Great news: North Carolina’s Biomass Trader is at your service whether you’ve got trash or need some trashy materials. The site will even connect you to the 411 on composting, organic products and more. Check it out :
Yesterday, on NPR, I heard a news piece about a pharmaceutical company, Merck, trying to convince governments and parents that young men need a $130 shot to prevent the human papilloma virus (aka HPV). Scientists say the boys don’t need it, but the pharmaceutical company thinks they should get it anyway — just to be sure.
Something to note: At no time did anyone from the pharmaceutical company say, “This is important. If your government orders in bulk, our costs will go down, so, here’s what we’ll do: We’ll give you a price break. And, that’s not all, if you buy now, we’ll cut the price by half because the young men of the world really, really, really, really need this vaccine.”
No, they didn’t do that. The vaccine isn’t that important for young men and, if they want the drug individually, they can always buy it on their own.
But, as good business people with shareholders to feed, guess they owe it to themselves to try to sign up a client that could potentially buy millions of doses. (In case you can’t do math in your head: 10 million doses multiplied by $130 equals $1,300,000,000. Oh, and you need three of them.)
I turned off the radio thinking, “What a racket.” The vaccine, by the way, is recommended for girls by the time they reach 11. ELEVEN. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease. Good work, pharmaceutical companies. Way to lock down a market.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest numbers — which aren’t very current — we’re talking roughly 30 million girls. In other words, $11.7 billion worth of $130 shots for one vaccine.
Then, today, I read that the state of North Carolina just won a $3.5 million settlement from four drug makers who have been scamming Medicaid.
Pffft. What do these companies care about a paltry few million dollars, split four ways? Probably not much. That’s one corporate retreat in Utah, one CEO bonus. That’s not appropriate punishment for defrauding our government.
Meanwhile, be sure to take your pills today. I’m sure you really, really, really, really need them all. Your doctor said so, right? (Next time ask them how much money they get for your prescription from the pharmaceutical companies.)
The Catawba River got its day in court yesterday, the Supreme Court that is. Why the Supreme Court? Because when one state sues another — in this case South Carolina sued North Carolina — that’s where the cases are heard.
The argument? How the Catawba River will be used for drinking water, municipalities and industry. South Carolina says their sister to the north uses too much of the river. North Carolina says uh uuhh.
It’s an argument that was bound to happen. Like any siblings sharing something, someone’s got to figure out how to divvy things up. Of important note, this case could set a precedent for future water battles as our population grows and more and more is demanded from our fresh water sources.
The ruling? Hasn’t happened yet, so stay tuned. It will come sometime before the end of the court’s term, which ends in June.
At stake for Charlotte is the clean water that gushes from faucets and flushes toilets in homes, schools and businesses throughout much of Mecklenburg County. It’s the largest municipal water user on the 225-mile Catawba.
South Carolina sued North Carolina in 2007, amid a severe drought, over the river’s riches, saying it needed an adequate amount of water from the Catawba.
Tuesday’s arguments, though, focused on a single issue: whether the city and Duke Energy, along with the Catawba River Water Supply Project, ought to be allowed to join the lawsuit as intervening parties on North Carolina’s side. That would allow them more say in how the larger water dispute is argued in court.
The state of North Carolina supported the three interventions, while South Carolina opposed them.
The playas:
Charlotte has state permission to pipe 33 million gallons a day from the Catawba into eastern Mecklenburg County, which lies outside the Catawba basin. More recently – prompting the S.C. lawsuit – a N.C. environmental panel gave Concord and Kannapolis approval to pump 10 million gallons a day from the Catawba.
The Catawba River Water Supply Project is a joint venture of Union County, N.C., and Lancaster County, S.C. It draws out 36 million gallons a day from the Catawba.
Duke Energy controls a chain of 11 reservoirs in both states, which it uses to power hydroelectricity and for cooling water for its coal-fired and nuclear plants. It wants to preserve a water agreement it made with 70 regional interests, along with a pending approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its power plants.
Justices aren’t amused
“That just drags us into your problems among your water users,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Chris Bartolomucci of the Washington law firm Hogan and Hartson.
The case was heard in the Supreme Court because all lawsuits between states originate there. Chief Justice John Roberts said he worried about some sort of mission creep by private parties.
“Private parties are going to hijack our original jurisdiction,” Roberts said. He asked N.C. Solicitor General Christopher Browning Jr. why the state couldn’t take care of the local groups’ concerns.
“Why can’t you represent them?” Roberts asked. “You seem to be ceding your sovereignty to them.”
Browning said the state couldn’t properly represent the interests of either Duke Energy or the water project.
…
On the other side, justices had strong questions for South Carolina in its attempt to block the interventions.
“They are the three biggest users of water,” Sotomayor told South Carolina’s outside counsel, Washington litigator David C. Frederick.
Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out that much of the larger water lawsuit over the Catawba revolves around the three local entities anyway.
“To say they’re just Joe Dokes is really just unrealistic,” Scalia said.
Uh oh. Make way for the water wars.
Speaking of which, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear South Carolina v. North Carolina today. Guess what the states are arguing over? Yep. Water. Rights to the Catawba River, more specifically.
The Supreme Court will decide whether or not to allow the City of Charlotte, Duke Energy and the Catawba River Water Supply Project in on the case.
Meanwhile, in India …
Indian Kashmir’s biggest glacier, which feeds the region’s main river, is melting faster than other Himalayas glaciers, threatening the water supply of tens of thousands of people, a new report warned on Monday.
Experts say rising temperatures are rapidly shrinking Himalayan glaciers, underscoring the effects of climate change that has caused temperatures in the mountainous region to rise by about 1.1 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years.
The biggest glacier in Indian Kashmir, the Kolahoi glacier spread over just a little above 11 sq km (4.25 sq mile), has shrunk 2.63 sq km in the past three decades, a new study said.
“Kolahoi glacier is shrinking 0.08 square kilometers a year, which is an alarming speed,” said the study, presented at a workshop on “Climate Change, Glacial Retreat and Livelihoods,” in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s summer capital.
…
According to a United Nations Environment Programme and World Glacier Monitoring Service study, the average melting rate of mountain glaciers has doubled since the turn of the millennium, with record losses seen in 2006 at several sites.
Read the rest of this Reuters article here.
“The world is desertifying very quickly … and there is no where to go in the world to get away from this.”
Are you participating in this weekend’s Big Sweep?
Organizers behind Mecklenburg County’s Big Sweep – which happens Saturday — typically tell volunteers to expect the unexpected during the annual cleanup of local creeks.
Last year, more than 700 volunteers picked up over 16,000 pounds of trash – including 55 tires, and a set of dentures.
This year’s event runs 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Big Sweep organizers provide gloves, trash bags, snacks, and drinks. Volunteers are instructed to wear old clothes, sturdy shoes, a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen.
Find a volunteer location near you on Charlotte.com.
The life of litter:
Whaddaya say? Should we take away all state government privileges until they bring their grades up? Obviously we need to do something because North Carolina made a ‘D’ on this same test last year.
North Carolina has retained a grade of D in the 2009-10 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard, a biennial report from the Corporation for Enterprise Development.
The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit looks at how states measure up in dozens of economic and social indicators, The group’s latest scorecard, which examined 58 measures, graded North Carolina low because the state posted big declines in household net worth and large increases in “asset poverty,” a measure of families’ ability to survive a job loss.
“Many North Carolina residents are struggling to achieve financial security,” the group concludes.
…
In addition to conducting surveys, CFED also makes recommendation to states on how they should address their most pressing problems, In North Carolina’s case, the group says, the state should increase the number of households with bank accounts and also consider expanding its funding for food- and income-support programs.
