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A dozen sites
I'm diggin'

*1. Here's a nice story about Sarah Palin's attention to people with special needs.

*2. Planet Money is a really good blog about money and finance.

3. How to carve a pumpkin that shows your political leanings.

4. ESPN's "The Journey of Richard Jensen" -- the comeback of a wrestler -- is an extra good video.

5. You can lay subtitles or text bubbles on video -- any video. I will be using this to teach about storytelling.

6. Does bankruptcy save homes from foreclosure?

7. Canon responds to the Nikon D90 with its own SLR still camera that records HD video.

8. Why do 97 percent of this railroad's workers get disability checks?

9. I now use Utterz to file audio reports. You can use your computer's mic or any phone. It's simple and would be a great reporter's tool.

10. Qik streams live video straight from a cell phone.

11. Use Tweetbeep to keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything! You can even keep track of who's tweeting your site or blog.

12. I used Monitter to monitor what people said on Twitter about Ike. Just change the subjects to whatever you want to look out for.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.

The Downside of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs

MSNBC reports:

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs' poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought.

The story details how when one consumer broke a CFL in her home, she was referred to a mercury cleanup company that wanted to charge $2,000 to clean up the residue. On the one hand, the EPA issues a warning about mercury cleanup, on the other hand the Energy Department urges the use of CFLs.

The story notes:

The amount (of mercury) is tiny -- about 5 milligrams, or barely enough to cover the tip of a pen — but that is enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels, Stanford University environmental safety researchers found. Even the latest lamps promoted as "low-mercury" can contaminate more than 1,000 gallons of water beyond safe levels.

California is one of only seven states -- Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin are the others -- that ban disposing of fluorescent bulbs as general waste. And yet, qualified recycling facilities are limited to about one per county. In other states, collection of CFLs is conducted only at certain times of the year -- twice annually in the District of Columbia, for example, and only once a year in most of Georgia.

There is no disputing that overall, fluorescent bulbs save energy and reduce pollution in general. An average incandescent bulb lasts about 800 to 1,500 hours; a spiral fluorescent bulb can last as long as 10,000 hours. In just more than a year -- since the beginning of 2007 -- 9 million fluorescent bulbs have been purchased in California, preventing the release of 1.5 billion pounds of carbon dioxide compared with traditional bulbs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

As long as the mercury is contained in the bulb, CFLs are perfectly safe. But eventually, any bulbs -- even CFLs -- break or burn out, and most consumers simply throw them out in the trash, said Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University and editor of the journal Environmental Research.

This Slate article, however, makes the case for compact fluorescent lights. It says they reduce overall mercury emissions by using less energy (mercury is released by burning coal, the source of most electricity) and that the $2,000 cleanup story has been overblown.

Story ideas:

Call around to local and state agencies and ask what you should do if a CFL breaks in your home.
Where should you go in your community to properly dispose of a burned-out CFL?
Do local landfills even know of the mercury dangers in these lights? The MSNBC story said many agencies it contacted were clueless.

Posted by Al Tompkins 11:59 AM

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