4 posts tagged “pollution”

Congress IS Nuts

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer had a simple explanation Thursday for why the country is so reliant on foreign oil: Congress is nuts.

Other comments by Gov. Charlie Crist called for more domestic oil production and disputed critics who say it would take 10 years to actually get oil if a moratorium on offshore drilling were lifted.

"I've talked to people in the industry and they say that if we let them start to drill, they can have it coming out in a year and a half. So I don't know where this 10-year myth came from, but it's something that's just not accurate," Crist said. "We're Americans. We have the ability to go to the moon, you don't think we can get a little juice out of the ground?"

While serving as North Dakota governor, Schafer chaired the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission, which issued a report in 1996 that warned officials about reliance on foreign oil and recommended conservation, alternative fuels and increased domestic oil production.

"I've been sitting there since 1996 saying we need to do something about this and nothing's happening. This is a tragedy to this country," Schafer said.
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This is what I've been coldly saying in the posts here on MarketEDU. That this country is sitting idly by, stagnating our technological capabilities all because of Big Oil Companies and those few in the government that have big oil interests ($$$$).

We need to get on with it already and move beyond oil and coal. Move beyond immediate profits in order to have a future economy and an actual future! Period!

Ever since WWII this country has sat back and just concentrated on the almighty dollar. Technological advances have slowed considerably. Also witness corporations who when in trouble, immediately lay off knowledgeable employees rather than innovate their products/services. Its all just short-sightedness which is a big problem for us here.

We need to R&D for the near and far future or we'll have no future. Act now and hope to prevent the horrors we are facing on this current road to ruin, or continue and create a dismal future for our children's children, and their children.
 
We need to act swiftly on alternatives and then improve those in order  to get on the right path to a viable future.
 
Otherwise those Sci-Fi movies we all love to watch will turn out to be the horrible future we may face. Notice how many of them show civilizations in ruins and a few bands of people scattered throughout the universe looking for a new home or waiting for someone else to clean up the mess we left behind on earth?

Hopefully, the only hope we have won't be for a Wall-E world, the story of a robot named WALL-E who is designed to clean up a polluted Earth.

-Future1investor

Pity so many of us believes that the idea of Global Warming is all a bunch of Bull-Shite. When they talk to others about their thoughts and the idea,.. it makes those who don't know any better, continue to turn their eyes and ears even when presented with scientific evidence which supports it.

Hear, See, Speak No Evil

We the citizens of this great country are often like sheep say some. Perhaps we are more like the ostrich who puts his/her head in the ground. Perhaps we are any one or all of the three monkeys: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.

We will always try to bring relevant information to you by finding and spreading the word on whats going on that you may have not heard of.

Why? Because it should matter to you because it affects you, your children, your future, and your money, that is why.

In this video, the question comes up as it almost always does...'just what are we paying our representatives to do anyway? Where does our tax money go and why is it not being used to improve our lives rather than something else?'

Starting at the 6:19 mark: "Since 2004, the Bush Administration has removed 1,000's of water-ways from the Clean Water Act protection." So the question is why? Why has our top government leader and his people, stripped away the protection however meager, from thousands of water ways? Who is and who has influenced these negative actions and why? I think we all know. Question is: how long will we continue as the tax paying public, the supposed ones who supposedly elect our representatives; how long will we continue to look the other way as our rights and our wishes are plundered and that plundering protected under another new law or amendment?

This next two part video shows how studying animals help us understand what effects polluted water is having on our planet's wildlife. The second part finds that water pollution is causing potential effects on our current state of health and questions what it is doing to our newborn children. Are we going to give birth to unhealthy babies? Will our children's lives be troubled by high concentrations of chemicals that have altered their bodies from birth? Mutations in animals could lead to mutations of humans. What are we letting happen to the future us?

Pollution is at an all time high globally. The problem is so bad that finally we are seeing videos, news casts, articles, movies, word-of-mouth, and web logs which scream the bloody bad situation we've managed to put our planet home into.

We may very well choke to death if we don't quickly figure out what to do about it. Still though, the governments of many countries including the U.S. don't seem to be taking any of it seriously enough to interrupt business as usual.

I've replaced all my regular bulbs and appliances with energy star rated products everywhere possible. I drive a car that gets an average 40 miles to the gallon. I combine my trips and don't have a heavy foot.

As an investor we can do another thing or two to encourage more focus on combating pollution. Alternative energy stocks in solar and wind are a start. And tonight I came across a company who deals with air born contaminants. The CEO has just acquired new shares.

This from a recent SEC filing:
We are one of the leading providers of air-pollution control products and services. We have a diversified base of more than 3,000 active customers among a myriad of industries including aerospace, brick, cement, ceramics, metalworking, ethanol, printing, paper, food, foundries, power plants, metal plating, woodworking, chemicals, tobacco, glass, automotive, and pharmaceuticals. Therefore, our business is not concentrated in a single industry or customer.

Our return to profitability in 2006 and 2007 after several years of losses is directly related to an increase in the level of pollution control capital expenditures which is being driven by an elevated focus on environmental issues such as global warming and energy saving alternatives as well as a U.S. Government supported effort to reduce our independence on foreign oil through the use of bio-fuels like ethanol and electrical energy generated by our abundant domestic supply of coal.

Consolidated sales in 2007 were $235.9 million, an increase of $100.5 million or 74.3% compared to 2006. This increase was primarily due to increased demand for our products and services created by the fundamental strength of many industrial sectors including ethanol production, steel production, coal fired power plant construction and automotive related sectors. This increase also included $27.5 million in new equipment sales revenues attributed to the addition of Effox, Inc. which was acquired in 2007 and $48.1 million in contracting revenues from a large automotive project at H.M. White, Inc. Additional demand for our products and services was created by increasingly strict EPA mandated industry Maximum Achievable Control Technology standards (“MACT”) and OSHA established Threshold Limit Values (“TLV”), as well as existing pollution control and energy legislation.

Financial highlights for the twelve months ended December 31, 2007 compared to twelve months ended December 31, 2006 include:

Net sales increased 74.3% to $235.9 million; Gross profit increased 67.7% to $40.4 million; Operating income increased 108.9% to $12.6 million; Net income GAAP - $6.3 million (increase of 103.8%); Net income non-GAAP - $7.0 million (increase of 204%); GAAP Earnings per diluted share - $0.45 (increase of 87.5%); Non-GAAP Earnings per diluted share $0.50 (increase of 256%).

CECO Environmental Corp. (Nasdaq: CECE), a leading provider of air pollution control and industrial ventilation systems, announced today that it has booked 33 new orders, each of which has a value of over $200,000.

Rick Blum, President and Chief Operating Officer, commented, "As usual, our orders are coming from a wide variety of industries. The largest order, which is in excess of $2.5 million, was received from an automotive company. Another significant order was received from a tire manufacturer. The rest of the business came from the metals, power, electric equipment, ethanol, steel, aluminum, gypsum, refining, and copper smelting industries."

Phillip DeZwirek, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "Fisher-Klosterman's China operation booked a significant order just last week. We are seeing ever increasing quoting activity in China and have already had established CECO customers visit the facility. Now that Fisher- Klosterman is part of CECO, we are in the process of establishing that facility as CECO Filters' manufacturing base in China along the lines of the facility that CECO Filters already has in India."