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The Southern Poverty Law Center is just as relevant today as it was during the Civil Rights movement. I strongly encourage you to read their comments on the shootings in Arizona. Here’s an excerpt:

…With all the vitriol on the airwaves, it’s not surprising that someone has taken deadly aim at an elected official.

Tea Party darlings like Sharron Angle talk about using “second amendment remedies” to change the course of the country. The shameless Glenn Beck feeds the lunatic fringe with talk of the government herding Americans into FEMA concentration camps and of imminent violence from mysterious forces “from the left.” Sarah Palin uses phrases like “don’t retreat, reload” and shows the districts of various Democrats in Congress, including that of Tucson’s Gabrielle Giffords, in the crosshairs.

The problem isn’t so much a lack of politeness. We should expect sharp elbows and a healthy degree of ridicule to be thrown around by those in the political arena. The problem is the incendiary rhetoric, with its violence-laced metaphors, and the spinning of paranoid fantasies. The problem is the non-stop demonization one hears from political opportunists trolling for votes and their media allies trolling for ratings.

There seems to be increasing concern about a substance called chloramine that is widely used as a disinfectant in drinking water around the world. It’s promoted as having a number of advantages over chlorine, which has been the disinfection of choice for most of the world for the last 100 years.

Chloramine has been used for 80 years in the US, but like any substance, we’re still learning more about it. Last week, two researchers published an article in the journal Science about potential health effects from chloramines. It got picked up by NPR, then reported on the blog TreeHugger, and re-posted at Alternet. I subscribe to their water channel in my RSS reader, and the content is highly variable—some of their reporting misses the mark, as I felt this piece did.

Unfortunately, they missed the happy drinking water quality story last week: Congress amended the Safe Drinking Water Act to limit the amount of lead in pipes and fixtures.

Here’s my comment on the chloramines story:

This is an extremely interesting and important topic, but this article misses the mark. Rather than contributing to public understanding of the issue, I only see fear-mongering.

Both chlorine and chloramine are toxic at high doses, and thus are regulated by the EPA. But, according the Centers for Disease Control, water disinfection with these chemicals has saved more lives than any drug ever invented. There are potential risks with these chemicals, which is why our water systems are highly regulated and professionally-managed. There seem to be more downsides to chlorine, hence the movement by many water suppliers to chloramine.

First, chlorine is often transported as chlorine gas, which could cause a problem if a rail car derails or is attacked. There was chatter about this after 9/11, but no one mentions it much these days. Chloramine is made from less hazardous materials.

Chloramine does not impart a taste or odor to water the way chlorine does. This seems to be one of the top factors why consumers choose expensive and environmentally-unfriendly bottled water over perfectly safe and ridiculously cheap tap water.

As noted, chlorine can cause the creation of so-called disinfection byproducts, the most famous of which are trihalomethanes, a suspected carcinogen. EPA is increasingly clamping down on these byproducts, prompting many water suppliers to look at alternatives.

Lastly, disinfectants are only effective at keeping disease-causing bacteria and viruses from growing in drinking water while the dose or “residual” is above a certain concentration, and stays that way until it reaches your home. Chloramine has a longer-lasting residual, which means safer drinking water.

Chloramine has been certified as safe by the US EPA, many states’ Departments of Public Health, and the National Sanitation Foundation.

We DO need ongoing research on the long-term consequences of using any chemicals, looking at impacts to human health and the environment. Sedlak and von Gunten’s article is an important contribution, but it does not mean that we should abandon chloramine.

Keep calm and carry on.

On the eve of the Sudan’s referendum, where voters will decide whether the country should split in two, the BBC has published a great set of seven maps, “Sudan, One Country or two?”

The New York Times published an article in December about Malian farmers being displaced from land purchased by the Libyan government. This was a few hours drive north of where I served in the Peace Corps, so it’s of obvious concern to me.

Across Africa and the developing world, a new global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land. Despite their ageless traditions, stunned villagers are discovering that African governments typically own their land and have been leasing it, often at bargain prices, to private investors and foreign governments for decades to come.

