Inexplicably, people have been scratching their heads for decades over where all the mercury pollution in our lakes, rivers, and other waterways is coming from. It’s been steadily increasing in our fish supply during this time and prompted occasional then permanent warnings about the dangers of eating fish because of the escalating amounts of mercury in them, regardless of species. Utah’s Great Salt Lake is a cesspool of mercury. It sits among a cement plant, a couple of smelters, and a coal-burning power plant, all known mercury polluters. Yet, researchers seem at a loss to determine the source of the pollution. All I do is read a little and I figured it out.
We’ve known the source of most of this mercury all this time and have done nothing- until now. The Environmental Protection Agency is finally going after cement manufacturers, the leading emitter of mercury and one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and possible human-induced climate change. This will not sit well with birthers, right-wingers, Andrew Breitbart groupies, and other Earth-happiness-and-peace haters who think restricting their right to destroy the planet is another sign of the apocalypse.
How about cancer, asthma, birth defects, and heart attacks? Better now? Of course.
At a meeting sponsored by the Utah Solar Energy Association (of which I’m a board member) and Salt Lake Community College last week, the public was invited to learn about solar energy from our experts. About 100 people showed up: some of them already involved with renewable energy, most just awakening to it. Out of all the important information, one graphic stood out in my mind. It showed how Germany gets about one-tenth the solar exposure Utah gets (it’s much cloudier and farther north). Yet Germany is the world’s leader in solar equipment manufacturing and implementation.
