8/25/01
11:32:56 AM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
WORLD'S GREATEST ONLINE UNION FESTIVAL
Web site review by Al Paulson, Laborday.aflcio.org
-- Rejoice in the contributions you and fellow workers have made to this country with the second annual online Labor Day celebration courtesy of the AFL-CIO. The celebration features music, games, "online actions" and other attractions.
THE MAMA DILEMM
by Beth Lucht, Hip Mama
-- Though financially motivated, working also helped one mother regain a sense of self after being a stay-at-home mom.
YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?
by Patricia Chui, The Nation
-- Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal," talks about the societal and health-related impact of noshing at your local processed, ubiquitous, franchised restaurant.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
8/25/01
11:30:17 AM
WILD ALERT
"The Bush administration is trying to craft the nation's energy policy largely in secret and with input only from select, special interests ... oil and gas executives and local elected officials favorable to the industry."
--Denver Post editorial, 8/19/01
Operating quickly and quietly, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is developing key elements of a national energy policy that could result in more taxpayer subsidies for the oil and gas industry. But instead of soliciting input from a cross-section of citizens and industries, DOE has excluded all but oil industry interests from "public" hearings, and is directing other public comments with questions that appear to have pre-determined, pro-oil-subsidy answers.
Your comments are needed, because, as the Denver Post points out, "Bush needs to listen to more people than just his oil business buddies." Send your comments from
http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2&item=603
SECRETIVE PROCESS
In the period of just a few weeks, the Bush administration, through the U.S. Department of Energy, is developing critical energy policies that will impact the country and its taxpayers for decades. DOE is trying to determine if and by how much the government should increase subsidies to the oil and gas industry.
But DOE has designed the public comment process to minimize, if not exclude, comments from the general public. A schedule of so- called "public meetings" was announced 2 days before the first hearing in Denver on August 8th, which, conveniently, was scheduled at the end of a big oil industry conference in Denver.
But even if members of the public attended, they would not have been allowed to speak at the "public" hearings. Only oil and gas company executives and local politicians supportive of the industry were allowed to speak. The same format was applied in the other two hearings in Pittsburgh (Aug. 13) and Houston (Aug. 14). Ordinary citizens can only submit written comments (by Aug. 30), and only in response to specific questions.
As the Denver Post editorialized,
"These points deserve repeating: DOE held some of the most important energy policy meetings of the year, with very little advanced public notice and only a select crowd allowed to give meaningful comment."
MASSIVE SUBSIDIES POSSBILE
The oil, gas, and coal industries recently moved closer to getting more than $35 billion in subsidies because of the energy bill passed by the House of Representatives last month (HR 4). The Senate is expected to consider its version of energy legislation in the fall. Two years ago, energy industries received a $4 billion government bailout when gas prices were low (Petroleum Emergency Act of 1999). Now the Bush administration wants to hand them *more* subsidies, even though they're enjoying massive profits because of high oil prices.
Meanwhile, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) announced two days ago that it wants to expedite permitting for energy projects, like new oil wells and pipelines. While simplifying a permitting process is not in itself bad, it must not be at the expense of environmental protection and safety. Given the direction the Bush Administration has taken on energy, that's exactly what we fear will happen. (More on this in an upcoming WildAlert.)
ALTERNATIVES NEEDED
Investments for conservation and renewable energies contained in HR 4 and the Bush energy plan pale in comparison to what the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries would receive. Instead of pushing for yet another giveaway to the profit-rich energy industry, DOE needs to stimulate emerging markets in renewable energy, conservation, and energy efficiency.
TAKE ACTION
It's time to let the Department of Energy know that more subsidies to the oil and gas industry are unwarranted. Send your comments to DOE by AUGUST 30 from
http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2&item=603,
or tell DOE directly, in response to its questions:
** Is Federal financial support needed in all sectors of the oil and gas industry? ** No. There is no need to subsidize corporations that are raking in record profits. Those huge profits should allow them to invest in oil and gas research without a government handout.
** What actions should be taken to promote global competitiveness? ** Investing more in conservation and energy efficiency. For every dollar's worth of goods and services produced in the U.S., the U.S. consumes 40% more energy than other industrialized nations. If the U.S. economy operated as efficiently as those of Europe and Japan, American energy consumption would fall by about 30%, making us more competitive.
** Are there research areas not being addressed? ** Instead of propping up mature industries like oil and gas, investing in renewable energy, conservation, and energy efficiency research would help create and support emerging markets, and would be a more efficient use of tax dollars. Investing in this research will generate significant public benefits, including lower energy bills for families, less pollution and a cleaner environment, and less reliance on imported oil. Government investment in conservation and efficiency is warranted because oil and gas companies have little incentive to conduct this research themselves. Finally, research and monitoring of environmental impacts associated with past and future oil and gas exploration, including water issues, habitat fragmentation, erosion, etc., is needed.
Send your comments to:
EMAIL: OilGasReview@hq.doe.gov
MAIL: Office of Natural Gas and Petroleum Technology, FE-30 attn: Strategic Review, US Dept of Energy, Wash, DC 20585
MORE INFO
Dept. of Energy announcement of comment period and comment questions
http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases01/augpr/pr01134.htm
Full Denver Post Editorial
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,417%257E107956,00.html
Accompanying Denver Post cartoon from Mike O'Keefe
http://www.denverpost.com/media/paper36/August2001/PER19KEEFE.jpg
8/25/01
11:27:35 AM
Big Oil, Little Public
Denver Post Editorial
Sunday, August 19, 2001 - The Bush administration is trying to craft the nation's energy policy largely in secret and with input only from select, special interests. If the effort succeeds, the oil industry may get more taxpayer subsidies.
On the campaign trail, Bush frequently criticized then-President Clinton for ramming a narrow agenda into policy without getting enough comment from the industries and communities affected. But the insider game being played by the Bush team is even more egregious than the acts for which Bush berated Clinton.
The latest example surfaced very quietly at the U.S. Department of Energy. The department just held three "public meetings" at which the public was not allowed to speak. Instead, DOE took testimony only from oil and gas executives and local elected officials favorable to the industry.
At issue is whether and how much the government should increase subsidies to the oil and gas companies.
The meeting schedule was announced on Aug. 6, but the first hearing was only two days later in Denver - and it was set conveniently on the heels of a big oil industry conference here. The announcement didn't come out in time for people outside the industry to rearrange their schedules. But even if citizens could have attended, they would not have been allowed to have their say - the meeting time was reserved for industry speeches. DOE followed the same narrow format in public meetings in Pittsburgh on Aug. 13 and Houston on Aug. 14.
These points deserve repeating: DOE held some of the most important energy policy meetings of the year, with very little advance public notice and only a select crowd allowed to give meaningful comment.
Common citizens will be permitted to submit only written remarks, due by Aug. 30. Even then, they can only comment on a series of very leading questions pre-determined by DOE.
The wording of those questions makes it clear the administration contemplates advocating new subsidies for the oil business. For example, one asks: "Is federal financial support needed in all sectors of the oil and gas industry?"
Usually, federal subsidies are reserved for start-up industries. There seldom is any real economic justification for pouring tax money into mature, profitable businesses. The true explanations for such government give-aways always boil down to politics.
Based on the quick meetings and limited public comments, the DOE plans to announce its budget priorities in September. Thus the Bush team will take just a few weeks to craft a core policy that will affect the nation for generations.
Yet even in its press release and on its website, the DOE buried the real issues, reserving notice of the public meetings and the implications for the last few pages.
America does need a long-term national energy policy, but it should be based on input from a wide range of citizens and industries. Bush needs to listen to more people than just his oil business buddies. By the way, citizen comments may be e-mailed to the DOE at OilGasReview@hq.doe.gov or by snail mail to the Office of Natural Gas and Petroleum Technology, FE-30, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C. 20585; Attn: Strategic Review.
Source: http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,417%257E107956,00.html
8/25/01
11:15:19 AM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
BALTIC SEA REGION CUTS TOXIC DISCHARGES BY HALF
HELSINKI, Finland, August 24, 2001 (ENS) - The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission says it has reached its goal of reducing by half the discharges, emissions, and losses of hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea area.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-04.html
HUGE INDIAN EARTHQUAKES CALLED UNAVOIDABLE
BOULDER, Colorado, August 24, 2001 (ENS) - India can expect one or more massive earthquakes in the near future, researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder predict. The research team said that the quakes are inevitable, and urged policymakers in India to take immediate steps to reduce the loss of human life from the disasters.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-06.html
WIND POWER CHEAPER THAN COAL
STANFORD, California, August 24, 2001 (ENS) - The U.S. should make a large investment in wind farming to help meet the nation's electricity needs and address global warming, two energy experts from Stanford's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have concluded.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-07.html
CALIFORNIA DESERT TORTOISES AWAIT OUTCOME OF GRAZING CONSULTATIONS
WASHINGTON, DC, August 24, 2001 (ENS) - An Interior Department administrative judge ruled today that cattle grazing in the California desert harms the desert tortoise and its critical habitat, but he set aside final grazing decisions for more consultation with ranchers.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-03.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: AUGUST 24, 2001
Position Created for Watt Protégé at Interior
Water Thrown On Earthquake Prediction
California Water Agency Targets Hidden Water Waste
$50 Million in Grants to Benefit Wildlife Nationwide
Forest Service Violates Beetle Sale Injunction
Dredge Project Could Smother Florida Corals
California Developer Revises Blueprints to Protect Spineflower
Helicopter Deposits Environmental Laboratory on Mountain Peak
Scientists Dive Into Hudson Canyon Exploration
Zoo Conference Focuses on Conservation, Education
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-09.html
8/25/01
11:04:30 AM
Wind Power Cheaper Than Coal
STANFORD, California, August 24, 2001 (ENS) - The U.S. should make a large investment in wind farming to help meet the nation's electricity needs and address global warming, two energy experts from Stanford's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have concluded.
Writing in today's issue of the journal "Science," associate professor Mark Jacobson and teaching professor Gilbert Masters conclude that wind power is an abundant, clean and affordable alternative to coal and other fossil fuels.
Last year, wind driven turbines produced less than 0.1 percent of America's electricity supply -compared to 52 percent generated from coal, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. One reason that wind energy has lagged so far behind is the perception is that wind farms are more expensive to build and operate than coal fired power plants - a notion that Jacobson and Masters dispute.
"Much of the recent U.S. energy debate has focused on increasing coal use," they note. "Since the 1980s, though, the direct cost of energy from large wind turbines has dropped to three to four cents per kilowatt-hour, comparable with that from new pulverized coal power plants. Given that health and environmental costs of coal are another two to 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour, wind energy is unequivocally less expensive than is coal energy."
ENVIRONMENTAL PROS AND CONS
A downside of wind turbines is that they have been linked to the accidental deaths of migratory birds that get caught inside fast moving propeller blades. Selecting sites out of migration paths can help solve this problem, observe Jacobson and Masters.
They also point out that the loss of birds from new wind farms would be small compared to the current loss of forests, birds, fish and other wildlife from acid discharge caused by coal combustion.
Concerns over the potential environmental costs of wind energy are far outweighed by the benefits of reducing coal consumption, the authors said. They point out the indirect costs of coal generated power plants, including the production of smog that causes asthma and other respiratory illnesses; carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming; and acid rain that destroys lakes and forests.
Jacobson and Masters also cite statistics from the Centers for Disease Control showing that coal dust kills some 2,000 U.S. mineworkers each year and has cost taxpayers about $35 billion in monetary and medical benefits to former miners since 1973.
"Shifting from coal to wind would address health, environmental and energy problems," note the authors. Wind is a clean source of energy, they add, and should be promoted and funded by federal and state governments.
A typical 1,500 kilowatt turbine costs about $1.5 million to install and about $18,000 to $30,000 a year to maintain - a bargain in the long haul, according to Jacobson and Masters.
"The U.S. could displace 10 percent of coal energy at no net federal cost by spending three to four percent of one year's budget on 36,000 to 40,000 large wind turbines and selling the electricity over 20 years, recouping all costs," they argue.
During windy summer periods in Northern California, wind energy produces as much as eight percent of the electricity used within the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's service area
The authors calculate that, by building about 250,000 new turbines, America could eliminate almost two-thirds of its coal generated electricity, reducing its 1999 greenhouse gas emissions to seven percent below 1990 levels. That was precisely the goal first proposed by the Clinton administration under the controversial 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
President George W. Bush has called the Kyoto Protocol "fatally flawed," and says the United States will never ratify the international accord in its current form. Bush, a strong proponent of fossil fuels, included millions of dollars of incentives for new coal, oil and natural gas development in his long range national energy plan, proposed in May.
WIND POWER HELP COULD SOLVE ENERGY, ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
"If you want to solve this country's energy problem, the U.S. needs to consider some type of large scale program," said Jacobson. "The federal government could either go into the energy business for itself, or it could foster wind energy through tax incentives that would catalyze private sector investment."
Lessons learned at a Green Mountain Energy pilot project in Vermont are expected to encourage utilities in cold, wet climates to embrace wind energy
State governments also should take the initiative, write Jacobson and Masters. They point out that energy strapped California could obtain 10 percent more electricity from wind by spending less than 10 percent of its state budget for one year on the construction of 5,000 new turbines, then selling the electricity over 20 years to recover all costs.
Some states are already taking taking steps to harness the inexpensive power of the wind. On Thursday, a more than 100 foot long wind power blade arrived by truck in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to mark the near completion of Mill Run, the largest wind farm in the East, which will help power Philadelphia area homes and businesses by this fall.
"Today, Philadelphia can see its future - and it is green," said John Hanger, spokesperson for the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition. "Blades just like these will be soon be turning with the wind, making clean and affordable energy for Philly customers. The Mill Run wind farm is the largest yet in the East, and is helping make Pennsylvania the wind power capital of the East."
The wind farm, composed of ten 1.5 megawatt turbines atop 210 foot high towers, will take advantage of high winds at the top of Laurel Mountain.
Lease revenues from this wind farm in western Texas are used to finance public education
Turbines are most efficient in fast winds, note Jacobson and Masters, and could provide needed revenue to farmers and ranchers in areas where mean annual wind speeds are highest -including the Dakotas, Texas, coastal regions and large portions of the West and Northeast.
The authors note that, last year, Germany produced nearly three times more wind generated electricity than the U.S., and Denmark - a country roughly half the size of Maine - produced almost as much turbine power as the entire United States. Denmark and Sweden also have developed wind parks offshore, where winds are faster than over land.
"Clearly, the U.S. has not maximized its wind potential," conclude Jacobson and Masters. "Doing so would address health, environmental and energy problems."
Source: http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-24-07.html
8/25/01
10:42:11 AM
FAIR-L Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Media analysis, critiques and news reports
ACTIVISM UPDATE: Yahoo! News agrees with FAIR criticisms "100 percent;" Boston Globe ombudsman apologizes-- sort of
August 24, 2001
In an August 9 alert (http://www.fair.org/activism/yahoo-opinions.html), FAIR noted that Yahoo!News Opinion/Editorial columnists are 67 percent male, 90 percent white, and only 24 percent liberal. Additionally, not one female artist is included among the 25 Yahoo!News Op/Ed contributing cartoonists. Scores of media activists, responding to FAIR's alert, asked Yahoo! News to broaden their range of editorial debate.
Commendably, Yahoo!News took FAIR activists' concerns seriously: In an August 16 letter to FAIR, Yahoo!News senior producer Kourosh Karimkhany thanked FAIR for suggesting increased balance in their contributors' race, gender and political perspectives: "To state it succinctly, we agree with you 100 percent. We have been trying to achieve exactly what you suggested."
Karimkhany said that Yahoo!News' mission is "to represent almost every perspective" without editorial bias. "We are negotiating with several more organizations to run material from the authors you suggested," he wrote, referring to a list of progressive columnists included in FAIR's alert. "Our only limitation is the time and business development resources it takes to procure this content."
Karimkhany closed his letter by welcoming continued monitoring: "We encourage Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting to watch our site over the next few months. We hope you will notice a broader journalistic range."
You can keep tabs on Yahoo!News' progress by checking in at: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cm/cm/?u
GLOBE OMBUDSMAN'S MEA CULPA
In June, FAIR activists wrote to Boston Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas about the apparent hypocrisy of the Globe's advertising policy (http://www.fair.org/activism/boston-globe-staples.html). While the Globe editorialized against college papers that had rejected a racially inflammatory ad, the paper itself refused to run an ad criticizing the office supply company Staples, an advertiser based in the Boston area.
After ignoring requests to deal with the issue for several weeks (http://www.fair.org/activism/boston-globe-iwf.html), Thomas finally responded to a second round of letters with a column that defended the paper. The column suggested that the letters Thomas had received were the result of a "PR campaign" by ForestEthics-- the environmental group that had tried to place the ad-- maligning that group and writing FAIR out of the story entirely. Thomas made no attempt to get any side of the story other than that of the Globe advertising department. He also attacked columnists Russell Mokhiber and Rob Weissman, who had called attention to the Globe's double standard (See http://www.fair.org/activism/globe-staples-update.html ).
But in a column announcing that he was stepping down as ombudsman to become a feature writer at the Globe, Jack Thomas acknowledged that the way he handled the Staples ad issue was a mistake. In the August 13 column, he wrote:
"In recent months, as a lame duck, I became less antagonistic and less effective. For example, in writing about an environmental group, Forest Ethics, whose ad the Globe refused to publish, I was not assertive in questioning the advertising department. Readers condemned me, and justly so."
Such self-criticism is not very common in journalism, though the column still falls short of the full apology that Thomas owed to Globe readers, and especially to Mokhiber and Weissman, two journalists who got the story right. Thomas also fails to answer the larger question: Did the Globe in fact act improperly in its handling of the Staples ad?
Still, the fact that Thomas' assessment upon stepping down is so different from his public response at the time is an indication that activists' criticisms may be getting through to major media outlets such as the Boston Globe.
You can see Jack Thomas' farewell column at: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/225/oped/Farewell_dear_readers_and_mea_cul pa+.shtml
8/24/01
5:46:42 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
LET IT BLOW, LET IT BLOW, LET IT BLOW
Wind power is now cheaper than coal in the U.S., according to a study published in the journal Science. The study's researchers, two Stanford engineers, priced wind power at 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour, already competitive with the market price for coal power. After factoring in health and environmental costs, they put the true price for coal power at 5.5 to 8.3 cents per kilowatt hour. For wind power to take off, however, the researchers say that lawmakers will need to give the industry the same investment opportunities and tax breaks historically given to fossil fuel industries. The researchers propose this bargain-basement deal: eliminating nearly two-thirds of coal-generated electricity and single-handedly dropping the country's greenhouse gas emission levels below 1990 levels by building 225,000 wind turbines -- at an initial cost of $338 billion.
straight to the source: MSNBC.com, 24 Aug 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/617631.asp>
WE'VE GOT MAIL
Whoa, writes a Grist reader, don't criticize Ford for making hybrid SUVs in lieu of more efficient cars. She says SUVs are the way to go in the Rocky Mountains in the winter, so they might as well be SUVs that burn less fuel. Another reader writes in with his own twist on the slogan "What Would Jesus Drive?" -- "Satan Drives an SUV." Elsewhere in the letters section, a Seattle city councilmember spanks Grist for suggesting that the city's dams kill salmon. Read more letters to the editor and send your own on the Grist Magazine website.
read it only in Grist Magazine: Give us hybrids, or give us death -- and other letters to the editor <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/letters/letters082201.asp?source=daily>
MAKING ARSENICS OF THEMSELVES
A new study released yesterday by an advisory panel to the U.S. EPA undercuts one of the Bush administration's main reasons for revoking a tougher standard for arsenic levels in drinking water. When EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman rejected the standard, she said the Clinton administration hadn't adequately considered costs when arriving at the standard. But the panel's report found that, to the contrary, the previous administration did a "credible job" of gauging the costs.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Shogren, 24 Aug 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000068559aug24.story?coll=la%2 Dnews%2Dscience>
AMY CARTER WEPT
Dubya's daughters enlist Zed to extend their popularity beyond fraternity row. Will Dad be sorry he gave them the car keys? Join Zed, last of his species, for a spin around the block in "First Twins in a Twist."
straight to the source: The comic adventures of Zed, last of his species <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/zed/zed082401.asp?source=daily>
FOOTLOOSE AND FANCY FLEET
In a decision that could affect air pollution policy nationwide, a federal judge ruled yesterday that California officials can order public agencies to buy cleaner vehicles. Two industry associations challenged a rule by the South Coast Air Quality Management District that requires agencies to purchase low-emission or alternative-fuel cars, buses, and trucks, instead of diesel-powered vehicles. They argued that the new rule violated the U.S. Clean Air Act, which forbids states from putting emissions standards on new vehicles. But U.S. District Judge Florence Cooper said the rule was legit, because it regulated only the purchase of cleaner vehicles by public agencies, not the production or sale of the vehicles by auto manufacturers.
straight to the source: Washington Post, Reuters, 24 Aug 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54753-2001Aug23.html>
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, 24 Aug 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2001/08/23/ state2120EDT0198.DTL>
BAY OF PIGS' WASTE
The U.S. Congress should give farmers more than $6 billion a year to help them restore wetlands and prevent agricultural waste from polluting the nation's waterways, according to American Rivers and Environmental Defense. They said yesterday that nearly half of the country's bays are too polluted for fishing and swimming because of fertilizer and manure runoff from farms and ranches. The nation's most polluted bay areas include the Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco Bay, and the northern Gulf of Mexico.
straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, 24 Aug 2001 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12144/story.htm>
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, 24 Aug 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2001/08/24/ financial0335EDT0009.DTL>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
Parental guidance suggested -- Bush should listen to his inner dad on climate change -- in our Global Citizen section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen080301.asp?source=daily>
Canadians are thoroughly un-American -- a day in the life of Patricia Ross, city councilmember, Abbotsford, B.C <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/ross082301.asp?source=daily>
Land of a thousand water bottles -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha082001.asp?source=daily>
8/24/01
3:51:32 PM
Wasted Energy Means More Heat And Smog
by David Suzuki
It's interesting that within weeks of Canada agreeing to the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, temperatures soared and the country became gripped in what climatologists describe as the worst national drought in history. Of course, no one can say with certainty that the heat wave and drought were triggered by, or even exacerbated by global warming. But it is certain that this is the kind of weather that will become more common this century.
In a way, the weather served as an exclamation point after the climate talks: Get on with it! Indeed, some jurisdictions are getting on with it. The city of Toronto has plans to retrofit many of its buildings to make them more energy efficient. Already, Toronto's municipal operations have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20 per cent below what they were in 1988. Other cities like Regina and Halifax are also reducing emissions and cutting costs by finding ways to be more energy efficient. Meanwhile, the federal government has been stalling and our emissions nationally have soared.
To meet our Kyoto commitments, Canada must find ways to encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy, and discourage waste and polluting fossil fuels. Right now, that isn't happening, and we can see the results hanging in the air in major Canadian cities.
Southern Ontario has been especially hard hit with record smog. Last year, according to the Ontario Medical Association, about 1,900 premature deaths associated with air pollution occurred in Ontario, along with 47 million minor illness days. Transportation is the largest single culprit, creating a vicious cycle. By building and driving millions of large, gas-guzzling vehicles, we release vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This causes global warming, which increases the frequency and duration of heat waves. Since sunlight and heat are precursors of smog, the hot weather makes air pollution worse. Then, to combat the heat, we crank up the air conditioning in our vehicles, which increases fuel consumption, which makes smog and global warming worse yet again.
Meanwhile, at home, the electricity used to power the air conditioner often comes from a fossil fuel-burning power plant, which further increases pollution and global warming. In fact, running all those air conditioners recently helped Ontario residents use a record 25,000 megawatts of power in a single day. To make matters worse, big cities can be several degrees warmer than surrounding areas because the asphalt and buildings that have replaced green space hold more heat, creating what is known as the "urban heat island" effect. A recent study in Los Angeles found that if the city planted new trees to cover five per cent of the land and used lighter-coloured materials for its roads and rooftops, overall air-conditioning requirements would drop by 18 per cent.
To cut our personal emissions, reducing the amount we drive and driving a fuel-efficient vehicle are two of the most important steps we can take. Consider this: Switching from driving an average car to driving an average SUV for one year will waste more energy than leaving a refrigerator door open for six years or a television turned on for 28 years! The average fuel efficiency of today's new vehicle fleet is actually the same as it was way back in 1980 in the days before cell phones, compact discs, email and the Internet.
Has fuel efficiency technology fallen that far behind? No, in fact a recent report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences found that using today's technology, vehicle manufacturers could increase fuel efficiency by 30 per cent. What are lacking are the incentives and regulations to do so. Vehicle manufacturers have vigorously fought new fuel-efficiency regulations especially for major moneymakers like SUVs, which don't have to meet passenger-vehicle emission requirements. Ironically, nature figures predominantly in most SUV advertising. One campaign actually shows trees gathering around a new SUV and the phrase, "Even nature can't contain its excitement." Try to remember that on another smoggy day.
Source: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/08/08242001/energy_44711.asp
8/24/01
3:47:14 PM
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #728
8/24/01
1:58:36 PM
All Lost In The Supermarkets
Consumers are losing faith in supermarkets, with only one in six trusting them to sell safe food - and three in four people are more concerned than ever about the safety of the food they buy. A Good Housekeeping magazine survey found that although 97 per cent of those questioned buy most of their food from a supermarket, their faith in them has suffered.
The survey revealed 67 per cent trust supermarkets less than they used to and 16 per cent lack confidence in supermarkets to sell safe foods. This lack of trust is particularly apparent when buying meat, with 18 per cent admitting they have changed their shopping habits so they now buy meat only from a local butcher. The 1,000 people questioned in July said fears about food additives, changes in eating habits and organic produce were all causes for concern.
It found 81 per cent of those questioned "always or sometimes" buy organic food, but 19 per cent never have. The survey found 83 per cent of people would pay around an extra £9 a week on their food bills to ensure safety.
By New York University Medical Center And School Of Medicine
8/24/01
1:54:21 PM
"Hell's Grandmothers are walking through fire! If they can do it, why cant we all?"
by George Monbiot, The Guardian
Ariel Sharon's decision not to blast the Palestinians out of existence after last week's suicide bombings is, at first sight, mystifying. While jets blew up the Palestinians' police station in Ramallah and Israeli soldiers occupied their East Jerusalem headquarters, these reprisals were far less bloody than most people had predicted.
Several hypotheses have been advanced to explain this uncharacteristic restraint. Sharon is seeking to keep faith with his more conciliatory foreign minister, Shimon Peres. He is hoping to collect some moral credit, which he will use to defend much fiercer intervention at a later date. The seizure of Palestinian offices does more to hurt their cause than the murder of prominent figures. All these explanations are plausible, but there is another possible interpretation, overlooked by almost everyone. In killing Palestinians, Ariel Sharon can no longer be sure that he is killing only Palestinians.
For the past few weeks, foreign peace activists belonging to the international solidarity movement have been arriving in Jerusalem and the West Bank, joining demonstrations, staying in the homes of threatened Palestinians, turning themselves into human shields between the Israeli army and its targets. A few days ago they were joined by one of the most remarkable forces in British politics, a group of mostly middle-aged or elderly campaigners called Women in Black UK. These Hell's Grannies have moved straight into the front line, ensuring that the brutality with which the Palestinians are routinely treated now has international repercussions: Israel can't hurt local people without hurting them too.
For the past few nights, members of the solidarity movement have been sleeping in the homes of Palestinians in the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala. Eight hundred and fifty homes here have been shelled by soldiers stationed in the neighbouring Jewish settlement of Gilo, as the army seeks to expel the Palestinians in order to expand Israel's illegal plantation.
The foreigners have been standing at army checkpoints, photographing soldiers when they stop people trying to leave or enter their communities and recording the names of those they arrest. The soldiers hate this scrutiny, but whenever the monitors arrive at a checkpoint, there's a marked reduction in the violence there.
The Women in Black also helped to organise the demonstrations outside Orient House, the Palestinian headquarters seized by Israel on Friday. They established the physical and political space in which Palestinians could protest non-violently. Arrested and beaten up with the local people, the women witnessed the torture of Palestinian prisoners in the police station, which would otherwise have gone unrecorded.
In short, these volunteer peacekeepers are seeking to do precisely what foreign governments have promised but failed to do: to monitor and contest abuses of human rights, to defuse violence, and to challenge Israel's ethnic cleansing programme. Their actions put us all to shame.
As well as seeking to enforce peace, they are trying, hard as it is in the current atmosphere, to broker it. They have been suggesting to their Palestinian hosts some of the novel means by which injustice can be confronted without the use of violence. They have plenty of experience to draw on.
Some of these activists have been involved in the Trident Ploughshares campaign which, over the past fortnight, has been running rings round the marines guarding the nuclear submarines in Scotland. To the astonishment of the guards, the protesters there have managed to evade the tightest security in the UK, swimming into the docks in which the submarines are moored and spray-painting the words "useless" and "illegal" on their sides. They have launched canoes and home-made rafts into the paths of submarines trying to leave their berths. They have cut through the razor wire and roamed around the base, hoping to arrest its commander for crimes against humanity. A few days ago, they blocked the main gates of the nuclear warhead depot, their arms embedded in barrels of concrete, bringing work to a halt as the police tried to figure out how to extract them.
Two years ago, three of these women climbed into the Trident programme's floating research laboratory on Loch Goil and, as a delightful new video commissioned by the Quakers shows, threw all its computers into the sea. In Greenock court, they were acquitted of criminal damage, after the sherriff accepted their defence that the Trident programme infringes international law: rather than committing a crime, they were preventing one. Soon afterwards, the women "borrowed" a police boat from the Trident base in Coulport and drove it into the submarine docks at Faslane. Among them was one of the women who were also found not guilty in 1996 after smashing up a Hawk aircraft bound for East Timor. The subsequent publicity forced the government to stop exporting Hawks to Indonesia.
Though they're acquitted as often as they're convicted, Hell's Grannies have spent much of the past few years in jail. They take full responsibility for their actions. If the police fail to spot them, they ring them up and ask to be arrested. Their candour, clarity and humour have played well in court, but the risks of this accountable campaigning are enormous. The prosecution began yesterday of 17 British and American Greenpeace activists, who are being tried on terrorism charges after peacefully occupying the Californian launch pad being used for George Bush's missile defence tests. In the Middle East such tactics are likely to be still more dangerous, as Israeli soldiers have shown no hesitation in killing protesters in cold blood. But, as Gandhi recognised, the brutal treatment of non-violent campaigners can destroy the moral authority of the oppressor, generating inexorable pressure for change.
The Women in Black are clearly prepared not only to die for their cause, but also to make what Dostoevsky correctly identified as a far greater sacrifice: to live for their cause. They are ready to lose their homes, their comforts, their liberty, to be vilified, beaten up and imprisoned. Their accountable actions require a far greater courage than throwing bricks at the police.
Most importantly perhaps, these campaigners never cease to acknowledge the humanity of their opponents. They seek not to threaten but to persuade. The results can be astonishing. The MoD police who pulled the Trident swimmers out of the water ferried them back to their camp, rather than arresting them, while massaging their legs to stop cramp. When Angie Zelter, one of the coordinators of Women in Black, was on remand for her attempts to demolish the British military machine, she was visited in prison by a timber merchant whose business she had once tried to shut down. He had, as a result of her campaign, stopped importing mahogany stolen from indigenous reserves in Brazil, and started refashioning his business along ethical lines, and now he needed her advice.
All this is a long-winded way of saying something which, in the 21st century, sounds rather embarrassing: these people are my heroes. They confront us with our own cowardice, our failure to match our convictions with action. We talk about it, they do it. Hell's Grannies are walking through fire. If they can, why can't we all?
8/24/01
1:51:34 PM
THE GENOA PROTESTS
Democracy at the barricades
Heads of state were besieged in July in Genoa. They talked trade and money inside a guarded, if luxurious, compound, while outside the Italian carabinieri confronted demonstrators, only a few of whom were violent. Results: news footage of handshakes and governmental agreements, their details already forgotten - and of an unwarranted death, 600 injuries, beatings and frustration. The next talks will be in the safe enclave of Qatar. CLIP
See the rest at http://www.en.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/08/02genoa
See also Presidents under pressure at:
http://www.en.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/08/01leader
8/24/01
1:48:35 PM
The 2001 Summit on Spirituality and Sustainability in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Co-Creating A Spirit-Motivated Sustainable Future
During the week of September 15/22, The 2001 Summit on Spirituality and Sustainability brings together community leaders in business, politics, government, science, health, education, the arts and from major spiritual traditions from around the world. The Summit's mandate is to address spirituality and consciousness as issues underlying sustainability and all of our economic and social challenges. Above all, it is a celebration of accomplishments.
Summit week has been designed to bring communities together to establish unified intelligence. The Summit community intelligence will build a spirit-motivated momentum that leads participants into three distinct phases organized in themes: The Realities Phase covers The Best Of Who We Are and addresses what is working in our communities now. It is an opportunity for global community leaders to showcase and share their spirit-motivated sustainable successes, challenges, and opportunities within an eight sector model, such as: Youth and Education; Business; Health and Well Being; Spirituality; Law and Governance; Science and Technology; and Environment and Habitat.
The Potentials Phase covers What We Can Be; a segment that addresses where Summit participants will put their conscious intention and attention on exploring and working together in co-creative ways, and receive a fuller understanding of what the term "co-creative community" means.
The final phase is Co-Creativity, a collective think tank that determines What We Will Be. This is an opportunity to review the events experienced in the prior 2 phases. In this segment the Summit members take all that they have learned about through our "Realities" and "Potentials" phases and craft a sustainable model that could seed new ways to put this plan into action when they return to their communities.
The think tank for Summit Week will be held at the Roundhouse in Vancouver. There, a sustainable framework will be formed with local and non-local community leaders. The 8 day events have been book-ended by local and international collaborative partnerships with: Barbara Marx Hubbard and her Foundation For Conscious Evolution, Edgar Mitchell's Institute of Noetic Science (IONS) Foundation, The Institute for Ethical Leadership's "Connections II", Multi-Faith Action Group, and Clam Chowder For The Soul. Some examples of International representatives attending the 2001 Summit are members from the Earth Charter Initiative, and the Seattle's Peoples Web Coalition.
The Summit Week Exodus rally's for the Guinness Book of World Records at an "All Nations Drumming Circle" Event. Over 5,000 drummers from all over the world will be at the Plaza Of Nations, on September 22nd. One Earth Radio, an new internet radio station, will broadcast hi-lights of the Summit week during the daylong event. By Midday, a Peace Dove Release is scheduled to carry children's prayers of hope into the skies. Later the messages will be placed into a Community Peace Pole in the Lower Mainland.
The Summit's model inspires people to acknowledge their sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility. This would be a first step in connecting social innovators, multi-disciplinary learning communities and members of a global conscious community, to share "what's working", and to synergize ways of co-creating a more humane, ethical, compassionate and regenerative world.
To Register Online or For More Information Contact:
The 2001 Summit on Spirituality and Sustainability
Telephone: (604) 263-3119 Fax: (604) 872-3203
Web Site: http://www.2001summit.org
"Only those who can see the invisible, can do the impossible."
Thomas Jefferson
8/24/01
1:37:39 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE: WEALTH GAP CHALLENGES AMERICAN IDEALS
by Molly Lanzarotta, Impact Press
-- Is our outdated self-image of the U.S. as the land of equality and the "level playing field" keeping Americans in denial about the growing economic divide in this country?
CHANGING YOUR MIND FOR HEALTH: A GUIDE TO HEALING THE MIND
by Wendy Beall, ChangingYourMind.com
-- The subject of health seems to be on everyone's mind and all over the media. But have you ever wondered if health, especially ill health, was really all just in the mind?
THE CHANGING FACE OF SPORTS WRITING
by Glenn Stout, SportsJones
-- A generation ago, few female bylines graced the sports pages of major newspapers. Glenn Stout argues that more female sports writers will herald better media coverage of female athletics.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
8/24/01
1:31:02 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
U.S. COMBATS MAD COW DISEASE WITH NEW ACTION PLAN
WASHINGTON, DC, August 23, 2001 (ENS) - The United States will attempt to prevent mad cow disease with a new four part action plan announced today. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, outlined four areas of responsibility - surveillance, protection, research and oversight - within his department.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-23-04.html
SPANISH RURAL AREAS GET MILLIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
BRUSSELS, Belgium, August 23, 2001 (ENS) - The European Commission has approved over 200 million euros to improve environmental and economic conditions in rural Spain.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-23-02.html
SUDAN FLOODED OUT AFTER PARCHING DROUGHT
ROME, Italy, August 23, 2001 (ENS) - Widespread flooding in northern Sudan after two consecutive years of serious drought have displaced tens of thousands of people, destroyed crops and threatened food security, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-23-01.html
LEAKEY WARNS OF MASS EXTINCTIONS
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, August 23, 2001 (ENS) - The world is losing between 50,000 and 100,000 plant, insect and animal species a year, Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey said Wednesday at a lecture. This is much higher than a similar estimate Leakey gave in 1997. "Human activities are causing between 10,000 and 40,000 species to become extinct each year," Leakey said then.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-23-03.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: AUGUST 23, 2001
Navy May Seek Exemptions from Environmental Laws
Wilderness Advocates to Greet Cheney in Utah
EPA Announces $2 Million For Brownfields Cleanup
$4 Million Project Will Cleanup Underground Storage Tanks
Conservationists Intervene to Save Frog Habitat
NOAA Reports First Observation of Undersea Volcanic Eruption
New Jersey Facility Cited Over Broken Exit Sign
Brittlestars Use Crystal Lenses to Spot Predators
Operation Trash Cam Targets Alabama Dumping
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-23-09.html
8/24/01
12:47:44 PM
TomPaine.com
UNEQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW
by Martina Gillis
August 22 marked the fifth anniversary of welfare reform. Martina Gillis, a former welfare recipient who now directs the Coalition for Ethical Welfare Reform, says women of color aren't receiving the same help as white women.
AUDIO and TEXT -- produded by Steven Rosenfeld.
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/08/21/index.html
HERE WE GO AGAIN
The Mad Dash for Missile Defense
by Jennifer Bauduy
For the eighth time since the Johnson administration, missile defense fever has stricken the United States. A Star Wars opponent says the idea remains "compoundly stupid."
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/08/23/index.html
TomPaine.commentary
MAKING CONVENIENT, NOT SOLOMONIC, CHOICES
by M. W. Guzy
Nick Dupree dreads turning 21 because he'll lose his Medicaid home-nursing benefit when he becomes an adult. His rite of passage will either put his mother on the welfare rolls or land him in a nursing home.
AUDIO and TEXT -- produced by Sharon Basco.
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/08/20/3.html
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Reactions from Our Readers: Such a Deal!... Limbalk... "Is the Corporation Obsolete?"... "Was Labor Duped?"... and more!
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/08/20/1.html
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
We Scan the Internet for Tips, Leads and Links From PR WATCH: Organic Alert!... Scotchgard... Monsanto's Mystery DNA... Nevada Nuked Again... and Student Privacy.
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/08/21/index.html
OP AD REDUX: This summer we're re-running your favorite TomPaine.com op ads from earlier this year. This week:
ATOMIC BILL: O'Reilly Spins for Nuclear Power
Fox News star Bill O'Reilly purports to defend the interests of ordinary Americans, but his blind advocacy for nuclear power shows his true colors.
Check out the op ad:
DON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN
Nuclear Power: Still Expensive, Still Dirty, Still Dangerous. A look at all the reasons why nuclear power always was and still is a bad idea for ratepayers, taxpayers, public health and the environment.
by Karen Charman
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/05/29/8.html
O'REILLY OUT OF TOUCH WITH PUBLIC OPINION
Polls Show Americans Oppose a Nuclear Revival. >From the Safe Energy Communication Council
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/05/29/4.html
8/24/01
12:42:38 PM
Back From the Brink Campaign needs your help to send an urgent message to Congress. Please click the "next" button (if you have HTML email) or go to
http://backfromthebrink.policy.net
to send an e-mail message to your Senator and Representative today.
Let your voice be heard!
To order your FREE "Toast Cards" click here: http://backfromthebrink.policy.net/toastcard.html. Together we can step Back From the Brink.
Ira Shorr and Esther Pank
Visit http://backfromthebrink.policy.net to take action now!
8/24/01
12:38:37 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Zimbabwe says will vaccinate against foot-and-mouth - ZIMBABWE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12141/story.htm
USDA asks China to clarify new biotech food policy - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12136/story.htm
Senate Democrats oppose nomination of EPA official - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12138/story.htm
Beachgoers' relief as eagle is landed - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12140/story.htm
Judge rejects extra protections for Alaska whales - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12142/story.htm
Court denies TWA insurance for cleanup, lawyers say - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12143/story.htm
US groups seek more conservation cash in farm bill - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12144/story.htm
Africa's forest elephants called separate species - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12146/story.htm
US researchers argue for harnessing wind power - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12147/story.htm
UPDATE - Coastguards scoop up half Baltic oil slick - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12139/story.htm
Activists says mining firm menaces Kenyan coast - KENYA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12145/story.htm
UPDATE - French minister says Mont Blanc tunnel will reopen - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12148/story.htm
Ontario opens North America's biggest windmill - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12137/story.htm
8/24/01
12:32:01 PM
Protecting The Tongass National Forest... Again
The Deadline For Comments Is September 10th
As director of NRDC's forests project, I've spent the last decade fighting for protection of the Tongass National Forest, the heart of the great Alaskan rainforest. I thought we could move on to other fights after our historic victory last January, when President Clinton announced a rule that would protect more than 58 million acres of wild areas in our national forests -- including the Tongass -- from logging, roadbuilding and other harmful development.
But now the Bush administration wants to abandon the new rule and dismantle this largest public land conservation effort in our nation's history.
We find ourselves back in the fight, and I am asking you and every other BioGems Defender to speak out to save the Tongass -- 500 miles of awe-inspiring Alaska coastline that supports the world's largest concentrations of grizzly bears, bald eagles and other rare wildlife. By law, the administration must accept public comments before it can change the rule. The deadline for these comments is September 10th, so please take a moment right now to visit
http://www.savebiogems.org/tongass/takeaction.asp?step=2&item=575
and send a message urging the Bush administration not to reverse or weaken these landmark protections for the Tongass and our other national forests.
Thank you for helping to save our Alaskan rainforest.
Sincerely,
Nathaniel Lawrence
Forest Protection Project Director
Natural Resources Defense Council
BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
8/24/01
12:15:17 PM
The Nation
"Let's Get Organized," exhorts The Nation's special Labor Day issue--in which prominent labor leaders, activists and scholars weigh in on the state of unions today.
In "The Six-Year Itch," David Moberg examines John Sweeney's six-year tenure at the AFL-CIO. Sweeney's record may be mixed, but his accomplishments, Moberg argues, far surpass the stagnation that preceded him.
Kate Bronfenbrenner, Adolph Reed Jr., Andrew L. Stern, Sherrod Brown and others participate in a rousing forum that discusses organizing in the labor movement. Unions know what has to be done--now they have to do it.
And Aram Roston investigates how trade unionists at Colombian work-sites--including several run by American companies like Coca-Cola--have become the target of right-wing violence, even murder. It's a situation causing increasing concern among activists in Colombia, as well as American labor leaders.
You can read these articles at:
DAVID MOBERG: The Six Year Itch
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010903&s=moberg
BRONFENBRENNER: 'Changing to Organize'
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010903&s=bronfenbrenner
FORUM: Replies to Bronfenbrenner
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010903&s=forum
ARAM ROSTON: It's the Real Thing: Murder
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010903&s=roston
Other new articles, editorials and columns from the September 3-10 issue of The Nation, are also available:
AL FRANKEN: CNN Rushes Rush
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010903&s=franken
EDITORS: More Democracy--Now!
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010903&s=editors2
ERIC ALTERMAN: West Bank Dreamin'
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010903&s=alterman
8/23/01
6:07:11 PM
Studies Decry EPA Enforcement Cuts Environment: Proposed $25-million shift from agency to states would allow violations to go undetected, one finds.
By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON -- Violations of federal environmental laws would more likely go undetected and unpunished under a Bush administration plan to shift money to the states and reduce its own staff, according to two new government reports.
A report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the Bush administration cannot prove that the states will make up for the loss of 8% of the EPA's enforcement staff.
"It cannot be demonstrated that it won't cause unwanted adverse effects," said Ed Kratzer, an author of the recently released GAO report, of the proposed staff cuts. As part of its proposed 2002 budget, the Bush administration asked Congress to shift $25 million from EPA enforcement staffing to a grant program to help the states improve their enforcement of federal environmental laws. EPA's own enforcement staff would be cut by 270 positions as a result. The House has embraced the administration's plan, but the Senate rejected it.
House and Senate members will form a conference committee, probably next month, to resolve their differences.
The studies--one requested by a Republican member of Congress, the other conducted by the EPA's Inspector General's Office--are expected to feed the ongoing debate over the shape of environmental policy between the administration and industry, on one side, and environmentalists and some lawmakers, mostly Democrats, on the other.
Even though the dollar amount is small, the agency's proposal has received a great deal of attention from the administration and its critics because it represents a significant shift in policy. It reflects the administration's philosophy that urging compliance with the law is more effective than cracking down on polluters and that states are better regulators than the federal government.
"Our new $25-million grant program will allow the states to enhance their enforcement efforts in ways that will increase accountability for results and will provide flexibility to address unique needs," EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said Wednesday in written answers to questions.
But environmentalists argue that companies will comply only if there are aggressive inspections and stiff fines for violations.
The EPA report looked at state efforts to enforce one aspect of the federal Clean Water Act: regulations designed to protect human health and the environment by setting limits on pollutants that can be discharged into rivers, streams and seas. It concluded that the three states it studied--California, North Carolina and Utah--had many weaknesses in their enforcement programs, including failing to report serious violations or impose fines high enough to deter companies from polluting waterways.
The EPA report also considered recent audits of five other states and found similar problems. The report used California to show how states should better align their enforcement resources with their biggest pollution problems. The state identified storm runoff as its most serious water quality problem, but most of its enforcement resources were focused on large plants that were complying with the laws.
The state last year more than doubled its staffing to focus on storm water and is hoping the new team will "get up and running" and successfully address that problem, said Robert Miller, spokesman for the California Water Resources Control Board.
"The inspector general's report confirms that our concerns are valid and why: The states are not doing their job, and what is needed is more oversight by the EPA," said Daniel Rosenberg of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
But EPA officials said shifting money to the states will result in better enforcement and will help fix some of the problems identified in the inspector general's report. The states already perform 95% of the inspections and 90% of the enforcement actions for federal environmental laws, they said.
In its report, the GAO said the EPA bases its enforcement staffing decisions on "outdated and incomplete" information. It recommended that the agency collect and update information on the demands facing its enforcement staff before considering shrinking its size.
"Without accurate work force planning information . . . EPA cannot demonstrate that the staff reductions will be absorbed without impairing its effectiveness," the report states. "Furthermore, in some states, particularly those states that may not receive additional grant funds, it is possible that the level of enforcement activity may actually be reduced."
States typically have been more restrained than the federal government in fining polluters, in part because the polluters often are businesses that are key to the local economy.
An EPA analysis shows that in recent years states were responsible for a relatively small percentage of the penalties assessed: 30% in 1998 and 15% in 1999.
"There is no doubt that unless the penalties are sufficient to deter crime, these companies are going to continue to break environmental laws," said John Coequyt of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.
For their part, state regulators say the job of enforcing an ever-growing list of EPA regulations is huge and that the states need more money to do it well.
"You can't say those funds wouldn't be put to pretty good use; they would be," said Linda Eichmiller of the Assn. of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators.
"It costs a lot of money to maintain a program to the level that the [inspector general] would like to see," she added.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000068297aug23.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dscience
8/23/01
5:43:36 PM
Military Chafes at Wildlife Rules Nature: The Pentagon may seek a revision of the Endangered Species Act to allow more defense training.
By KENNETH R. WEISS and DEBORAH SCHOCH, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
The Pentagon is moving toward asking Congress to rewrite the Endangered Species Act and other laws so military training exercises can be exempted from restrictions to protect sea turtles, desert tortoises, shorebirds and other rare creatures.
Military officials have said they would like more flexibility in environmental rules, in large part because of growing friction between those protections and training exercises on California's military bases, including Camp Pendleton, Ft. Irwin, Point Mugu and Coronado's Naval Amphibious Base.
Amid the vast urban sprawl, military reservations with expanses of open country have become de facto wildlife refuges for rare and endangered species. Yet officials contend that the armed forces are being penalized for being good stewards of their land. Laws to protect these last refuges are obstructing plans to drop live bombs, fire weapons, maneuver tanks and conduct exercises designed to keep troops ready for battle.
"We are definitely moving out with action plans," said Rear Adm. Larry Baucom, the Navy's director of environmental protection. "We are looking at the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act."
Baucom said these laws are "fairly vaguely written" and subject to widely differing interpretations. The Navy, designated the lead branch of the armed services on many such "encroachment" issues, would like to see definitions clarified to make them easier to follow and more compatible with the military's central mission: national defense.
"It's a matter of balance," Baucom said. "How do we balance our environmental stewardship with training and maintaining national security?"
The answer proposed in Defense Department documents, leaked by an environmental group made up of government employees, is to rewrite the Endangered Species Act so the secretary of defense could "grant exemptions for reasons of mission readiness."
A memo and slides from a presentation carrying the Department of Defense seal recommend that the agency work with Congress to reauthorize the act with changes that:
* Delete all references to "critical habitat."
* Allow increases in "incidental take," meaning harassment or death of endangered species, when federal agencies can demonstrate a rise in the species' population;
* Shorten the time allowed for environmental review and require consultation with wildlife agencies only when a military activity "may adversely affect" a protected species, rather than the current language, which requires a review when such activity "may likely affect" the wildlife.
Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman, said Wednesday that he could find no one familiar with the documents.
"This document exists, but whether it's an official Department of Defense document, I'd have to say it's not, based on what I've heard," Flood said. "I haven't talked to the top people. But the worker bees, who are doing these things, aren't aware of it."
Yet Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the group that released the documents, said they were leaked by a military official helping to prepare the recommendations to be delivered to Congress this fall.
"Nobody should be surprised that this is happening," said Dan Meyer, the group's general counsel and a former Navy lieutenant. "It's entirely predictable to come out of the Bush administration as a way to weaken progressive environmental rules of the Clinton administration."
Hugh Vickery, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said that although he has not seen the documents, his agency has a good track record dealing with military concerns.
"We've worked very successfully all over the country with the military to balance their need to train with the need to conserve threatened and endangered species," he said.
Congressional staff said that after Bush took office, the Pentagon started lobbying Congress to lift some of the restrictions of the Endangered Species Act.
"It's clear the Department of Defense is doing a serious lobbying effort to try and make the Endangered Species Act subservient to their needs," said one Democratic congressional staff member who asked not to be named.
Republican congressional leaders have been interested in changes too.
Earlier this year, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, asked leaders from all three branches of the service to recommend ways to amend environmental laws that restrict military training.
He and 15 other House leaders formalized that request May 24 in a letter to President Bush to "initiate government reforms" of environmental laws, airspace restrictions and conflicts over radio waves that threaten national security and military readiness.
The leaked documents maintain that the Endangered Species Act, more than any other federal law, has the potential for obstructing the Defense Department's mission.
The documents say military lands nationwide provide habitat for more than 300 species listed by the federal government as threatened or endangered. The expense of conservation programs increases every year, they say.
In a series of congressional hearings earlier this year, military leaders complained of environmental laws, urban sprawl and other constraints hampering activities.
Major Gen. Edward Hanlon Jr., former commander of Camp Pendleton, said the base's number of endangered or threatened species has risen from three in 1977 to 17 today.
"The presence of these listed species on Camp Pendleton and required measures to avoid them have resulted in significant constraints on where we train, when we train and how we train," he testified.
Vice Adm. James F. Amerault echoed the frustration in his testimony about San Clemente Island, part of the only ship-to-shore live firing range left in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The site, he said, is home to the San Clemente Island loggerhead shrike, an endangered bird whose numbers have fallen as low as 13. Shore bombardment exercises must be curtailed during the bird's breeding season, he said, adding that the Navy is spending $2.5 million annually to protect 42 birds in the wild and 64 birds in a captive breeding program.
Amerault said that a rare bird known as the Western snowy plover is causing problems for Marine and Navy Seal exercises at the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base, reducing the training space by 40% during nesting season.
"At the rate these birds are proliferating, some training operations on the beach may have to be canceled to avoid violating [Endangered Species Act] requirements," Amerault said.
Environmentalists and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predict that expanding Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert by 131,000 acres will nudge the rare desert tortoise toward extinction.
The Army hopes to expand the 633,000-acre base to provide more space for troops conducting live fire exercises in desert warfare.
Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren in Washington contributed to this story.
8/23/01
5:27:57 PM
Mid August,
dry, dry, dry.
Leaves are brown
falling
crunching under feet.
Warm weather,
naked trees.
It could be Indian Summer,
but there has been no frost.
Could be White Man's Fall.
[ public domain ]
"The goals we pursue are the seeds from which our future grows."
http://www.SustainWellBeing.net
8/23/01
5:23:13 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
ISN'T IT GOOD, WE NEED MORE WOOD Feel good that the world's three biggest buyers of lumber -- Home Depot, Lowe's, and IKEA -- have promised to give preference to wood that meets eco-friendly certification standards. But feel un-good that very little such wood exists. Only about 200 patches of certified forests now exist across the globe. Rod Taylor of the World Wildlife Fund in Asia said, "If Home Depot came on board tomorrow, they'd exhaust the global supply of certified wood in about a day." Even if certification takes off, some environmentalists say it will only be a band-aid solution to the real problem: overconsumption.
straight to the source: Christian Science Monitor, Dan Murphy, 23 Aug 2001 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0823/p13s1-woap.html>
THE DAY THE EARTH DIDN'T STAND STILL
Water-hungry Los Angeles is pumping so much groundwater that the area is rising and falling each year in tune with the seasons, according to a report published today in the journal Nature. Using global positioning system satellites, a research team from the U.S. Geological Survey calculated that some parts of the L.A. area have been sinking half an inch a year, while others are rising a quarter-inch every year. In some parts, the seasonal difference can be more than 4 inches, rising in the fall and early spring, and falling in the summer.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Robert Lee Hotz and Kenneth Reich, 23 Aug 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000068257aug23.story?coll=la%2 Dnews%2Dscience>
DEPARTMENT OF OFFENSE
The Pentagon may ask the U.S. Congress to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to exempt military training exercises from restrictions to protect sea turtles, desert tortoises, and other rare critters. Defense Department documents leaked to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility propose that the secretary of defense be able to "grant exemptions for reasons of mission readiness." PEER said a military official was the source of the documents. But a Pentagon spokesperson said yesterday that he couldn't find anyone at the DOD who was familiar with them.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Kenneth R. Weiss and Deborah Schoch, 23 Aug 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000068320aug23.story?coll=la%2 Dnews%2Dscience>
read it only in Grist Magazine: A week in the life of Jeff Ruch, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/ruch121100.stm?source=daily>
THE KRATZER-JAMMIN' KID
Two new U.S. government reports raise big concerns about a Bush administration plan to cut federal environmental enforcement staff by 8 percent and shift resources to the states. A report by the U.S. EPA's inspector general found that states are doing a poor job of monitoring and punishing water polluters. A report by the General Accounting Office, the congressional watchdog agency, said the administration couldn't show that the states would make up for the cuts in federal enforcement staff. Ed Kratzer, an author of the GAO report, said, "It cannot be demonstrated that [the shift] won't cause unwanted adverse effects."
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 23 Aug 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49330-2001Aug22.html>
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Shogren, 23 Aug 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000068297aug23.story?coll=la%2 Dnews%2Dscience>
straight to the source: USA Today, Traci Watson, 23 Aug 2001 <http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010823/3569025s.htm>
THIS ROCKS, FISH!
Enviros scored a victory yesterday when a federal judge ordered the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service to do more to protect two species of rockfish, bocaccio and lingcod. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Larson of San Francisco said that the agency had failed to track the number of rockfish that die after they are inadvertently caught and tossed back -- and that current fishing limits for the fish were therefore skewed and not tough enough. The bocaccio population has declined 98 percent since 1969; lingcod, 85 percent.
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Glen Martin, 23 Aug 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2001/0 8/23/MN116155.DTL>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
Rainforest bunch -- a review of "The Tapir's Morning Bath" -- in our Books Unbound section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books082201.asp?source=daily>
Environmentalist is not a four-letter word -- a day in the life of Patricia Ross, city councilmember, Abbotsford, B.C. <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/ross082201.asp?source=daily>
More Internet smut -- a scientist fights back against exotics -- in our Out on a Limb column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb041100.stm?source=daily>
8/23/01
3:08:22 PM
Nuclear Test Site Evaluated For Wind Farm
by Environmental News Network
The same wind that spread radioactive dust from nuclear explosions at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site during the 1990s may soon be generating electricity for Nevada and other Western states. A 1,069-acre wind farm on the Nevada Test Site about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is in the final planning stages.
The U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE, NNSA) took public comments during the past 30 days on the scope of a proposed environmental impact statement for the wind farm. The environmental impact statement will address potential environmental impacts of the construction, operation, and maintenance of the wind farm.
An agreement signed in January between the Energy Department and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid will result in the second largest wind-power farm in the United States. Reid played a key role in obtaining the easement on the property from the Nevada Test Site Development Corporation (NTSDC), a nonprofit corporation that works with the Department of Energy to promote the growth of science and technology in Nevada.
The deal allows the NTSDC, the designated community reuse organization for the Nevada Test Site, together with M&N Wind Power Inc. and Siemens to construct, operate, and maintain a wind farm at the test site.
Plans provide for up to 545 wind turbines generating up to 600 megawatts of electricity. A megawatt is enough electricity to power 1,000 typical American homes.
"The time is right to embrace new forms of clean energy, and Nevada is the right location to build a pollution-free wind farm that will serve as a source for that much needed power," said Sen. Reid.
The current power shortage in California has focused national attention on the need for more generation facilities in the Western United States. Several states have adopted renewable energy portfolio standards requiring utilities to purchase power from renewable energy sources. The proposed facilities would support the need for additional generation and provide utilities the opportunity to meet their requirements to purchase renewable energy.
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the total wind energy potential of California and five other Western states — Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Oregon — is more than 600,000 MW. "There are limits to how much of this resource can be tapped in the near term, primarily because of limited transmission-line capacity," said AWEA executive director Randall Swisher. "But wind should be at the top of the list as California looks for new sources of electricity."
In November 2000, the National Nuclear Security Administration in Nevada (NNSA/NV) began preparing an environmental assessment for the proposed project. The draft assessment was provided for review and comment to Nevada state agencies, other federal agencies, affiliated American Indian tribes, and other interested parties in March 2001.
Several issues were raised by the commentors: land use on the surrounding Nevada Test Site, inadequacy of current power distribution systems, and the potential impacts on cultural and biological resources at the proposed sites.
Based upon its analysis, NNSA/NV has determined that an environmental assessment would not support a finding of no significant impact. Since a significant impact is expected, a formal environmental impact statement is being prepared.
The environmental impact statement will consider three locations, all on the Nevada Test Site: Pahute Mesa and the Shoshone Mountain area which is the preferred alternative, Skull Mountain, and Rainier Mesa. These locations have been suggested as suitable for wind-power development because they are located at high elevations near steep-sided ridges and have winds of sufficient velocity and duration to make wind power economically feasible.
Electrical power from the wind farms would be collected by cable systems and fed to one or two proposed substations on the Nevada Test Site.
Because the existing 138-kilovolt power loop on the test site can handle only 85 MW, a limited number of turbines could be interconnected to it at any given time.
A new transmission line to handle the full 600 megawatts the proposed wind farm would generate is proposed for construction along the existing Forty Mile Canyon power corridor.
Issues for analysis in the environmental impact statement include impacts to cultural resources with archeological significance on Shoshone Mountain and Pahute Mesa and impacts to resources and sites important to the 17 Native American tribes with cultural affiliation to the Nevada Test Site.
Impacts to plants, animals, and habitats, including threatened or endangered species and their habitats, associated with clearing, grading, and constructing roads and operating wind turbines in previously undisturbed areas will be considered.
The consumption of natural resources and energy associated with constructing and operating a wind turbine farm also will be evaluated. Any potential irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources associated with locating, constructing, and operating a wind farm on the Nevada Test Site will be assessed.
Comments on the proposed scope of the wind farm environmental impact statement are still welcome from the public. To ensure concerns are considered in the environmental impact statement, comments must be postmarked by Aug. 24. Late comments will be considered to the extent practical. Email Kevin Thornton at nepa@nv.doe.gov
Source: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/08/08232001/nuclearwind_44720.asp
8/23/01
2:59:44 PM
Fungal Enemy Could Explain Worldwide Amphibian Die-Off
by Environmental News Network
A development of a new form of fungus could explain the mystery of amphibian die-offs throughout the world, a large group of scientists now believes. Amphibians on six continents — Africa, South America, Central America, North America, Europe, and Australia and Oceania — have been reported as infected by the amphibian chytrid fungus.
Amphibians, such as frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts, act as sentinels for global environmental degradation, and over the past 30 years, amphibian population declines have been reported around the world.
This is the first wildlife disease to emerge on a global scale that affects an entire class of vertebrates and is associated with mass mortalities, population declines, and species extinctions, according to Peter Daszak of the Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia.
An international effort is now underway to determine how extensive and virulent the chytrid fungus is.
The fungal disease chytridiomycosis was first described in 1998 from the study of adult amphibians collected at sites of mass deaths in Australia and Panama from 1993 to 1998.
Meanwhile, to protect remaining amphibians, countries and zones within countries should be classified as free of or infected with chytridiomycosis, an international group of amphibian experts recommended last August after a workshop in Australia.
A case detection and recovery is unfolding in Colorado as state wildlife biologists use tiny high-tech transmitter locators to help boreal toads fight the deadly fungus.
Colorado amphibian researchers have found that the chytrid fungus is responsible for the decline of boreal toads usually found around the state's beaver dams and meadows.
For decades, their disappearance mystified Colorado biologists. The devastating losses appear to have started in the late 1970s and continued through the early 1980s. During that period, Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists estimated that as much as 85 percent of the state's boreal toad population was wiped out.
Unlike many species whose decline could be related to the loss of habitat, there were no obvious changes in many of the places boreal toads inhabited. Yet from 1986 to 1988, the number of known boreal toad breeding sites fell from 59 to 10.
Then in 1999, while working with Dr. David Green at the National Wildlife Health Center, Colorado Division of Wildlife researcher Mark Jones discovered the existence of a chytrid in Colorado and linked it to the toads.
"Normally these chytrid fungi just live off of dead plant material and are fairly common," Jones said. "But apparently they have evolved into a new species of fungus that attacks living amphibian flesh. By the mid-80s it appeared that (the toads) were well on their way to extinction, but now we're finding a couple of new sites every year," Jones said. "Part of the reason is our intensified surveying efforts, so whether or not they will survive in the wild is still in question."
While the toads have not made much of a comeback, at least the populations may have stabilized, according to Jones. This spring and early summer, Jones was able to find toads at 56 sites, leading him to believe that their chances of long-term survival are improving.
In the meantime, Colorado biologists have established a breeding population of more than 1,000 toads at the John Mumma Endangered Species Hatchery in the San Luis Valley that will be used to repopulate areas that once supported boreal toad populations.
"We have captured toads from 18 different sites to guarantee genetic diversity," said Craig Fetkavich, a Colorado biologist who is overseeing the effort. Boreal toads don't reach sexual maturity for four-to-six years, Fetkavich said, so he is now in the process of artificially manipulating the hours of sunlight the toads receive to see if it is possible to speed up the age at which they can start producing young.
Once that happens, potential sites will first be tested for the presence of chytrid fungus. Those sites that are clean will be used to reintroduce the toads, who will be monitored to evaluate their recovery.
At this point it appears the fungus is not wiping out amphibian populations but only suppressing them. The ability of the toads to develop a natural defensive mechanism to combat the fungus remains to be seen.
Source: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/08/08232001/fungal_44732.asp
8/23/01
2:29:24 PM
Biologists say that some South Florida coral reefs are being taken over by an accelerated growth of algae.
Brian LaPointe of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution told the Palm Beach Post that his early research is indicating that the algae are feeding on nitrogen from human waste that could be coming from sewage-treatment systems.
LaPointe says when invasive algae cover a reef they reduce space for corals to grow.
The researcher's work is funded by a $75,000 grant from Florida's Harmful Algal Bloom Task Force.
8/23/01
2:21:17 PM
Politics
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is Politics?"
Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way:
I'm the head of the family, so call me The President.
Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government.
We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the People.
The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class.
And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future.
Now think about that and see if it makes sense."
So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.
Later that night, he hears his baby brother so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny.
He gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, the little boy say's to his father,
"Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."
The father says,
"Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."
The little boy replies,
"The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in Deep Shit."
8/23/01
1:35:08 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
YUCCA MOUNTAIN CAN MEET EPA RADIATION STANDARDS, DOE REPORTS
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS) - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has a new report assessing the performance of the proposed high level nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain against strict safety standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The report concludes that the Yucca Mountain site "would likely meet" the agency's radiation protection standards.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-22-06.html
WILD ANTARCTIC WINDS TO BE HARNESSED FOR POWER
CANBERRA, Australia, August 22, 2001 (ENS) - Australia is embarking on an ambitious $US 2.3 million program to take wind power further than it has ever been, by harnessing Antarctic gales for full scale electricity generation.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-22-04.html
SELKIRKS APPEAL: PRIME, ROADLESS GRIZZLY HABITAT AT STAKE
SPOKANE, Washington, August 22, 2001 (ENS) - Conservation groups are appealing an access grant given to a logging company by the Colville National Forest near Spokane.
The Colville National Forest has issued a decision to grant Stimson Lumber Co. a cost-share easement that a regional conservation coalition says will lead to the degradation of critical endangered species habitat.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-22-03.html
MAINE RESIDENTS RAISE MILLIONS FOR LAND CONSERVATION
PORTLAND, Maine, August 22, 2001 (ENS) - With $50 million already in hand for its campaign to purchase coastal lands of environmental importance, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, a statewide land conservation organization, has set a goal of $100 million.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-22-02.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: AUGUST 22, 2001
EPA Reaffirms Commitment to Environmental Justice
California Shifting Transportation Funding to Buses, Trains
Low Water Levels Kill Hanford Reach Salmon Fry
Reducing Phosphorus Fertilization Would Help Lake Okeechobee
Teak Plantations Lose SmartWood Certification
Unmanned Planes Offer Bird's Eye View of Storms
Commercial Buildings Get Energy Efficiency Checkup
Miss Maryland Urged to Refuse Fur Coat
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-22-09.html
8/23/01
11:53:10 AM
AlterNet Headlines
New Global Justice Protest Site
AlterNet has launched a new site to bring you breaking news and analysis about the upcoming large-scale protests against policies of the IMF/World Bank in Washington, D.C., during the last week of September. Let us know what kinds of information and analysis you need to keep involved.
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=24
WHERE IS THE (BLACK) LOVE?
Angela Ards, Ms. Magazine
Isn't it ironic that after the Montgomery bus boycott, the sit-ins, Black Power, feminism, and "free love," gender relations between black men and women are worse than ever?
ANNOUNCING RETIREMENT, HELMS DESERVES SCRUTINY, NOT PRAISE
Tom Acitelli, Spectator Magazine Senator Jesse Helms' much-ballyhooed announcement that he would not seek a sixth term in 2002 should have provoked applause, not sympathy.
THE MOTHER TERESA OF ALL WEB SITES
Tamara Straus, AlterNet
Despite the dot-com bust, VolunteerMatch -- the Webby-winning site that helps people volunteer -- is enjoying wild success. What does it for mean corporate and community life in the tech age?
HOW BUSH AND CONGRESS ARE ADDING FUEL TO THE WESTERN WILDFIRES
Evan Woodward, AlterNet
As wildfires rage through woodlands in the West and Big Timber pours money into campaign coffers, critics are questioning the government's handling of National Forests.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11366
GIRL SCOUTS ON THE FIRING LINE
Bill Berkowitz, AlterNet
In stark contrast to the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts of America are getting bashed by the Religious Right. Why? Because they tolerate feminism and lesbians.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11341
COWS MUTILATED? WHO YA GONNA CALL?
Kate Silver, Las Vegas Weekly
The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) hit the trails in Montana to investigate some very strange murders.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11356
LUNCHBOX HEGEMONY? KIDS & THE MARKETPLACE, THEN & NOW
Dan Cook, LiP Magazine
Parents of all political persuasion are used to blaming corporate marketers for making childhood synonymous with consumerism. But perhaps they should blame themselves, too.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11370
BRIBING AT THE BORDER: CORRUPTION RAMPANT IN U.S. CUSTOMS
Al Giordano, NarcoNews.com
U.S. customs officials are allegedly charging drug traffickers hefty bribes for overlooking large shipments of cocaine that cross the U.S.-Mexican border.
* In DrugReporter: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=17
A BLOW(HARD) FOR THE RIGHT AT CNN?
David Corn, AlterNet
CNN has suggested giving Rush Limbaugh an on-air news position. If they do, what would Election Night 2004 look like? Take a trip into a conservative fantasy ...
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11359
CARRYING CASH? YOU MUST BE A CROOK!
Greg Land, Creative Loafing (Atlanta)
By air or by rail, if you carry cash the company that carries you may turn you in. Transportation services are being rewarded by the DEA for information on suspicious travelers with lots of currency.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11340
ENVIRONMENTALISM AND OTHER QUAINT IDEAS
Geov Parrish, Eat the State
Many environmentalists were sure they could defeat the oil-soaked White House in its bid to drill for oil in Alaska. But neither party seems to give a damn about the conservation anymore.
* In EnviroHealth: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=18
HEROIN HASSLES: OVERDOSE ANTIDOTE OUT OF REACH
Maia Szalavitz, Village Voice
Heroine use, and heroine overdoses, are on the rise. But the drug naloxone could save the life of an overdose victim with one harmless injection. Too bad users can't get access to it.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11354
CONSUMERS OF THE MONTH: GREENSPAN URGES PUBLIC TO SPEND MORE, SAVE LESS
Lisa Tozzi, PopPolitics.com
Alan Greenspan will award "Consumer of the Month" medals to citizens who demonstrate patriotism by spending lavishly -- despite market downturns and unemployment.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11351
THE GREAT DIVIDE: INDIA CONFRONTS GLOBALIZATION
Amitabh Pal, In These Times
The economic transformation India has experienced in the past decade -- and its population of more than 1 billion -- make the country an important test case for the impact of globalization.
* In Globalization: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=21
HARD TIME KIDS
Sasha Abramsky, The American Prospect
Almost every state requires that juveniles be tried in adult court for certain crimes. But the petty criminals, not the murderers, bear the brutal brunt of the law.
* In Human Rights USA: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=22
TECHSPLOITATION: SECRETS OF MS. GORF
Annalee Newitz, AlterNet
For people who suffer from acute video game nostalgia or who revel in arcane historical knowledge, there is almost no mystery greater than what exactly happened to the game Ms. Gorf.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11349
MEDIA LAYOFFS: "IT'S NOT THE SHIP THAT MAKES THE WAVES"
Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org
The media industry is experiencing hard times, with more layoffs and firings. But there is also a vast restructuring going on in the business world that isn't being presented by the media in human terms.
* In MediaCulture: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=19
GARCIA: THE LATIN GRAMMYS AND THE POST-CASTRO GENERATION
James E. Garcia, PoliticoMagazine.com
The latest controversy in Florida is over the Latin Grammy awards being switched back to Los Angeles, for fear that anti-Castro Cubans would disrupt the show.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11360
8/23/01
11:45:56 AM
Planet Ark World Environment News
More wind power projects under way - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12123/story.htm
Eagle menaces US beach goers - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12129/story.htm
Thousands rally to back Oregon farmers - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12128/story.htm
UtiliCorp, FPL Energy power up wind farm in Kansas - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12125/story.htm
UPDATE - US DOE - Yucca Mountain would meet radiation limits - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12115/story.htm
Portland, Oregon, named most child-friendly US city - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12119/story.htm
Exxon charges Unocal with shady dealing in patent case - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12118/story.htm
California fires heat up, Northwest rains on way - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12117/story.htm
Shell studies energy brick for cooking in African villages - UGANDA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12122/story.htm
Greenpeace protests at Novartis "GMO baby food" - SWITZERLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12120/story.htm
Coastguards hope to scoop up Baltic oil slick - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12124/story.htm
South Africa blows up another stranded whale - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12130/story.htm
Nordic states ask Britain to cut nuclear pollution - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12133/story.htm
UPDATE - Chantal dumps heavy rain on Mexico but loses power - MEXICO http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12116/story.htm
Japan power industry seeks public support for MOX - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12126/story.htm
Italy wants own food safety agency, beside EU's - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12134/story.htm
Jumbo health camp opens beside ancient Indian fort - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12131/story.htm
German Biblis nuclear rods loaded for French trip - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12132/story.htm
UPDATE - China says to allow grace period for GMO trade - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12121/story.htm
Enbridge, Suncor start wind power production - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12127/story.htm
8/22/01
9:40:32 PM
A Brief Education On Crop Circles
by Freddy Silva
Crop Circles are not a modern phenomenon.
They are mentioned in academic texts of the late 17th Century, and almost 200 cases- some with eyewitness accounts- have been reported prior to 1970. Since then some eighty eyewitnesses from as far away as British Columbia have reported crop circles forming in under twenty seconds; cases are often accompanied by sightings of incandescent or brightly-coloured balls of light, shafts of light or structured flying craft.
Serious attention was given to the simple circles in 1980 in southern England. The designs appeared primarily as simple circles, circle with rings, and variations on the Celtic cross up into the mid-1980s. Then they developed straight lines and created pictograms, not unlike petroglyphs. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today it is not unusual to come across designs mimicking computer fractals and elements that relate to fourth dimensional quantum physics. Their sizes have also increased, some occupying areas as large as 200,000 sq feet. To date there have been over 10,000 reported and documented crop circles throughout the world, with some 90% emerging from southern England. While many still go unreported each year, the emegence of the phenomenon in the world media and the internet has allowed more information to be lodged.
If you happen to buy the story that all crop circles were originated by two sexagenarians with planks of wood, string and a weegie board, you are not in the minority. Once in a while, governments like to control public interest in unexplained phenomena by generating a disinformation method called 'debunking', a technique invented during the Cold War for the sad purpose of controlling mass opinion in the face of unexplainable phenomena (this was the prime motive of the 1953 Robertson Panel, details of which are obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act). The method is very effective because the media provides little or no scientific or factual data with which the public can form an educated opinion on the subject. This absence of evidence is then replaced by ridiculing the subject through association with other 'fringe' topics; so-called experts are brought-in to explain away all the events as freak weather conditions or the work, general pranksters, even sexually excited animals!
According to TV documentaries, all crop circles up to 1992 were made by two simple, elderly men called Doug and Dave. It has since been discovered by researchers such as George Wingfield and Armen Victorian that the D&D story was tied to the British Ministry of Defense- in collusion with the CIA, among others. Evidence supplied by a high-ranking informant in the British Ministry of Defence suggested that the government had every intent to discredit the phenomenon by putting forward two hoaxers in an effort to quell growing public interest in crop circles (for a fuller story see Crop Circles History 1991). When confronted to provide evidence on certain claimed formations, Doug and Dave changed their story, even reversing previous claims; or they simply remained silent when asked to explain the list of features found in the genuine phenomenon. When they claimed making all the formations around the English county of Hampshire, for example, it was pointed out that half the known formations had actually occured in another county- "Er, no, we didn't do those either," they replied. In the end, not even Doug and Dave knew which ones they had made. And although they claim to have made hoaxes since 1978- at the time the published date of the first design- evidence witheld confirmed crop circles dating back into the 1930s. The public has never heard these retractions, nor been given the opportunity to compare the mess created by D&D with the mathematical symmetry of the real phenomenon.
In 1998, however, the surviving member of the deceptive duo did make an incredible admission to British newspapers that he'd been guided by an unknown force.
Since Doug and Dave's inauguration, many copycat hoaxers have appeared on the scene. Some do it to disprove or derail researchers, some for profit, some because they are sociopaths, some because they genuinely believe they can communicate back to the phenomenon (with very interesting results, I may add). Prior to 1989 the hoaxing problem was virtually unheard of. After 1990 designs of man-made origin vary by year- in 1992 and 1998 it was as high as 90%, in 1996 as low as 20%.
That people with a good amount of training can go into a field and eventually create a coherent pattern has never been the issue-recently, a group of known hoaxers called TEam Satan/the circlemakers was paid to go to conveniently out-of-the-way New Zealand to make an elaborate formation for The Discovery Channel. The deceptive tactics used to trick a viewing public into accepting the hoax theory are dealt with here.
The issue is that no man-made crop circle has satisfactorily replicated the features associated with the real phenomenon, and this has baffled scientists and researchers. Crop circles are created by a force seemingly at odds with modern science. Central to the hoax argument is that a physical object is required to flatten the crop to the ground, resulting in the breaking of the plant stems. In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent (left), normally about an inch off the ground at the plant's first node. The plants appear to be subjected to a short and intense burst of heat which softens the stems to drop just above the ground at 90ª, where they reharden into their new and very permanent position without damaging the plants. Plant biologists are baffled by this phenomenon and farmers, who know how the land ticks, are baffled by this. It is the singlemost method of identifying the real phenomenon. Research and laboratory tests suggest that microwave or ultrasound may be the only method capable of producing such an effect.
Crop circles are sometimes accompanied by trilling sounds, since captured on tape and analysed by NASA as artificial in origin, with a harmonic component in the infrasonic range.
The detection of electromagnetism also differentiates genuine formations from fakes. This naturally-occuring energy is known to exist at ancient sites such as stone circles, long barrows, tumuli, dolmens and menhirs, and in churches and cathedrals which were built upon these sites. Crop circles, sacred sites and other places of worship are also found upon intersecting points along the Earth's invisible energy grid, and the size and shape of a crop circle is typically determined by the area of these 'node' points on the Earth's surface. The frequencies of this energy are associated with changes in brainwave patterns and affect the body's biophysical rhythm, so it is not unusual to find reports of people experiencing heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles- a situation also common to sacred sites. People may also experience dizziness, disorientation and nausea- effects caused by prolonged exposure to infrasound or microwave frequencies.
Biophysical evidence includes plants' expanded epidermal walls, and drastically extended node bends in fresh formations (normalright, crop circle far right); also observed are distortions of seed embryos, and the creation of expulsion cavities in the plants as if they have been heated from the inside. In genuine formations there is a disruption of the plant's crystalline structure, as these microscope photos demonstrate (left). Yet in all cases, the plants are not damaged and will continue to grow and ripen if left untouched. This would not be possible had they been trampled by force.
Genuine crop circles are areas of gently laid and swirled plants which create a floor in mathematical proportions similar to the Golden Mean, the vortex nature uses to create precision organisms such as shells, sunflowers, the spatial relationship of the bones in the human hand and galaxies. The floor of crop circles can have up to five layers of weaving, all in counterflow to each other, with every seed head intact and placed beside each other as if arranged in a museum case; the centres can contain nested, woven, crested, or wreathed swatches of plants- sometimes the center will consist of a single standing plant.
They are not perfectly round but slightly elliptical (a hoax, requiring a fixed central rope, cannot achieve this adequately). Their edges are crisply defined from the flattened crop as if drawn with a compass and incised with surgical precision. Hoaxes, by comparison, bear a stylistic resemblance to tuffs of greasy, uncombed hair- and, of course, all their plants have been trampled, bruised and crushed.
Other anomalies indicate an increase infra red output within and around a new formation, indicating that both the heat content of the plants and the watershed have been affected. Evidence even exists of four non-naturally occuring, short-life radioactive isotopes in the soil inside genuine crop circles (these dissipate after three or four hours); the soil in around them appears to have been baked.
Mathematically, genuine crop circles encode obscure theorems based on Euclidian geometry as well as the unalterable principles of sacred geometry. They have the capacity to alter the local electromagnetic field so that compasses cannot locate north; cameras, cellular phones and batteries fail to operate, and aircraft equipment fails whilst flying over them. Then there are levels of background radiation up to 300% above normal, radio frequencies falling dramatically or rising sharply within their perimeters, animals in local farms avoiding that particular area or simply acting agitated hours before one materializes, and car batteries in entire villages failling to operate the morning after one is found nearby. In some of the major events, entire towns are left without power.
Since genuine formations materialize at crossing points along the Earth's magnetic energy currents, they are influencing the energy pattern of local phehistoric sites. They reference local Neolithic sites in size/shape/direction, and are dowsable upon entry, with as many as 150 concentric rings of energy outside their physical perimeter. In fact, a year after they have been harvested and the field ploughed and re-sown, the energy imprint of the formations will still be dowsed, long after their physical traces have vanished.
This area of research has allowed for the possibility of crop circles as a healing force, and they are already being successfully employed in radionics, flower essences and resonance therapy around the world, both for people and environments in distress.
Crop circles are generally formed at night between the hours of 2-4 AM, traditionally during the shortest evenings of the English year when darkness lasts but four hours, in fields eagerly watched by farmers, military, laser alarms, scientists or hundreds of enthusiasts in their sleeping bags hoping to be the lucky ones to witness a crop circle forming. Some of those lucky few have witnessed large balls of brilliant colour project a beam of golden light into a field which next morning displays a new crop circle.Yet despite many stakeouts and fields rigged with top surveylance equipment, crop circles have appeared out of the mist right under the noses of those looking for them. On one occasion, the Circlemakers even materialized in full view of the British Prime Minister's heavily-guarded country residence.
At Stonehenge in 1996 (left), a pilot reported seeing nothing while flying above the monument, yet 15 minutes later this huge 900 ft formation resembling the Julia Set computer fractal, and comprising 149 meticulously layed circles, lay beside the heavily guarded monument. It took a team of 11- including myself- no less than five hours just to survey the formation.
Still not convinced? This web site contains a sampling of the on-going research dedicated to enlightening the public. More will be added as time goes by. Look at the pictures, study the research or better still, visit a genuine crop circle. You'll get the message pretty quickly.
And when you do, tell this story to a friend.
Source: http://www.lovely.clara.net/homepg.html
8/22/01
7:21:44 PM
Navy Claims Environmental Laws Are Threat To National Security
Military To Seek Legislative Exemptions, Documents Show
Washington, DC - Citing growing restrictions on its operations, weapons development and training, the U.S. Navy will soon seek Congressional exemption from compliance with several environmental laws, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). "The Navy's environmental philosophy is 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,'" commented PEER General Counsel Dan Meyer, a former Navy officer. "The Navy's senior command does not appreciate that defense of the nation does not demand despoliation of our natural resources." In recent briefings and position papers, Navy officials contend "the cumulative impact of compliance [with applicable environmental laws] can have severe to extreme consequences on operational readiness." Present and future limitations on firing live explosives, night training, operations in marine sanctuaries and emerging weapon systems, such as its new "LFAS" (Low Frequency Active Sonar) present potential obstacles to the Navy's mission.
The Navy decries actions to protect threatened and endangered species by federal wildlife protection agencies such as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service because they take a "precautionary approach" toward protecting sea life, arguing that its operations should not be hampered by "lack of quality data" and "limited scientific understanding" of the vulnerability of marine mammals, sea turtles and other aquatic life.
Despite recommendations that Navy contractors "consider, wherever practical, using closed environments (e.g. quarries, catch-ponds) for the testing of ordnance and other live-fire testing" the Navy resists adopting any possible changes in its own operations to avoid environmental impacts. >Instead the documents outline a series of statutory exemptions that the Navy intends to seek from the Endangered Species Act. "We cannot simply stand by while the military or anyone else attempts to cut and shred the fabric of our nation's environmental laws, especially one that was so painstakingly crafted by past generations," said Brock Evans, a former marine and executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition.
According to former Air Force Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White "The mission of the Department of Defense is more than aircraft, guns and missiles. Part of the defense job is protecting the lands, waters, timber and wildlife -- the priceless natural resources that make this great nation of ours worth defending." One document lists "seven regulatory programs that impact DOD {Department of Defense} operations, training and testing in the marine environment in order of their severity" starting with the Marine Mammal Protection Act followed by the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Magnuson-Stevens Act (protecting fish habitat) and two Clinton Executive Orders on coral reefs and marine protected areas.
Copies of the Navy documents referenced are available on request.
Endangered Species Coalition statement on Department of Defense proposed ESA exemptions.
"We are very disturbed to learn about this attempted end run around the Endangered Species Act," said Endangered Species Coalition, Executive Director and ex-marine Brock Evans, "and we simply cannot stand by while the military or anyone else attempts to cut and shred the fabric of our nation's environmental laws, especially one that was so painstakingly crafted by past generations." The Endangered Species Coalition cannot accept these exemptions and we will do everything in our power to educate the American people about how they will damage our way of life and irreplaceable natural heritage. The ESC has had very good relations with the armed services and is currently exploring partnerships with some of them to work together on environmental issues. By and large, the military has a solid record of balancing the difficult task of maintaining mission readiness while complying with ESA protections for endangered species. "These exemptions," observed Brock Evans, "would only undermine the military's efforts to protect imperiled species in a misguided attempt to fix something that is not broken."
The Endangered Species Act is a very flexible law, specifically designed to accommodate various situations, such as military land uses, while still protecting endangered species. "If any of the services are having difficulty, we invite them to work with us to find solutions, not to turn their back on the laws that keep our country beautiful," said Evans. While the ESC fully supports the need to maintain military readiness, we must also remind Congress and the administration of the words of former Air Force Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White who said, "The mission of the Department of Defense is more than aircraft, guns, and missiles. Part of the defense job is protecting the lands, waters, timber and wildlife - - the priceless natural resources that make this great nation of our worth defending."
Contacts:
Jessica Vallette Revere,
Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (PEER),
http://www.PEER.org 202 265.7337
and
Brock Evans or Ed Lytwak,
Endangered Species Coalition,
http://www.StopExtinction.org 202 772.3231 / 3232
8/22/01
5:14:16 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
ALL FALLS DOWN
Chanting "let the water flow," about 4,000 residents joined a convoy of trucks from around the country yesterday in Klamath Falls, Ore., to protest the federal government and demand more irrigation water for their farms. This spring, the feds shut off the water to protect endangered fish, and the small amount of water released earlier this month is expected to run out later this week. The farmers and their supporters described themselves as patriots taking on the Endangered Species Act. Conservative talk-radio host Roger Fredinburg yelled to the crowd, "We're taking it [the water] back -- you greenies can't have it."
straight to the source: USA Today, Patrick McMahon, 22 Aug 2001 <http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010822/3564311s.htm>
straight to the source: Sacramento Bee, Peter Hecht, 22 Aug 2001 <http://www.sacbee.com/news/news/local04_20010822.html>
SMOG AND MIRRORS
Businesses located near national parks told the U.S. EPA yesterday to move forward with a plan to reduce smog over 156 parks. At a hearing yesterday, the businesses and environmental groups warned that tourism dollars could dry up and acid rain problems would increase unless the agency adopted rules proposed by the Clinton administration to improve visibility in the parks. Big industry groups, like the Edison Electric Institute, loudly opposed the proposal, arguing that the cost to reduce pollution from cities and power plants would be too great and that the plan exceeded the EPA's authority in the first place. The Bush administration has said it would like to scrap the proposal, replacing it, along with other clean-air rules, with a major revision of the Clean Air Act.
straight to the source: Portland Press Herald, Bart Jansen, 22 Aug 2001 <http://www.portland.com/news/state/010822acadia.shtml>
KENTUCKY FRIED MOUNTAINTOPS
A Kentucky citizens group yesterday sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to try to stop coal mining operations from burying streams under rock and dirt waste piles. The group says the Corps doesn't have the authority under the Clean Water Act to approve the fills, which are a result of mountaintop-removal mining. Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, said that the lawsuit could "literally shut down the coal mining industry."
straight to the source: Charleston Gazette, Ken Ward Jr., 22 Aug 2001 <http://wvgazette.com/news/Today/2001082118/>
GIVE A HOOT, DON'T COMMUTE
The U.S. Transportation Department launched a new campaign yesterday to reduce pollution and encourage telecommuting by offering smog-emissions credits to companies that get more employees to work from home. Under a two-year pilot program, businesses that earn the credits will be able to swap them for air-quality requirements or sell them to other companies. The program is being tested in Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Hugo Martin, 22 Aug 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000067965aug22.story?coll=la%2 Dnews%2Dscience>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
Woe, Canada -- a day in the life of Patricia Ross, city councilmember, Abbotsford, B.C. <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/ross082101.asp?source=daily>
That'll do, babe -- Kris Williams is saving sea turtles in Georgia -- in our Out on a Limb column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb120100.stm?source=daily>
Anti-environmentalism as a way of life -- Dubya's pro-industry policies aren't only about the money -- by Jon Margolis in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho022101.stm?source=daily>
8/22/01
4:15:08 PM
MediaChannel.org
NET MAGS' MISERY
As new economy magazine The Industry Standard magazine closes its doors, other MediaChannel affiliates struggle for survival. (From The Industry Standard, ContentBiz, Feed)
NEWS DISSECTOR: MEDIA LAYOFFS
Danny Schechter calls for better reporting of the industry and the people being hurt.
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/layoffs.shtml
IT PAYS TO BE A MOGUL
As "cost-cutting" measures abound, bosses are likely to earn big bonuses for layoffs. (From American Journalism Review)
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#mogul
CHINA: INVESTIGATING AGAINST ALL ODDS
Chinese journalists must contend with a broad and daunting list of forbidden topics known as the "Seven Nos." (From Committee to Protect Journalists)
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#china
IMPERIAL MEDIA AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER
It's no surprise that cultural globalization ignites reactionary flames, writes Osama El-Sherif from Amman, Jordan. (From Middle East News Service)
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#imperial
HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE NEWS
Norman Soloman's tips for becoming a happy consumer of U.S. media. (From Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#norman
MEDIACULTURE
A collaboration between MediaChannel and Alternet exploring the currents, crises and cultures of American media.
Recently featured:
* The Media And The Missile Tests
* Anti-Drug Ads On School TV
* The Pro-Globalization New York Times
And much, much more...
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#mediaculture
MIDDLE EAST WARS AND U.S. MEDIA
As the conflict continues to rage, media critics on all sides throw stones. Read the latest critiques and share your views in The Forum. (From the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America)
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#mideast
READ FOR FREE!
From community radio to grassroots PR, NGOs are publishing e-books as a way to share success stories and solutions worldwide.
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#ebooks
8/22/01
4:06:25 PM
Public Citizen
Dissatisfied Hair Restoration Patient Has Right To Criticize Company
Two Web Sites Critical of Bosley Medical Are Subject of Lawsuit; Critics Have a Right to Free Speech on the Internet, Public Citizen Says
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A dissatisfied former customer of a California company that specializes in cosmetic surgery for baldness has a right to set up a Web site critical of the company and use the company's name in his domain name, Public Citizen has told a federal court.
Michael Kremer, a self-employed resident of California, set up the site after becoming dissatisfied with hair restoration services he paid Bosley Medical to provide to him in 1991. Kremer had seen several accounts in the media regarding other complaints about Bosley, including a piece on "Dateline NBC" and an article in U.S. News and World Report, and based the information on his site on these and other accounts.
On Jan. 7, 2000, Kremer registered a Web address,
then wrote to the company, notifying them of his plans and giving them the opportunity to make any objections in advance. The only response from the company was a complaint for arbitration filed with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a group in Switzerland that is typically favorable to companies when ruling on Internet trademark issues. Meanwhile, Kremer refrained from posting any material on his site.
After the WIPO arbitrator ruled in Kremer's favor and reprimanded Bosley for attempting to stifle critical speech, Kremer registered the domain name
http://www.bosleymedicalviolations.com
on which he posted complaints against the company. He registered a second domain name because he had experienced technical difficulties using the first name. Both sites are now functional.
After the arbitration, the company filed suit against Kremer in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, accusing him of libel and trademark infringement. The company has asked the federal court to force Kremer to take down both his Web sites and remove all commentary critical of the company.
"Bosley Medical's intent is clear in this case. It wants to stifle critical consumer commentary," said Paul Alan Levy, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, who represents Kremer. "Bosley's lawsuit amounts to cyber-bullying, an attempt to intimidate Mr. Kremer into silencing himself."
As Kremer's affidavit indicates, Bosley has never denied the factual accuracy of the media and law enforcement reports upon which Kremer based his Web sites. Further, the company has been disciplined in the past for a variety of practices. It was fined $644,724 in 1996 over its medical and advertising practices, and its medical license was suspended then placed on probation for five years by the California medical board in 1999. Bosley also has faced discipline charges in 20 other states.
Although Bosley asserts that Kremer's sites represent a trademark infringement, Levy says that Kremer's sites are purely informational and that Kremer receives no income from them.
"These sites are constructed and worded in a way that no visitor could possibly mistake them as Bosley's own," Levy added.
Public Citizen, which has long had an interest in free speech issues on the Internet, agreed to intervene in the case on Kremer's behalf and today filed a motion to dismiss the suit. A copy is available at
http://www.citizen.org/litigation/briefs/bosley.htm.
The group has previously been involved with several other cases involving the First Amendment and the Internet, including one involving critics of the corporate takeover in Pacifica Radio in May.
"Lawsuits should not be used as intimidation tactics to chill free speech on the Internet," Levy said. "It seems that recent court precedent hasn't taught companies the lesson that if they bring these lawsuits, they will lose."
Bosley Medical operates in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Tennessee, Washington, and the District of Columbia. For a complete list of cities in which Bosley is located, go to
http://www.citizen.org/press/bosleysites.htm
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
For more information, visit http://www.Citizen.org
8/22/01
3:57:33 PM
"Democracy Now!" has been taken off the air by Pacifica's management, visit http://www.savepacifica.net/ for the latest news and to find out what you can do. The Pacifica Campaign is planning a nationwide day of solidarity on Tuesday, August 28.
8/22/01
3:11:59 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
A GUIDE TO CHICAGO'S MURALS
by Mary Lackritz Gray, Online book review
-- A new book published by the University of Chicago Press is the definitive guide to over 200 murals in the Chicago area.
B.C. NATIVES BLOCKADE PETRO-CAN PIPELINE SITE
by Claudia Cattaneo, National Post Online
-- A band of native Canadians has blockaded its sacred hunting grounds from the exploitation of one of Canada's largest oil and gas companies.
100 PERCENT PURE CULT CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Web site review by Al Paulson
-- This handsome site reflects the desperate and often ugly life of L.A. skid row poet laureate Charles Bukowski.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
8/22/01
3:10:08 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
OIL EXPLORATION POSSIBLE NEAR GREAT BARRIER REEF
CANBERRA, Australia, August 21, 2001 (ENS) - In Parliament today, Australian Environment Minister Senator Robert Hill left open the option of future oil drilling near the Great Barrier Reef, raising fears that the environment of world's longest reef might be damaged.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-21-05.html
EPA ENFORCEMENT NOMINEE BLOCKED IN THE SENATE
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, August 21, 2001 (ENS) - Three Democratic senators are blocking Senate approval of the Bush administration's nominee for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's top enforcement post.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-21-06.html
NEW GREENPEACE CHIEF SAYS BUSH RISKING EARTH'S FUTURE
LONDON, United Kingdom, August 21, 2001 (ENS) - Greenpeace's recently appointed executive director Gerd Leipold, has criticized President George W. Bush for putting the world's future at risk with a "truly astonishing policy path that could undo so much progress in environmental protection and world peace."
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-21-02.html
BIOFUELS WIN EUROPEAN GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
BRUSSELS, Belgium, August 21, 2001 (ENS) - The European Commission is preparing to propose a strategy that would boost the European biofuels industry. It includes a European Union framework for tax incentives and obligations on the 15 member countries to achieve mandatory minimum market shares.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-21-01.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: AUGUST 21, 2001
Satellite Images Help Agencies Fight Wildfires
California Judge Orders Cleanup of MTBE Contamination
Private Partnership Takes Over Federal Fluorescent Lamp Program
Charlotte Gets Dedicated Brownfields Specialist
Combining Pesticides Could Reduce Resistance
Group Wants Jetskis Out of Glen Canyon
New Guidelines Issued for Wetlands Grant Program
UC Davis Will Produce Radioactive Medical Isotopes
Environmental Satellite Offers Clear Environmental Pictures
Biologists Seek Algae, Violets in Hawaii
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-21-09.html
8/22/01
2:57:32 PM
The Pacifica Campaign is a grass-roots organization representing listeners and staff alike, fighting to preserve Pacifica's 50-year tradition of progressive, community-based radio. For more info to to:
http://www.pacificacampaign.org
8/22/01
2:52:59 PM
Helms Plans To Retire From Senate In 2003
by Kevin Sack
TLANTA, Aug. 21 - Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a conservative stalwart for nearly 30 years, plans to appear on television in Raleigh on Wednesday evening to announce that he will retire from the Senate when his fifth term expires in January 2003, a person close to Mr. Helms said today.
Senior Republican leaders in Washington and one official in the Bush administration said that while they had not been told directly about Mr. Helms's plans, they expected him to announce his retirement in the television appearance.
One administration official said Mr. Helms, 79, had called some Senate colleagues over the last week to let them know he would soon announce his retirement and to tell them he just did not have it in him to run again in 2002.
The State Capitol in Raleigh was rife with rumors today that Mr. Helms would step down, said State Representative Leo Daughtry, a Republican legislative leader.
"I haven't heard anything directly from him," Mr. Daughtry said, "but the scuttlebutt around here is that he's not going to run."
The person who confirmed that Mr. Helms planned to retire issued one minor caution, noting that the senator can be impishly unpredictable.
"Lord knows," the person said, "he might change his mind before tomorrow."
Mr. Helms's aides would not address his plans.
Bill Peterson, the general manager of WRAL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Raleigh where Mr. Helms came to public attention as a conservative commentator, said that Mr. Helms would address the state in a seven- or eight-minute address at 6 p.m. Wednesday. He said he did not know what Mr. Helms would say.
Among those seen as potential contenders for Mr. Helms's Senate seat is Elizabeth Dole, the former presidential candidate and two-time cabinet secretary, who has said she would give the race "serious consideration" if Mr. Helms declined to run. A group of her supporters in North Carolina, Mrs. Dole's home state, have started efforts to draft her into the race.
If she announced, Mrs. Dole would become the instant heavyweight in the Republican field. But whether Mrs. Dole, whose 2000 presidential campaign never caught fire, would clear the field of other Republicans is a matter of speculation.
Among the other Republicans who have expressed interest are Representatives Richard M. Burr and Robin Hayes, former Senator Lauch Faircloth (who was defeated for re- election in 1998), former Mayor Richard Vinroot of Charlotte and Jim Snyder, a lawyer.
On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall has already announced her candidacy. Others considering the race are State Senator Eric Miller Reeves, State Representative Daniel T. Blue Jr. and Mark W. Erwin, a Charlotte developer and former ambassador. A Helms retirement is likely to increase Democratic calls for former Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. to join the fray, but he has said publicly and privately that he is not interested.
Without Mr. Helms as an incumbent, the race in North Carolina is likely to become a focal point for both parties. While the state is considered conservative, it has elected Democrats as governor and United States senator in recent years and an influx of Northerners has moderated its politics.
Democrats holding only a one-seat majority in the Senate.
Mr. Helms, who was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee until the Republicans lost control of the Senate earlier this year, has had health problems in recent years. A nerve condition, peripheral neuropathy, has numbed his feet and forced him to navigate the corridors of the Capitol in a motorized scooter. It was also expected to make campaigning unpleasant for a man who does not relish it under the best of circumstances.
Mr. Helms leaves an outsized legacy in both Washington and North Carolina. His ardent conservatism on both foreign policy and social issues presaged the rise of right wing Republicanism in the South, and his strident stand on everything from relations with China to judicial nominations made him a figure who could not be ignored by presidents, Congressional leaders and foreign heads of state.
On Capitol Hill, he became known as Senator No, for his unflinching willingness to stall movement on legislation and appointments until he won his way, often on completely unrelated issues. In North Carolina, that same stubbornness and straightforwardness, often won admiration, even from those who disagreed with him on the issues. And yet, Mr. Helms often offended many liberals and moderates with his hidebound views on race and homosexuality, making him an enduring boogeyman to the American left.
Richard C. Holbrooke, the ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration, said the foreign policy implications of Mr. Helms' departure were substantial.
"He was the most powerful advocate, and one of the most skillful parliamentarians, in pursuit of his objectives for his point of view," said Mr. Holbrooke, who under pressure from Mr. Helms, helped restructure United Nations finances and reduced the American dues.
Mr. Helms hewed closely to the United States Constitution often at the expense of international treaties. He played a significant role, for example, in rejecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999.
One group of Americans with whom Mr. Helms shared a longstanding antipathy was homosexuals. Mr. Helms struggled to suppress what he viewed as a gay rights agenda and antagonized many homosexuals by limiting federal efforts to curb the spread of AIDS through explicit sex education.
David Smith, senior strategist at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, described Mr. Helms as "probably the most anti-gay member of Congress in either house."
Mr. Helms's wife, Dorothy, had been expected to play a major role in his decision, and their friends have said she was ready to come home to their children and grandchildren after three decades in Washington.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/politics/22HELM.html
8/22/01
2:48:05 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Group says sea turtles under pressure in South America - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12095/story.htm
UPDATE - US seeks $7 mln to pay for 1999 freighter spill - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12096/story.htm
FEATURE - Light bulb makers moving out of Edison's shadow - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12098/story.htm
Cool weather helps control US wildfires - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12103/story.htm
Esso dismisses allegations by Green campaign - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12107/story.htm
Sri Lanka urged to postpone GM food controls - SRI LANKA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12100/story.htm
FEATURE - Paraguayan crocodiles die in muddy cemetery - PARAGUAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12105/story.htm
Grumpy Greek hunters start EU-shortened season - GREECE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12101/story.htm
Bardot slams minister for lenience with hunters - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12099/story.htm
French locals vote "No" to Mont Blanc truck route - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12102/story.htm
UPDATE - EU says no evidence US GM soybeans pose risk - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12097/story.htm
FEATURE - Natural gas to help dispel Cairo's fumes EGYPT http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12104/story.htm
UPDATE - West Nile virus detected in Canadian birds - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12106/story.htm
Seismic tests near Gt Barrier Reef spark protest - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12094/story.htm
8/21/01
6:27:35 PM
A Step Forward For Genetic Engineering In New Zealand
By Allan Coukell
UCKLAND, New Zealand, Aug. 20 — The Royal Commission on Genetic Modification has recommended that research on genetically modified crops and animals "proceed with caution," elating the nation's biotechnology interests while dismaying opponents of the technology, particularly the nation's influential Green Party.
The commission's report explicitly rejects the idea of a nation free of genetically modified crops and animals, saying it would not be in New Zealand's social, environmental or economic interests. Although it calls for a number of additional restrictions on genetic modifications, the report argues that the technology can be used "in a way that does not threaten New Zealand's `clean green' image."
The recommendations, issued late last month, are not binding, but if accepted by the government, they would ease restrictions on low-risk research done in laboratories and would tighten the regulatory regime around activities like the general release of genetically modified organisms. In particular, the commissioners called for a rule change that would enable the authorities to impose follow-up safety monitoring or to limit the scale of any release of genetically modified organisms.
They also called for more research on the potential for any release to affect soil and ecological systems.
The report, a wide-ranging inquiry into the technology's implications for health, environmental, legal, economic and cultural issues, is the first of its kind from an industrialized nation. It is expected to attract interest from other countries grappling with the controversies arising from biotechnology.
Prime Minister Helen Clark, who set up the panel in May 2000, said opponents must accept the fact that the commission "has not embraced their view on field trials and on crops." She said her government would study the report and make a decision in about three months.
Genetic engineering is controversial in New Zealand. No genetically modified crops have yet been approved for release, and even experimental field trials have been delayed since the commission first met.
Critics of the technology predict that it will lead to widespread environmental damage and health problems. Some, including many Maori groups that testified before the commission, oppose it on ethical or spiritual grounds. Others believe that New Zealand farmers can capitalize on the growing world market for organic produce, but only if the nation rejects genetic modifications.
The critics have won wide support. A commission survey showed that most New Zealanders were comfortable with genetic modification for medical purposes but saw "more disadvantages than advantages" in its use on animals or crops.
On the other side of the debate are the biotechnology industry, science organizations and farm groups that view transgenics as an important tool for improving the value and efficiency of New Zealand's agriculture and forestry industries.
The four commissioners — a doctor, a scientist, a bishop and a retired chief justice — held dozens of public meetings, heard expert witnesses from New Zealand and abroad, and worked through more than 10,000 submissions from the public. More than 100 individuals or groups presented evidence in formal hearings.
Representatives of industry said they would not object to the additional scrutiny recommended. "Field trials were going to be expensive anyway," said Dr. Ian Warrington, chief executive of HortResearch, a state-owned company that is using gene technology to improve fruit production. "It is a very good report," he said.
The report also calls for a new advisory body on ethical, social and cultural matters in biotechnology.
The commissioners said they recognized that greater use of genetically modified crops would create some problems. For instance, the report calls for a strategy that will allow both genetically modified crops and the continued production of organic honey, which requires no contact with pollen from genetically modified plants. But Pete Hodgson, minister of research, science and technology, conceded that it would be extremely difficult to keep the bees from those plants.
The full report is online at http://www.gmcommission.govt.nz
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/health/genetics/21ZELA.html
8/21/01
6:20:05 PM
Americans Vacation Starved
by Evan Woodward, IPA Media, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy
When President Bush clocked out to start on a 30-day vacation at his Texas ranch, a collective lament was in the air from much of the population: "When do we get a break?"
The vacation brings to 52 days the president's total vacation time since his swearing-in last January, a number that dwarfs the average eight days of vacation most U.S. small business employees receive each year, according to Joe Robinson, director of the Work to Live campaign. Robinson, declaring America to be "the most vacation-starved country in the industrialized world," is one of many people leading the charge for a decrease in the national workload.
The loosely defined movement gained impetus with the publication of Harvard economics professor Juliet Schor's book The Overworked American, which noted that -- while corporate profits and worker productivity were up -- most workers were seeing their free time diminish. Schor's comments echoed calls made by labor reformers in the 1930s, who successfully established the eight-hour day by pressuring for the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Decades later, however, many American workers are still toiling for an excessive amount of hours. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, goods-producing employees in private industry work an average of 40.4 hours per week.
Americans work two months more each year than German workers, and two weeks longer than the Japanese.
Deborah Figart, co-editor of the book Working Time, told the Institute for Public Accuracy that "part of the problem is that U.S. managers are encouraged to overwork people because of the fixed costs associated with each employee, like healthcare insurance and unemployment insurance." Meanwhile, according to Figart, "low income people work overtime so they can pay their bills."
Many lament the so-called technology revolution's powerlessness in relieving the excessive workload placed upon Americans. "Technology could be part of the solution," says Figart, "but it has often meant that people spend time at home writing work-related emails."
The problem looks even worse when the U.S. is compared with other industrialized nations. According to Robinson, Americans work two months more each year than Germans in total hours, and two weeks longer than Japanese workers -- long considered to be the world's weariest workforce.
But what about that vacation? Even the president's 30-day respite pales in comparison to the holiday time enjoyed by workers in other parts of the world. "Europeans and Australians receive four to six weeks paid leave," Robinson commented.
Farm laborers bear a significant chunk of the American workload, says David Strauss, a farm worker advocate. Farmers, like many workers in America, rarely get the opportunity to take a paid vacation. "If the weather is bad, or they are between crops they have to work on, farmers don't get a dime. The typical farm worker has no vacation benefits, no health benefits, and works for at or near minimum wage."
"The workings of American society work increasingly to squeeze dry the time for spirit, family and community."
As a solution to the overburdening of the American workforce, some prescribe an overhaul of many American ideals. Gabe Sinclair, author of the utopian novel The Four Hour Day, describes society as "thoroughly addicted to consumerism and to class hierarchy."
"Two percent of Americans now grow all of our food, while another 30 million or so do all the mining, manufacturing and construction," Sinclair says. "If this minority can produce our modern cornucopia, then the four-hour workday is within easy reach."
Arthur Waskow, curator of the Free Our Time website, notes the correlation between overwork and spiritual loss. "Doing, making, profiting, producing and consuming have been elevated into idols," Waskow contends, "but at the root of our spiritual traditions is a critique of these idolatries. The workings of American society work increasingly to squeeze dry the time for spirit, family and community."
These indictments of the burden currently placed on American workers constitute a considerable question President Bush might want to address during his lengthy repose in sun-scorched Texas. "It's great that the president of the United States can recoup his energy with long vacations," Figart says. "Now he should encourage policies so that other hard-working Americans can also have time for rest and family."
Work To Live: http://www.escapemag.com/home/sub_3.htm
Free Our Time: http://www.FreeOurTime.org
Source: Institute for Public Accuracy: http://www.Accuracy.org
8/21/01
6:02:38 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
KIWI ME A RIVER
In a big loss for the Green Party in New Zealand, the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification has rejected the idea of a country free of genetically engineered crops and animals. The commission determined that biotech foods need not "threaten New Zealand's 'clean green' image," recommending that research on the foods "proceed with caution," including limiting the size of any release of genetically engineered organisms and increasing the amount of follow-up safety monitoring on released organisms. The commission's report, the first of its kind from an industrialized country, studied the cultural, economic, environmental, health, and legal implications of biotech foods.
straight to the source: New York Times, Allan Coukell, 21 Aug 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/health/genetics/21ZELA.html>
catch it only in Grist Magazine: The latest on genetically engineered foods -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha071299.stm?source=daily>
FEES: "FIE", FOES FUME
Organizers say more than 200 grassroots groups have sprung up across the U.S. to protest fees for using federal lands. In 1996, Congress launched a pilot program to allow certain national forests, refuges, and other federal lands to begin charging fees for access, parking, and campsites. Congress this year is deciding whether to extend and expand the program. Federal officials say they need the moola because recreational demands on the lands have soared in recent years, while budget allocations have remained level. But opponents say that the user fees prevent lower-income people from having access to public lands, which should be open to all citizens, and that the fees amount to double taxation.
straight to the source: Christian Science Monitor, Hal Clifford, 21 Aug 2001 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0821/p1s2-ussc.html>
PARRIS IN THE SUMMERTIME
As a last hurrah, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening (D) says he will push for new restrictions on development along Maryland's coastal bays. He says he will introduce a bill to preserve the wetlands and protect water quality in the next legislative session --which will be his final one in office -- and he expects the fight over the restrictions to be one of his toughest yet. Driving the southern Maryland coast this weekend, Glendening pointed out a house under construction on what was once a wetland: "People look at that and say, isn't that progress? It's a million-dollar home. I think it's a disaster."
straight to the source: Washington Post, Daniel DeLuc, 21 Aug 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38514-2001Aug20.html>
catch it only in Grist Magazine: The developer's creed -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha071601.asp?source=daily>
HOLDING SCHREGARDUS IN LOW REGARDUS
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said yesterday he would join with U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to block President Bush's nomination of Donald Schregardus to be the U.S. EPA's chief enforcement officer. Schumer said he would use parliamentary tactics to stall the nomination until the Bush administration indicated whether it would withdraw from Clinton-era lawsuits against power plants in the Midwest and the South that send pollution to the Northeast. As Ohio's top environmental enforcer, Schregardus opposed efforts by the EPA to regulate the Midwest brew of pollution that blows east. Environmental groups say Schregardus generally had an abysmal record at his Ohio post.
straight to the source: New York Times, Katharine Q. Seelye, 21 Aug 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/politics/21POLL.html>
straight to the source: Cincinnati Enquirer, Gannett News Service, John Machacek, 21 Aug 2001 <http://enquirer.com/editions/2001/08/21/loc_epa_nominee_runs.html>
SEE YA LATER ...
With fewer than 130 of them left in the wild, Chinese alligators may become the first crocodilian to become extinct in the wild, according to a study that will be published soon in the journal Biological Conservation. The alligators, native to lakes and wetlands in the lower Yangtze River Valley, have lost most of their habitat to fish ponds, rice paddies, and, increasingly, development. Not every single bit of hope is lost: A research center has 10,000 of the alligators in captivity, and some scientists hope to reintroduce them into the wild. But little habitat for the alligators remains and many in the burgeoning Chinese population don't want to encounter the six-foot critters hanging out in ponds.
straight to the source: New York Times, Carol Kaesuk Yoon, 21 Aug 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/science/life/21ALLI.html>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
Land of a thousand water bottles -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha082001.asp?source=daily>
Sharps shooter -- Colorado man cleans up war-game carnage -- in our Out on a Limb section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb072601.asp?source=daily>
Sum dum gai -- in the wake of Bonn, Bush's isolationism takes a page from China -- satire in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho080601.asp?source=daily>
8/21/01
5:42:54 PM
TomPaine.com
VACATION STARVED
by Evan Woodward
The president's 30-day respite pales in comparison to the holiday time enjoyed by workers in other parts of the world, but Americans get the shorted. How long was your vacation?
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/08/16/index.html
The Loyal Opposition
A BLOW(HARD) FOR THE RIGHT AT CNN?
Will Rush Limbaugh Join the Liberal Media?
by David Corn
Imagine: "Good evening, I'm Judy Woodruff." "And I'm Jeff Greenfield." "And I am the Voice of Reason and Righteousness, speaking Truth to you with talent on loan from God."
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/08/17/index.html
Dispatch: Connecticut
THUGS IN, THUGS OUT
by William A. Collins
Sensible correction departments actually try to correct. Other smarter nations have figured this out. It costs money, but saves in the long run.
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/08/17/index.html
Economics Reporting Review: August 11 - August 17
A REAGAN REUNION
by Dean Baker
The Times reported that Reagan administration officials credit Reagan's tax cut with "prompting the economic boom of the past 20 years." Should the Times have noted that there has not been an economic boom?
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/08/20/index.html
8/21/01
5:33:53 PM
Investigators Probe Risk Of Toxics To Human Reproduction
By Environmental News Network
Human reproduction, fetal and child development are vulnerable to chemicals in the environment and other environmental factors. New knowledge about the human genome is providing clues to how genes and the environment interact to cause developmental defects. Now the chemical industry and the federal government have agreed to jointly fund research that will extend knowledge in this area. Over the next two years, $4 million will be spent to develop better data and test methods for understanding the effects of environmental factors and chemicals on human reproduction and fetal and childhood development.
An agreement between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), was signed late last month.
Through a series of meetings over the past year, the two organizations identified a mutual research goal -- to conduct multidisciplinary research on the mechanisms of action of potential developmental toxicants using state-of-the-art tools, including genomics and genetic animal models.
"On behalf of the members of the Council, I am proud and delighted to sign this Memorandum of Understanding with the NIEHS," said Fred Webber, ACC president and CEO. "Through this agreement we will jointly fund research grants to expand knowledge about the potential effects of chemicals on development."
The new agreement commits the council to provide $1 million and the federal institute $3 million to the joint project, enough to cover about 15 grants.
Studies suggest average male sperm counts have sharply declined over the decades. Breast cancer and testicular cancers appear to have increased.
About half of all pregnancies in the United States result in prenatal or postnatal death or an otherwise less than healthy baby. In its report, the National Research Council (NRC) estimates that exposure to toxic chemicals, both manufactured and natural, cause about three percent of all developmental defects. At least 25 percent might be the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors, scientists believe.
The National Research Council committee emphasized that all stages of human development, from conception to puberty, should be examined in toxicity studies, since all developmental periods are potentially susceptible to toxic agents. There is also a need to look at all adverse developmental outcomes, including growth retardation, behavioral effects, and death, the NRC panel said.
Through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the federal government already conducts research to discover how chemicals in the environment, including pesticides that mimic the hormone estrogen, might cause or stimulate these diseases.
NIEHS Director Dr. Kenneth Olden described the new deal as, "a collaboration between government and industry to improve the health of the American people by improving the quantity and quality of the data on potential developmental toxicants."
Scientists from NIEHS and from the Council will screen grant applications prior to an independent, NIH scientific peer review process. Applications ranked as having the highest scientific merit will be offered funding. This joint effort maintains the strict independence of the NIH peer review process in the assignment of a scientific merit evaluation measure for the research grant applications, the NIEHS said in a statement.
In accord with the NIH and Public Health Service policies, and other federal regulations, there is no restriction on publishing research findings from the grants funded by the NIEHS, whatever their outcome.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences already has The Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR), established in June 1998, which investigates potentially hazardous effects of chemicals on human reproduction and development.
The chemical industry's funding comes from the ACC's Long-Range Research Initiative (LRI). Established in 1999, the chemical industry has committed more than $100 million to this program over five years to increase knowledge about the potential effects of chemicals on human and wildlife populations and the environment.
The vast amounts of data that could be generated by testing thousands of chemicals for potential developmental toxicity will require new databases capable of organizing this information in a way that is useful for risk assessment.
The databases will include information from industry, academia, and government researchers, and be linked with existing databases of developmental biology and genomics, as well as those describing how drugs and chemicals are metabolized by the body.
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/08/08212001/reproduction_44690.asp
8/21/01
5:22:44 PM
The Nation
On May 11, 2001, fifty-five men were arrested at the Queen Boat, a Cairo nightclub believed to be a gathering place for gay Egyptians. Three of the men were released, but fifty-two remain in detention and are being tried on charges such as "debauchery," "immoral behavior," and "contempt for religion." Although specific details of the government's case are being concealed--homosexuality is not officially a crime under Egyptian law--it seems evident that the fifty-two defendants are being persecuted because of their alleged sexual orientation.
The defendants have reported torture and harassement while in custody; their relatives were barred from the courtroom; they will be denied any appeal of the court's decision; and their names, photographs and occupations have been published in newspapers decrying their "perverse ideas" and "deviant practices." The arrest, treatment and prosecution of these fifty-two men violates several international human rights laws, yet local NGOs have refused to get involved, fearing public backlash in Egypt's largely conservative cultural climate.
Please consider sending a letter to Egyptian government officials in protest of the "Queen Boat case." You'll find further information, links to related sites, a sample letter and all other relevant tools on our ActNow! page. Available currently at:
http://www.thenation.com/alert/actnow
8/21/01
5:13:33 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
LESS, SAYS MOORE
Only a tiny number of globalization foes will be allowed near the next World Trade Organization meeting this October in Doha, Qatar. WTO Director-General Mike Moore has told the 647 nongovernmental organizations requesting accreditation that they may send only one delegate each. Because Qatar can close its borders, additional protesters may be kept from the meeting. Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, has suggested that each organization pool together their individual accreditations and together elect a committee of leaders to present a united front. So far, he said, more groups than not have backed the idea.
straight to the source: Chicago Tribune, R.C. Longworth, 20 Aug 2001 <http://chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0108200185aug20.story>
GETTING THEIR GOATS
The busiest ski resort in the U.S. is using goats instead of herbicides to get rid of weeds on its slopes. After the goats eat their fill, the Vail resort in Colorado is seeding the areas with native plants to fight off alien weeds. The goats are owned by Lani Lamming, who rents them out for $1 per day per goat, plus the cost of shipping. Lamming's company, Ewe4ic Ecological Services, has been in business for four years, renting to businesses in Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Utah, as well as Colorado.
straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Associated Press, 17 Aug 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/615341.asp>
LOW CEQ IQ
U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman told the New York Times Magazine that U.S. President Bush in January hadn't heard of the White House Office on Environmental Quality, the executive branch office responsible for enforcing the National Environmental Policy Act and coordinating the environmental policies of federal agencies. Whitman said that when Bush offered her the EPA job, he told her that she alone would be setting the administration's environmental policies. Whitman said, ''I asked him what the role for the Council on Environmental Quality would be, and he said: 'I don't even know what that is. I want you to be the environmental person.''' No word on whether Bush has since heard of the CEQ.
straight to the source: New York Times Magazine, Gregg Easterbrook, 19 Aug 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/19/magazine/19WHITMAN.html>
SEND MY SCHREGARDUS TO BROADWAY
If the Bush administration withdraws from Clinton-era pollution lawsuits against power plants in the Midwest and South, Northeast states that also sued the plants will have a hard time continuing with the cases. The states don't have the resources of the federal government, and they would have trouble building cases against plants more than 400 miles away. Enviros are skeptical that the administration will pursue any enforcement actions aggressively, now that President Bush has nominated Donald Schregardus to be the EPA's chief enforcement officer. As Ohio's top environmental enforcement officer, Schregardus clashed with then-New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, arguing against a smog-reduction plan she favored.
straight to the source: New York Times, Richard Perez-Pena, 20 Aug 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/nyregion/20POLL.html>
straight to the source: New York Times, 19 Aug 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/19/opinion/19SUN1.htm>
15 IS ENOUGH
The U.N. Environment Programme says forest-protection efforts worldwide should focus on just 15 countries that contain more than 80 percent of the most-intact forests left. UNEP says 88 percent of the targeted forests face little pressure from human activities. The 15 countries are Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Papua-New Guinea, Peru, Russia, the U.S., and Venezuela. UNEP came to its conclusions after studying the first global forest survey using satellite data.
straight to the source: BBC News, Alex Kirby, 20 Aug 2001 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1496000/1496883.stm>
GLOW WITH THE FLOW
Artificial lakes containing 50 years of radioactive waste could leak into the rivers of the Ural Mountains within a few years, according to a letter sent by the governor of Russia's Chelyabinsk region to Russia's prime minister last month. The area near the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant is known as one of the most radioactive places on the planet. Chelyabinsk's vice governor, Gennady Podtyosov, said on Friday that contaminated water might burst the lakes' dam in three to four years, sending waste flowing into the Arctic Ocean.
straight to the source: San Jose Mercury News, Associated Press, Vladimir Isachenkov, 18 Aug 2001 <http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/russ-nuke18.htm>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
How the West will be won -- a day in the life of Edward Sullivan, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/sullivan081701.asp?source=daily>
Sharps shooter -- Colorado man cleans up war-game carnage -- in our Out on a Limb section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb072601.asp?source=daily>
Un-Happy meal -- a review of Fast Food Nation -- in our Books Unbound section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books081001.asp?source=daily>
8/21/01
5:09:16 PM
The Nation
From August 31 to September 7, the United Nations will hold the "World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance" in Durban, South Africa. Bringing together government leaders and NGOs from around the globe, the conference will address problems of discrimination ranging from the oppression of indigenous peoples to anti-immigrant hostility, caste discrimination and the legacy of slavery and colonialism.
