6/9/01
11:16:26 AM
NRC's Process of Calculating Risks, Seriously Flawed
by Brian Hansen
ROCKVILLE, Maryland, October 5, 2000 (ENS) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's new process to calculate and limit the environmental and public health risks posed by America's nuclear power plants is "seriously flawed," an environmental watchdog group charged today.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), outlined the argument this morning at a meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
According to Lochbaum, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's power plant risk assessments cannot be trusted because they are based, in part, on "biased" information compiled by plant owners and operators. Moreover, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is analyzing the industry supplied information using a number of unrealistic assumptions, Lochbaum said.
"The NRC is guessing when it makes safety decisions using the results from incomplete and inaccurate [information]," Lochbaum said.
The nuclear power industry catalogs the information it supplies to the NRC in documents known as probabilistic risk assessments, or PRAs. These assessments are designed to give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an analytical means with which to evaluate the severity of an accident that might occur at a nuclear power plant.
However, the risk assessments that the Commission draws up from those PRAs are necessarily inaccurate, Lochbaum said, because the NRC relies on a number of unfounded assumptions in the course of analyzing them.
Those assumptions, which are spelled out in official Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents, were outlined in an UCS report released earlier this summer. According to the report, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission drafts risk assessments for nuclear power plants assuming that:
* Nuclear power plant reactor pressure vessels never fail.
* Nuclear power plant workers make few serious mistakes.
* Nuclear power plant design and construction are completely adequate.
* Nuclear power plants operate within technical specifications and other regulatory requirements.
* Risk at nuclear power plants is limited to reactor core damage.
* Equipment at nuclear power plants fails at a constant rate.
"History shows there is a greater probability of a flipped coin landing on its edge than of these assumptions being realistic," Lochbaum concluded in the UCS report. "In computer programming parlance, 'garbage in, garbage out.'"
But beyond that list of unfounded assumptions, one of the most serious problems with the NRC's nuclear power plant oversight program is that there are no objective standards that plant owners must follow in compiling their probabilistic risk assessments, Lochbaum said.
Lochbaum cited the case of the Wolf Creek nuclear reactor in Kansas and the Callaway nuclear reactor in Missouri to make his point. Although the two facilities were built using the exact same blueprints and the exact same materials, their PRA results - and their resultant NRC risk assessments - are "as different as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide," Lochbaum said.
"The numbers make it look like Wolf Creek is the good twin and Callaway is the bad twin," Lochbaum wrote in the UCS report. "In reality, these risk assessments cannot be used to decide this sibling rivalry, [because] they were developed using different methods and different assumptions.
"It is therefore no surprise that their results differ so radically," Lochbaum said. "The data do not allow the safety levels of these identical plants to be evaluated, even on a relative basis."
Lochbaum also cited cases where nuclear power plants built to significantly different design and operational specifications were declared by the NRC to have the same exact risk factors.
For Lochbaum, those types of findings indicate that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not capable - or not interested - in determining which plants are safe, and which are not.
"Apparently, the NRC views being the same as OK, and being different as OK, too," he said. "That's curious."
George Apostolakis, the vice chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission committee, challenged Lochbaum on that point. Apostolakis acknowledged that nuclear power plant owners have been known to submit inaccurate or inconsistent information to the NRC, but he denied that those reports would result in the drafting of misguided risk assessments.
"It's a private industry, and if they want to use optimistic numbers, it's up to them," Apostolakis said. "But when they try to use them here, that's a different story."
According to Apostolakis, nuclear power plant risk assessments are based on far more criteria than simply the "optimistic" PRAs provided by the nuclear power industry.
"You give the impression that our decisions rely on PRAs," said Apostolakis, who also serves as a professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "You use the word 'rely' too much."
Lochbaum, asked if he thought he put too much emphasis on the industry's contribution to the nuclear regulatory process, said, "I think I underestimated it."
Apostolakis acknowledged Lochbaum's point, but the NRC committee member would not admit that nuclear power plant risk assessments have been compromised as a result.
"I grant you that there may have been situations where people have misused the process," Apostolakis said. "It would be interesting to find out why these things are happening - whether it's just judgment, or accounting."
But Apostolakis would not concede Lochbaum's point that "all possible" measures should be taken to prevent and mitigate every risk posed by the construction and operation of nuclear power plants.
"Are you seriously proposing that all possible measures be taken?" said Apostolakis, whose research interests include mathematical methods for risk and reliability assessment of complex technological systems. "Is that an exaggeration to make a point, or are you asking us to take you literally?"
Apostolakis noted that no activity is risk free, and that many endeavors - such as automobile and airplane travel - have been regulated to pose certain levels of risk.
As a matter of policy, the NRC attempts to limit risks associated with nuclear power plant operations to less than one percent of the risks that the public faces from other types of accidents.
However, current NRC risk assessments consider only the probability of an accident happening - not the associated consequences. When consequences are very high - as they are from nuclear plant accidents - prudent risk management strategies dictate that probabilities be kept very low, the Union of Concerned Scientists argues.
"An accident at a U.S. nuclear power plant could kill more people than were killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki (Japan)," the UCS report declares. "
The Union of Concerned Scientists has called on the Commission to abandon its "unrealistic" risk assessment program in favor of one with objective and verifiable standards.
The group has also appealed to Congress to provide the NRC with the budget it needs to "restore the safety margins" at America's nuclear power plants.
http://www.mothersalert.org/nrcprocessflawed.html
The Reactor Oversight Process and Plant Assessment Results are available on the Nuclear Regulatory Committee website at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html
The Union of Concerned Scientists website is: http://www.ucsusa.org
6/9/01
11:13:14 AM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
EU HELPS CANDIDATE COUNTRIES WITH ENVIRONMENTAL FINANCING
BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 8, 2001 (ENS) - The European Commission is putting in place environmental financing to help the 13 countries now in the process of joining the European Union (EU). The Commission is the EU's executive branch.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-08-01.html
EXTINCTION RIDER DIES IN HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE
WASHINGTON, DC, June 8, 2001 (ENS) - The Endangered Species Act won a minor victory Thursday, as the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations rejected a Bush Administration proposal to gut citizen enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. But environmental groups say the committee failed to ensure sufficient funding for endangered species listing and protection.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-08-07.html
DIN UP, DOWN UNDER
CANBERRA, Australia, June 8, 2001 (ENS) - Australia's urban cacophony has government officials hopping. Thousands of complaints about noise pollution from road and rail traffic, airports and loud sound systems have grabbed the attention of government regulators and scientists.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-08-03.html
INTERNATIONAL TRAFFICKER IN WORLD'S RAREST REPTILES JAILED
SAN FRANCISCO, California, June 8, 2001 (ENS) - An international wildlife smuggler has been sentenced in federal court in San Francisco to 71 months in prison and a fine of $60,000.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-08-02.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 8, 2001
Bill Would Restrict Monument Designations
Wal-Mart Pays Millions for Water Pollution
Regional Agreement Aims to Clear Mountain Air
Lawsuit Filed Over Alameda Whipsnake Critical Habitat
Senator Baucus Could Derail Fast Track Proposal
Energy Department Seeks Public Input on Efficiency, Renewables
EPA Approves Charlotte Harbor Estuary Plan
Lake Okeechobee Needs Governor's Help
Puerto Rico Sewage Spills Lead to Lawsuit
Sustainable High Rise Powered by Solar Cells
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-08-09.html
6/9/01
11:08:30 AM
FAIR
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
ACTIVISM UPDATE:
White House Responds to Vandalism Charges, Fox Responds to FAIR
A May 21 FAIR action alert addressed the stories of White House "vandalism" during the transition in January. According to anonymous Bush administration sources, Clinton staffers had looted Air Force One and vandalized the White House on their way out of office. The rumors exploded after earlier, more light-hearted stories about minor pranks, such as removing the letter W from computer keyboards.
Some news outlets gave the new vandalism stories minimal attention because they were based on little more than rumors, while others went ahead and ran with them. Fox News Channel played the story bigger than almost any other outlet. On January 26 alone, the vandalism was discussed at least 10 times on various Fox shows (including reruns), usually at a fevered pitch.
FAIR urged readers to encourage Fox to explain why it had made dubious rumors a major focus of its transition coverage. Fox received hundreds of concerned email messages from FAIR activists.
Then on Friday June 1, the White House finally wrote down a list specifying the damages for the first time-- despite having told the GAO six weeks earlier that it had "located no such record" (Kansas City Star, 6/5/01). It gave the list to the Washington Post, which ran it on Sunday (6/3/01).
For some, the list proved that the vandalism stories had been accurate after all, and an attack on the critics was in order. On Fox News Sunday, Tony Snow (6/3/01) denounced FAIR's action alert as "a hate e-mail campaign directed at Washington journalists." An unsigned June 4 email from Fox to FAIR activists argued that Fleischer's list "finally detailed a lot of the damage," and "laid out enough of the details to make it clear that the original stories were basically correct."
But the Fleischer list provides little if any corroboration for Fox's reports, and certainly does not vindicate the network's round-the-clock sensationalism. To see why, one needs to review how the vandalism story evolved.
A shaky story
Early on, it became clear that the sensational story was not all it was cracked up to be. The "looting" of Air Force One, which Fox anchor Brit Hume described as a "raid"-- in which Clinton personnel had supposedly stolen china, silverware, champagne glasses and bedsheets from the plane--unraveled after two weeks, when a spokesman for Andrews Air Force base said the story was baseless (Kansas City Star, 2/9/01).
The rest of the story has had a more complicated history. Responding to a request from Rep. Bob Barr (R.-Ga.), the General Accounting Office (GAO) and General Services Administration (GSA) reviewed the charges. The GSA, which is in charge of the maintenance of White House offices, sent a letter to Barr saying that "the condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy" (New York Times, 5/19/01).
According to the GAO's Bernard Ungar, "There was no [White House] record kept of any cords being cut or any damage to computers or copiers-- in general there was no proof of anything matching the allegations" (Associated Press, 5/18/01). In short, physical inspections of the buildings did not reveal any obvious damage, and the Bush White House could not document the specific charges that had been made.
Fox's initial reaction was to disown the story. Anchor Tony Snow even offered a partial apology (Fox News Sunday, 5/20/01): "The General Services Administration reported last week that, rumors to the contrary, members of the Clinton administration did not trash the White House or despoil Air Force One, at least according to the evidence available. In response, the ex-president's supporters have besieged pundits like me, folks who rushed to judgment, demanding apologies. OK, I'm sorry.... The ex-president's pals have a legitimate beef."
But less than two weeks later, Fox changed tack. On the Friday, June 1 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume (6/1/01), Hume criticized FAIR by name and argued that the GSA's inspections were insufficient. A report by correspondent Carl Cameron argued that there never was a GAO investigation-- "comprehensive or otherwise"-- and that the GSA had merely performed "a cursory inspection." In short, Fox said the new developments proved nothing. "As for whether or not there was vandalism, it has not been proven or, for that matter, disproven," Cameron said.
For the record, the GSA had a team of staff inside the White House offices from the moment Bush was sworn in through every step of the transition. When asked by the GAO about the vandalism charges-- in what the GAO calls a "preliminary inquiry"-- the GSA reported no observations of vandalism.
At this point, the White House released its newly compiled list of damages. Despite Fox's claim that the list renders the story "basically correct," claims of file cabinets glued shut, paintings torn off the walls, and locks jimmied (alleged by anonymous Bush staffers in the Washington Post, 1/26/01; NBC News, 1/25/01) are now missing from the White House's summary of damages, which is based on the mental recollections of one staffer who only got around to writing them down June 1.
As for the relatively minor damages Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer did list-- such as cut wires-- when reporters asked if it could have been the work of clumsy maintenance staff, Fleischer indignantly replied that he didn't think the "professionals" who worked for the White House would have made such mistakes. But the GAO's Bernard Ungar was not so hasty (Salon.com, 6/5/01), noting that any damage "might have been the cleanup. That certainly is possible that some of it was not intentional. I just don't know."
That leaves little more than "inoperable keyboards"-- i.e., missing W's-- and handmade signs poking fun at Bush-- what Fleischer calls "graffiti." Those stories were long ago confirmed by Democrats and were never described as "vandalism" or "looting" in the media-- including on Fox. To portray them as some kind of retroactive corroboration for the fevered stories about "the trashing of the White House" stretches credulity.
A story that didn't fly
And let's not forget that Brit Hume, along with dozens of others, falsely reported that Air Force One "was stripped bare. The plane's...porcelain, china, and silverware and salt and pepper shakers, blankets and pillow cases, nearly all items bearing the presidential seal were taken by Clinton staffers" (Special Report with Brit Hume, 1/25/01).
That story, an utter fabrication, was first reported in the Washington Times (1/25/01) and sourced to an Air Force steward who-- intriguingly-- appears to have leaked it on the *same day* Bush administration officials first leaked their own allegations about White House vandalism (DrudgeReport.com, Rich Galen's Mullings.com-- both 1/24/01).
Over the next two weeks, Fleischer and the Bush administration allowed the media to repeat the Air Force One story over and over, almost certainly knowing it was a lie. It was only *after* Andrews Air Force Base took the wind out of the story that Bush acknowledged nothing had been missing from the plane, saying (2/13/01), "All the allegations that they took stuff off of Air Force One is simply not true."
Despite the rumors, no broken items or other physical evidence have been produced by the White House to back up its list. Nor were any records of repairs provided to the press. Photos that the White House shared with reporters do not back up the claims of vandalism (Salon.com, 6/5/01).
The GAO has now restarted its investigation. This time, the White House is cooperating.
"A drastic lowering of standards"
Fox pundits don't always accept the notion that journalism should rely on rumors. When allegations surfaced concerning Republican Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and marital infidelity, Fox political analyst Fred Barnes was not impressed. Barnes-- who had called "the trashing of the White House" a "hot story" four months earlier (1/27/01)-- now had this to say:
"It used to be you heard a rumor, you checked it out, if it checked out and was true, you might write the story, but if it didn't, you wouldn't write anything.... They report rumors now. That's what journalism does. It reports rumor. It's wrong. It's a drastic lowering of standards to do that" (Fox News Channel, 5/14/01).
Feel free to respond to FAIR. We can't reply to everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate documented example of media bias or censorship. And please send copies of your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to us at: fair@fair.org
6/8/01
6:10:13 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. THE HYPOCRITICAL OATH The American Hospital Association is backing out of an agreement with the U.S. EPA that would have cut hospital waste in half by the end of the decade. The agreement was signed to much fanfare in 1998, and then-Vice President Al Gore called attention to it in an award ceremony the following year. Under the memo of understanding with the EPA, hospitals also would have eliminated their toxic emissions by 2005. In 1998, hospitals contributed about one-tenth of the country's airborne mercury pollution. AHA spokeswoman Alicia Mitchell said the association "remain[ed] committed to the goals" of the memo, but no longer thought a formal agreement with the EPA was necessary.
straight to the source: Philadelphia Inquirer, Seth Borenstein, 08 Jun 2001 <http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/06/08/national/MEDWASTE08.htm>
2. RAINFOREST ACTION AND HIGHWAY-BUILDING NETWORK Preserving the rainforest is the top priority for the 20 million people living in Brazil's Amazon, according to a study by the World Wildlife Fund. The study, which the group said was the first of its kind in the region, found that 34 percent of respondents ranked preservation as their No. 1 concern. However, 27.8 percent listed road construction and 17.7 percent cited agricultural development as their priorities. (Roads and agriculture do not a rainforest make.)
straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Axel Bugge, 08 Jun 2001 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11114>
3. COMMANDER IN GRIEF The president jogs into action to save the Global Warming Survivors -- the most derring-do to come out of the White House since Jimmy Carter crashed in the Iranian desert. Catch history in the unmaking with Zed, last of his species.
catch it only in Grist Magazine: The comic adventures of Zed, last of his species <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/zed/zed060801.stm?source=daily>
4. MODIFIED IN CHINA The Chinese government unveiled new regulations yesterday for genetically engineered foods that they hope will make the use of the technology more widespread. Genetically engineered cotton, soybeans, rice, potatoes, and other crops are already commonly planted in the country. Among other things, the rules require that genetically engineered foods be clearly labeled on packages. Chinese leaders are faced with the problem of feeding 1.3 billion people even as arable land in the country is shrinking due to desertification and many farmers are giving up the agricultural life and moving to the city.
straight to the source: Wall Street Journal, Karby Leggett, 08 Jun 2001 (access ain't free) <http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB991935051280075834.htm>
5. BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL: $14 DOLLAR APES! Despite laws against eating endangered species like bonobo apes, meat from half an ape goes for $7 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, far less expensive than the price for beef and easier to get than chicken. Bonobos are on the brink of extinction due to war, habitat loss, and a big-time bush-meat industry. Fewer than 10,000 bonobos remained in 1990, down from 100,000 in 1980. Now, after years of war, the population may have dropped to as few as 3,000. The Bush Meat Crisis Task Force, an international effort to stop poaching, says trade in meat from all types of apes is worth more than $1 billion a year in West and Central Africa.
straight to the source: Christian Science Monitor, Danna Harman, 07 Jun 2001 <http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/06/07/p6s1.htm>
read it only in Grist Magazine: A phone sex therapist campaigns to save bonobos -- in our Out on a Limb section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb093099.stm?source=daily>
catch it only in Grist Magazine: Maybe the only time you'll ever get to see a bush meat cartoon! <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha101300.stm?source=daily>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
We love Scully! -- a day in the life of Mercedes Lee, National Audubon Society's Living Ocean Campaign <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/lee060701.stm?source=daily>
What a beauty -- Navajo pageant winner is an enviro star -- in our Out on Limb column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb012301.stm?source=daily>
6/8/01
4:15:37 PM
EcoNet News
Deal Cut to Ensure Quick Logging Near Ashland, Oregon
Josephine County Commissioners plan to sign a service agreement Wednesday morning, June 6 and accept $15,000 from Boise Cascade Corporation for additional sheriff security on site in the Williams Creek Watershed. BCC plans to clearcut 235 acres above Williams, Oregon.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/991969705/index_html
Owl Habitat May Be Opened to Logging in Washington
The state may move to allow some logging on about 200,000 acres of state trust land set aside for the northern spotted owl, a protected species. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/991969880/index_html
Update on Proposed Expansion of Massachusetts Ski Area
On June 4th a two-day court case was heard over the fate of a beautiful public reservation in Princeton Massachusetts. A civil case was filed against Wachusett Mountain Associates, The MA DEM and the MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs due to the permitting technicalities in the case of a proposed expansion of the Wachusett ski area. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts/991970125/index_html
World Environment Day Clouded by Lack of Action on Climate Change
The lack of action on the Kyoto Protocol for curbing climate change, a document the United States says it will not ratify, cast clouds over World Environment Day festivities Tuesday, said activists. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991970581/index_html
FOE Slams US over Voluntary Measures to Tackle Climate Change
Friends of the Earth International today dismissed plans by President Bush for voluntary agreements to tackle climate change as totally inadequate. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991970839/index_html
Pasko Espionage Trial in Russia Postponed
The prosecutor in the Pasko case has asked for trial postponement until June 20th. Pasko's defenders are confident they will win the case should it remain on the legal field. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991971112/index_html
While the Globe Burns, the UN Fiddles
The global ecosystem is collapsing. While the globe burns, governments and the UN fiddle. We need to move past collecting data and into massive, well-funded action programs. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991971440/index_html
Colors Return to Cuban Town
People still gaze in astonishment at the cement factory smokestacks that dominate the entrance to Mariel, a town near the capital of Cuba which has recuperated its natural colours after decades of being covered with a layer of grey dust. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991971607/index_html
New Report Fuels Debate on GMOs
Debate on genetically modified organisms seems destined to intensify following the release of a report arguing that some bio-engineered life forms could have profound impacts on the environment because complex interactions between genes and ecosystems are not taken into account. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991971808/index_html
New Survey to Map Planet's Health
Scientists and organisations from around the world announced Tuesday the creation of a four-year effort to examine the state of Earth's ecosystems. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991971935/index_html
Vandana Shiva, Paradigm Warrior
She's into redefining paradigms. Picketing the World Bank office in New Delhi, educating tribal groups and farmers in rural India, lecturing multinationals, are her preferred weapons. That's Vandana Shiva, the celebrated eco-feminist, for you. Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/991972148/index_html
6/8/01
3:55:24 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
CONTRACT KILLINGS
By Jeremy Mullman, SF Weekly
--"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know." "It looked good on paper." "The road to Hell is paved with...." All of these venerable sayings, and then some, could be applied to California's energy deregulation debacle.
BUSH A VETERAN OF MANEUVERS
By Michael Daly, Daily News Online
-- In 1968, when "American boys were dying at a rate of 350 a week" in Vietnam, George W. Bush served his country by playing "a lot of tennis and drinking a lot of beer."
STORE WARS: WHEN WAL-MART COMES TO TOWN
Tamara Straus, AlterNet
-- Based on a PBS documentary that aired June 7, Tamara Straus examines the forces that bring Wal-Mart to town and the often disastrous effects it can have on a small-town economy.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
6/8/01
3:52:48 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL, COUNCIL TELLS BUSH
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, June 7, 2001 (ENS) - A new report from the National Academy of Sciences calls global warming a real problem, caused at least in part by humans. The report comes as President George W. Bush prepares to travel to Europe next week to discuss alternatives to the Kyoto Protocol for combating climate change with other world leaders.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-07-06.html
TURKISH POWER STATION HAS RESIDENTS CLUTCHING THEIR GAS MASKS
By Jon Gorvett
ISTANBUL, Turkey, June 7, 2001 (ENS) - Local residents of the Aegean town of Yatagan donned gas masks three times last week, as clouds of poisonous gas swept through the region from the local thermal power station.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-07-04.html
ALL 15 EU ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS AGREE ON ELECTROSCRAP LAW
BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 7, 2001 (ENS) - European Union environment ministers have reached a first-reading agreement on directives to introduce producer responsibility for managing waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and restricting hazardous substances in product manufacture.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-07-03.html
RAT REMOVERS PLACE TONS OF POISON TO PROTECT RARE BIRDS
INVERCARGILL, New Zealand, June 7, 2001 (ENS) - Remote Campbell Island in the New Zealand sub-Antarctic is to be the focus of one of the world's most ambitious attempts at rat eradication for wildlife protection - with no guarantee of success.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-07-01.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 7, 2001
Nation's Access to Natural Gas Regions Reviewed
Greenpeace Uncovers Hidden Dangers in the Home
Shell Commits $1 Million to Protect Laguna Madre
Indiana Adopts Nitrogen Oxides Rule
Texas Man Guilty of Smuggling Endangered Pythons
Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Up for Review
Wetlands Show Strength in Diversity
Historic Glacier National Park Bus Turns Renewable
Wisconsin Schools Honored for Mercury Reduction Effort
Jefferson Memorial Gets Energy Saving Upgrade
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-07-09.html
6/8/01
3:49:41 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Poachers rule Zambia's biggest wildlife park - ZAMBIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11094
UPDATE - Alaska poised for cruise ship pollution controls - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11096
Triple US spending on conservation - Soil group - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11116
US sets radiation limits for Nevada nuke dump site - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11098
UPDATE - No Kyoto alternative seen from Bush on Europe trip - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11099
Despite hoopla no new US nuclear plants soon - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11101
Energy Dept seeks public input on research programs - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11112
New England Republicans say no to offshore oil drilling - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11111
US Forest Service chief to proceed with road ban - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11110
Warming report pressures Bush - environmentalists - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11109
Lax laws endanger survival of parrots - magazine - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11115
Sweden says aims to close nuclear reactor by 2003 - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11106
Iberdrola to install 11 new Spanish wind parks - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11103
S.Korea's new green fuel ups cost, may cut exports - SINGAPORE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11095
UPDATE - Russia votes to accept spent foreign nuclear fuel - RUSSIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11108
FEATURE - Fuel cell hopes light the way for Japan refiners - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11105
German HEW puts tentative dates on nuke phase-outs - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11107
Baltic states agree to share radiation data - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11104
Nord Pool says no green certificate trading in 2001 - FINLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11102
Greenpeace prepares protests for Bush Europe tour - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11117
Belgium plans EU biotech food push - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11113
Chilean oil spill damages birds, salmon farm - CHILE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11100
Canada to cut emissions from government operations - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11097
POLL - Saving forest is top priority in Amazon - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11114
6/8/01
3:45:43 PM
The Nation
On June 12, 1982, a million people assembled in New York City to protest the reckless nuclear policies of the Reagan Administration and to call for a nuclear freeze. They never assembled in such numbers again, showing how quickly public concern of nuclear annihilation can arise and how quickly it can evaporate. On Sunday, June 10, a coalition of groups called Project Abolition will hold an antinuclear demonstration in Lafayette Park across from the White House. It will be the first major effort of its kind since the end of the cold war. While a million people are not expected, the protesters hope to make up in staying power what they lack in numbers.
