Killer compost

 in last week's episode of Landman, we saw hunter fall over dead and then oil field repair men get sick and identify the problem but are rescued in time.

So what caused this?

more HERE:

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a highly toxic gas common in oil-producing regions like West Texas. Sometimes, this gas can be leaked due to aging or improperly sealed storage tanks into air during the process of oil production....

 but it's not just from oil fields:

Six workers, including family members aged 17 to 50, died at a dairy farm in Keensburg, northern Colorado, in October H2S exposure in a confined space near manure piping. Investigation revealed they were handling pipes which were transferring the gas from decomposing manure destined for compost when high concentrations of the gas killed them within a few breaths. One worker collapsed first, which prompted others to enter the area to help, leading to a chain of fatalities in what experts call a tragically common but unusually large-scale event on US dairy farms.

,,,,and don't forget about the sewer problem:

I asked Grok about such deaths in poor countries but it said most deaths are probably not reported. but they did find China was honest enough to report some deaths:

h2s deaths in third world 

Deaths from H2S in Third World Countries Third world means developing or low-income countries. Data on H2S deaths is poor there. Many places do not track it well. This makes exact numbers hard to find.

 

From reports: In India, 3 workers died from H2S on an oil rig in the sea near Bombay High in 2023. They entered a closed space with bad air. Good plans and training could have stopped it.

 

In Africa, high work injury rates happen in places like Ethiopia.

 

 

H2S is a risk in farms, sewers, and oil work. But no exact death count for H2S. In Asia and Africa, oil and gas jobs have H2S risks. No global count, but deaths are likely under-reported. Worldwide,

 

H2S kills about 7 workers a year in the US.

 

In poor countries, it may be more due to weak safety rules. No full stats exist. Poisons like H2S cause many deaths in low-income areas, but details are missing. Why Hard to Track? Poor countries lack good health records. Many deaths happen in remote jobs like mining or farming. Survivors may not get help.

 

...Worldwide, H2S kills workers in oil. In Saudi, it may be like that due to big oil fields. Poor tracking makes numbers low. Why Hard to Track? Records are not good. Many deaths in remote sites. Tests for H2S are rare after death.

 

 so I asked about deaths in China, where there is at least some reporting on such deaths.

 

China has many oil, gas, and chemical jobs. H2S is a big risk there. Data is not full. Many cases are not reported well. Most deaths happen in closed spaces like sewers, tanks, or factories. Known cases: In 2003, a gas well blowout in Chongqing killed 243 people. It spread H2S over 25 km. Over 2,000 got sick. It was the worst H2S accident in China. In 2024, a factory in Shandong killed 7 workers. H2S formed in a closed tank during work. 4 others got hurt. In 2019, a chemical plant in Sichuan killed 3. H2S came from waste in a tank. In 2013, a plant in Liaoning killed 3 during repair. Bad safety let H2S escape. In 2008, a factory in Yunnan killed 6. Too much chemical made H2S gas leak. In 2004, workers in Wuxi died 2 while fixing pipes. Gas from sewage. From 2012 to now, at least 18 big H2S accidents killed 62 people. Many more small ones. Blind rescue makes deaths worse. No exact total. China has thousands of work deaths a year. H2S causes some, but tracking is poor.  

 

Fukushima: Wild Boars and... Ostriches?

Some people are pushing for "clean" nuclear power, citing that the newer versions are safe, so no more Chernobyls.

Ah, but Fukushima had a nuclear plant melt down: it was safe for powerful earthquakes, but the tsunami was a bit too much (the 15 meter high tsunami, was much higher than the protective sea wall).

Japan is hoping to move families back to their homes. Here is a NatGeo film about it.


.............

when folks were quickly evacuated, they had to leave their animals (both pets and farm animals) behind. Many went feral (something seen dramatically in the miniseries of Chernobyl).

But one problem in the area was the wild boars that took over the area. (see minute 8 in the above video).

wild boars are dangerous.

Or this article from 2018, from the SCMP about the problem of wild boars in Japan

The problem is increasing in many area of Japan: of course, they blame "climate change", but actually the wild boars are moving into land becoming depopulated as aging farmers die and their farms go back to nature.

But after the people were moved out at the time of the Fukushima disaster, the boars took over:

This northern region has been hit particularly hard by depopulation. People were forced out when the gigantic 2011 earthquake caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and after the resulting tsunami wiped out coastal towns. So much of the area remains inhospitable for humans, but perfect for boars....

But visitors to the area also started noticing feral ostriches.

Ostriches? from a local ostrich farm.

the UK Guardian in 2015 had an article and photos about the abandoned areas, including this photo of an ostrich:

Deserted Town, from the series The Abandoned Animals of Fukushima by Yasusuke Ota

Their story is here.

about half the ostriches died, but the rest went feral... eventually they were captured and given back to their owner, and used to investigate how radiation affected the feral animals.

and in this video, the narrator discusses many of the problems that happened at Fukushima, many of which were sort of underreported at the time.



supposedly the newer salt reactors would not result in such a catastrophe, so some are pushing these newer design as a "green" source of energy.

Don't ask me.

I'm a doctor, not a nuclear scientist.

But I wonder: As Murphy's law goes: If anything can go wrong, it will.

and if so many things went wrong in high tech sophisticated Japan, imagine what could go wrong in places like the Philippines.

Luckily, the Bataan nuclear power plant, located on an earthquake fault (and built after bribing Marcos) never went on line thanks to local activists opposing it.

So score one for the environmentalist activists.

there is talk now and then about reactivating the almost complete plant but by now, the design is obsolete, so few locals want to take the chance.

so I guess we'll stick with our local hydroelectric power plants, and the periodic brownouts during the hot and dry season.

Luckily for us, unlike the people in northern California, no one really trusts the government or big business, so everyone who can afford one owns their own generator, so brown outs are not a big problem.

Rail safety vs pipeline

I usually keep an eye on Canadian Mrs Gay Caswell's blog, because she is an ex politician and a Metis who lives in an indigenous area in western Canada and many of the social problems she discusses (and the problems against a corrupt political establishment) are very similar to what I had to cope with in Minnesota.

But this post made me sit up and say WTF:

On July 06,2013 Death was riding the rails from Nantes, Quebec, Canada . No crew, no mechanical controls were giving its direction.. A runaway train hauling 72 tankers filled with crude oil derailed as they approached the centre of Lac Megantic. The tank cars exploded and the oil caught fire killing 47 people and destroying many buildings in the town. The train was from North Dakota, U.S.A.

I never heard about that disaster. Did it get headlines, or did it happen when we were offline and not following the news? (a common problem here). 

Wikipedia has a very long discussion of the Lac-Megantic rail disaster.

If the disaster sounded familiar, because we watched the film Unstoppable which has the plot of a similar run away train: a 2010 movie that was filmed in Lolo's old stomping grounds of western Pennsylvania.

In that film, the heroes Denzel Washington and Chris Pine managed to stop the train before it took out the center of a fictional town.

but the plot was based on a very real near disaster:

Unstoppable was inspired by the 2001 CSX 8888 incident, in which a runaway train ultimately traveled 66 miles (106 km) through northwest Ohio.

Wikipedia discusses that incident here, which ended after a similar chase.

Knowlton and Forson successfully coupled onto the rear car, and slowed the train by applying the dynamic brakes on the chase locomotive. Once the runaway had slowed to 11 miles per hour (18 km/h), CSX trainmaster Jon Hosfeld ran alongside the train, climbed aboard, and shut down the engine.

Alas, in the Lac-Megantic, the cabin had had a fire which had to be put out, but no one noticed the train no longer had brakes nor did anyone notice it started to go downhill on it's own, without an engineer. No one noticed until a fire fighter who had fought the original fire saw the train go by without lights and too fast: ten minutes before the derailment.

in other words, despite the fact that both a previous disaster and a major Hollywood film outlined the case what happens when there is only one engineer on a train, and when something happens that causes the air breaks to fail, no one seemed to be worried about safety, hence the the train was disaster waiting to occur.

As I said: not my area of expertise, nor do I have knowledge about pipelines.

But Mrs C. does have an opinion:

she questions two things about the disaster: Why was the oil from the USA being transported via Canada on inferior rail lines by a company that had a poor safety record, and a company that ignored the rule about two engineers per train.

The second question is why do the environmentalist oppose pipelines which are in rural area and a rupture would not cause a major loss of life... and she questions why these activists use indigenous "leaders" to push their (i.e. white environmentalists) agenda.

well that sounds familiar: often the MSM can't tell the difference between an activist who parrots the progressive agenda and the actual tribal leaders who are elected by the actual tribal members. Every time I read such propaganda, all I can do is shake my head at the MSM ignorance of AmerIndian politics.

Heck, the press hasn't even notice Elizabeth Warren got a job as a "minority" without showing a CDIB  card, which is the proof of your tribal connections (yes, many Americans have AmerIndian ancestors, but the affirmative action is for those living traditional ways, often in poverty from very real discrimination, not a white person living a middle class main stream life with few social disadvantages and little or no knowledge of tribal customs or tribal customs).

the poverty on the reservations is very real, and as a physician, I had to cope with the understaffed and underfunded hospital/clinic, (a bit improved now that the tribes have taken over their health care and are using the casino money to improve the facilities and hire staff in a more efficient way).

But working there we had to cope with real problems like alcoholism and drug abuse from the stress of poverty and stress of living in two cultures and the collapse of the family often due to substance abuse, and too often the do gooders trying to help treat  you like a child instead of a warrior.

As for progressive "green" groups hiring professional "indigenous" activists to push the "green agenda":

Do any of them notice if these ideas were implemented it would be a disaster for rural dwellers of all races.

As Mrs. Caswell writes:

Being in the North- West without a truck is like being in the Wild West without a horse. Trucks are run by fossil fuel usually called gas. No one gets to a medical appointment by dragon boat , not even a canoe. We get there by air ambulance filled with fossil fuel, a fifteen passenger van or a personal truck filled with fossil fuel.

yup. Been there, done that: when I worked in northern Minnesota, our nearest referral hospital was 35 miles away, but for specialty care (e.g. major trauma) we had to air evac them 200 miles, usually by helicopter but if the weather was bad, by fixed wing from the airport 30 miles away.

Until you get "safe nukes" or efficient alternative energy that is cheap, ordinary folks will have to rely on fossil fuel for transportation. Yes, electric cars are the future, but what happens when the electric company turns off your current, as is now happening in California due to the fire hazard?

At least here in the Philippines, most middle class folk have a generator, and we have our own well which was lifesaving when we were hit by a typhoon and flooding that contaminated the city water supply.

Ah, but what would happen if we couldn't get diesel? Presumably we'd be able to cope with biodiesel from coconut oil, but that might take time. Oh well: we still own one waterbuffalo to pull a cart so we could get rice to eat from our farm....

but cities rely on fossil fuel, and there are lots of disaster movies about what happens when the infrastructure collapses.

but in the meanwhile, finding oil, fracking, and transporting petroleum will be a logistical imperative if you don't want civilization to collapse.

and that means you need an infrastructure to drill/frack, and to refine the product, and a way to transport the petroleum to the refinery and then to the local gas stations etc.

So as Mrs. Caswell reminds one:

Fossil fuel needs development of oil patches and pipe lines. Pipe lines do not go through towns and cities like Lac Megantic. They don’t need tankers, box cars and rail roads that are often old and need repair.

Once the pipe line is in place there is less need for work crews and staff...There is a 43 per cent increase in rail road workers testing positive for drugs.

Pipe lines don’t toke up . A lot of railroad workers do.

On the other hand, self righteous social justice warriors are more likely to sabotage pipelines.

because oil evil, don't cha know.

at least it's "evil" to all those affluent white kids in the US and Europe who never had to confront poverty or reality of the modern world.

Could they cope with the logistics of the modern world, be it growing and transporting rice to the market (as our family does), air evacuating a patient by a helicopter (as my son in law does), or as ordinary people risking their lives to cope with a potential disaster:

It's not just in the Philippines

 BBC: Haiti remembers their earthquake that killed a quarter million people.

and this report(AFP/Gulf news) notes:

Opposition critics have attacked the government for failing to make better progress on rebuilding. The government says that a large portion of the estimated $381mn donated by governments and organisations the world over was spent on the post-earthquake emergency and not for reconstruction.

“We were lucky to have help from Venezuela. Most of our projects were accomplished with Venezuelan money. With slim means, we accomplished a lot of things,” Lamothe said, expressing hope that the international community would make good on its aid pledges.

He criticised the international community for failing to provide promised aid of nearly $9bn. “If the international community had fulfilled its commitment, we would have accomplished 10 times more than we have achieved,” Lamothe said. “We must continue to make the international community aware.

Cat item of the day

----------------

 a green way to get energy

Globalism

Instapundit has a short discussion of Hayek, many of whose ideas are behind the Teaparty movement (i.e. economic libertarians, as opposed to the GlenBeck/Social conservatives...they are not the same).

In a nutshell, Hayek says letting the market rule the world is better than central planning, because you get feedback from the people (who if they don't like your product, they buy elsewhere or do without), whereas when governments take over, they use the idea of "emergency" to justify prosecuting the opposition to "save the people".