Sen. John McCain, in Charlotte yesterday with Sens. Richard Burr and Mitch “Turtle” McConnell for an invitation-only GOP health care discussion, said Congress needs to “slow down” in its quest for an improved health care system. But of course he did. McCain is 73 years old — he probably thinks everything should slow down: Congress, drivers, his heart rate, those spots that keep zooming in and out of his vision, you name it. It’s ridiculous, but that seems to be the sum total of congressional Republicans’ insight into health care reform now: slow down.
No, senators, let’s not slow down. In fact, let’s speed this thing up. That way, perhaps not too many more people will die from lack of health insurance before a bill is enacted. Pres. Truman brought up national health insurance in 1948, and the GOP’s reaction was, “Whoa, slow down!” That was more than 60 years ago, and it’s the same old story. Sixty years is long enough to “slow down” the drive to universal health care. McCain, McConnell and — um, who’s the guy from North Carolina again? — oh yeah, Burr, those guys just need to get out of the way.
How much has your salary increased over the same number of years?
North Carolinians have seen their health insurance costs rise five times faster than their salaries over the last decade, according to a new report released Tuesday that is likely to add more fuel to the health care debate.
The report found that health care premiums in the state rose 96.8 percent from 2000 through 2009, while median individual earnings rose by 18.4 percent, according to the study by Families USA and by Action for Children North Carolina.
“Rising health care costs threaten the financial well-being of families in North Carolina and across the nation,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. “If health care reform does not happen soon, more and more families will be priced out of the health coverage they used to take for granted.”
In case you missed it, here’s President Obama’s weekly address which focuses on … you guessed it … health care reform:
According to ProPublica.org, an independent, non-profit, non-partisan investigative journalism project, North Carolina has received $2,719,107,840 in stimulus funds — so far. Mecklenburg County has received $85,672,640, with the Department of Education receiving the bulk of the money, $43,534,811, and the Department of Transportation coming in second with $28,611,015.
Want to know exactly where the money is going? Follow the links.
ProPublic has chosen Charlotte as one of the eight cities they are taking a monthly stimulus snap shot of, along with Atlanta, Boston, Elkhard (Ind.), Grand Forks (N.D.), Las Vegas, Seattle and St. Cloud (Minn.)
ProPublica pulled a random sample of 520 of the roughly 6,000 approved projects to examine stimulus progress around the country. That sample is large enough to estimate national patterns with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent. ProPublica asked members of its reporting network to find out if states had advertised the projects, awarded contracts or actually started construction work.
While about 30 percent of the projects in the sample had broken ground by mid-summer, at least 66 percent had a contract and 76 percent had been put out to bid – suggesting an impending gusher of stimulus work in late summer and early fall.
In addition to the survey, ProPublica reviewed federal transportation data [3] to determine how many stimulus projects reached a critical juncture – receipt of a “notice to proceed,” the last bureaucratic step before construction can start.
The data show some surprising trends: a wide range of progress [3] among states, a tendency for cold weather states to have more projects under way, and a relatively bigger lag getting started in states where unemployment is highest.
Want to volunteer to help ProPublica watchdog stimulus projects in North Carolina (like I do)? Sign up here.
Will we ever get anywhere if we’re constantly taking one step forward and two steps back? Sure we will. We’ll find ourselves drowning off the coast.
The North Carolina State Senate has voted overwhelmingly to ban large wind turbines from the state’s scenic western ridgelines.
The 42-1 vote on Thursday represents the strongest stand against wind turbines taken by lawmakers in any state. The bill would amend a 1983 “ridge law” to allow only turbines that are 100 feet or smaller to be placed on ridgelines above 3,000 feet. This effectively bars industrial-sized turbines — which can reach several hundred feet in height — from the windy mountaintops.
The bill has been sent to the state’s House of Representatives for consideration. However, the House is due to adjourn in a few days, so the debate is likely to resume after the legislature returns next May
March, according to Brandon R. Blevins, the wind program coordinator for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
More from Green, Inc., a New York Times blog.
More about wind energy in North Carolina:
