linked phthalates to damage to the liver, kidney, and testicles, as well as to miscarriage, birth defects, and reduced fertility. Incineration of phthalates produces dioxins. Phthalates occur in everything from construction materials to childrens teething rings. And among the 1,000 new chemicals that will enter the economy this year, who knows how many more such discoveries will eventually be made?
In its current form, the chemical sector is clearly at odds with our collective obligation to maintain human and environmental health. What is needed is fundamental reforma change that goes far deeper than conventional regulation. That reform could start with a very simple but revolutionary idea: its wise to avoid unnecessary risk. This is the kernel of one of the environmental movements core concepts: the precautionary principle. The principle states that when any action is contemplated that could affect the environment, those who advocate the action should show that the risks are either negligible, or that they are decisively outweighed by the benefits.
The principle reverses the usual burden of proof. In most environmental controversies today, that burden effectively rests with those who argue against an action: they must usually persuade the public or policy makers that the benefits are outweighed by the risks. But of course, we rarely understand the risks until after the factand maybe not even then. Thats the problem the principle is meant to address; its a kind of insurance policy against our own ignorance.
In terms of our chemical use, a reasonable application of the precautionary principle would require us to assume that in certain chemical classesorganochlorines, for exampleany new compound is dangerous. The next step would be to ask: do we really need it? This kind of inquiry would tend to foster a different kind of inventiveness, both within the chemical industry and within society as a whole. The emphasis would tend to shift from inventing new chemicals, to inventing new uses for chemicals thought to be reasonably safe, and to inventing new procedures that may not be dependent on chemicals at all. Fewer new chemicals would come into commerce; a growing number of established ones would come out.
There is already a strong precedent for this kind of chemical stand down in the impending ban of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the now-notorious class of chemicals once almost universally used as refrigerants and spray-can propellents. CFCs were found to be weakening the stratospheric ozone layer, which shields the Earths surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Under the Montreal Protocol of 1987, CFCs are being phased out in favor of other compounds that are less harmful to the ozone layer. In many parts of the chemical economy, you can see the potential for similar developments. Consider three examples.
Pesticides: the phase-out may already have begun
Pesticides are the mainstay of monoculture farming. They are the mechanism that allows for vast expanses of pure corn, cotton, or soybeansa highly unnatural condition that is very vulnerable to infestation. But pesticides are also expensive and dangerous, and these liabilities underlie the growing boom in organic agriculture. In the industrialized countries, organic production (which uses no synthetic pesticides) is the strongest market within the agricultural sector. In the United States, the organic market has been growing at a rate of 20 percent per year since 1989. Some 35 percent of U.S. consumers look for the organic label at least part of the time. In Europe, one-third of the continents farmland is expected to be in organic production by the end of this decade. Organic and other forms of low-pesticide farming usually involve more careful stewardship of the soil and more diverse plantings, which tend to have fewer pest problems than conventional monocultures. Even though the yield of a particular crop may be lower than in conventional agriculture, an organic farm can do just as well in terms of total productivity (that is, in terms of all the crops coming off a unit of land) and in terms of financial returnand thats before you factor in the environmental benefits.
A thornier set of pesticide problems involves public health. DDT may be eliminated by the new treaty as an agricultural pesticide, but its still key to malaria control in many parts of the tropics. Malaria kills 2.7 million people every yeara death toll greater than that of AIDS. In much of sub-Saharan Africa and tropical Asia, control of the mosquitoes that carry the disease is a life-and-death issue, and that has frequently involved the broadscale spraying of DDT. But even here, more careful targetting of the mosquitoes would permit enormous reductions in pesticide useand might even improve malaria control. Researchers in Africa, for example, have demonstrated that bednets soaked in alternative, less-toxic insecticides can reduce malaria transmission by 30 to 60 percent and childhood mortality by up to 30 percent. And bednets are relatively cheap: a net plus a years supply of insecticide costs about $11. In 1993, WHO dropped its blanket spraying recommendation for DDT, in favor of targeted spraying of the insecticide indoors only.
PVC: taking the POPs out of the products
The incineration of solid waste is a primary generator of dioxins and furans. While better incineration procedures can greatly reduce this kind of contamination, the single most effective way to lower dioxin output is to get as much chlorine as possible out of the waste stream. PVC is the source of an estimated 80 percent of the chlorine that flows into municipal waste incinerators and nearly all the chlorine in medical waste incinerators (these are among the most important second-rank dioxin emitters, after the municipal incinerators). A top priority for the new chemical economy should therefore be the elimination of PVC, which is 45 percent chlorine by weight, in favor of low-chlorine or chlorine-free materials. Initially, the substitutes are liable to be more expensive than PVC, but even incipient demand could rapidly generate an economy of scale. The market prospects have already led the Exxon Corporation, one of the worlds largest PVC producers, to begin planning a shift from PVC to chlorine-free polyolefin plastics.
Bleaching and benzene: removing POPs from industrial processes
POPs often haunt industrial processes to a far greater degree than they contaminate the products themselves. Thus, for example, paper is not ordinarily a source of organochlorine contamination while its being used. But paper production certainly is, and paper disposal can be as well, because the huge volume of paper converging on an incinerator may allow trace contaminants to concentrate. Both forms of contamination are caused by the use of chlorine bleaches to whiten woodpulp. Bleaching can produce up to 35 tons of organochlorines per day per mill. Yet this type of pollution is now almost wholly unnecessaryand the paper youre looking at right now proves it. (World Watch is printed on paper that is bleached without any chlorine or chlorine-based compounds, although unfortunately, that is not yet true of our cover stock.) Thus far, only 6 percent of global bleached pulp production is totally chlorine free, but that includes more than a quarter of Scandinavian production, so the economic viability of the process is not in question. Some 54 percent of global bleached pulp production is now elementally chlorine freemeaning that a chlorine bleach was used, but at least it wasnt raw chlorine. (Our cover stock falls in this category.) Its true that converting a mill to chlorine-free production is expensive, but the picture is very different when you start from scratch. Its actually cheaper to build a chlorine-free mill than a conventional one.
At least some of the more dangerous intermediates within the industry are probably susceptible to replacement as well. Benzene, for example, is a major feedstock chemical in the production of a wide range of materialsfor example, dyes, film developing agents, solvents, and nylon. For some applications, however, it may be possible to replace benzene with the simple blood sugar, glucose. That may sound like a bizarre substitution, but its the ring structure of both molecules that allows for a degree of interchangeability. Glucose is cheaper to make than benzene (6 versus 13 cents per pound) and for all practical purposes, its harmless. As a feedstock, however, the processes for handling glucose are more expensive than the better-established processes for benzene, but these costs dont take into account emissions control costs for benzene. In any case, the costs would presumably decline if the use of glucose as a feedstock became more common. Such adjustments deep within the industrial machinery may seem rather obscure, but they could be major news: the possibility of substituting an innocuous substance for an extremely dangerous one suggests that there may be all sorts of hidden opportunities for re-engineering the chemical sector.
If such re-engineering is to succeed, it will have to proceed from a much broader understanding of what were doing when we make and use synthetic chemicals. Whether we intend it this way or not, chemical manufacturing is as much an ecological process as it is an economic or industrial one. Any industry executive knows that a chemical plant has to make some sort of economic sense. The POPs legacy is telling us that it had better make environmental sense as well.
Anne Platt McGinn is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute.