NC House Smoking Bill passes committee

Environment, Health 9 Responses »
Mar 202007

Updates on the smoking bills I mentioned last week….

Bill Would Extinguish Indoor Smoking Statewide :: WRAL.com

Dismissing North Carolina’s heritage as a tobacco state, a House committee on Tuesday passed a far-reaching indoor smoking ban.

The Judiciary Committee passed the ban by a 9-4 vote. The measure would prohibit smoking in all indoor workplaces in North Carolina, including bars and restaurants. The rules also would apply to private clubs, except those with nonprofit or tax-exempt status.

The measure would be complaint-driven — local health departments would act on complaints from the public — and violators would first receive warnings.

“This was a significant and important event to advance the public’s health in North Carolina,” said Dr. Leah Devlin, director of the state Division of Public Health.

But critics of the legislation, House Bill 259, pointed out that it faces an uphill battle on the House and Senate floors.

“What they really want is a complete prohibition of indoor smoking in North Carolina,” said state Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake. “We all know smoking is nasty and dangerous. The question is whether, in a free society, you let people do some things that are nasty and dangerous.”

Some opponents said passing the bill could set the stage for similar bans inside personal vehicles and homes.

“You want to smoke and you own the building. Is it really that bad for the public?” asked state Rep. Ronnie Sutton, D-Robeson.

Yes Paul and Ronnie, not only did you construct a straw man, you blew smoke on it, gave it lung cancer, tortured it with cigarette butts and finally set it on fire. Sheesh, what asses.

Update

From Laura Leslie, WUNC (our local NPR affiliate) reporter who maintains a reporter’s blog at WUNC

Under the current version of the bill, which isn’t available on the web just yet, only NON-profit clubs could allow smoking – like the Elks Lodge, for example.

So for the standard nightclub or bar, smoking would be banned.

Hope it helps – and thanks very much for reading!!
Laura

So, that’s a lot of progress on the house bill, making it very close to the senate bill.

Posted by oliveridley at 7:36 pm

Do primates believe in God? They seem to have morals!

culture, Personal 1 Response »
Mar 202007

I had a conversation with a colleague over lunch a few years back, really nice guy and good friend, very religious. Somehow, the topic of my religion came up and I happened to mention that I was not much of a believer in any kind of supreme being. He was silent for a little while, trying to digest the fact that someone he liked and respected (me!) had just outed himself as the spawn of satan. He then asked me where I got my values from if I did not believe in God. I explained to him that just like him, I got mine from my parents, from school, society, friends, etc., in fact, one source less than he got his from! (a slight variant on the “I believe in one god less than you do” schtick!) I also explained to him that I thought a lot about my value system, I made ethical and moral judgements all the time just by thinking, reading and listening to other people. He seemed unconvinced, thanked me for my honesty, and we proceeded to talk basketball after that (Go Heels!).

Long ramble notwithstanding, I had known a little bit about this primate research previously, but happened to read a well written NY Times article about primates and “morality” (don’t like that word, but can’t seem to find a better one).

Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior – New York Times

Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days

Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are.

Hmm, they must believe God, because without religion, there is no morality, right?

I am not convinced that this “morality” was a naturally selected behavior rather than a by-product of evolution (the article references a critic as making this point too), nevertheless, it is fascinating.

Posted by oliveridley at 4:31 pm

Powerful Story of Environmental Racism

Environment No Responses »
Mar 202007

I have nothing to say, just read and weep.

A Well of Pain – washingtonpost.com

She has had cervical polyps. Another of her daughters, Holt-Orsted’s sister, has had colon polyps. Three of Holt-Orsted’s cousins have had cancer. Her aunt next door has had cancer. Her aunt across the street has had chemotherapy for a bone disease. Her uncle died of Hodgkin’s disease. Her daughter, 12-year-old Jasmine, has a speech defect.

They believe trichloroethylene, or TCE, is to blame for it all. The carcinogen leaked from the county landfill, just 500 feet away, and contaminated the Holts’ well water. That fact is undisputed. For years, the family drank that water, bathed in that water, cooked in that water — and had no clue that it might harm them.

