Have Your Old Cell Phones Recycled
The need for cell phones to have rechargeable batteries means that they are usually made with toxic metals like cadmium, lead or lithium which are hazardous substances that are also difficult to remove from ecosystems once they have made their way into them. The LCD displays on many cell phones also contain mercury, another toxic metal that is difficult to dispose of or to clean up. As dangerous as these substances are, fewer than 20% of cell phone batteries that are disposed of in California are being recycled and a staggering 34 thousand tons of rechargeable batteries went into landfills.
Read MoreAre We Too Alarmed by Climate Change?
The global warming issue acquired 'extreme' status in the late 1990s with studies at that time indicating that there had been a steep and unnatural increase in the planet's temperature in the past five centuries. By 2005 the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was the focus of a lot of controversy over the validity of the methods used to measure global warming and most especially the way that that information was made public.
Read MoreAmerica’s Clean Air Act – 59% Emission Reduction
According to the report around 40% of the population are living with unacceptable levels of air pollution with 38% of those living with high levels of ozone, a gas that is connected to many cardiovascular and lung diseases. There are currently almost 1 million American children with asthma that live in areas with high levels of short term particle pollution which aggravates their condition.
Read MoreThe Cost of Silent Invaders – Biodiversity
A great deal of the damage that has been done to our environment is the result of obvious abuses of the natural world like dumping waste into rivers and lakes or the effects of vehicle emissions. Often these effects on our world are very apparent as is the case with the consumer garbage that we use in landfill but some of the effects that we have on our environment are less visible and may have a greater impact than the smog over our cities. Perhaps the greatest threat facing our environment today is the impact that invasive species has on the natural world that we live in.
Read MoreCalifornia and the Carbon Tax Experiment – Kyoto Protocol
California is the largest state in the Union and the ninth largest economy in the world which makes this experiment the most significant attempt to reduce and put a price on carbon emissions anywhere in the world. The plan has met with some opposition due in part to the fact that Congress has already considered the taxation model that will be used in California and failed to pass it into legislation. Other states have expressed concerns that the new Californian tax will impose new costs which make the tax a national concern while there have also been claims that the tax will make Californian businesses more exclusionist. There are also doubts about whether the plan can succeed with large companies who are likely to move their cleaner activities to California and their dirtier processes to tax free states.
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