It would be interesting to look at the history of this area. I recall that it was formerly occupied by other ethnic groups, and Bambara settlers have come to the area in the last generation or two. There is no official government system of managing land tenure–that has long been the province of village chiefs and councils. Looks like this is what happens when tradition and globalization clash.

Nicely done. They totally nailed what it’s like to be slightly dorky guy with a broadened world view.

I just learned of this event taking place this weekend. Looks interesting! For similar events, visit the San Francisco Bay Area African Music Calendar.

Saturday, Sep 25 8:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.

at Cal Expo Fairgrounds, Sacramento, CA
Price: $5.00 general admission/ children under 5 are free
Phone: (916) 441-1133
Age Suitability: All Ages

Come celebrate the diversity of African cultures with traditional and contemporary music performances, drumming, cultural dances, a parade representing Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa and more.
Arts, crafts, paintings, jewelry and products from African businesses will be on show and available for sale.

While celebrating the arts and culture, the Festival aims to encourage trade and business opportunities for African businesses and entrepreneurs.

Festival Flyer

Event Website

Via the Sacramento Bee online calendar.

Karamo Susso, the talented young kora player from The Gambia, is putting on a free show at 19 Broadway in Fairfax (Marin County) on Thursday August 5, from 8 pm to 2 am.

I believe there will be djembé and other percussion and a few guest appearances. This should be a fun show.

If that’s not enough, some of the best ice cream in the Bay Area is right around the corner at the Fairfax Scoop. Highly recommended.

For more African music listings, visit the San Francisco Bay Area African Music Calendar.

Update: I originally posted that this show was on Friday, not Thursday. Hope this didn’t cause too much confusion.

Not all electricity is created equal. If you live in Vermont or Idaho, most of the power you use comes from hydropower and emits few pollutants. If you’re a resident of Washington, DC, your power comes completely from burning coal, which is much dirtier.

How does your electricity compare? You can get the answer from EPA’s Power Profiler website. It says it takes 5 minutes, but it only took me about 5 seconds. All you do is enter your website, and choose your power company.

The electric power I buy is less polluting than average:

That’s because more of my power comes from renewables (like wind and solar), hydro, and natural gas (which emits fewer conventional pollutants like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide than coal, but still releases a lot of CO₂, which causes global warming).

The website is part of a recent update to the agency’s eGRID program, which I’ve used a bit in projects examining the emissions related to water use. Most people don’t think about it, but water use accounts for a great deal of energy use. More about that later.

A series of photos from the Boston Globe’s always-compelling online photo series, the “Big Picture”, showing the oil disaster in Dalian, China. The photo below shows the rescue of a cleanup worker who fell into oil-covered water while attempting to repair a pump. Truly heartbreaking. If estimates by the Chinese government are to be believed, the spill is less than 1% the size of the BP spill in the Gulf. (See this list of oil spills and their estimated volumes on Wikipedia.)

From the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program: a new database detailing over 60 different “enabling technologies” for handwashing. I really could have used this when I was a Peace Corps Water and Sanitation Extension Agent in West Africa a decade ago.

An enabling technology is an external or environmental factor that influences an individual’s opportunity to perform a behavior, regardless of their ability and motivation to act. Often overlooked in the design of handwashing initiatives, enabling technologies have been shown to facilitate handwashing behavior in several studies.

The World Bank-administered Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) developed a database to provide practitioners with information on the various types of enabling technologies, including purpose, benefits, key product features and specifications, pictures or illustrations, and contacts for further information

Washing hands with soap at critical times – after contact with feces and before handling food – could reduce diarrheal rates by up to 47 percent (Curtis and Cairncross, 2003). However, rates of handwashing with soap remain low throughout the developing world and large-scale promotion of handwashing behavior change is a challenge

For more information on enabling technologies, click here, contact Jacqueline Devine, wsp@worldbank.org , or visit www.wsp.org/scalinguphandwashing.