CHEMICAL WINTER

The Global Warming/Climate Change issue masks the more sinister story within the story:

The Environmental Defense Group announced that their tests (summer 2006) showed Canadians sampled across the country were Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) positive. The implications were that all or most Canadians will in future also test positive for VOC’s and so far subsequent testing seems to confirm this. They haven’t said so but testing positive for VOC’s is the chemical equivalent to testing positive for nuclear radioactivity.

Why haven’t decision-makers reacted?

Incredibly, the fault lies with the way humans assign professional responsibilities. Like ants, humans divide work into areas of responsibility and this often prevents critical information from crossing “turf boundaries”. At the ministerial level, turf wars have generated court battles to ensure compliance with a given ministry’s legislation. More often, legislation is simply ignored or over-ruled for the sake of convenience. What is best for the public at large is frequently discounted altogether in the race to deliver an agenda no matter how ill-conceived. In such a culture it’s not hard to understand why nearly all Government officials, regulators, scientists, medical, industry officials try to remain officially unaware of the current dire threat VOC’s represent to current and future generations so they don’t have to answer to what will be a very unforgiving public when the news is finally aired.

How do solvents enter the environment?

VOC’s, part of the Greenhouse Gas equation, enter the atmosphere via incomplete combustion of oil-based transportation and heating fuels. The bulk of the world’s dangerous emissions are created in China, India and Indonesia. However, just because other places are worse is no reason for us not to take appropriate action and lead by example. In the eastern GTA where I live, over 50% of our emissions are produced locally and that number is going to increase substantially over the next twenty years by over 100 million tons. There is no such thing as a 100% clean burn in which all chemicals in a fuel are consumed by combustion events. Therefore, it is well known engines of all types and natural gas burning commercial, industrial and particularly residential furnaces spew these unburned solvents into the atmosphere much faster than the environment can possibly neutralize them. We call the result air pollution and smog. The real description is not air pollution or smog but atmospheric garbage dump. Even though we depend on clean air for life, as a species, we dump many of the most lethal chemicals we produce into it in staggering amounts.

Over the last few centuries, air pollution has become so endemic that governments have convinced the public that there are safe levels of these contaminants in our atmosphere. This is despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people around the world die annually from inhaling poisoned air.

What about the regulators?

In Ontario, the public has been told for decades that toxic emissions from smoke stacks, chimneys, exhaust pipes and so on are regulated to provide a balance between economic growth and public safety. For this to work, all sides, government, industry and the public have to be on the same side. The growing death toll and the global scope of environmental disaster is all the evidence you need to determine that no government or industry has been honest with the public and certainly not in Ontario.

Ask yourself some simple questions:

What exactly is regulated in Ontario? Industrial emissions and vehicle emissions for sale to the public. Residential emissions which are a huge component of smog and sources of deadly airborne solvents are completely unregulated. Shipping, aircraft and trains are unregulated. There are thousands of chemicals that are as yet unregulated and thousands more that are not even described so they can be regulated.

How are the regulations enforced? The penalties are financial and are merely a cost of doing business. No one goes to jail. If you kill someone or even an entire population with emissions, there is no penalty. Not because there aren’t laws in place to invoke the penalty but because the police refuse to get “involved”. They say it’s a civil issue.

Who are the regulators? Who they aren’t is more to the point. They are not doctors or emissions toxicologists specializing in respiratory injury. None of the regulators have any training in how air pollution impacts living tissue. Few of the regulators if any have any information necessary to set emissions at safe levels to protect the health of any living creature on earth.

How are the emissions levels set? They are not set with your health as a priority despite the rhetoric. Emission levels are set to generate maximum revenue from industry while allowing the public to believe that progress is being made. It’s a fine balance. Since the economy is considered as the number one priority despite legislation that says public safety is the number one priority, there is no possibility that emissions levels will go down instead of up regardless of technological advances. Many sources of emissions are not recognised as part of the problem so those areas will not be addressed without public pressure. Since the public is not aware of the discrepancy, the pressure will be a long time coming.

Do the policy writers actually have a comprehensive understanding of what they need to know beyond basic chemistry in order to ensure that living things are properly protected? No.

What does the Environment mean to Government?

The environment according to our legislation is an economic resource and is regarded as either vacant land or a giant grocery store without cash registers. Wildlife is product, nothing more. Wildlife is almost never allowed to impede development and only when massive public opinion is brought to bear. Living things other than people have effectively no legal status and are not considered to be lives with value unless a profit can be generated from them.

Environmental losses have never been quantified in terms of lives lost, but the total is considered by those totally devoid of empathy or a working knowledge of the natural world to be acceptable collateral damage and a legitimate penalty to pay for economic progress. That works until the life lost is your own. At that point the cost becomes unacceptable but at that point, it’s too late.

That this situation can exist is due to the mistaken belief that financial balance sheets exist in isolation from the natural world. Corporations fail to realize that the natural world operates on exactly the same principles. In fact, business financial statements are only one half of the real financial picture and represent the Liability side of the ledger at that. The asset side of the ledger is the natural world. And as with any financial statement, if liabilities exceed assets for too long, bankruptcy ensues. Right now our planet is approaching total bankruptcy in every way. That tells you how well governments have done in their jobs as environmental stewards.