More…

In that box, she found letters and documents indicating that Tennessee environmental and water officials had concerns about the possibility of TCE appearing in the Holt’s well water as early as 1988. The Holts’ well was left untested for nine years while TCE problems in the wells of white families were tended to with haste, the records showed.

Even more…

Meanwhile, the toxin also showed up at high levels in a spring and several wells in 1993 and 1994. The white families at those sites were immediately told to stop using the water. And tests were conducted repeatedly all around the landfill — but not at the Holt well.

Posted by oliveridley at 7:08 am

Tuesdays With Turtles – Hometown Edition

sea turtles, South Asia No Responses »
Mar 202007

I grew up in Chennai and worked with the Students’ Sea Turtle Conservation Network in the mid ’90s. It’s nice to see an article on them in the city’s biggest newspaper.

The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Olive Ridley hatchlings go home

CHENNAI: Scores of newborn Olive Ridley turtles entered their natural habitat — the sea — under the watchful eyes of conservationists at Elliots Beach, Besant Nagar, here early on Sunday. Conservationists said nearly 75 eggs hatched on Sunday alone and most of the young ones were safely released into the waters. But about 25 eggs reportedly did not hatch and some were stillborn. Volunteers of the Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN) annually collect Olive Ridley turtle eggs from the Besant Nagar coastline upto Neelankarai, a fishing village beyond Tiruvanmiyur. The eggs are then taken to a hatchery at Oorurkuppam, a fishing village located behind the Theosophical Society premises. It takes 45 days for the young ones to hatch.

In Chennai, and most of South India, the adult sea turtles are not poached, only the eggs. Also, it is not possible to just secure the nest with “do not poach” notice! So the eggs need to be relocated to a hatchery where they’re re-buried. For more on sea turtle “management” in India, I would suggest visiting Kartik Shanker’s excellent website.

Posted by oliveridley at 6:00 am

"Eminent Domain" Police Firing Update

Development, South Asia No Responses »
Mar 182007

I had written recently about police firing deaths in West Bengal. It appears that there is a lot more to this story than a case of police overreaction.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Ten held over India police firing

But there are suspicions that outsiders may have joined the police force to attack the villagers in Nandigram, protesting against the planned acquisition of farmland for an industrial complex.

The West Bengal government has now said it is abandoning the project.

“Outsiders”? That’s informative! Who might these “outsiders” be? More from an Indian source:

The Central Bureau of Investigation -, probing last Wednesday’s Nandigram deaths in police firing, Saturday recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition from Khejuri, a base of the Communist Party of India-Marxist -.

Ten people, presumed to be members of the CPI-M, were arrested by the probe agency during the operation.

The CPI-M is West Bengal’s ruling party, having been in power for more than thirty years. So the emerging hypothesis is that some “operatives” (read goons) from the ruling party decided to “help” the police clear out the protesting villagers. The tragedy has gone national because the CPI(M) is a supporter of the ruling coalition in India.

It’s a complex issue, one that I want to learn a lot more about. But the gist of the story is that the ruling Communist party in Bengal is trying to kick start industrial development that has been stagnant for many years. The Haldia Development Authority has been tasked with this rather difficult task, and has been going about its merry business trying to acquire land and setup industrial parks and so called special economic zones.

The issue here is not the idea, which is sound, but the process, which has been top-down, and designed and implemented with no input from the people who will be affected. Some level of increased industrialization will provide more infrastructure, jobs and money eventually. But the process needed to be planned so that the farmers affected could transition a little more easily from their generations of farm employment. Medinipur, the district where Nandigram is located is predominantly agricultural with 65% of the rural population working as farmers (source Indian Census 2001). There are nearly 6 million people involved in agriculture in this district alone. That’s an arkload of people who will be affected by a major change in the occupational profile, they need to be considered and consulted.

So when the people affected protested and took the site over, the Chief Minister of West Bengal,  Budhaddeb Bhattacharya, asked the police to clear them out, and I guess they took that literally.

