Day 2 - Adapting to Climate Change

Internet of Things.  The Cloud.  Having sensors do the work that humans used to, transmitting information, big data, to the cloud, can this enforce the Clean Water Act?

I am excited to (finally) be working for an environmental agency.  At this juncture in time, it is really like the 1980s (lets write all our software in house and debug it ourselves) and the 21st century (sensors, cloud, new technology), we have a chance to be like those African nations that have more cell phones than land line phones.

Oregon, as it turns out, has more stringent rules for gathering water quality compliance data than the federal EPA requires.  However, possibly because we require so much data gathering, we have a hard time keeping up.

That is where the internet of things comes in (IOT, as it is affectionately known).  Drop sentient and waterproof sensors in the "waters of the state", and collect "all" possible data about them.  The data is transmitted to the computers in the cloud-sky, and available for us to see if the waters are getting better, or have noxious things in them that someone must pay
to clean up.  Maybe it could even detect the forensic fingerprint of who dumped the noxious stuff.

Day 2 of my blog on climate change adaptation.  Instead of lamenting the state of our rivers, lakes, ocean, waterfalls, forest ponds, car wash puddles, we get real-time data streams and can take enforcement action.  Maybe the ocean has dead zones and we can encourage those fish to move along to someplace nicer.  Or at least we could post temperature signs, like those smart highway signs, that notify the fish the water is 2degrees warmer than last week - they can decide 'Stay?  Migrate?  See what the other fish are doing?'

The Cost of Doing Business

What is the cost of production? Is it labor + materials + safety + environmental regulation?

Free trade is not really free unless all countries competing have the same requirements. So buying a cheap bracelet from China, where underage workers toil with toxic chemicals working 12 hour days in factories separated from their families, while the back of the plant jettisons leftovers from the manufacturing process into streams that may flow into the Yangzte River..

Compare this with an American jewelry shop paying its workers a fair minimum wage with benefits who are able to go home at night to their families, protected from toxics by an environmental health & safety regime who can show up unannounced and inspect factory conditions and fine and regulate and even shut down unsafe plants. A factory that is required to follow environmental regulations regarding safe disposal of toxic waste products. And who faces penalties likewise for failure to adhere to the regulation.

What about the oil companies of the world?

Of the 4 costs of production, which have they had to pay? OK - cost of labor, ok cost of materials for production. But what about all the tax writeoffs they receive to "write off" their expensive exploration costs. Then there are the other two factors, that one would assume an American (or a British) company would be obligated by: safety, environmental laws.

I think we can say safety was not Job 1 (or even Job 27) when witnessing the continued unfolding of the BP Gulf disaster. Environmental regulation - when their "backup plan" was a cut and paste including protection of marine life including walruses (thank you Senator Markey for stating this to the American public).

In Oregon I thought we were going to get tough on prosecuting environmental crimes. OK so the Gulf is not Oregon, and our Attorney General's tough environmental lawyer flamed out. Well there are laws - and maybe if I can't send email to my friend in the Louisiana bayou cause he is out trying to get berm to protect the shoreline, maybe I have a personal right of action here. Isn't that possible under the Clean Water Act?

What if the citizens of the U.S. all got together and filed a class action lawsuit. If one of our membership is harmed, isn't that an affront to all of us?

It is time for oil companies to pay their full cost of doing business. They have gotten away with cutting out 2 or more of the costs of production for far too long, and now the planet will suffer the consequences.