PBS series on this HERE.
also on google video and youtube.



and for the easy version, try the comic book.

If you are pro Teaparty, Hayek's book shows the danger of Big Brother. But if you are anti Teaparty, Hayek's ideas also warn what happens when the people will throw them out and get in a dictator who promises to fix things.

The difference, of course, is that the Teaparty movement isn't asking for a savior, but for government to let them alone so they can do things for themselves.



I'm not sure I agree with Hayek (I prefer Shumaker's "Small is Beautiful" ideas of local economics) but you know, after studying how civilization emerged, it's amazing how trade, with it's spreading of items, technology, and ideas, stimulated civilization. Alas, disease and dictatorships and organized war also came along, but violence and murder and disease existed in the stone age too...

Green idea of the week

The Hindenburg was eco friendly...now if we could only get the technology right so it doesn't crash.

Interesting discussion...

Global warming hysteria

Malaria comes to the highlands of Kenya.

It's global warming stupid...or maybe not.

You see, malaria was once common in England and New York City...it has to do with population density, and the availability of stagnant water or ponds in which to breed. Make people richer, clean up the swamps and breeding areas, and spray breeding areas with stuff that kills the wigglers (DDT is nice but oil worked in the old days) and voila, malaria is gone.

I suspect the increase is due to Africa's population explosion, allowing the parasite to spread...100 years ago, you only had scattered villages in the highlands, which were populated mainly with herders not farmers.

But never let truth in the way of global warming hysteria.

Headlines below the fold

Bloggernewsnet is asking for a Blogburst about Pastor Son, a North Korean who converted to Christianity while in China and went back to his country to preach, and is now sentenced to death for daring to do so.
My contribution is background story about the Christian underground railroad smuggling NK Refugees...

Kenyan ladies of the evening have a new uniform:the buibui - a loose, floor-length gown and head covering favoured by Muslim women.


Jihadi TV...nah, if it was reported they might have to acknowledge that Bush didn't make up these things.

Historian reminds NYTimes of reality LINK.

Good news of the day: Sending date palms to restore the Basran orchards. Spanish scientist hopes to help replant using Spanish seedlings. It's part of the Iraqi Marshlands Rehabilitation project. The marshlands were destroyed by Saddam to punish the locals. One of the major ecological atrocities of the 1990's ...

But the real danger to the world is....

Duckzilla

Playing at being primitive

I enjoy stories of "primitive" tribes, but unlike many of the Westerners (often British) doing the reports I see things as a woman.

Yes, you are doing nicely playing macho and hunting, but if you were a woman and had a baby every 18 months, with the chronic backache and nausea, and still had to fetch wood for cooking and fetch water and dig in your garden, you just might prefer living in a town with running water, TV, and birthcontrol pills.

But that's just me.

Stop Global warming! Eat Garlic

well, it works for cows.
Crossposted BNN

Climate cycles: nothing new

Just in time for wealthy aging rock stars to tell us to get rid of our pickup trucks and live like carbon free Zimbabweans, the National Geographic tells us: whoops. Nothing new about global warming.



Earth's polar temperature has swung wildly—by as much as 15 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit)—over the last 800,000 years, an Antarctic ice core has revealed. ...

In today's online journal Science, the team showed that the coldest period occurred around 20,000 years ago, during the last glacial maximum, when the ice sheets were at their peak...

Meanwhile, the warmest period was during the last interglacial period, which is an interval of warmer global average temperature that separates ice ages. At that time, around 130,000 years ago, it was a balmy 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than today.

Now they're using algae

for biofuel that is...

Green Item of the day

A biodiesel powered jet...

Loving the trees not the locals

Editorial says what I think every time I see those National Geographic specials on saving primitive cultures. Hint: Yup. You guys think it's nice, but how would you like doing all that hard work of planting and cooking from scratch, while risking death having a baby every year, and know that half of them will die before they are six?

Monkey business

THE PLAGUE! THE PLAGUE!

Monkey eats squirrel, monkey dies of plague...Actually, IHS docs, especially in the Navajo area, see one or two cases a year, and it's found in squirrels or prairie dogs. But having it pop up in Denver is a problem.

"insurgents" say: attack us and the monkey dies...well, the gorilla anyway.
Animal rights groups are probably hyperventillating. They worry more about Buster than the 97 park rangers killed, or the four million dead in the conflict.