These protests are spreading, with unrest in Orissa as well. The good news is that there’s been a lot of outcry, and the whole program has been put on hold pending a national policy on acquisition of land for industries. India is not China, people know how to organize, protest and generally make themselves heard. More importantly, the press will cover stories like these (at least for a few weeks, or until India loses to Bangladesh in the Cricket World Cup! – This happened on Saturday!), so development necessarily takes a slower and more tortuous path. That is not always a bad thing. Will they get the process right the next time they do it, I am not sure, but hopefully, these deaths will not have been in vain.

Posted by oliveridley at 4:49 pm

Hog Factories Hit the NY Times

Environment, Health 3 Responses »
Mar 142007

The tale is told from the pig’s viewpoint. Of course, as I have mentioned before, hog factories are evil and affect the people (mostly poor and black) who live around them in very many horrible ways.

Pig Out – NY Times

Of the 60 million pigs in the United States, over 95 percent are continuously confined in metal buildings, including the almost five million sows in crates. In such setups, feed is automatically delivered to animals who are forced to urinate and defecate where they eat and sleep. Their waste festers in large pits a few feet below their hooves. Intense ammonia and hydrogen sulfide fumes from these pits fill pigs’ lungs and sensitive nostrils. No straw is provided to the animals because that would gum up the works (as it would if you tossed straw into your toilet).

In my work as an environmental lawyer, I’ve toured a dozen hog confinement operations and seen hundreds from the outside. My task was to evaluate their polluting potential, which was considerable. But what haunted me was the miserable creatures inside.

They were crowded into pens and cages, never allowed outdoors, and never even provided a soft place to lie down. Their tails had been cut off without anesthetic. Regardless of how well the operations are managed, the pigs subsist in inherently hostile settings. (Disclosure: my husband founded a network of farms that raise pigs using traditional, non-confinement methods.)

The stress, crowding and contamination inside confinement buildings foster disease, especially respiratory illnesses. In addition to toxic fumes, bacteria, yeast and molds have been recorded in swine buildings at a level more than 1,000 times higher than in normal air. To prevent disease outbreaks (and to stimulate faster growth), the hog industry adds more than 10 million pounds of antibiotics to its feed, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates. This mountain of drugs — a staggering three times more than all antibiotics used to treat human illnesses — is a grim yardstick of the wretchedness of these facilities.

Posted by oliveridley at 2:02 pm

Eminent Domain gets deadly in India

Development, South Asia 1 Response »
Mar 142007

Eminent domain is the concept that governments can acquire private land for “improvement” and “development” purposes. But what happens when you combine

  1. Farms that have been in families for generations
  2. A situation where land is the only thing you own, where all your value, your life and your sense of worth is tied to the land you own
  3. The insecurity that comes from knowing that your livelihood and shelter is being taken away from you and things are going to change. In the end, they might be for the better, your farm was not doing too well to begin with, but the uncertainty and fear of the unknown are much bigger in the short term than any possible long term benefits.
  4. The typical high handed situation in which the government dealt with the villagers in question

Well, in India, people die.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | ‘Seven die’ in India farm clash

At least seven people are reported to have died after police fired on farmers protesting at the acquisition of farmland for industry in eastern India. The clash happened in Nandigram in West Bengal state where thousands of riot police have been sent to quell protests against a planned chemical hub. Police say they met fierce resistance from thousands of villagers. Police say two people have died, but doctors in a local hospital say five more men have died of bullet wounds. ‘Land grab’ Farmers in Nandigram have been resisting the West Bengal government’s plan to acquire farms for setting up a hub for chemical industries by an Indonesian company.

As India’s manufacturing infrastructure and increasingly rapid industrialization starts to catch up with its already booming software economy, watch for these tensions to get worse. Indian governments are not used to handling issues like these in an equitable fashion. Hopefully, the sacrifices of these people will change something, but I am not optimistic. Lives are cheap in India. Nobody’s going to write a song about these 7 dead.

Posted by oliveridley at 6:06 am

Tuesdays with Turtles – Navigation

sea turtles No Responses »
Mar 132007

If you did not know already, sea turtles tend to nest on (or close to) the beaches they were born at. It is known that they use the Earth’s magnetic fields to navigate. Here’s an article on the navigational natations (I strain to alliterate at times, but natation means swimming!) of the Green Turtle.

ScienceDaily: How Do Marine Turtles Return To The Same Beach To Lay Their Eggs?

I flagged this article not because it tells us much new, but just adds some nuances to sea turtle navigation.

The study has shown that the marine turtles’ navigation system allows them to maintain their course towards the egg-laying site wherever they find themselves. It is almost as if they were equipped with a compass pointing towards the beach in question. So they can correct any deflection they are subject to: transport by boat, ocean currents… But, unlike human navigators, they are not able to correct for ocean drift in plotting their course. So the movements recorded by the satellite are a combination of deliberate action by the turtles and the effect of currents. So it appears that the turtles’ navigation system is relatively simple and may cause them to be wander at sea for long periods during adverse ocean conditions. One turtle released 250 km from its egg-laying site on Europa traveled more than 3 500 km in two months before returning there!

Well, that’s interesting, if not surprising. It’s one thing to have a magnetic bookmark of a destination in your head (pretty wonderful thing, I wish I had it!) and swim continually towards this destination. It’s quite another thing to keep track of complex parameters like ocean drift and keep correcting continuously.

In essence, what they’re saying is that turtles home in on their destinations, but don’t always take the shortest way in because they tend to drift and not correct for this drift dynamically. It is not evolutionarily necessary because turtles probably do not get thrown way of course often enough that evolving even more sophisticated navigational systems (Garmin?) would provide a significant enough survival advantage.

In the Mozambique Channel, between the east coast of Africa and Madagascar, on the beaches of the French Islands of Europa and Mayotte, they caught turtles at the beginning of their egg-laying cycle, so that the animals were strongly impelled to return to this area to complete their cycle. After having Argos transmitters fitted to their shells in order to satellite track their return journey to the beach, the animals were released in open sea, several hundred kilometers from the egg-laying site.

Now that’s just mean! Imagine being kidnapped, tagged and released many miles away from home, and having to find your way back. Apparently, these turtles did it. Man, that would be such a cool navigational aid to have, quite a party trick!

Posted by oliveridley at 5:08 pm

Smoking bans in North Carolina?

Environment, Health 1 Response »
Mar 122007

After this morning’s post about Tennessee, I got curious and wanted to see what we were doing in North Carolina on smoking bans. So, I looked up my very own NC General assembly homepage and used their full text bill search function (key word smoking!). Here’s what I found.

In the State Senate

Great! Senate Bill S635 will ban smoking in all public places indoors except in tobacco shops, designated smoking rooms in hotels and for “research”. Follow the progress of this bill using the bill’s very own rss feed!

In the House

Not so good, House bill H259 has been referred to committee. But it has giant loopholes for all bars and “private clubs”. It has its very own rss feed too.

Observations

  1. It is good to see that my representatives Kinnaird (we share a yoga class on Monday nights!) and Insko are co-sponsors on the bills. But I live in that bastion of progressivism (in the South, anyways!) Chapel Hill/Carrboro, so this is pretty unsurprising!
  2. My question to the House is this: Why are bartenders, employees of bars and private clubs, and patrons of such establishments considered not worthy of protection from second hand smoke? As someone who goes out drinking often, this is where all my exposure to second hand smoke occurs.
  3. Kudos to North Carolina for designing an accessible and easily searchable bill repository complete with rss feeds, way to go!

Once I hear back from Sen. Kinnaird on the prospects of legislation this session, I’ll be sure to post about it.

Update: See this. The House and Senate bills have gotten a lot closer, and most of the loopholes are gone.

Posted by oliveridley at 4:05 pm

Tennessee bans smoking in workplaces

Health 1 Response »
Mar 122007

North Carolina, you’re next, smoking bans finally make inroads in tobacco country.

Where Tobacco Ruled, Smoking Ban Gains Ground – New York Times

Tennessee will probably become the first major tobacco-growing state to pass a comprehensive smoke-free-workplace law. Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, proposed the ban in February. He also wants to triple taxes on cigarette sales and to use some of the money for smoking prevention.

Posted by oliveridley at 5:55 am
Older Entries Newer Entries
© 2012 The Olive Ridley Crawl Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha
Powered by Nexx