Part of the reason that our deadly air is not being remedied more aggressively is that people due to circumstances, levels of tolerance and the variety of ways air pollution manifests itself or fails to manifest itself in living tissue has lead to the belief that air pollution does not affect everyone and that those so afflicted have merely drawn a short straw – bad luck in other words. People delude themselves by thinking it can happen to other people but not them. The truth is that in urban areas, no one escapes profound respiratory damage and other serious injuries as a result of poisons accumulating in their tissues. That some people can tolerate the toxins without detection depends on such an array of factors that when the toxins do manifest themselves as a harsh physiological event it’s considered bad luck and often not attributed to air pollution. The only luck part is in the “when”, not the “if”. Air quality is that bad. Air should be life giving, not death dealing, but that’s what we’ve done to it.


You are being infiltrated:

Solvent molecules easily penetrate skin and cellular structure where they “melt” DNA, the genetic operating instructions that govern a living creature’s ability to exist. As solvents “burn” DNA, viability of the host is compromised or lost.

There is no safe, “legal” level of VOC contamination in the atmosphere and that goes for a number of other lethal related chemicals that are routinely dumped into the air such as benzenes.
They are emitted planet-wide, an accumulating super-pesticide coating capable of killing everything, even vegetation. The phenomenon is so anti-life directed that if an alien species were to analyze what we are doing, they would have to conclude that, in view of the pro-life alternatives that we are not employing, we are intentionally attempting to terminate all life on earth. Nothing else would make sense.

In late 2004 when I was writing my book, Land Grab in North Pickering, I tied VOC’s to the world –wide frog extinctions. The only common denominator in the various habitats around the world where the extinctions and extirpations occurred and others where they continue to occur is air. Then there were the descriptions detailed by Karen Lips who was actually on site as extinctions in isolated frog populations were occurring. Her written observations described exactly what happens when a frog is subjected to solvent burn.

When the frog/solvent equation is considered, it must be taken into account the importance of scale in terms of frog size and solvent molecule size. Frogs are generally quite small creatures. They breathe through their lungs and through their skin. A solvent molecule is the same size when “ingested” or inhaled whether by a human or a frog. The effect of solvent molecules due to the scale factor between the size of a human to the molecules and the size of a frog to the molecules are considerable and the difference in effect is just as considerable.

When solvents touch skin, two actions occur almost simultaneously. First is a cooling sensation due to rapid evaporation by the solvent. Second is the deadlier burning sensation as the solvent begins to dissolve the skin. VOC’s (solvents) are known as transdermals because skin poses no effective barrier to the tiny molecules and their ability to liquefy living tissue as they migrate into the flesh. When solvents touch a frog skin, those same sensations would occur. But unlike a human, the frog would not be able to brush it off.

Neither the cooling nor burning sensation would cause an escape response in the frog. Rather the cooling sensation would be nearly meaningless while the burning sensation would tend to immobilize it. And that is the first thing that Karen noticed: the frogs were dead where they sat. Frogs never die like that unless they are shot or poisoned. As well, frogs being prey species means that there is virtually no such thing as frog corpses unless there has been human interference – they are eaten immediately by their predators. The next important thing that Karen noted was that upon analysis, they and other frog victims appeared to have suffered an invasion of fungus and parasites consistent with a systemic immunological breakdown.

That sort of systemic breakdown has been seen in other species - humans.

In 2003, Martin Pall a Washington State University scientist conclusively connected solvents to an impressive array of human afflictions - among them Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Cancer. Three years later I added Asthma. At the same time, I suggested to Martin that what he was describing chemically could in simple English be termed a “burn”. He agreed. Further, he agreed with my suggestion that all of these former “diseases” should more properly be known as injuries.

The extinctions and extirpations led me to believe initially that I should expect an insect population explosion. But my personal observations and those of others I spoke with were at odds with this idea and instead, by mid-2005 I concluded that insect population crashes were occurring but not being noticed. The first obvious one was the disappearance of the Mayflies in Southern Ontario followed by small moths and other tiny flying insects. Further personal observations in the tropics, the US and locally seemed to confirm this notion. Exploration of the subject on the internet revealed that scientists all over the world are recording baffling insect population crashes punctuated in 2007 by the dramatic decline in the honey bee population. Again, the evidence showed distinct immunological destruction.

Scientists have begun to notice the unsurprising relationship between pesticides and certain population crashes but so far have failed to pin the tail on the donkey where air-borne solvents are concerned despite pesticides being formulated with solvents and the two sources of toxins generating similar or maybe even identical pathology.

As important as the immunological destruction is, both as an indicator and as an identifiable symptom of a world gone wrong, the deeper and more important consideration is what is going on at the DNA level – not only among people but among all living things.

DNA damage impacts how a living creature functions. Since all functions have evolved to ensure survival, damage to functionality of a creature not only impacts its ability to live but also its ability to procreate and its descendants abilities to survive and procreate. In other words, solvent induced DNA damage to a broad range of species has the potential to terminate not only those species, but also those species dependent on the damaged species for their own survival be they prey species, species that require pollination or some sort of symbiotic function.

Designers, architects and engineers understand profoundly that a simple, tiny alteration to a structure or a system ricochets right through the design subtly altering every aspect of the finished project. Failure to acknowledge this simple truth is to invite disaster at every level of the enterprise. Changes in the natural world, as resilient as it is come with the same set of mitigation challenges. In a design, in most cases, professionals working on the project are expected to anticipate and allow for design changes to ensure final success. This concept works well in a civilized setting. It doesn’t work nearly so well when the Natural World is involved for the simple reason that that unlike a design project, the variables are only partially understood.

The proof of just how poorly understood natural systems are is all around us in air that is too poison to inhale without injury and water that is too toxic to drink without injury. The soil we grow our food in is widely accepted to be so depleted of essential minerals and organics that nutrition levels from produce have fallen by as much as half over the last century.

And it’s one thing to tell people to wash their food before they eat it. It’s another when you consider that wildlife of every sort is inhaling and ingesting solvents in the form of pesticides and more insidiously as chemical fallout from chimneys and exhaust pipes.


At the same time, human immunological injuries including Cancer such as Brain Tumours, Asthma, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Autism are increasing in lockstep with chemical proliferation that has saturated and in many ways perverted human existence as it enticed us with technological advances.

Climate Change is a huge issue but burgeoning VOC contamination has immediate and deadly implications for the future of all life on earth. Ironically, the VOC solution is the Global Warming solution. What is the solution? The end of oil? Correct choices have to be made if there is to be a future that includes higher forms of life in even the very short term.

Street Racing Legislation in Ontario - is it worth it?

October 1, 2007, the new street racing legislation became law in Ontario, Canada. Or did it? This is legislation that denies a basic human right in Ontario and in Canada as a whole. That right is the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty before a tribunal (a judge)

But that isn't all. The new law gives police sweeping new powers to seize vehicles and have them towed to an impound yard. Your license is suspended for a week on the spot no matter how far away from home you are whether or not you have the means to get home. This can happen even if you are completely innocent. If the cop doesn't like you, or your car, your colour, your clothes, you can still have your car impounded and it can be done on the suspicion you might use the car to race on the street. Age and gender are no protection.

In court you may be found completely innocent but you still won't get the fees back or restitution for the damage caused by a week's license suspension. The damages are in the thousands of dollars most times. You're guilty until proven guilty. The police regard the system as a 100% conviction rate.

How did this happen? There were three accidents in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) involving street racers and fatalities over a one year period. They were high profile cases and all were tragic. The media and the public went nuts and if the perpetrators weren't in police custody, no doubt they'd have been lynched.

However, over 99% of the street racing problem is in the GTA. Ontario is a big place. The GTA is a dot. In terms of street racing deaths contributing to the total numbers of accidents annually over an eight year period, street racing contributes three tenths of one percent.

Empty cars contribute twice that as do wildlife.

Distractions and medical causes contribute to over 80% of accidents and fatal accidents yet the police are not making a big deal out of that. Why not?

But still no one is arguing that something needs to be done about street racing. In most of Ontario, there are tracks and remote areas where racers can race in peace and are something of local heros - but not anywhere near the GTA. In Poland, the cities have sanctioned street racing and reap huge economic benefits from it. In the GTA, that same sort of person is criminalized. In the GTA, there is nowhere for the racers to race except on city streets. The problem is decades old and the solution has always been the same, the GTA needs facilities and the GTA has no intention of giving them the facilities. So rather than experience an economic boom, the GTA is cutting off its economic nose to spite its face. Meanwhile, Formula Races happen in the GTA no problem.

The big deal for Ontarians and others is that the governnment changed the meanings of the words 'racing' and 'stunt'. Having done that the government is then penalizing the unaware public. The new meaning of the word racing is really a new definition that says you are going 50 kph (30 mph) over the posted speed limit. Therefore you were racing. Maybe you were actually going shopping or coming home enjoying the drive. But according to police you were racing. Car towed, license suspended and so on.

Stunt driving is a term that's so vague it could be and is being determined to mean nearly anything you could possibly do in a car whether or not it's moving.

So ask yourself this - If the meanings of these two words can be changed, couldn't the meanings of other words in other legislation be changed just as easily? Yes it can. By changing the meanings of those two words, the Ontario legislature destabilized all of Ontario's legislation and drove a wedge of distrust between themselves and the public.

They also paved the way for Rent-A-Cop. That's what happens when a person asks a friendly cop to do something about the kid across the street with the noisy car. If the cop is agreeable, it's no sweat for him to impound the car, take the license and then maybe later withdraw the charge. It's an amazing way to tag team someone you don't like. Or maybe it's just the cop that doesn't like someone. For a reason the driver may never know, his life could take a sharp financial nosedive. It can be done to you or anyone else. There are no safeguards in place to see that it can't happen. And yes it certainly is happening already.

There is lots more. So much more I wrote a book about it - ABUSE OF POWER - ONTARIO'S ILLEGAL STREET RACING LEGISLATION. It's available by e-mailing me at jondy@sympatico.ca for $20.00 plus postage.