I have been watching the EPA's oral hearing on the license to pollute the environment by emitting hazardous and toxic substances, i.e. by burning toxic and hazardous material.
What is environment though?
According to the Oxford dictionary,
environment is
the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.
"survival in an often hostile environment"
and
the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity.
"the impact of pesticides on the environment".
Environment is air, water, soil, Humans, animals and plants, marine waters, marine animals.
In order to identify the hazards of an operation (in this case burning hazardous and toxic material at the Irish Cement Factory), we would need to consider Environment as all its components and the interrelations of its components.
If we think environment is only the air, then we will NEVER be able to assess the impact of a polluted environment to the living organisms, to Humans and to Public Health.
This morning's presentations lacked this approach, the complexity of Environmental, of the Chemosphere are we call it in Science.
There is a scientific journal called Chemosphere.
What does it offer?
Chemosphere is an international journal designed for the
publication of original communications as well as review articles on
chemicals in the environment. Chemosphere, as a multidisciplinary
journal, offers maximum dissemination of investigations related to all
aspects of the identification, quantification, behavior, fate,
toxicology, treatment, and remediation of chemicals in the bio-, hydro-,
litho- and atmosphere.
I will stop here now and hopefully I am going to see you tomorrow morning at the hearing where I will present the potential impact of burning toxic material to Humans, the food chain and the Public Health.