WaPo celebrates Rachel Carson:
"...Carson's book "Silent Spring," published in 1962, led to the banning of the pesticide DDT, the launch of modern environmentalism and her enshrinement as a kind of patron saint of nature...."

Ah, but did Rachel Carson care more about birds than children?
Buried in paragraph 27, and paraphrasing the Congressman, The Washington Post concedes that "numerous" deaths might have been prevented by DDT...Just how "numerous" is numerous? Wouldn't you ask that question? The Post never asks that question. Why? Because the answer devastates Rachel Carson and her followers. According to these CDC figures, malaria kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year.

Did a meterorite kill the mastadons? LINK

Yawn...no news today

World yawns...

Zimbabwe deteriorating into humanitarian disaster...the world yawns. Mugabe is a socialist. stop picking on him...

Saudis send jihad missionaries to a secular "muslim" Bosnia...
The world yawns. Repeat after me: The Saudis are our friends...the Saudis are our friends...

Rapunzel update: several hundred mistreated OFW are rescued...the world yawns.

Zambian ex president convicted of stealing 46 million dollars of the public's money.
Actually this is news, not because he stole the money but because he was actually convicted of stealing the money.

And for those who think pollution is a western problem, think again...Yawn.

Can't blame them on Bush...most predate him and most aren't even by US companies...

And anyway, if we get polluted, it will probably be from THIS agreement.

Global warming now it's the water buffalo

Global warming: It's the rice paddies, stupid...their solution? Get rid of the five thousand year old organic method of growing rice, use less water (which means you will have to use herbicides to kill weeds) and less manure (which means using expensive fertilizer instead) and of course the reason that China has decreased rice emissins is their forced abortion policy....

Headlines below the fold

The VaTech shooter is not Chinese, but a Korean with a green card who got his guns legally. For conspiracy theorists, BoingBoing has the Indonesian connection...

But an easier explanation is ordinary paranoid schizophrenia due to stress.

What about when "ordinary" people become paranoid? Dr. Sanity discusses this...and the NYTimes reports of a cass of "mass hysteria" in a Mexican boarding school...stress, fear, displacement, and those around you reinforcing the delusion...the difference of course is the treatment. Haldol for the schizophrenics and valium/hypnosis/psychotherapy/reality based environment for the second.

Chemical attack foiled in Iraq...when the truck had an accident, the Americans went to help the guy...
Won't get much publicity, of course...

Instapundit points to a NYTimes story on Flu prevention...old fashioned quarantine...Movie HERE is to educate authorities on how to respond...

It's not easy being green...Dustbury points out that the Prius turns off when idling, so flunks the Georgia test standards ("an incomplete test...pay 24dollars).

And the new Tolkien book gets thumbs up...son Christopher "edited" the many variations of the story into a single text. But it's a gloomy tale: "Don't expect an uplifting ending like the one to "The Lord of the Rings," however. " says the CNN reviewer...Ah, but LOTR did not have a "happy ending" but a realistic one: even "good" wars leave good men with permanent wounds, as war veteran Tolkien (or Vonnegut) well knew.

Headlines below the fold

The Oil spill in Guimaras is no longer in the news, but the people there still suffer. The Phil Government is seeking reimbursement...and the local families LINK have been told they can return home.

Quite a few NGO's are helping...including" the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), the German Development Cooperation (GTZ), World Vision International United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Canadian International Development Agency, Oxfam and the United Nations Children’s Fund "(Unicef)."
-------------------

A UN official finds that many OFW from Asia working in Bahrain are abused: Overworked, underpaid and often physically or sexually abused....SHHHH...GMA ignores it because the Phlippines needs the money, Bahrain ignores it because they need workers, and the press ignores it because they can't blame Bush...
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Happy news article of the day: Knitting Grannies stitch up the world.
"Across the country, groups like this are finding pleasure in what is sometimes called community knitting. Other knitters, including men, stitch at home and during lunch hours. Collectively they form an invisible army, creating afghans, caps for newborns, security blankets for ill or troubled children, and clothing to provide warmth and comfort."

My mother used to do a lot of this after she retired...her knitting group made hats etc. for guys at the local prison...

so on this week, when political spin and mudslinging is dominating the news, just remember:
"....(Hope) is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of solitary. individuals whose deeds and words every day negate frontiers and thenegate frontiers and the crudest implications of history."-- Albert Camus
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And good news below the fold: Courtney Love in her biography claims that Mel Gibson helped her seek drug treatment. The bad news is that she was so drug addled that she can't remember exactly when it happened.