For a full examination of what's anticipated, read a pair of related Nation web articles currently available at The Nation's website.
In "Race Matters" Alan Jenkins looks at the goals of the conference and at potentially divisive issues that could split the proceedings and in "Young Activists Unite," Bojana Stoparic details an incipient global youth network, determined to fight racism around the world.
Both articles are exclusively available at:
Also newly available on The Nation's site is Matt Bivens's report on Congressman Dennis Kucinich's efforts to launch an official "Department of Peace." He's already got a bill and thirty-eight co-sponsors to back him up. Read the full story now:
MATT BIVENS: Give Peace A Chance
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=bivens20010816
Finally, travel with us down the memory hole and read a Nation essay by Shiva Rao, originally published fifty-four years ago this week, reporting on the historic events leading to India's independence from the British Crown. Available at:
SHIVA RAO: India Grapples With Freedom, August 23, 1947
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=archive&s=19470823india
8/21/01
5:07:30 PM
Public Citizen
Public Citizen Petitions FDA to Warn Doctors, Patients About Cholesterol Drugs Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Linked to Muscle Damage, Death
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should strongly warn doctors and patients about the potential for a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs known as "statins" to cause potentially life-threatening muscle damage, Public Citizen said today.
In a petition filed with the FDA, Public Citizen noted 385 FDA reports from October 1997 to December 2000 of patients taking statins who had sustained muscle damage (rhabdomyolysis) associated with the drug, most of whom were hospitalized. Included were 52 people who died from statin-related muscle damage during that time, records show. A total of 81 people have died from statin-related rhabdomyolysis since the time the drugs first were marketed in 1987. Those reports don't include deaths and injuries associated with Baycol, a cholesterol-lowering drug recently pulled from the market. Increased awareness of the early symptoms of muscle damage and stopping the use of the statins will prevent the progression of the adverse reaction to hospitalization and death.
The drugs that should be subject to increased warnings include Liptor, Lescol, Mevacor, Pravachol and Zocor, the petition says. The FDA should add a "black box" warning to the professional package insert - a warning that is in bold type and surrounded by a black box to make it stand out. Also, the agency should require additional warnings in bold type be added to these products' package inserts, the petition says. The FDA also should require that an FDA-approved medication guide be distributed to patients filling statin prescriptions, advising them to immediately stop using the drug if they experience muscle pain, tenderness, weakness or tiredness. Finally, drug companies should be required to send "Dear Doctor" letters to all U.S. physicians about the risk of muscle damage due to statins.
"Labeling on statins is inconsistent and dangerously inadequate," said Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, which filed the petition. "Most people taking these drugs aren't aware that they could sustain serious muscle damage and could even die from taking these drugs."
The warnings are particularly necessary in light of the recent release of a government report recommending that 23 million more people take cholesterol-lowering drugs -- triple the current number. A copy of the petition is available at
www.citizen.org/hrg/publications/1588.htm
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
8/21/01
4:59:02 PM
Public Citizen
Groups Call On FTC To Investigate Companies That Advertise Food Irradiation As 'Pasteurization'
Most Irradiation Companies With Web Sites Use Misleading Euphemisms
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Public Citizen and the Center for Food Safety today called on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to initiate a thorough investigation into companies that advertise food irradiation as "pasteurization" and irradiated food products as "pasteurized." The groups are asking the FTC to order the companies to stop the practice and penalize those guilty of disseminating false advertising to American consumers.
Five of the eight U.S.-based food irradiation companies that maintain Internet Web sites predominantly use the euphemisms "cold pasteurization" or "electronic pasteurization" to describe the process by which food is exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation. These euphemisms conceal the truth about irradiation from consumers, who, according to numerous public opinion polls, are overwhelmingly opposed to buying or eating irradiated food.
"These abuses have set a new standard for false advertising," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "Consumers have been deceived long enough. Food irradiation companies must stop playing mind games with the American people."
Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has said that calling irradiated food products "pasteurized" is "misleading," according to a Q&A for industry posted on the agency's Web site. Deceptive advertising is illegal under the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Act and is punishable through criminal and civil penalties, including fines, court injunctions and corrective advertising. It is important to note that on packages, irradiated food must be labeled as "treated by irradiation" or "treated with radiation," according to FDA and USDA regulations.
The five food irradiation companies named in the groups' letter to the FTC are:
· Agbeta Inc. of Carpinteria, Calif.;
· BioSterile Technology Inc. of Fort Wayne, Ind.;
· Oasis-Santa Barbara Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif.;
· Scanmex LLC of Laredo, Texas;
· Titan Corp./SureBeam Corp. of San Diego, Calif.
The most prominent of these companies are defense contractor Titan and its affiliate, SureBeam, which uses linear accelerators originally designed for the "Star Wars" program to irradiate food. Since March, Public Citizen has filed false advertising complaints with the FTC against SureBeam and two of its clients, Omaha Steaks of Nebraska and Huisken Meats of Minnesota. Omaha Steaks and Huisken have since changed their Web sites to say that their ground beef products have been "irradiated."
SureBeam, however, has significantly expanded the use of the word "pasteurized" in promotional material, using it repeatedly in advertisements appearing in major newspapers and on television, radio stations and the Internet. In half-page ads that ran last month in daily newspapers in the Twin Cities, for example, SureBeam said that its technique - which kills microorganisms with electrons fired nearly to the speed of light - "is much like milk pasteurization." Pasteurization, however, uses heat to kill food-borne pathogens.
The groups also named Hawaii Pride LLC of Keaau, Hawaii, which "treats" papayas and other tropical fruit destined for the mainland with a Titan/SureBeam X-ray machine. Like the SureBeam ad, Hawaii Pride's Web site compares irradiation with "heat pasteurized milk."
"Comparing food that's been blasted with the equivalent of millions of chest X-rays to pasteurized milk - it would be funny if it weren't so deceitful," said Peter Jenkins, an attorney and policy analyst with the Center for Food Safety. "The time has come for these companies to be shamed into telling the truth."
Public Citizen and the Center for Food Safety are working to stop the proliferation of food irradiation through coordinated campaigns, including dialogues with elected officials, grassroots organizing, citizen petitions, legal action and efforts to ensure that companies are honest with consumers about the benefits and harms associated with irradiated food.
The groups have compiled an extensive body of research suggesting that irradiated food may not be safe for human consumption. Irradiation results in the formation of chemicals that are known or suspected to cause cancer and birth defects. Lab animals fed irradiated food have developed serious health problems, such as premature death, stillbirth, genetic damage, a rare form of cancer, fatal internal bleeding, organ malfunction and vitamin deficiencies. Further, irradiation does nothing to remove the feces, urine, vomit and pus that often contaminate meat in today's high-volume, factory-style slaughterhouses and processing plants. Research indicates that irradiation also can destroy vitamins and nutrients, disrupt proteins and essential fatty acids, and corrupt flavor, texture and odor.
A copy of the letter is available at
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/letterftc.htm
For more information about Public Citizen, visit www.citizen.org/cmep
For more information about the Center for Food Safety, visit
www.centerforfoodsafety.org
8/21/01
4:48:37 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
FIFTEEN COUNTRIES HOLD KEY TO SAVING WORLD'S FORESTS
LONDON, England, August 20, 2001 (ENS) - Efforts to save the world's last, critically important forests, should initially focus on just a handful of countries, a new report has found. A unique satellite based survey of the planet's remaining unbroken forests, which include virgin, old growth and naturally regenerated woodlands, has found that more than 80 percent are located in just 15 countries.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-20-06.html
ZAMBIA'S WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN SHAMBLES
By Singy Hanyona
LUSAKA, Zambia, August 20, 2001 (ENS) - Zambia's high prevalence of environmentally related diseases such as dysentry and cholera are a direct result of water pollution and inadequate sanitation, say the African country's environmental experts and government officials.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-20-02.html
NORDIC ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS PROTEST RADIOACTIVE EMISSIONS
IVALO, Finland, August 20, 2001 (ENS) - Environment ministers from the five Nordic countries today wrote a joint formal protest to British Prime Minister Tony Blair over continuing radioactive emissions from the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The ministers expressed grave concern at prospective increases in permitted emissions levels from Sellafield
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-20-01.html
ILLEGAL FISH BOATS CAUGHT OFF COSTA RICA'S COCOS ISLAND
PUNTARENAS, Costa Rica, August 20, 2001 (ENS) - A conservationist patrol ship today seized a trawler and seven support boats illegally fishing within Costa Rica's Cocos Island National Park.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-20-03.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: AUGUST 20, 2001
Argonne National Laboratory Cited for Nuclear Safety Violations
Emergency Funds Coming to Klamath Basin Landowners
Iowa Water Quality Targeted by Federal-State Partnership
$8.2 Million Benefits Yellowstone Region Land Conservation
PG&E Uses Banked Seeds to Reforest Burned Area
New Statistical Analysis Available for Sacramento Splittail
Urban and Community Forestry Grants Awarded
Houston Gets $2 Million to Help Predict Ozone Pollution
California Power Plant Pledges Tighter Pollution Controls
Entertainers Help Launch Fire Public Service Campaign
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2001/2001L-08-20-09.html
8/21/01
2:09:10 PM
The Earth Charter
Preamble
We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.
Earth, Our Home Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth has provided the conditions essential to life's evolution. The resilience of the community of life and the well-being of humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere with all its ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals, fertile soils, pure waters, and clean air. The global environment with its finite resources is a common concern of all peoples. The protection of Earth's vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust.
The Global Situation The dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. Communities are being undermined. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty, ignorance, and violent conflict are widespread and the cause of great suffering. An unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous—but not inevitable.
The Challenges Ahead The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living. We must realize that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more. We have the knowledge and technology to provide for all and to reduce our impacts on the environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our environmental, economic, political, social, and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge inclusive solutions.
Universal Responsibility To realize these aspirations, we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.
We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community. Therefore, together in hope we affirm the following interdependent principles for a sustainable way of life as a common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed.
Read the full version: http://www.earthcharter.org/draft/charter.htm
8/21/01
2:01:45 PM
WHAT IS THE EARTH CHARTER?
The Earth Charter is a Declaration of Interdependence that recognizes that humanity's environmental, economic, social, cultural, ethical and spiritual aspirations are all interconnected.
The charter includes these topics:
Ecological Integrity Social and Economic Justice Democracy, Nonviolence & Peace Respect & Care for the Community of Life
The Earth Charter sprung from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and will return to the United Nations' General Assembly in June 2002, with millions of signatures, for endorsement.
Download It At: http://www.earthcharter.org
WHAT ABOUT THE EARTH CHARTER COMMUNITY SUMMITS?
On September 29, 2001, We the People of the United States come together to launch the historic "Earth Charter: Declaration of Interdependence" in these cities around the nation, linked via satellite:
Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland MA, Jackson MS, Indianapolis, Denton, Austin, Honolulu, San Francisco, Boulder.
Tampa is the main site.
Thousands of good-hearted and like-minded people will join in festive celebration and inspired action to make the Earth Charter principles come alive in our personal lives, workplaces, and communities.
For Contacts See: http://www.earthchartersummits.org
8/21/01
1:37:58 PM
INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY SUMMIT 2001
Will be held NOVEMBER 13-15, 2001 at the scenic Marconi Conference Center (along the coast just north of San Francisco)
What We Learned In The Rainforest: Tools Inspired by Nature for Corporate Accountability and Sustainability
BACKGROUND:
Three years ago, in a speech entitled "What I Learned in the Rainforest," Tachi Kiuchi set forth a bold vision: Instead of extracting resources from nature, businesses could harvest nature's ideas. By running our businesses like the rainforest - innovative, adaptive, resilient, and sustainable - we can emulate nature's capacity to create value without consuming its base. We can begin to profit sustainably, and create affluence without effluence.
But how?
To answer that question, the Future 500 is proud to invite you to "What We Learned in the Rainforest," the Future 500 Summit 2001, this November 13-15 near San Francisco.
Like last year's Industrial Ecology 2000, our 2001 summit will draw together a rich combination of forward-thinking executives, practical visionaries, and business change agents. But unlike IE 2000, What We Learned in the Rainforest is a WORKING conference. Instead of dozens of keynotes and breakout sessions, we will be working side-by-side in intimate roundtable sessions. And instead of last year's 400 participants, less than 100 registrants will be permitted - 50 of them hand-selected, to assure that we have the catalytic mix of participants we need.
PROGRAM THEMES:
* Lessons from the Rainforest: The Book, the Principles, the Tools
* Applying the Lessons I: New Tools for Corporate Accountability. Learn about, propose, discuss and debate tools in different fields and functions of corporate accountability:
-Planning Tools
-Policy Tools
-Implementation Tools
-Tracking Tools
-Communication Tools
-Applying the Lessons II: Product Stewardship and Extended Product Responsibility
* Applying the Lessons III: Computers and Electronics Product Stewardship: State and National Program and Policy Development
* Building a Practice in Corporate Accountability: The Next 90 Days to One Year
For more information, please contact:
Nikole Wilson
Conference Coordinator
The Future 500
(510) 681-4191
nikole@globalfutures.org
8/21/01
1:34:52 PM
LESS, SAYS MOORE
Only a tiny number of globalization foes will be allowed near the next World Trade Organization meeting this October in Doha, Qatar. WTO Director-General Mike Moore has told the 647 nongovernmental organizations requesting accreditation that they may send only one delegate each. Because Qatar can close its borders, additional protesters may be kept from the meeting. Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, has suggested that each organization pool together their individual accreditations and together elect a committee of leaders to present a united front. So far, he said, more groups than not have backed the idea.
Chicago Tribune, R.C. Longworth, 20 Aug 2001
http://chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0108200185aug20.story
A week in the life of Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/ritchie101199.stm?source=daily
8/21/01
1:32:27 PM
The Global Consciousness Project
We do not feel that our minds are isolated within our bodies. In truth, we experience the world with beautiful immediacy, we know our loved ones from afar, and we leap in thought to the stars. Research on anomalies of consciousness shows that we may have direct communication links with each other, that intentions can have effects in the world despite physical barriers and separations. Evidence compels us to consider that consciousness may operate as a nonlocal field. The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) takes this possibility a step further, proposing that the fields generated by individual consciousness would interact and combine, and ultimately have global dimensions. Usually, because we are busy with individual lives, there is little to produce structure in the field. But occasionally there are global-scale events that bring great numbers of us to a common focus. To study the effects, we have created a world-spanning network of detectors sensitive to coherence and resonance in the mental domain. Continuous streams of data are sent over the internet to be archived and correlated with events that may evoke a world-wide consciousness. Examples that appear to have done so include the funeral ceremonies of Princess Diana, a few minutes around midnight on any New Years Eve, the first hour of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, and earthquakes in Turkey, Central America, India.
http://noosphere.princeton.edu
8/21/01
1:27:58 PM
The Future Belongs To Butterflies
by Mark A. Burch
Convergence means "coming together" or "coming to a focus." Today, when we hear this word, it connotes the "convergence" of information technologies -- the development of a common set of protocols that will enable all communication systems to interact. This brave new utopia promises essential improvements to human welfare such as refrigerators that provide web access and kitchen computers that let people check stock quotations.
But there is another Convergence (that I think warrants a capital "C") of much more importance to our future. Within about twenty-five years -- one human generation -- we will witness the confluence of perceptible climate change, a doubling of population, a doubling of the scale of the global economy, a halving of per capita fresh water reserves, clear thermodynamic barriers to the extraction and refining of petroleum, a doubling of the human appropriation of the total productivity of the Earth’s green plants, a tripling of energy demand, a quintupling of automobile use, to say nothing of less foreseeable eventualities like erosion of the stability of national governments, global pandemics, acute shortages of "strategic" materials, and a loss of species diversity comparable to a cometary impact.
The great Brazilian popular educator Paulo Freire liked to think of human evolution as periodically bringing us to historical "limit situations" that summed up the contradictions of a given way of life and that inherently demanded "limit acts" of collective liberation. The Convergence represents the limit situation of consumer culture. It is the blind alley, the box canyon, the proverbial "corner" into which we have painted ourselves by means of the inherent contradictions (ecological, social, economic, spiritual) of consumer culture and its antecedents in rationalistic scientism and materialism.
While the convergence of information technologies may or may not happen, the Convergence of humanity's environmental, social, and political IOUs certainly will happen. Therefore, it is fitting for those who are able to do so, to apply themselves with calmness, slowness, and diligence to the most important task set for us by the Convergence.
From a Madison Avenue perspective, the Convergence represents a cataclysm it is best to deny. Cataclysms are bad for business, especially cataclysms essentially caused by business.
From a different perspective such as that represented by the deliberate choice for a simpler, more ecologically sustainable and socially equitable way of life, the Convergence certainly represents a physical threat to everyone and everything. However, its very inescapability, its overwhelming scale and complexity, its capacity to engulf us, all represent decidedly powerful catalysts to a transformation that may happen along an entirely different dimension -- the dimension not of technology, nor of economics, nor of political governance, but of psyche and spirit.
When the energies of the human spirit can no longer flow "out" into our technology, our material self-indulgence, our competition with each other, our rituals of social comparison and display, our fearful efforts to predict and control each other's behavior -- when these channels of energy movement become blocked, or revealed as absurd, or have been rendered incapable of carrying forward a meaningful vision of our own future -- then the energies they carry will collapse "backward" and "downward," collecting at the deepest and most primordial layers of humanity’s collective psyche.
Should this come to pass, the "retrograde movement" of these inner human and spiritual energies can have two consequences: One is to effect something like a "melt-down" of social relationships, community cohesion, and sometimes, even of personal consciousness. But another effect can be a transformation of values, of perception, of feeling, and of social relationships. Thomas Kuhn’s idea of a "paradigm shift" is certainly applicable, but too pale and academic to be truly descriptive of what I have in mind. More characteristic is the sort of radical "shaking to the roots" that some people report from near death experiences, or "hitting bottom" during recovery from some life entangling brush with addiction. In nature, we see the process of metamorphosis, especially in insects, where the larval stage of the organism literally dissolves only to emerge later as a different kind of being with different capacities, different sensory and reproductive abilities, different powers of movement, and an entirely different appearance.
"Limit situations" pose "limit tasks" that inherently call forth "limit acts" arising not from the theatrics of individual heroics, nor from the blind forces of historical determinism working through bloody revolutions, but from the dialectics of individuals-in-communities becoming more conscious of their situation, more supportive of each other in personal transformation, and more innovative in fashioning new forms of collective life from what is at hand.
The practice of voluntary simplicity may be the early harbinger of this momentous and on-rushing transformation. In a sense, we might think of the "cultural creatives" who are taking up simple living as those who have jumped before being pushed! We're trying our wings before falling out of the stifling chrysalis of consumer culture. But in a deeper sense, only simplicity offers the freedom, inner spaciousness, and the social support, to seriously take up the work of inner transformation -- the limit task clearly implied by the impending suffocation of consumer culture in the detritus of its own past excesses.
All indications suggest that the future belongs to butterflies.
Mark Burch is the author of Stepping Lightly: Simplicity For People & The Planet and Simplicity: Notes, Stories & Exercises For Developing Unimaginable Wealth. He has practised simple living since the 1960s and is a freelance writer, speaker, workshop leader, and teacher of college courses on voluntary simplicity. He lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Related Resources:
Stepping Lightly Simplicity For People & The Planet
By Mark A Burch (Paperback Book)
Simplicity Notes, Stories & Exercises For Developing Unimaginable Wealth
By Mark A Burch (Paperback)
http://www.simpleliving.net/newsletter/content.asp?inum=33&type=Articles&id=04
8/21/01
1:15:17 PM
The Next Gas Crisis
If you thought the worst was over, get ready. Demand is up, supply is dwindling, and new finds are scarce.
By Andrew Nikiforuk
If, like the vast majority of Canadians, you are dependent on natural gas to heat your home, ponder this thermostat-shattering truth for a moment. The largest natural gas find in Western Canada in the past 25 years is now playing out in a marshy area of northeastern BC near the Alberta border.
The sobering realities will be reinforced by a much-awaited accounting of Canada's total gas resources (both onshore and offshore) due this September. That's when the Canadian Gas Potential Committee, a volunteer group of geologists and industry types, will release a 600-page report that will identify (in glowing color) what gas is left and where it is. (Unlike the efficient US Department of Energy, Canada's National Energy Board just doesn't have a handle on this crucial information.) The Alberta and BC governments have already ordered the $15,000 CD-ROM. The report, which will clearly confirm the tightness of supplies, "will make a lot of news," predicts Woronuk, one of its authors. Its data might also raise questions about the pace of development, the volume of US exports and the absence of any coherent energy policy in Canada. Meanwhile, the situation south of the border continues to grow bleaker. In spite of record drilling throughout the US, companies aren't finding much new gas in the dry plains of southern Texas or even the Gulf of Mexico. While the US Department of Energy predicts natural gas consumption will increase by 45% by 2015, in the past year, production has grown by barely 2%. Bush now wants to drill in national parks and on federal lands-even though the spoilage of natural monuments could squarely fail to ease the shortage. "It's like a treadmill," Skip Horvath, president of the Natural Gas Supply Association, recently told The New York TImes. "You have to race faster and faster to keep it up." Martin Molyneaux, a leading gas analyst with Calgary's FirstEnergy Capital Corp., puts it a different way "After six quarters in a row of industry going all out in Western Canada and the US, there is only one word to describe the result: disappointing."
The disappointment is somewhat heightened by the difficult nature of options available to policy-makers. Even the sunniest projections don't predict arctic gas from Alaska or the Mackenzie Delta will reach southern markets until 2008 or 2010. And the US$20-billion price tag for what many are already calling the costliest construction project in the continent's history is enough to make most pipeline promoters think thrice, let alone twice. That undertaking might well involve two separate northern pipelines that might join outside of Edmonton, as well as the construction of another Chicago-bound pipeline. But even the Mackenzie Delta's gas is no panacea. What is now accessible holds no more gas than what Canada produces every year (6.2 tcf). "Is the Delta enough?" asks Woronuk. "Hell, no." Alternatives to natural gas are also costly and take time to develop. Although the US is looking seriously at liquid natural gas as well as coal-bed methane, the technology is expensive and the environmental ramifications formidable. The mysterious world of gas hydrates (gas locked in ice crystals in the ocean) holds the promise of offering limitless supplies, but no technology yet exists to tap them. As a result, conventional natural gas will likely remain the dominant energy source for some time to come-and at higher and higher prices. Current prices, however, don't reflect the persistent draining of continental natural gas reserves. Thanks to a decided drop in consumption among industrial gas users, prices have stabilized somewhat after last winter's rude heights. "I was mortified when I saw US$9 and US$10 gas prices last year," admits Molyneaux. "When you quadruple the price of a commodity, there is going to be a demand backlash-and it came at us like a truck."
That truck came in three distinct styles: a US economic slowdown, mild summer weather and a revitalized conservation campaign that made a mockery of vice-president Dick Cheney's loud dismissal of energy efficiency. Last spring, after the run-up in natural gas prices, everybody from industrial plants to shopping malls started to look for ways to reduce their energy bills. Some set air conditioner thermostats higher, while others installed more energy-friendly windows. Others switched fuels. When gas prices hovered at about US$2, industries weren't terribly aware of their energy costs, says Molyneaux. "Now they are intimately aware." To date, the big benefactors have been coal, distillate fuel oil, nuclear power and wind producers. In fact, the doubling of gas prices has made wind a viable energy competitor for the first time, as well as the continent's fastest-growing energy source. Even Jim Gray, the venerable gas explorer and chairman of Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd., has become a champion of demand-side awareness. Last year, he was the first executive (along with J. P. Anderson of Anderson Exploration Ltd.) to warn consumers about the coming price storm. But when that torrent put gas and electricity prices at Gray's Calgary condominium through the roof, his fellow tenants, mostly oil-patch types, studiously examined their costs.
After learning that the average price of powering a 100-watt lightbulb for 24 hours a day for a year had gone from $40 to $130, Gray's condo neighbors got energy wise. They even replaced a furnace that burned gas at 35% efficiency with one rated at 80%. As a result, says Gray, "our overall energy consumption has gone down by 10%. Multiply that kind of decision-making by hundreds of thousands of people and you have a tremendous reallocation of resources."
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/magazine_items/2001/aug20_01_thenext.shtml
8/21/01
1:05:44 PM
Unauthorized Bush Sr. Biography
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography
by Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin
(Published 1991)
INTRODUCTION: American Caligula
The thesis of this book is simple: if George Bush were to be re- elected in November 1992 for a second term as the president of the United States, this country and the rest of the world would face a catastrophe of gigantic proportions.
The necessity of writing this book became overwhelming in the minds of the authors in the wake of the ghastly slaughter of the Iraq war of January-February 1991. That war was an act of savage and premeditated genocide on the part of Bush, undertaken in connivance with a clique in London which has, in its historical continuity, represented both the worst enemy of the long-term interests of the American people, and the most implacable adversary of the progress of the human species.
The authors observed George Bush very carefully as the Gulf crisis and the war unfolded, and had no doubt that his enraged public outbursts constituted real psychotic episodes, indicative of a deranged mental state that was full of ominous portent for humanity. The authors were also horrified by the degree to which their fellow citizens willfully ignored the shocking reality of these public fits. A majority of the American people proved more than willing to lend its support to a despicable enterprise of killing.
By their role-call votes of January 12, 1991, the Senate and the House of Representatives gave their authorization for Bush's planned and imminent war measures to restore the Emir of Kuwait, who owns and holds chattel slaves.
Chapter - I - The House of Bush: Born in a Bank
Who is George Bush? How did he become the 41st U.S. President?
He is said to be a man of the "old establishment," who "chose to seek his fortune as an independent oilman...."
In fact, Bush was never "independent." Every career step in his upward climb relied on his family's powerful associations. The Bush family joined the Eastern Establishment comparatively recently, and only as servitors. Their wealth and influence resulted from their loyalty to another, more powerful family, and their willingness to do anything to get ahead.
For what they did, Bush's forebears should have become very famous, or infamous. They remained obscure figures, managers from behind the scenes. But their actions--including his father's role as banker for Adolf Hitler--had tragic effects for the whole planet.
It was these services to his family's benefactors, which propelled George Bush to the top.
http://www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook/
8/21/01
12:56:34 PM
U.S. Paul D. Wellstone Radio Address On Social Security
Good Morning. This is Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
Just a few days ago, we celebrated the 66th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act, described by one commentator as the "bricks and mortar" of our nation's economic security. Social Security embodies a tradition that is truly American -- a national community working together to protect one another from risks that few of us are equipped to bear on our own. The system is vital to the economic security of 44 million retired and disabled Americans who receive monthly benefit checks. It is also important to the more than 130 million workers who are insured by Social Security in case of severe disability, and to the tens of millions of children who are protected in the event of the death of a family wage earner.
Like millions of American families, my family struggled to care for my parents, both of whom suffered from Parkinson's. Social Security enabled them to live in dignity.
Each month, for nearly three quarters of a century -- in good times and bad -- a Social Security check has always been there for America's seniors. Social Security is our most important system for protecting America's families, and it works.
Today, Social Security is running a surplus of more than $150 billion, and these surpluses are growing and projected to last for 24 years. Still, the system does face real but manageable long-term financial challenges. But reckless proposals to divert funds from Social Security's guaranteed, life-long benefits into risky individual investment accounts would fundamentally jeopardize Americans' retirement security. They would also make Social Security benefits vulnerable to the wild price swings of the stock market. President Bush's administration, in advancing these ideas, misjudges the wisdom of the American people and the strength of their core values. Social Security needs to be protected and strengthened, not taken apart.
Recently, the "President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security" -- stacked with supporters of the President's approach of replacing a portion of current benefits with private accounts -- issued a report that reflects the Commission's bias and mission. It would lay the groundwork for an approach that is unnecessary, unwise, and unfair. Let's look at the facts:
First, private accounts are unnecessary. The President claims that we need to adopt radical ideas like privatization because Social Security is facing a huge and imminent crisis. That' s just not true. Social Security today is in better financial shape than it has been for most of the past 6 decades, and will be able to pay all promised benefits until 2038 without any changes. Understating Social Security's resources, and grossly over-stating its funding problems, are scare tactics that I think the American people are too smart to fall for.
Second, privatization is unwise. Based on its work so far, the President's Commission will likely next propose to carve out a chunk of Social Security's revenue for private individual accounts, and then cut promised benefits to make up for the shortfall.
Substituting individual investment accounts for today's system also would force Americans to pay a high price for the transition to a privatized system -- some trillion dollars in additional costs to a system that is financially sound for the foreseeable future. Experts estimate the administrative costs of managing 144 million individual accounts could turn out to be enormous --enough to eat up as much as 20 percent of the eventual returns from these accounts. Whatever long-term problems the Social Security system may face, diverting Social Security revenues to private accounts will only make those problems worse. Cuts to Social Security's guaranteed benefits are part and parcel of private account proposals.
Third, privatization is unfair. Social Security lifts 15 million retired Americans out of poverty, along with another 1 million disabled Americans and children. Without Social Security, half of all senior citizens would be living in poverty today, and for the majority of seniors it is actually their main source of income. While retirees and families will lose out under the President's private account proposals, Wall Street firms will haul in billions of dollars managing individual accounts.
Finally, privatization is untrue to the fundamental principles of Social Security. Social Security isn't about maximizing private gain. Social security is about being part of a larger community that shares burdens and responsibilities. That's what I think Americans believe in. And that's what we should fight for.
Social security is not in crisis. It is not broken. It is not facing bankruptcy. But Social Security is threatened today by proposals to replace the system with individual investment accounts and slash guaranteed benefits. Democrats will fight against risky schemes that weaken Americans' retirement security, and hope that the President will support a bipartisan consensus to strengthen Social Security for future generations.
Source: http://www.truthout.com/0533.Wellstone.Radio.htm
8/21/01
12:41:33 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
UPDATE - Arizona crew saves Washington state town from fire - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12088/story.htm
KeySpan to ease Long Island energy problems - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12090/story.htm
FEATURE - Gasoline-sipping hybrid cars zip off lots - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12092/story.htm
UK seen five years behind on green energy target - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12084/story.htm
FEATURE - Philippines turns to sun, waves and wind for power - SINGAPORE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12089/story.htm
Don't shoot our bear, Poles urge Slovaks - POLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12086/story.htm
Japan plans subsidies for green buses, trucks - paper - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12083/story.htm
Toxic food kills boy, affects 680 in Indian state - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12093/story.htm
FEATURE - Real-life "Free Willy" needs call of the wild - ICELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12087/story.htm
Czech nuke plant Temelin raises output, tests fine - CZECH REPUBLIC http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12085/story.htm
FEATURE - Mystery surrounds the death of Australia's megafauna - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12091/story.htm
8/21/01
12:10:41 PM
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #725
The enemies of democracy are flexing their muscles. A corporate front group calling itself Frontiers of Freedom has petitioned U.S. tax officials to revoke the tax-exempt status of Rainforest Action Network (RAN), a major environmental organization (www.ran.org). If successful, the petition would put Rainforest Action Network out of business, and would open the door for lethal attacks on other environmental advocates. Frontiers of Freedom acknowledged to the WALL STREET JOURNAL that, if successful against RAN, "it will challenge other environmental groups."[1]
Frontiers of Freedom was founded in 1995 by Malcolm Wallop, a former U.S. Senator (R-Wyo.) and "friend of vice-president Dick Cheney," according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL. The JOURNAL reports that Frontiers is funded by Philip Morris Companies, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings, Inc., and the Exxon Mobil Corporation.
This latest corporate attack on freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of assembly, is not random. It is part of an accelerating campaign to replace representative democracy with control by corporate elites.
Now a new book, TRUST US, WE'RE EXPERTS! by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, provides a chilling, documented history of ongoing corporate efforts to use propaganda and "public relations" to distort science, manipulate public opinion, discredit democracy, and consolidate political power in the hands of a wealthy few.[2]
The Big Idea behind the anti-democratic corporate-power movement is that people cannot be trusted to make political decisions because they are irrational, emotional, and illogical. This cynical view of humans is widely held by the public relations industry's experts but also by the scientific experts they employ to 'guide' the public. For example, physics professor H.W. Lewis (University of California, Santa Barbara), a well-known risk assessor, says people worry about non-problems like nuclear waste and pesticides because they are irrational and poorly educated. "The common good is ill served by the democratic process," he says. (pg. 111)
If people are not rational they cannot be guided by reason, so they must be manipulated through emotion, PR experts say (thus justifying their own propaganda services). For example, a spokesperson for Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm that manipulates the public on behalf of Philip Morris, Monsanto, Exxon Mobil and others, told the Society of Chemical Industry in London in 1989, "All of this research is helpful in figuring out a strategy for the chemical industry and for its products. It suggests, for example, that a strategy based on logic and information is probably not going to succeed. We are in the realm of the illogical, the emotional, and we must respond with the tools that we have for managing the emotional aspects of the human psyche... The industry must be like the psychiatrist..." (pg. 3)
The PR psychiatric manipulation industry is now enormous. Corporations spend at least $10 billion each year hiring PR propaganda experts (pg. 26) and our federal government spends another $2.3 billion or so (pg. 27) -- and these are no doubt underestimates. But these huge sums are not wasted -- they provide major benefits to the clients. For example, about 40% of all stories that appear in newspapers are planted there by PR firms on behalf of a specific paying client. Because most radio and TV news is simply re-written from newspaper stories, a substantial proportion of the public's "news" originates as PR propaganda. Naturally the connection to the PR source is edited out.
The COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW analyzed the WALL STREET JOURNAL and found that more than half its stories are "based solely on press releases" even though many carry the misleading statement, "By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter." Thus what passes for news these days is, as often as not, corporate propaganda. Tongue in cheek, Rampton and Stauber refer to the major news media as the disinfotainment industry.
Unfortunately, as Rampton and Stauber make crystal clear with example after example, all of this manipulation has devastating consequences for real people. The news media largely set the limits on public discussion, and thus on public policy debate. What is excluded from the news is often more significant than what gets inserted. For example, approximately 800,000 new cases of occupational illness arise each year, making occupational illness much larger than AIDS and roughly equivalent to cancer and all circulatory diseases, but most people have no idea that this is so. (See REHN #578.)
Combined with on-the-job injuries, work-related illnesses kill about 80,000 workers each year -- nearly twice the national death total from automobile accidents. In 1991 former NEW YORK TIMES labor correspondent William Serrin reported (but, notably, NOT in the NEW YORK TIMES) that about 200,000 workers had been killed on the job since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) in 1970, and that an additional 2 million workers had died from diseases caused by conditions where they worked.[3] That's 273 work-related deaths EACH DAY, day after day after day. This corporate carnage is ignored by the news media, which prefer to keep us focused on yuppie SUV crashes, and crimes of passion.
During the same 20-year period, 1970-1990, an additional 1.4 million workers were permanently disabled in workplace accidents. Yet during those 20 years, only 14 people were prosecuted by the Justice Department for violation of workplace safety standards and only one person went to jail -- for 45 days for suffocating two workers to death in a trench cave-in.
PR experts "spin" stories for the media on the assumption that most reporters are too overworked (or too lazy) to search out the truth for themselves. But Rampton and Stauber exhaustively document that "spin" goes much farther than merely providing a "news hook," a viewpoint, or a few facts. Modern corporate propaganda involves purchasing scientific opinions and planting them in scientific journals (without, of course, mentioning the money connection to the corporate benefactor). Tobacco companies invented this technique, but now others are using it freely. For example, in the early 1990s, tobacco companies paid $156,000 to a handful of scientists to sign their names to letters written by tobacco company lawyers. The letters were published in the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, the LANCET, the JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE, and the WALL STREET JOURNAL, and were then cited by the tobacco companies as if they had been written by independent scientists. "It's a systematic effort to pollute the scientific literature," says professor of medicine Stanton Glantz (University of California, San Francisco), a longtime critic of Big Tobacco. (pg. 199)
In 1999 drug maker Wyeth Laboratories commissioned ghost writers to manufacture ten medical articles promoting a combination of Wyeth drugs called fen-fen, as a treatment for obesity. Two of the articles actually got published in peer-reviewed journals. After fen-fen was pulled from the market for permanently damaging peoples' heart valves, lawyers for injured victims discovered that Wyeth had edited the articles to play down and occasionally delete descriptions of side effects caused by fen-fen. Prominent scientists put their names on these articles in return for fees as small as $1000 to $1500 -- and journal editors published the articles as if they represented independent scientific inquiry. Wyeth could then cite these "independent" studies to convince doctors to prescribe fen-fen.
In 1996, Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts University examined 789 articles published by 1105 researchers in 14 leading life science and biomedical journals. In 34% of the articles, at least one of the chief authors had an identifiable financial interest connected to the research. None of these financial interests was disclosed in the journals. Krimsky said the 34% figure was probably an underestimate because he couldn't check stock ownership or corporate consulting fees paid to researchers.
Science, like democracy, depends crucially upon the free flow of information. When secrecy is imposed, errors go undetected and fallacies proliferate -- only to be discovered years later, if at all.[4] For example, secrecy has allowed the U.S. military to create a "pattern of exaggeration and deception" in its reports to Congress, just as secrecy allowed the military to waste more than $100 billion (!) in failed attempts to create a workable "star wars" missile defense system.[5] In 1993, a front-page story in the NEW YORK TIMES began, "Officials of the 'Star Wars' project rigged a crucial 1984 test and faked other data in a program of deception that misled Congress..."[6] Secrecy invites deception and destroys democratic accountability.
Rampton and Stauber point out that "Corporate funding creates a culture of secrecy that can be as chilling to free academic inquiry as funding from the military. Instead of government censorship, we hear the language of commerce: nondisclosure agreements, patent rights, intellectual property rights, intellectual capital." (pg. 214)
A key feature of the corporate anti-democracy strategy of the past 20 years is reduced government funding for needed research, thus inviting corporate funders to step in. This is what "tax cut" really means. Tax cuts are not primarily aimed at giving families another $300 to spend -- they are mainly intended to reduce the capacity of governments to fund needed public services, such as medical research. As a result, corporations are asked to provide the funds and thus they gain an opportunity to influence the national research agenda and the results.
In 1994 and 1995 researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital surveyed more than 3000 academic scientists and found that 64% of them had financial ties to corporations. They reported in the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA), that 20% of the 3000 researchers admitted that they had delayed publication of research results for more than 6 months, to obtain patents and to "slow the dissemination of undesired results." "Sometimes if you accept a grant from a company, you have to include a proviso that you won't distribute anything except with its OK. It has a negative impact on science," says Nobel-prize-winning biochemist Paul Berg. (pg. 215) In 1999 Drummond Rennie, editor of JAMA, said private funding of medical research was causing "a race to the ethical bottom.... The behavior of universities and scientists is sad, shocking, and frightening," Rennie said. "They are seduced by industry funding, and frightened that if they don't go along with these gag orders, the money will go to less rigorous institutions," he said. (pg. 217)
In this rich, deep book, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have painstakingly documented the specific techniques that PR experts and their corporate masters employ to deceive the courts, the legislatures, the media, educators, and the public. The next time someone accuses you of "chemophobia" or of relying on "junk science" you'll know you're dealing with corporate manipulators who are being guided by PR skanks. Their overriding goal is to discredit decision-making by the public and replace it with control by corporate elites. They know better, they're experts, trust them.
The final chapter of this important book tells us how to fight back. If you care about democracy, science or simple truth and want to know exactly how corporate elites subvert all three, this is the book for you.
Source: http://www.Rachel.org
8/21/01
12:06:46 PM
A Corporate Campaign to Silence Critics
by Molly Ivins, Boulder Daily Camera
AUSTIN, Texas -Now here's an interesting development: The Boise Cascade Corp. is targeting Rainforest Action Network (RAN), the environmental group that has gotten Home Depot, Lowe's and other major companies to stop buying wood from the remaining old-growth forests. Since the RAN folks have been targeting Boise Cascade to get the company to stop logging in old-growth forests, this may seem to be a case of turnabout-is-fair-play. Actually, it's another corporate campaign "like SLAPP suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation)" designed to silence critics of corporate practice. Boise Cascade is working with two industry-supported front groups, trying to get the IRS to cancel Rainforest's tax-exempt status and to pressure its funders to cut off the group's money.
Also See: Logging Giant Boise Cascade and Anti-Environment Activists on the Attack Against Rainforest Action Network RAN Press Release 6/20/01
Some hilarity attaches to the letter of complaint to the IRS from something called the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, a property rights outfit headed by former Wyoming Sen. Malcolm Wallop. According to Frontiers of Freedom (why do they all have names like that?), "RAN devotes most of its $3 million-plus annual war chest (you understand $3 million is peanuts to Boise Cascade) to pressure campaigns aimed at forcing corporations to change the way they do business. GASP. No! Not that!
Well! Such lese majeste convinced the Frontiers of Freedom, which seems to have awfully constricted frontiers, that freedom does not include tax-exempt status for RAN. Its specific claims are that RAN conducted several peaceful protests, wrote letters, produced street theater and supported civil disobedience.
On RAN's bad-egg side are several protesters who have gotten arrested for trespassing after climbing tall buildings to put up large protest banners. These bear such subversive messages as 'Stop Selling Old-Growth Wood," "Do Your Children Know You're Buying Old-Growth Wood?" and "Human Rights Before Drilling Rights."
The complaint huffs, "RAN's objectives are hardly limited to its tax-exempt purpose 'education.'" By way of illustration, the group cites this chilling act of eco-terrorism: "On Oct. 24, 2000, RAN activists taunted Boise Cascade by floating over the company's headquarters a 120-foot inflatable balloon shaped like a dinosaur and bearing a sign reading, 'Boise Cascade: I love logging old-growth.'"
I think we can argue that's quite educational, in the broader sense. RAN has negotiated and settled agreements with other major lumber companies, such as Weyerhauser, Canadian Forest Products, etc. RAN is opposed to all forms of violence and to property destruction.
Boise Cascade has written directly to foundations and other groups that support RAN, claiming, "Reckless, unlawful and untruthful attacks," "false and defamatory statements," "harassment and intimidation" (especially a mean and vicious campaign of Christmas-wish letters from children to Boise's CEO asking him to stop logging old-growth forests).
Again, this may strike you as a case of "You harass me, and I'll harass you," but then we all lose sight of the main point, don't we? That logging old-growth forests does irreparable damage. There's a wonderful Battle of Quotes going on: By associating RAN with violent, militant eco-terrorists, Boise can quote all kinds of splendidly nutty statements.
On the other hand, RAN found these gems from Ron Arnold, vice president of yet another property-rights group working against RAN -- this one bearing the title "Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise" -- who told the Boston Globe in 1992, >"We are sick to death of environmentalism, and so we >will destroy it." And he told The New York Times in 1991, >"We want to destroy the environmentalists by taking >away their money and their members."
As we watch RAN's struggle with Boise Cascade and watch corporations in general develop new weapons against their critics, it is useful to take a step back. The Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (which leaves them with the unfortunate acronym POCLAD) does just that. The group's thought-provoking work on the questions of corporate power in a democracy go beyond redressing a specific wrong to ask what we can do about it in a larger sense.
As FDR said, >"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people >tolerate the growth of private power to a point where >it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. >That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of >government by an individual, by a group or by any >controlling private power."
I find POCLAD most useful for the questions it asks: "What is property? Who decides what is public and private? What is liberty? Who is it for? Should a business corporation be regarded as a citizen? Why does the General Motors Corp. have more rights than the United Auto Workers Union?... Thousands of groups know how to stop an incinerator, organize a union, block a timber harvest sale, decrease a toxic emission, orchestrate a referendum or initiative, enact new permitting and disclosure regulations. (But) people spend years getting regulatory agencies to lessen a single corporate harm."
I'm rooting for RAN against Boise Cascade and for an end to logging in old-growth forests, but I think we need to look at some larger questions, too.
8/21/01
11:37:25 AM
Humans May Be Easier To Clone Than Sheep And Mice Because Of A Single Genetic Difference
DURHAM, N.C. -- Humans could be technically easier to clone than sheep, cows, pigs and mice because humans possess a genetic benefit that prevents fetal overgrowth, a major obstacle encountered in cloning animals, according to new research by Duke University Medical Center scientists.
The genetic benefit seems subtle, say the researchers, but it is so important that it creates fundamental differences between humans and other animals in the way they regulate fetal growth and cancer susceptibility. The research is published in the Aug. 15, 2001 issue of Human Molecular Genetics.
The genetic benefit they found was this: humans and other primates possess two activated copies of a gene called insulin-like growth factor II receptor (IGF2R). Offspring receive one functional copy from each parent, as expected. However, sheep, pigs, mice and virtually all non-primate mammals receive only one functional copy of this gene because of a rare phenomenon known as genomic imprinting, in which the gene is literally stamped with markings that turn off its function.
With the second copy of the gene permanently imprinted, such animals are more prone to two major problems -- developing cancer and suffering from cloning complications like overly large offspring, immature lung development, enlarged hearts and reduced immunity to disease, say the scientists.
"This is the first concrete genetic data showing that the cloning process could be less complicated in humans than in sheep," said Keith Killian, a Duke University Medical Center molecular evolutionist and first author of the study. "Only one in 300 sheep embryos takes hold, and up to half of these embryos have large offspring syndrome, which can kill the mother and the fetus. Since humans are not imprinted at IGF2R, then fetal overgrowth would not be predicted to occur if humans were cloned."
The problems associated with cloning an imprinted animal occur when scientists manipulate the fledgling embryos in the laboratory, the Duke researchers said. While the IGF2R gene remains intact, the "epigenetic" markings -- crucial information layered on top of the gene sequence -- are inadvertently damaged and alter the way the gene functions, said Randy Jirtle, professor of radiation oncology at Duke.
Jirtle compares the IGF2R gene to computer hardware that is functioning properly, and its epigenetic markings to computer software that is damaged or defective. The computer will not run if the software does not work.
Jirtle said humans are not subject to these epigenetic alterations because, according to their research, humans are not imprinted at IGF2R. For reasons unknown, he says, the very state of being imprinted appears to make imprinted animals more susceptible to epigenetic damage.
However, many scientists have believed that up to 50 percent of people are imprinted at the IGF2R gene and are more susceptible to cancer and, potentially, cloning complications. But the Duke scientists, using the latest gene mapping technology, found no evidence that any humans possess an imprinted IGF2R. Also, decades of successfully manipulating human embryos through in vitro fertilization have not resulted in large offspring syndrome.
While it is true that the IGF2R gene is frequently mutated in human breast, colon, head and neck, liver and lung cancers, the researchers said that is not because humans are imprinted at IGF2R. The gene, like any other involved in cancer, simply becomes mutated, or defective, for a variety of reasons unrelated to imprinting. Mutating two copies of the IGF2R gene is much more difficult and statistically unlikely than mutating a single copy, which is why mice and other imprinted animals are far more susceptible to cancer than are humans, said Jirtle.
Because mice and rats comprise 90 percent of the animals used in research, scientists should take into account the rodents' genetic susceptibility to cancer when they are applying their study conclusions to humans, said Killian. Clinical development of hundreds of potential disease-treating drugs have been abandoned after rodent studies have shown them to be potential carcinogens -- studies that might have had a different outcome if rodents possessed two functional copies of IGF2R. "You could theoretically give new life to thousands of discarded compounds by retesting them in animals that, like humans, have both functional copies of IGF2R," said Killian.
To test for the presence of imprinting in humans and other mammals, the Duke team used six different single nucleotide polymorphisms, distinctive genetic markers called "SNIPs." Scientists worldwide are now using SNIPs to map the entire human genome because the older method, variable number tandem repeat (VNTR), frequently produces ambiguous results.
"VNTRs are antiquated and error prone because the enzymes used to amplify the DNA jump backward and forward," said Killian. "When you go to analyze the results, the picture you get is smeared and therefore ambiguous."
The Duke team's results definitively showed that human IGF2R is not imprinted. The gene is also not imprinted in primates or our closest non-primate relatives, including tree shrews and lemurs. In fact, the team's evolutionary research shows that all these mammals lost imprinting of the IGF2R gene approximately 70 million years ago. The modern-day absence of imprinting in all primates and their closest relatives bolsters the team's genetic data showing that no humans are imprinted at IGF2R, said Jirtle. "While there are approximately 45 imprinted genes identified in mammals, IGF2R is the only gene known to have gained imprinting at one point and later lost it during primate evolution," said Jirtle.
In contrast, IGF2R is still imprinted in all other placental mammals and marsupials included in their study -- including opossums, mice, rats, sheep, cows and pigs. The divergence of imprinting among various classes of mammals millions of years ago suggests that they embarked on separate evolutionary paths that gave rise to the unique genetic traits they possess today.
"Knowing where on the evolutionary scale IGF2R imprinting appeared and subsequently vanished will enable scientists to select animal models better suited for making accurate inferences about human clonability and cancer susceptibility," said Jirtle. "If you don't know how animals are related to each other, there is no way to accurately extrapolate the experimental results from one species to another."
The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense and Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. Other researchers on the paper include Catherine M. Nolan of the department of zoology at University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; Andrew A. Wylie of the department of radiation oncology at Duke University Medical Center; and Tao Li, Thanh H. Vu and Andrew R. Hoffman of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and department of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calififornia.
Source: http://www.mc.duke.edu
8/21/01
11:24:00 AM
NASA Solar Aircraft Sets Altitude Record; Communications And Environmental Breakthroughs Expected
A new world record altitude of 96,500 feet over the Pacific Ocean was reached by the solar-powered Helios Prototype flying wing at 4:08 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time (HST), Aug. 13, fulfilling the expectations of engineers from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and AeroVironment, Inc., builders of the 247-ft. wing. This is the first time a non-rocket powered aircraft has maintained flight this far above the earth. Sustained operations at that altitude promise to enable capabilities ranging from environmental monitoring to radically improved communications on earth to simulating flight in the atmosphere of Mars.
Daniel S. Goldin, NASA Administrator, who has been a strong supporter of solar powered flight, said, "This is a ground breaking accomplishment which will advance this technology to new heights."
The remotely-piloted wing took off from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on the Hawaiian island of Kauai at 8:48 a.m. HST. Flying at about 25 miles an hour, the mission lasted nearly 17 hours, landing at 1:43 a.m. Aug. 14.
The record flight sets the stage for follow-on missions that will use a regenerative fuel system now under development to enable Helios to remain aloft 24 hours a day for months at a time. The record altitude was achieved during daylight hours, relying on solar cells on the wing's surface to provide electrical power. Descent after dark was possible as the 14 electric motors were no longer needed to maintain altitude. During descent the propellers acted as generators, providing electrical power to control the aircraft.
"This is like going to the Olympics and setting a new world record for engineers," said NASA Dryden Flight Research Center solar aircraft project manager John Del Frate. "This achievement did not come easily. Thousands of things had to work right for something like this to come together."
Production variants of Helios might see service as long-term earth environmental monitors, as well as communications relays, reducing dependence on satellites and providing service in areas not covered by satellites. The successful flight at high altitude also provides NASA with information about flight on Mars, since the atmosphere at that height above earth replicates the atmosphere near the Martian surface.
Source: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/PAO/PressReleases/2001/01-58.html
8/20/01
6:12:43 PM
Control Technique Cuts Electricity Bills For Commercial Buildings
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Research engineers have shown that electricity costs for office buildings can be reduced by up to 40 percent by running air conditioning overnight.
"Pre-cooling" structures so that it takes less power to cool buildings during times of peak demand is not a new technique. But engineers at Purdue University are the first researchers to create a computer-simulation tool that can be "tuned" to a specific building and used to document the savings that would be realized by using the technique for that specific building. The analysis tool takes into account factors including utility rates and climate, and it can be used to tailor the best pre-cooling strategy for individual buildings.
The pre-cooling technique is especially practical in areas where utility companies are having trouble meeting demands for electricity. In those areas, the price for daytime electricity is much higher than the price charged overnight.
The tool was tested on a four-floor, 1.4 million-square-foot Ameritech Corp. office building in the Chicago-area suburb of Hoffman Estates, Ill. The simulation showed that a pre-cooling technique could reduce electricity costs by as much as 41 percent during the hottest summer months.
The findings will be detailed in a paper that will appear in October's International Journal of Heating, Ventilating, Air-Conditioning and Refrigerating Research, published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Inc. The paper was written by James Braun, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering, and graduate students Kent Montgomery and Nitin Chaturvedi.
The simulation tool also was used to learn how well the technique would work in five cities: Boston, Chicago, Miami, Phoenix and Seattle.
"Significant savings were achieved in all locations except for Seattle," Braun said.
With the exception of Seattle, the utilities in those cities charge considerably more for electricity during peak hours, such as mid-afternoon, than at other times. The difference between peak and off-peak rates ranged from 1.9 times higher in Phoenix to 4.7 times higher in Boston, according to the research paper, which quoted 1999 rates.
The study only considered cooling the building using the air-conditioning system. But even greater savings could be possible in climates in which cool outside air can be brought into the building at night to provide pre-cooling. This option for pre-cooling could have resulted in some savings for Seattle, Braun said.
Utility companies also impose an "on-peak demand" charge, in which the total number of kilowatts consumed during times of peak demand are multiplied by a certain dollar amount. In the case of the Ameritech building, the peak-demand charge was $16.41.
"You take your peak kilowatt draw that occurs throughout the whole month and you multiply that by $16.41," Braun said. "That can really add up for a facility this large."
The higher peak-demand rates are an incentive for customers to conserve power.
"They don't have capacity problems in Seattle, so they don't need the incentive," Braun said.
The conventional cost-cutting approach for commercial buildings is to raise the thermostat settings after workers go home for the day, essentially shutting down the air conditioners while the building is not occupied. However, this approach ignores the "significant thermal storage potential" in many commercial buildings, Braun said.
Sun-heated walls contribute to a building's rising daytime temperature. But pre-cooling the building by running air conditioning overnight helps to control the temperature rise. Because the structure's mass has been cooled down, the building does not require as much energy for cooling during the day, when electricity is most expensive.
"Solar radiation strikes the walls, and then the air is heated by the walls," Braun said. "By cooling the walls, you have reduced those (heat) gains."
The pre-cooling technique is applied in "thermal mass control strategies," in which a building's structure is cooled overnight.
Thermal mass control strategies should be tailored for each building, depending on its size, the climate and other factors. The energy-saving strategy that worked best for the Ameritech building required that the building be cooled overnight to about 67 degrees Fahrenheit. Shortly before employees began arriving for work, the thermostats were turned up to a more conservative temperature, such as 74 degrees.
Thermal mass control strategies are being used by some companies.
"It's being done a little bit, but not in a very organized fashion, and without really understanding how to do it and what the benefits are," Braun said.
Research has shown that using a thermal mass control strategy improperly can actually result in higher energy costs. Factors such as a building's construction, the design of its air-conditioning system and regional weather conditions must be carefully considered to determine how to best use a thermal mass control strategy.
The new "thermal mass simulation tool" developed at Purdue is the first method that can be tuned to a specific building's performance and documents the degree of savings that can be realized by the technique. It can be used to pinpoint the exact strategy to use for a particular building.
"With this tool we can do some measurements on a building, and then use those measurements to develop a model," Braun said. "Then, the model can tell you whether it makes sense to use this kind of control in your building.
"The technique is not quite ready for commercialization. The next step is to perform some additional case studies with other buildings, and a graduate student is working on this."
Source: http://www.purdue.edu
8/20/01
6:00:30 PM
Genes Passed From Crops To Weeds Persist For Generations
Genetic traits passed from crops to their weedy relatives can persist for at least six generations, and probably much longer, according to an Ohio State University study conducted with radishes.
This means genetic traits that are developed in crops - such as resistance to insect pests - can become a permanent part of the weed population, in turn posing possible risks to crops.
These results suggest that biotech companies should steer clear of developing transgenic radish varieties with beneficial traits that could be passed on to weeds, said Allison Snow, a study co-author and a professor of ecology at Ohio State University.
Transgenic crops are crops engineered with specialized traits such as resistance to viral diseases, insect pests and herbicides.
While the new hybrid weeds may not be as fit at first as their wild parents, they seem to regain reproductive fitness quickly, Snow said.
"It's inevitable that these and other fitness-related traits will make their way into weed populations," Snow said. "The result may be very hardy, hard-to-kill weeds."
In California, the crop itself has become a highly successful and very damaging weed. Scientists suspect that this transition was aided by genes from the wild radish. In fact, wild radish is considered one of the 100 most economically damaging weeds worldwide.
"Gene movement from crops to their wild relatives is an ongoing process that can spur rapid evolutionary adaptation in weeds that will be ultimately harmful to crops," Snow said.
Snow presented the findings August 9 in Madison, Wisc. at the annual Ecological Society of America meeting.
The researchers studied four populations of hybrid and wild radish for six years in Michigan. At the outset, each field consisted of 100 first-generation crop-wild radish hybrids and 100 wild radishes. To monitor the continuation of crop radish genes in the populations, the researchers looked for four genetic traits: two enzymes, flower color and pollen fertility.
On average, the wild radishes reached peak flowering one month before the hybrid plants. The hybrids also produced fewer seeds per fruit than wild plants and fewer viable pollen grains. A large portion of hybrids never produced fruits (60 to 78 percent), while 92 to 97 percent of the wild plants did.
Even so, traits from the original crop - such as white flower color - persisted in subsequent generations of hybrid radishes.
"Even though the effects of delayed flowering and reduced fertility inhibited the movement of certain crop traits to later generations, we did find evidence of crop genes in every generation," Snow said.
In order to compare the lifetime fertility of wild and hybrid varieties, the researchers also grew one population of potted radishes.
Viable pollen averaged 63 percent in the potted hybrids, as compared to 92 percent in wild plants. The hybrids produced only half as many seeds per fruit as wild plants. Although the potted hybrid plants flowered on average half a month later than the potted wild ones, the hybrid radishes still produced enough viable pollen with enough time left in the growing season for pollination to occur.
"The hybrids were capable of ecologically significant levels of reproduction," Snow said. "The second hybrid generation was still at a fitness disadvantage, but to a lesser extent than the first hybrid generation. This indicated that their reproductive fitness was increasing."
The next step is to figure out if crop genes benefit weed populations and also to gauge how easily crops can become wild.
"The constant gene flow between crops and weeds is a subtle process that no one may notice, but evolution can happen very quickly," Snow said.
Snow conducted her research with Kristen Uthus, a graduate student in Ohio State's Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology graduate program and Theresa Culley, a researcher at the University of California, Irvine.
Snow's research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Ohio State University and the University of Michigan Biological Station.
Source: http://www.osu.edu/researchnews/archive/radweed.htm
8/20/01
5:36:17 PM
GENES PASSED FROM CROPS TO WEEDS PERSIST FOR GENERATIONS
Genetic traits passed from crops to their weedy relatives can persist for at least six generations, and probably much longer, according to an Ohio State University study conducted with radishes. This means genetic traits that are developed in crops - such as resistance to insect pests - can become a permanent part of the weed population, in turn posing possible risks to crops.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010810065737.htm
CONTROL TECHNIQUE CUTS ELECTRICITY BILLS FOR COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
"Pre-cooling" structures so that it takes less power to cool buildings during times of peak demand is not a new technique. But engineers at Purdue University are the first researchers to create a computer-simulation tool that can be "tuned" to a specific building and used to document the savings that would be realized by using the technique for that specific building.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010813081606.htm
NEW NASA SATELLITE SENSOR AND FIELD EXPERIMENT SHOWS AEROSOLS COOL THE SURFACE BUT WARM THE ATMOSPHERE
New research based upon NASA satellite data and a multi-national field experiment shows that black carbon aerosol pollution produced by humans can impact global climate as well as seasonal cycles of rainfall.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010814063326.htm
NASA SOLAR AIRCRAFT SETS ALTITUDE RECORD; COMMUNICATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL BREAKTHROUGHS EXPECTED
A new world record altitude of 96,500 feet over the Pacific Ocean was reached by the solar-powered Helios Prototype flying wing at 4:08 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time (HST), Aug. 13, fulfilling the expectations of engineers from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and AeroVironment, Inc., builders of the 247-ft. wing. This is the first time a non-rocket powered aircraft has maintained flight this far above the earth. Sustained operations at that altitude promise to enable capabilities ranging from environmental monitoring to radically improved communications on earth to simulating flight in the atmosphere of Mars.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010815081052.htm
HUMANS MAY BE EASIER TO CLONE THAN SHEEP AND MICE BECAUSE OF A SINGLE GENETIC DIFFERENCE
Humans could be technically easier to clone than sheep, cows, pigs and mice because humans possess a genetic benefit that prevents fetal overgrowth, a major obstacle encountered in cloning animals, according to new research by Duke University Medical Center scientists.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010815080314.htm
GENETIC SECRETS OF METAL-EATING PLANTS UNCOVERED
Genes thought to allow plants to accumulate large amounts of metal in their tissues have been identified and cloned by a Purdue University scientist. The finding is expected to lead to new crop plants that can clean up industrial contamination, new foods that fight disease and reduced work for some farmers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010815082128.htm
MERCURY AT BOTTOM OF CENTRAL PARK LAKE LINKED TO COAL BURNING IN NYC
While the debate rages over the future of the nations energy resources, including the potential increase in the number of coal-burning power plants, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have linked coal plant emissions to toxic levels of mercury.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010815080358.htm
SURVIVAL TACTICS IN BACTERIA - ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS FIT FOR MANKIND
Scientists from Imperial College, London, have made an important evolutionary link between the two powerhouse protein complexes that drive photosynthesis. This shared evolutionary adaptation may have been crucial for the establishment of environmental conditions required for the emergence of humankind.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010816083058.htm
CONGRATULATIONS, IT'S A SOY!: PENN RESEARCHERS TAKE A LONG-TERM LOOK AT THE SAFETY OF SOY-BASED INFANT FORMULA
To understand whether hormone-like chemicals in soy products may influence sexual development in children, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have revisited a study on soy-based infant formula begun over thirty years ago. Their results, published in this weeks Journal of the American Medical Association, reaffirm the safety of soy infant formula and offer evidence against the harmful effects of soy that have been presented in the popular media.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010815082648.htm
GIVING CANNIBALISM A HUMAN FACE
Cannibalism is one of the last real taboos of modern society. As such, it evokes a powerful mixture of fascination and revulsion. So strong are these preconceptions, in fact, that both the public and the scientific community have repeatedly fallen prey to them.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010816082840.htm
DISEASE-FIGHTING FOODS MAY BE DERIVED FROM METAL-LOVING PLANTS
Too much metal in the soil and you have a contaminated brownfield. Too little metal in the diet and you see disease and malnutrition. The solution to both problems may be metal-loving plants that take up large amounts of metal in their tissues, says David E. Salt, professor of plant molecular physiology at Purdue University.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010815082019.htm
TROUBLE IN PARADISE? "NATURAL" PEST CONTROL REQUIRES CAREFUL PLANNING, SCIENCE AUTHORS CONCLUDE
Mixing exotic plants and animals with native species doesnt always lead to a happy ending, especially in the tropical paradise of Kauai Island, Hawaii. Biocontrolthe introduction of real organisms to control pestscan lead to community-wide ecological harm if not planned carefully, researchers report 17 August 2001 in the international journal, Science.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010817081808.htm
RESEARCHERS GENERATE NEW APPROACH TO WORKING WITH LASER LIGHT
A team of researchers in Boulder, Colo., has generated a new and flexible approach to working with laser light in the world of ultrafast science by successfully combining extremely short pulses of light generated by two independent lasers into a single pulse of light.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010817081558.htm
IF YOU CAN'T JOIN THEM, BEAT THEM -- PSYCHOLOGISTS FIND REJECTION CAUSES AGGRESSION
Seeing rejection as a common thread in school shootings across the country, CWRU psychologists undertook experiments to see if rejection in the lab produced aggression.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010817081926.htm
8/20/01
4:53:58 PM
Those Who Don't Get By
by Barbara Ehrenreich
The view from the White House, not to mention much of Capitol Hill, is idyllic. True, there are a few blotches on the landscape--a queasy stock market and what conservatives see as a long-running deterioration of America's core moral values. But other than that, what's to complain? Americans are gratefully cashing in their tax rebates to redo the kitchen counters or pay off some credit card bills. Welfare reform has been declared a universal success, with more than 60 percent of former recipients making their own way in the job market. Unemployment is yesterday's problem, and the official poverty rate has reached a comfortingly low 12 percent.
But look more closely and the scenery becomes a whole lot grimmer. On July 24, the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute released a report showing that 29 percent of American families with young children--precisely the sort of families that policymakers should be most concerned about--do not earn enough to live at any acceptable level of comfort and security.
The EPI researchers got to this appallingly high number by calculating the basic--make that very basic--budget a family needs to live on. This is a budget that includes health insurance, child care costs, and telephone, but no meals out, vacations, movies, cigarettes, beer, or other routine middle class indulgences. So, for nearly a third of American families, things that the more affluent take for granted--like Internet access, video rentals, and occasional cab rides--are almost impossible luxuries.
But they get by, don't they? Not exactly.
Of the families who earned less than the "basic" budget, which amounts to $33,511 for a family of four, more than 70 percent worried about food, sometimes missed rent payments, and/or had to rely on an emergency room for their medical care. Nearly 30 percent reported facing far more dire hardships--having to miss meals, forgoing needed medical care, being evicted from their housing.
In a purely selfish way, I'm relieved by all this statistical bad news: At least it shows that the conditions I faced while researching my recent book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, were not due entirely to my own bad luck or incompetence.
I spent a total of three months, in three different cities, attempting to support myself on the wages I could earn as an entry-level worker--as a waitress, a hotel housekeeper, a maid with a housecleaning service, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart floor clerk. At the risk of spoiling the story for you, the result was that I could not make ends meet, not with one job, anyway. I averaged $7/hour, an amount that fell tragically short of my barebones expenses--gas, food, and, above all, rent.
My co-workers had various strategies for coping.
Many of them shared expenses with another breadwinner--a husband, boyfriend, or grown child.
A surprisingly high number worked more than one job--typically an eight-hour shift followed by a six-hour one--an arrangement that is utterly destructive to family life as well as health and stamina.
Most passed on the company's health insurance, simply because they couldn't afford to pay the employee contribution, which was often well over $100 a month.
Possibly some of them received help from the government in the form of food stamps or the Earned Income Tax Credit, although I never once heard these programs mentioned.
But some of my co-workers were clearly not coping.
I worked alongside people who turned out to be homeless, although in the peculiar hierarchy of poverty, they didn't consider themselves homeless as long as they had a van or a car to sleep in.
Others were not getting enough to eat, and not, as I first imagined, because they were dieting.
Lunch, in low-wage America, can mean a small-size bag of Doritos or a few hot dog rolls.
What my experience shows anecdotally, and the EPI's "Hardships in America" report shows far more systematically, is that we've been fooling ourselves with the official poverty level, now pegged at $17,463 for a family of four. That number is still calculated by the archaic method of taking the bare bones cost of food for a family of a given size and multiplying this number by three. Yet food is relatively inflation-proof, at least compared to medical care and housing costs. Rents especially have gone through the roof: I found a half-size trailer renting for $625 a month, a room in a genuinely creepy residential motel for $250 a week. But the government persists in believing that "low-rent" is an appropriate synonym for "poor."
There's another reason for our leaders' inability to see the true extent of economic misery in America: They're used to thinking of poverty as a consequence of unemployment. Hence, for example, the optimistic assumption that welfare recipients would be lifted out of poverty once they were hustled into the workforce. But the relatively high-paying, traditionally unionized blue collar jobs that brought an earlier generation into the middle class have been deindustrialized out of existence. What's left are the service and retail jobs--and a new world of relentless toil, rewarded by poverty-level wages.
If the consequences of this massive economic shift are almost invisible from Pennsylvania Avenue, they are painfully evident to America's hard-pressed charities.
According to the hunger-relief organization America's Second Harvest, food banks all over the country are experiencing "a torrent of need which [they] cannot meet," and the U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that 67 percent of the adults requesting emergency food aid are now working people with jobs.
Almost everyone--94 percent of Americans, according to a 2000 poll conducted by Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based employment research firm--agrees that "people who work full time should be able to earn enough to keep their families out of poverty." When that straightforward proposition no longer holds, then the social contract, at least as I always understood it, is no longer in force. And it is hard to imagine a more serious abrogation of "America's core moral values" than that.
We have a choice: either raise all wages to a "living wage" level or greatly expand the government programs that make life a little easier for low-wage families--food stamps, health insurance, child care subsidies, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and--yes--welfare for families whose breadwinners must stay home as caregivers for the very young, the elderly, or the chronically ill. Ideally, we should do both.
At 4.5 percent unemployment, most Americans who can work have jobs. Now it's the system that isn't working.
Source: http://www.TheProgressive.org/0901/ehr0901.html
8/20/01
4:53:22 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
THOSE WHO DON'T GET BY
by Barbara Ehrenreich, The Progressive
-- Few, if any, families can get by on full-time minimum wage jobs alone, and almost one-third of American families with young kids don't earn enough for a modicum of security.
ABSINTHE: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND SOME ATTEMPTED ANSWERS
by Matthew John Baggott, Web site review by Al Paulson
-- It was sometimes called "The Green Muse," and drinking it was referred to as "kissing the green fairy". But what really was Absinthe? Why was it coveted by 19th century bohemians? And why is it now banned in most countries?
IN OLD HEBRON, HOME IS NO REFUGE FROM POLITICAL VIOLENCE
by Chris Smith, Pacific News Service
-- "As headlines from Israel recount weekly deaths and destruction, the view from porches and living rooms in the ancient town of Hebron show violence is literally at residents' front doors."
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
8/20/01
4:52:41 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
UPDATE - Mystery gene in soybeans heats GMO debate - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12072/story.htm
Study shows perils of importing non-native species - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12075/story.htm
Researchers track tuna on trans-Atlantic journey - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12074/story.htm
Sophisticated new type of chemical sensor created - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12073/story.htm
South Carolina will sue to keep US plutonium out - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12070/story.htm
Real Erin Brockovich lectures US press - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12069/story.htm
Colorado bears coming a little too close to home - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12068/story.htm
Landfill sites pose some risk to babies - UK study - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12076/story.htm
Greenpeace attacks Bush over Star Wars plan, Kyoto - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12079/story.htm
Belgian scientist says gene-spliced soy safe - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12080/story.htm
Sweden tightens criteria for "green" power - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12065/story.htm
Pollution alert after oil spill on Dublin's Liffey - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12082/story.htm
Tiny Pacific isles seek meeting with Bush on Kyoto - NAURU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12067/story.htm
Mexico seizes lion cub, hundreds of animal skins - MEXICO http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12066/story.htm
India still studying commercial use of GM foods - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12081/story.htm
EU aims to achieve Kyoto through energy efficiency - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12064/story.htm
Route for Ecuador's new pipeline upheld in court - ECUADOR http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12062/story.htm
Ecuador farmers hit by volcanic ash - ECUADOR http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12063/story.htm
Canada blisters under "year with too much summer" - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12078/story.htm
Animal rights activists target Wendy's in Canada - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12071/story.htm
Frozen corpses of 80 animals found in Brazil zoo - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12077/story.htm