For more information, go to http://www.projectabolition.org
The precipitating event is the new arms race that is threatened by the Bush Administration's embrace of National Missile Defense and the weaponization of space.
In an article just released on The Nation's website, Jonathan Schell argues that a second nuclear age has dawned and is out of control. Nuclear policy is more confused under Bush than at any time since the weapons were invented. Absent a global policy that addresses the new shape of the nuclear predicament, events are likely to continue in the vicious circle that has already landed us in a world bristling with new nuclear dangers.
In another article, Stephen F. Cohen enumerates the grave nuclear threats in Russia today. With US-Russian relations worse than since the mid-1980s, any solution seems far from present political possibilities.
You can read these articles on The Nation's website at:
JONATHAN SCHELL: The New Nuclear Danger
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=schell
STEPHEN F. COHEN: Russian Nuclear Roulette
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=cohen
Other new articles, editorials and columns, including a selection from the June 25 issue of The Nation, are also available:
RICHARD KIM: Andrew Sullivan, Overexposed (WEB ONLY)
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=kim20010605
BRUCE SHAPIRO: 'Moral' Execution (WEB ONLY)
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=shapiro20010606
KATHA POLLITT: Mad Bad Ads
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=pollitt
DAVID CORN: McCain in Vain?
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=corn
THE NATION EDITORS: Blindness in Gaza
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=editors
MATT BIVENS: Harvard's "Fitting Choice"
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=bivens
MICHAEL SCHERER: Bush's Tax Savings: Unreal!
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=scherer
DAVID L. KIRP: Timbertown in the Pink (Review)
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&s=kirp
6/8/01
3:41:06 PM
TomPaine.com
REVOLUTION IN THE AIR
Wind Power Threatens the Dinosaur Lobby
It's a quiet revolution. No slogans, masked mobs or smashed windows. There's just a rhythmic whoosh whoosh whoosh -- the hushed whir of windmills. The wind-power revolution has arrived. Maybe just in time.
The economic efficiency of wind power blows away fossil-fuel "dinosaur power," but political leaders resist the wind revolution. Just look at the energy plan from the Oil Patch President. It calls for more dirty dinosaur power -- and more nuclear, although bailing out that industry is costing Americans more than $100 billion. Clean energy gets short shrift.
But such willful ignorance will just delay the wind-power revolution, not stop it. Common sense, like wind, finds its way through the cracks.
READ OUR LATEST NEW YORK TIMES OP AD
AND CHECK OUT THESE FEATURE STORIES...
GOING TO WORK FOR WIND POWER
by Michael Renner, WorldWatch Institute
The economic case for wind power. It's growing by leaps and bounds around the world and could employ three million people by 2020. Meanwhile, fossil-fuel jobs are doing a disappearing act.
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/06/04/13.html
DO WINDMILLS EAT BIRDS?
by David Case, TomPaine.com Executive Editor
Right-wing activists have suddenly become very concerned about birds. The Washington Legal Foundation fretted, "How many birds must be shredded flying through their giant blades?" Has environmentalism suddenly become infectious among the smokestack set?
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/06/04/index.html
THE WINDMILL IN OUR BACKYARD
by David Blittersdorf, American Wind Energy Association
"It's a beautiful morning in Vermont, and our family's wind turbine in the back yard is humming ... The electric meter on our house is spinning like crazy -- backwards! ... Wind energy is ready. Is our country?"
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/06/04/16.html
A NEW CROP FOR FARMERS
by Patrick Mazza, Climate Solutions
In Iowa, 257 windmills are helping farmers weather the farm crisis. Landowners earn $2,000 annually for each windmill they host. One proponent says Iowa could generate ten times more wind power.
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/06/04/14.html
MUSICAL CHAIRS
Holly Bailey, Center for Responsive Politics
Vulnerable Democrats benefit from gaining the Senate gavel, a position that usually elicits a bonanza of checks from special interest donors. Will the Senate shake-up have an impact on prospects for the 2002 elections?
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/06/05/2.html
FRITTERING AWAY FOREIGN AID
by Robert Naiman, Center for Economic and Policy Research
During his recent trip to Africa, Secretary of State Powell focused on the toll of AIDS. But the administration's budget doesn't match its rhetorical concern. Massive U.S. aid goes for corporate insurance and military assistance, but AIDS assistance gets peanuts.
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/05/31/2.html
A NEW LOOK AT FDR AND PEARL HARBOR
by Derek Alger
Why was Roosevelt forced to resort to deceit to get the U.S. involved in World War II? "It is time for Americans to find an answer to this question," says historian Thomas Fleming. "It is a crucial first step to seeing Pearl Harbor and the rest of World War II as history rather than a vainglorious mixture of memory and myth."
http://www.tompaine.com/history/2001/06/06/index.html
6/7/01
5:04:17 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. JUDGE DREADFUL In a blow to environmentalists, a federal judge chose yesterday not to issue an emergency stay on road-building in metro Atlanta. U.S. District Judge Beverly Martin said she would give her final ruling this summer on a lawsuit filed by environmental groups opposed to Georgia's three-year, $1.9 billion transportation plan for the area. The groups say the plan provides funding to road projects that will elevate pollution levels in the metro area. Atlanta already frequently violates federal air-quality standards. Gov. Roy Barnes (D) tried to broker a compromise with enviros over the winter, but negotiations fell apart in February, leading the groups to sue.
straight to the source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, John McCosh, 07 Jun 2001 <http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/newsatlanta/0607roads.html>
2. SCIENTIFIC AMERICANS A week before President Bush travels overseas to meet with European leaders already frustrated with his stance on global warming, a report released yesterday by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences states that global warming is real and getting worse and that human activity is largely responsible for the problem. The report -- an evaluation of the work of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change requested by the White House -- will provide ammo to the European leaders and environmentalists, who are calling for mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions. As recently as March, Bush said he wasn't sure global warming was occurring. But yesterday his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said, "This is a president who takes extremely seriously what we do know about climate change, which is essentially that there is warming taking place."
straight to the source: New York Times, Katharine Q. Seelye and Andrew C. Revkin, 07 Jun 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/07/science/07WARM.html>
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 07 June 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31221-2001Jun6.html>
do good: Take action and tell Bush not to abandon the Kyoto treaty on climate change <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.stm?source=daily#kyoto>
3. GLOOM AND DUMA Despite polls that suggest that 80 to 90 percent of Russians oppose the plan, the lower house of the country's parliament, the Duma, voted yesterday to allow the import of nuclear waste, which would either be stored in perpetuity in Siberia or reprocessed into nuclear fuel and exported. The upper house is expected to approve the plan, which is backed by President Vladimir Putin. Nearly all of the spent fuel Russia could import from reactors in Europe and Asia was originally supplied by the U.S. and cannot be transferred to a third party without U.S. permission. Environmental groups have begun lobbying the Bush administration to give the plan the heave-ho. The administration has suggested that it opposes the plan.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Maura Reynolds, 07 Jun 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010607/t000047470.html>
4. NO GREEN MEDAL The International Olympic Committee claims that environmental protection is a fundamental part of the Olympic Games, along with sports and culture. But only one-tenth of 1 percent of the budget for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics will be spent on the environment, says Diane Conrad, who is overseeing environmental programs for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. She said the committee couldn't "fix all existing environmental problems," but would spearhead a project to plant 3 million trees and set in place strong composting and recycling programs, so that the games produced zero waste. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance said the planned environmental efforts were not much more than window dressing.
straight to the source: Salt Lake Tribune, Tom Wharton, 04 Jun 2001 <http://www.sltrib.com/06042001/utah/102901.htm>
read it only in Grist Magazine: A week in the life of Jacqui Hellyer, Sydney Olympics <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/hellyer040300.stm?source=daily>
catch it only in Grist Magazine: Worm Olympics -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha091400.stm?source=daily>
5. YUCCA MOUNTAIN, YUCK ACCOUNTING The U.S EPA yesterday set a standard for how much radiation would be allowed to leak into groundwater, air, and soil at the proposed storage facility for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The standard is similar to the one proposed by the Clinton administration, capping radiation leaks during the facility's first 10,000 years to no more than what the average American receives in about two weeks from natural and synthetic sources. Nuclear power advocates say the Yucca Mountain facility must be approved if more nuclear plants are to be built in the country. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the standard meant the facility could be launched, but Nevada's senators said the standard would help their campaign to block the dump. The nuclear industry's trade association filed suit yesterday to overturn the radiation limits.
straight to the source: New York Times, Matthew L. Wald, 07 Jun 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/07/national/07YUCC.html>
straight to the source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, Steve Tetrault and Keith Rogers, 07 Jun 2001 <http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jun-07-Thu-2001/news/16268734.html>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
The elements of style -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha060401.stm?source=daily>
Fun with numbers -- a day in the life of Mercedes Lee, National Audubon Society's Living Ocean Campaign <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/lee060601.stm?source=daily>
Mississippi delta blues -- pollution is flushing marine life down the drain -- by David Helvarg <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books052401.stm?source=daily>
6/6/01
6:41:00 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. DIM SUMMARY China's top environmental official warned yesterday that air and water quality are on the decline and soil erosion is continuing at a fast clip in the country. Nearly half of China's river water supplies don't meet safety standards, said Xie Zhenhua, director of the Environmental Protection Administration, which produces an annual state of the environment report. This year's report found that 90 percent of grasslands, which cover about 40 percent of China, have been degraded, contributing to desertification. Xie said, "People have to get the sense that protecting the environment is directly linked to their own personal well-being." Xie also used the occasion to criticize as "irresponsible" the decision by U.S. President Bush to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty on climate change.
straight to the source: Times of India, Associated Press, 06 Jun 2001 <http://www.timesofindia.com/today/06hlth10.htm>
2. SOUTH OF THE BOLDER Petroleos Mexicanos, the world's fifth-largest oil company, said this week that it would start a six-month internal effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions 1 percent below 1999 levels, as the first step in a 10-year emissions reduction program. The state-owned Mexican company is the first Latin American firm to say publicly that it would reduce its emissions. Meanwhile, U.S. President Bush is planning to announce some ways the U.S. might reduce its greenhouse gas emissions during meetings next week with European Union leaders. Bush met for an hour (wow!) yesterday with top foreign policy, energy, and environmental officials to discuss climate change. White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said, "There's no question that the temperature of the Earth has been rising."
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 05 Jun 2001 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21406-2001Jun4.html>
straight to the source: Washington Post, Mike Allen, 06 Jun 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26088-2001Jun5.html>
3. GRILL A GORILLA Rwandan soldiers spread out across Virunga National Park yesterday to protect endangered mountain gorillas after the Hutu militia apparently grilled two male gorillas and ate their meat on Friday. Killing apes for their meat is relatively common in Congo and other parts of Central Africa, but not in Rwanda and Uganda. Only 355 members of the gorilla subspecies live in the wild. Liz Williamson of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International rued the loss of the two males because at this point "any single individual is invaluable genetically."
straight to the source: ABCNews.com, Associated Press, 05 Jun 2001 <http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/cloning_food010606.html>
4. CHENEY TAKES US FOR FUELS The same day that a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed public support for President Bush's energy policy at 37 percent, Vice President Dick Cheney held his first serious meeting with environmental groups. During the session yesterday, leaders from four green groups asked the Bush administration to work to boost fuel-economy standards to 40 miles per gallon for cars and SUVs; require electricity suppliers to produce 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020; and set limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Cheney was present for 20 minutes of the hour-and-a-half-long meeting.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Shogren, 06 Jun 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010606/t000047217.html>
straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Miguel Llanos, 05 Jun 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/582577.asp>
5. WET T-SHIRTS -- NO CONTEST Wet cleaners are opening up around the country as an alternative to environmentally nasty dry cleaners. Traditional cleaners use a cleaning solvent, perchlorethylene, that has been linked to health and environmental hazards. A recent study, for example, found that dry-cleaning workers were more prone to certain types of cancer than the general population. In 1996, Consumers Union estimated that there were 150 excess cases of cancer among every million people who wear newly dry-cleaned clothes. Wet cleaners use simple soap and water, but claim to be able to clean delicate fabrics like silk just as well as dry cleaners.
straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Francesca Lyman, 23 May 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/577463.asp>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
All seafood is not created equal -- a day in the life of Mercedes Lee, National Audubon Society's Living Ocean Campaign <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/lee060501.stm?source=daily>
More Internet smut -- a scientist fights back against exotics -- in our Out on Limb section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/limb/limb041100.stm?source=daily>
6/6/01
2:09:17 PM
Public Citizen
John Ashcroft
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney General Ashcroft,
We have obtained information documenting that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a division of the Department of Justice, has failed to provide to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) reports on all U.S. physicians---at least 2,592---who “voluntarily” surrendered their federal (DEA) narcotic prescribing licenses between September 1, 1990 and the present. These physicians usually “volunteer” to do so only because of impending revocation, after having been found to have violated the federal Controlled Substances Act or to have engaged in other unacceptable medical practices. As a result, those health entities making queries of the NPDB, state medical boards, hospitals and HMO’s, are not aware of the DEA’s actions against these 2,592 physicians. We urge you to immediately order the DEA to provide the NPDB with all the information on these physicians so that this can be added to the NPDB. The failure to report these physicians, as intended by the laws and regulations governing the NPDB, has been a known source of contention between the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Division of Quality Assurance (DQA) which oversees the NPDB and the Justice Department’s DEA for more than five years. It has resulted in the deception of those who use the NPDB.
We obtained the public use file from the DQA (which deletes the names of physicians) covering the period from the inception of the data bank (September 1, 1990) through the end of the year 2000. We compared this to the DEA actions in our database, 20,125 Questionable Doctors[1], excluding those actions in our data which occurred prior to September 1, 1990, when the NPDB became operative.
The NPDB only contains data on 286 physicians against whom a total of 294 DEA actions were taken. All of these actions were license revocations. There is not one report in the NPDB of a physician who surrendered his or her DEA license from September 1, 1990 through December 31, 1999 although the Questionable Doctors database, published in August, 2000, contains reports of 2,592 physicians who surrendered their DEA licenses during the same interval. In addition to this serious DEA reporting deficiency, as of May 15th of this year, the DEA had not submitted to the NPDB any reports for the year 2000, not even revocation reports.
Examples of offenses committed by physicians that led to their “voluntary” surrender of their DEA license included in Questionable Doctors but not reported by the DEA to the NPDB include the following:
· An Arizona physician was criminally convicted of obtaining Halcion and Tylenol III [with codeine] by fraud.
· A California physician was arrested for selling prescriptions in return for large fees for office visits.
· Anabolic steroids [used for bodybuilding, etc] were seized from the office of a California physician who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison for receiving and distributing steroids.
· A California physician was found to have diverted in excess of 50,000 dosage units of controlled substances in 1992 and 1993.
· A Florida physician surrendered her controlled substance license because of illegal exportation of Dexedrine [dextroamphetamine].
· A Kentucky physician admitted to having a sexual relationship with a patient in exchange for prescriptions.
The history of DEA’s unwillingness to disclose information about doctors who surrendered their narcotics licenses dates back to 1992 when Public Citizen’s Health Research Group brought suit against the DEA arguing that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) required disclosure not only of license revocations (which are published in the Federal Register) but also of license surrenders. Public Citizen Health Research Group v. DEA, No. 92-2179 (D.D.C.). The DEA had contended that it would not give us data on license surrenders because to do so would invade the personal privacy of physicians who had surrendered their licenses and would interfere with the DEA’s law enforcement efforts by lifting the cover on the voluntary DEA license surrender agreements. After we filed suit, lawyers from the Justice Department decided that the DEA’s position was indefensible as a matter of law, and the case was settled in January 1993 with an agreement that requires the DEA to provide us with license surrender information.
The NPDB was not so fortunate as we were but HHS’s Division of Quality Assurance did not seek to get the information from the DEA as aggressively as we did. A House of Representatives’ report on the National Health Quality Assurance Act of 1986, which provided for the initiation of the NPDB, stated, with respect to health care entities, that “the purpose of requiring reports even for circumstances in which physicians surrender their privileges is to ensure that health care entities will not resort to “plea bargains” in which a physician agrees to such a surrender in return for the health care entity’s promise not to inform other health care entities about the circumstances of the physician’s surrender of privileges. While such agreements may serve the immediate self-interests of the two parties involved, they may jeopardize the health and safety of future patients….”
Internal memos from the DQA and correspondence between the DQA and the DEA document the long-standing conflict over the submission of DEA license surrender information to the NPDB. Some of this history is reviewed in a 1997 HHS Inspector General Report entitled Drug Enforcement Administration Reporting to the National Practitioner Data Bank. The report pointed out that between the initiation of the data bank in September 1990 and early 1996 “DEA has reported a total of about 150 actions to the Data Bank. However, according to DEA, it annually sanctions about three times the number of providers reported to the data bank”. Referring to the House report on the law cited above, the Inspector General concluded that, “Clearly, congressional intent seems to warrant DEA reporting of “voluntary withdrawals.”
The report recommended “that the Drug Enforcement Administration and Data Bank officials work together to include voluntary withdrawals as part of adverse action reporting to the Data Bank.” Included was a recommendation to modify the 1988 Memorandum of Understanding signed by HHS and DEA concerning reporting requirements to state, explicitly, that voluntary surrenders must be included. A draft of this new memorandum of understanding was sent by the DQA to DEA in July, 1997, including the statement that the DEA will report to the NPDB all information on DEA registrants whose controlled substance registration “has been suspended, denied, voluntarily withdrawn as the result of misconduct, or revoked…..”[2] As of now, almost four years later, this memorandum has never been signed by the DEA.
For the last several years there have been a series of broken promises by the DEA to provide this important information on voluntary surrenders so that this information can be included in the Data Bank. A February 5, 1998 memo of a phone conversation between DEA’s Jim Sheehan and DQA Stan Levin stated that Sheehan had agreed “that DEA would submit the voluntary surrenders.”[3]
The last written correspondence from DEA to DQA concerning this issue was more than two years ago, January 11, 1999. It stated that the revised HHS/DEA memorandum of understanding, then sitting at the DEA for 1 ½ years, was still “under review by DEA’s Office of Chief Counsel” and that “We will advise you when their review is completed in the near future.”[4] As of now, 2 ½ year after this promise and almost four years after the memorandum of understanding was first sent by HHS to DEA, it remains unsigned and DEA’s promise to submit the information on the 2,592 physicians who “voluntarily” surrendered their DEA narcotics licenses remains unfulfilled.
This is a matter of extreme urgency since every day that goes by with the NPDB failing to include information about these 2,592 doctors is a day when people making the thousands of daily inquiries of the NPDB are being misled by the absence of information concerning serious offenses by doctors such as detailed in the examples above. The absence of such information about voluntary surrenders, as the House of Representatives’ report on the legislation establishing the NPDB clearly stated, “may jeopardize the health and safety of future patients….”
I hope to hear from you promptly about the long overdue resolution of this issue and if there are further questions, please do not hesitate to call.
Sincerely,
Sidney M. Wolfe, MD
Director, Public Citizen’s Health Research Group
cc: Tommy Thompson, Secretary, HHS
[1] The Questionable Doctors database includes final disciplinary actions by state medical boards and the federal government (Medicare, Medicaid and the DEA). For the purpose of comparison, we analyzed DEA actions that occurred between September 1, 1990 and December 31, 1999 and are listed in the NPDB public use file and compared them to the DEA actions listed in the Questionable Doctors database which were taken between September 1, 1990 and December 31, 1999. Further details about this data base can be found at www.questionabledoctors.org
[2] Proposed Memorandum of Understanding Between the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services, dated June 25, 1997.
[3] Memo from Stan Levin to Tom Croft and Susan Nicholson of HHS’s Division of Quality Assurance, which oversees the operation of the NPDB, dated February 5, 1998.
[4] Letter from DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator John H. King to Thomas Croft, Director, Division of Quality Assurance, DHHS, and dated January 11, 1999.
6/6/01
2:05:03 PM
Star Wars
With this week's shift in power in the Senate, now is a good time to take a hard look at the Bush administration's missile defense proposal.
The fact is, it's a dangerous and hugely expensive gamble that will fuel the global arms race, but won't protect us against missiles.
Please go to this website set up by one of our partner organizations:
http://www.dontblowit.org/moveon/
A missile defense system would up the ante in the global arms race, by raising fears among other nuclear powers that the US might try a first strike. This prospect would force them to develop more aggressive missile launch capabilities, dangerously escalating the arms race.
This is true even if the system doesn't work, which is a real risk. Missile defense technologies have failed in so many recent tests that critics have begun labeling the idea "faith-based missile defense."
Yet it will be enormously expensive. Weapons contractors will reap multi-billion dollar deals at taxpayer expense, diverting funds from real priorities like education and adding to budget deficits. And our kids will inherit a more dangerous world, the biggest cost of all.
Help stop the administration's reckless missile defense plan. Go to:
http://www.dontblowit.org/moveon/
Your email will be sent to the White House and hand-delivered to your Senators during a national mobilization in Washington, DC, June 10-12, organized by our coalition partner, DontBlowIt.org.
Thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
Wes Boyd
MoveOn.org
6/6/01
11:27:53 AM
Star Wars
by Joseph Gerson
While I have your attention, let me start with my conclusion, which I should be clear simply reflects my thinking and that of several fellow/sister organizers. Then I'll share the thinking that got me there.
I want to encourage people who will be traveling to Washington, D.C for the June 10-12 demonstration and lobby days to take two questions with you: one for legislators and official "policy makers", and the other for ourselves. (Of course, these are not the only two questions we should be asking!)
1. What is the Democratic leadership's and the party's approach to "Theater" missile defenses? (This is the technology Rumsfeld wants to concentrate on for early deployment of "missile defenses" and which is the most immediate fear for the Chinese.)
2. What strategy can we develop to STOP funding "missile defense" research and development, in addition to preventing deployment?
Then the background: Today's New York Times reports that Senator Carl Levin, who will soon be heading the Senate Armed Service Committee, wants to prevent early deployment of "missile defenses" in part because he doesn't want to ignite a second Cold War with the Russians and Chinese. BUT, he is clear in supporting "robust" funding of research & development for "missile defenses." And, while there is clarity about his opposition to "National" missile defenses, the report is silent about his approach to "Theater" missile defenses. I'm not rushing to judgment on this. We simply need to know.
Then we come to the more fundamental question: how do we defeat, stop, end, continued "missile defense"/Star Wars research and development? Remember, more than Republicans are to blame for getting us to this very dangerous point. A "Democratic" Administration and Congresses funded "missile defense" R & D for eight years, in part because of their fear that this would cost them votes. And, as we saw with Bush's "tax" bill which will severely truncate governmental services for education and health care to housing and environmental protection, there is always the danger of some "Democrats" joining "Republicans" in a voting for a deployment amendment from the Senate floor. And, if "Democrats" "simply" keep "missile defenses"/star wars alive through R & D funding, in 2002 or 2004 or as a result of U.S.-Russian triangulation against China (analogous to Bush senior using the U.N. to win the Senate vote authorizing the 1991 war against Iraq), we could find ourselves in a situation where the Republicans have the votes to begin deployments.
We need to begin thinking, strategically and among ourselves, about how we can transform the discourse, de-legitimate "missile defense" Research and Development as well as deployment, and lead this or future Congresses or Administrations, to relegate the "missile defense"/star wars program to the dust bin of a nightmarish history.
If we don't begin seriously asking this question of ourselves and "movement" leaders, we'll never get there.
Three final notes: In addition to firmly believing that we won't be able to reduce, let along end, "missile defense"/star wars funding unless we build an educated and committed grassroots movement, I also believe that such a movement must be linked to people's felt needs - what we/they feel in our guts. In this regard Bush may have tactically, though not materially, helped us with his $1.35 trillion tax refund coup. As Republican strategist Grover Norquist has said, the tax cut ties the hands of the Democratic Senate and of future U.S. governments many years to come. "Nothing", he said, "that Daschle wants or Ted Kennedy wants is for free...We're going to spend the next two years talking about how the Democrats...want to spend your money." With a smaller government pie for guns and butter, star wars or housing, "missile defenses" or health care (or the environment, or...) the choices become more immediate, stark, compelling, and individually "felt.". Arm the heavens, seas and continents or care for the people.
As we did in the 1980s, we're going to have to confront "the deadly connection" between U.S. nuclear warfighting policy and U.S. foreign military intervention, if we are to drive a legislative stake through the Star Wars Vampire's heart.
The military's strongest rationale for TMD deployments is to protect our forward deployed troops and bases from enemy missiles, for example U.S. troops in Okinawa. (Remember that TMD technology apparently works far better than NMD technology, and - as the Chinese know - TMD are much closer to being credibly deployed) In addition to serving as a shield to reinforce U.S. nuclear swords, "missile defenses" are also designed to facilitate "conventional" U.S. foreign military interventions, and to reduce U.S. military death tolls in the midst of U.S. military aggressions. We do well to remember, as the Okinawans, so many others, and our own Declaration of Independence tell us, that these forward deployments are intolerable neo-colonial "abuses and usurpations" that must be ended. We don't need "missile defenses" to "save our soldiers." Bring them home.
Finally, the "rogue" state rationales we can handle, but we should also prepare ourselves for arguments that TMD are necessary for Israel's security. The answer to which is: "End the occupation."
With friendship and humility,
Joseph Gerson
Director of Programs American Friends Service Committee New England Regional Office
Join Project Abolition at the White House for a rally to stop the arms race. Lafayette Park Washington, DC Sunday, June 10, 2:00 PM
And in the halls of Congress Monday and Tuesday, June 11 and 12 Activist Training and Congressional Education Days Site for training to be announced
U.S. CONGRESS SWITCHBOARD 202-224-3121
6/6/01
11:13:25 AM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
RAINFOREST SPARED IN BORNEO: LANDMARK RULING SECURES NATIVE LAND RIGHTS
by Harlan Thompson, Earth Island Journal
The High Court in Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, bolsters native villagers' land rights and halts the Borneo Paper and Pulp company's destruction of the Rumah Nor's rainforest.
AROMA THERAPY: IN THE MILITARY, IT'S KNOWN AS 'NONLETHAL WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT'
by Jennifer Kahn, San Francisco Gate
Many protesters intimately understand the efficacy of tear gas and tazers, but they may also get familiar with the potency of bad smells. Jennifer Kahn reports on the military's renewed interest in odor deterrence.
THE STRAIGHT DOPE
Web site review by Al Paulson
Are you kept up all night by nagging questions that no one can answer? Do you feel odd for asking them? Well, there's hope with the "Straight Dope" Web site.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
6/6/01
11:10:35 AM
"Direct global elections will totally change the rules of the game and the expectations of the world's citizens. It will usher in a new paradigm and finally complete the slow democratic revolution started in Greece thousands of years ago.
We need to start seriously discussing how we can create global democratic institutions. If we want to answer the concerns about globalisation, we need to make this a broad-based dialogue rather than keep it to an elite. We need the media to take part. This will only happen if the media sees a broad and diverse coalition supporting such an idea. A good start has been made by the creation in May 1999 of the Global Coalition World Democracy 2010, a multi-stakeholder coalition to promote a global dialogue on this issue. This coalition is focused solely on promoting a debate about the practical issues involved in peacefully building a world democracy.
It already has 300 member organisations and individuals from all continents, including Christian, Muslim and other religions, right and left, business and NGOs, youth and women, local authorities and parliamentarians, academics and athletes, as well as the traditional peace groups. We are in the process of inviting national governments, inter-governmental organisations and companies to join this unique and growing initiative to make the world a more democratic place.
You and your institution, whether you are a government, a business, an NGO or an academic or purely as an individual are invited to join this global coalition
We invite you to participate to be an agent of change, to promote this highly subversive but necessary idea: implementing a world democracy for a globalizing world."
For more details about this Global Coalition World Democracy 2010 visit
http://www.worldcitizen.org/globalcoalition.shtml
6/6/01
11:07:21 AM
Under Our Radioactive Noses - Nuclear Plants Relicensed
Hello all,
The 40-year licenses of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors, many of them aging and dangerous, are all coming due in the next few years. With the stricter building codes and earthquake hazard rules, many of these plants could not be legally built today. Also, considerable proof exists of the flaws in the construction of many of these plants.
But the Bush administration has created a new reality that we all must face: most of these nuclear plants, whether they would be judged unsafe by today's standards or not, will likely be relicensed, bringing us all closer to another nuclear disaster like Three Mile Island or worse, Chernobyl.
Now is the time to mobilize public opinion to force these accidents in the making to shut down. I discuss this troubling reality in this week's Healing Our World Commentary, "Under Our Radioactive Noses - Nuclear Plants Relicensed," on the Environment News Service at
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-01g.html
At the end of the commentary are links to help you use your voice.
We have to stop this madness before it escalates. We must demand that safe, alternative forms of energy be developed rather the dirty nuclear and fossil fuels that represent the personal interests and investments of the U.S. Presidential administration. The people must demand that reason return to energy policy. The "American Way" that President Bush seeks to protect is unsustainable and has disastrous consequences for the ecosystem and every woman, man and child alive.
As I look at our new son's face, barely three weeks old, I wonder how many devastated areas that once were nuclear reactor sites he will know of when he grows up. Let's all work together to try to minimize that horror.
Take care and I wish you peace.
Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
http://www.healingourworld.com
6/6/01
11:01:07 AM
Why We Must Stay Silent No Longer
by Noreena Hertz
In the hullaballoo following the American presidential election, with hanging and pregnant chads, and ballot forms that needed a PhD to decipher, it was easy to forget something that was in many ways even more alarming than confusion over who won. More than 90 million Americans had not bothered to vote - that is, more than the combined population of England, Ireland and Scandinavia.
Low turnout is not just a US phenomenon. In the UK, the landslide victory for Labour in the election of 1997 was achieved on a turnout of 69 per cent - the lowest since the war. During the European elections in 1999, less than half of the electorate voted, and less than a quarter came out in the UK. In the Leeds Central by-election last year only 19 per cent of those eligible to vote did so. Predictions for the forthcoming general election are that turnout will fall to the lowest level yet.
People have lost faith in politics, because they no longer know what governments are good for. Thanks to the steady withdrawal of the state over the past 20 years from the public sphere, it is corporations, not governments, that increasingly define the public realm.
Unregulated or under-regulated by governments, corporations set the terms of engagement themselves. In the Third World we see a race to the bottom: multinationals pitting developing countries against each other to provide the most advantageous conditions for investment, with no regulation, no red tape, no unions, a blind eye turned to environmental degradation. It's good for profit, but bad for workers and local communities. As corporations go bottom fishing, host governments are left with little alternative but to accept the pickings. Globalisation may deliver liberty, but not fraternity or equality.
At the headquarters of the World Trade Organisation on the banks of Lake Geneva we see rulings being made in the names of the free market that limit states' abilities to safeguard their people's interests. When the European Union tried to ban synthetic hormones from beef on the basis of strong evidence that they could cause cancer, reduce male fertility and in some cases result in the premature onset of puberty in young children, it found itself unable to do so thanks to a WTO ruling which put the interests of Monsanto, the US National Cattlemen's Association, the US Dairy Export Council and the National Milk Producers Federation first.
Time and time again the WTO has intervened to prevent governments from using boycotts or tariffs against companies that they find to be acting in ethically or environmentally unacceptable ways.
In Germany, where revenue from corporate taxes has fallen by 50 per cent over the past 20 years, despite a rise in corporate profits of 90 per cent, a group of companies, including Deutsche Bank, BMW, Daimler-Benz and RWE, the German energy and industrial group, thwarted in 1999 Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine's attempt to raise the tax burden on German firms, threatening to move investment or factories to other countries if government policy did not suit them. 'It's a question of at least 14,000 jobs,' threatened Dieter Schweer, a spokesman for RWE. 'If the investment position is no longer attractive, we will examine every possibility of switching our investments abroad.' Daimler-Benz proposed relocating to the US; other companies threatened to stop buying government bonds and investing in the German economy.
In view of the power these corporations wield their threats were taken seriously. Within a few months Germany was planning corporate tax cuts which would reduce tax on German companies below US rates. As one of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's senior advisers in Washington commented at the time, 'Deutsche Bank and industrial giants like Mercedes are too strong for the elected government in Berlin.'
In the US, the quid pro quo being exacted by George W's corporate backers is becoming all too clear. Since being elected, the President has opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drillers, retreated from his promises of protecting forests, made moves to weaken the requirement on mining companies to clean after themselves and in recent weeks both reversed a campaign pledge to regulate CO 2 emissions from power plants and trashed the Kyoto treaty on global warming. The interests of the US people suborned to those of the major US energy giants that bank-rolled him: $47 million was all it cost.
Here in the UK public services are increasingly being handed over to private corporations to manage and fund. The Government has already withdrawn from running the railways, soon it'll be withdrawing from air traffic control. Private health insurance is being pushed by the Conservatives as a way of staving off the collapse of our National Health Service. Even the education of our children, once the most sacred preserve of the state, is increasingly delegated to the private sector.
Although it remains too early to see the consequences of the privatisation of public services played out in full, initial indications are troubling. The rail crashes, for which Gerald Corbett, when chief executive of Railtrack, put the blame on the way the railway 'was ripped apart at privatisation'; Angel School in Islington, a primary school now being run by the private company Cambridge Education Authorities, under threat of closure despite the fact that it has constantly improved its educational results, with the parents and staff left with no real means of redress or recourse; Nottingham University's acceptance of £3.8m from British American Tobacco to set up, of all things, a school of corporate social responsibility; and the US model of healthcare proposed as a blueprint for our health reforms, despite the fact that 45 million Americans currently do not have health insurance and 25 per cent of the chronically ill there do not have adequate coverage.
This is the world of the Silent Takeover, a world in which governments can no longer be relied on to protect the people's interests. Blinded by the allure of the market, they now put corporate interests first.
So it is left to us, through individual action, to take the lead. In a world in which power increasingly lies in the hands of corporations rather than governments, the most effective way to be political is not to cast one's vote at the ballot box but to do so at the supermarket or at a shareholders' meeting.
Because, when provoked, corporations respond. While governments dithered about the health value of GM foods, supermarkets faced with consumer unrest pulled the products off their shelves overnight. While nations spoke about ethical foreign policy, corporations pulled out of Burma rather than risk censure by customers. George W may have backed down on his campaign pledges to limit CO 2 emissions, but BP, a corporation, continues to spearhead their reduction. And when stories broke over the world of children sewing footballs for Reebok for a pittance, what did governments do? Nothing. But the corporation, fearing a consumer boycott, stepped in with innovative plans for dealing with the child labour problem.
Delivering a quality product at a reasonable cost is not all that is now demanded of corporations. The key to consumer satisfaction is not only how well a company treats its customers, but increasingly whether it is perceived as taking its responsibilities to society seriously. People are demanding that corporations deliver in a way that governments can't or won't.
It is not just the brown-rice-eating, sandal-wearing brigade who are making demands: 60 per cent of UK consumers are prepared to boycott stores or products because they are concerned about their ethical standards. Three-quarters of British consumers would choose a product on green or ethical issues. More than 75 per cent of Americans would boycott stores selling goods produced in sweatshops. Monsanto was brought to its knees by a coalition of eco-warriors and Britain's Women's Institute members. In America, the Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility, with $110 billion at its disposal, is among the ethical investors now using shareholder power to 'regulate' corporate manoeuvres and get corporations to do good.
Can we entrust the public interest to consumer and shareholder activists? Can shopping adequately replace voting? No, it cannot. The world cannot be simplified to the extent that consumer politics tends to demand. Is GM food necessarily always bad for consumers or the environment? Or could this technology be harnessed for good? Child labour may be distasteful to Western expectations, but does boycotting goods made with child labour improve or exacerbate the lot of Third World children?
Trusting the market to regulate may not ultimately be in our interest. Moreover, populist politics can easily result in tyranny, not necessarily of the majority, but by those who can protest most effectively. Rather than empowering all, consumer and shareholder activism give greatest voice to those with the most money in their pockets, those with the greatest purchasing power, those who can switch from seller to seller with relative ease. Consumer and shareholder activism is a form of protest that favours the middle classes and the outpouring of dissatisfaction of the bourgeoisie.
Nor should the takeover by corporations of governments' responsibilities be viewed as a reason for governments to withdraw. Despite the roles corporations are beginning to play in the social sphere, despite the fact that they may be able to play some role in alleviating poverty and inequity and protecting the environment, social investment and social justice will never become their core activity. Their contribution to society's needs will always remain at the margins. Corporate social responsibility cannot be thought of as a reasonable proxy for state responsibility.
In Japan's Mitsubishi Villages, Nissan Towns, and Toyota Cities the Japanese keiratsus - trading companies - used to provide school vouchers, housing, and health care. In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, the firms are withdrawing support from the community. The head of Toshiba says that they are no longer 'a charity': entire communities are suffering. The suicide rate in Japan rose by a third between 1997 and 1999, a testament to the social strain.
As more and more of the public realm is handed over to the private sector to manage, we need to see the Japanese case as a cautionary tale. If this move by Western corporations towards greater responsibility and care is predicated solely on the continuing strength of the global economy, on the fact that philanthropic acts are essentially tax write-offs against balance sheets firmly in the black, is it not likely to be reversed when times once again become difficult? Companies will simply not be able to justify staying involved to their shareholders, unless they calculate that withdrawal from their social commitments will be so damaging to their reputation as to be more costly than maintaining them. The corporate provision of welfare risks dependence on the continued generation of profits.
We must also ask ourselves whether a price will be exacted for acts of corporate benevolence. Today Microsoft puts computers in our schools; will it tomorrow determine what our children learn? When Mike Cameron, a 19-year-old student, turned up at Greenbriar High School in Evans Georgia on official 'Coke Day' wearing a T-shirt with a Pepsi logo he was suspended. Channel One Network is now notorious for having provided 12,000 American schools with money and goods in exchange for beaming their commercials directly into the classroom. But do we want to live in a world in which commercialisation takes advantage of shortages in funding and rides on the back of children's' learning? This is not about ethics, this is about business. Sometimes the two will coincide, but clearly not always.
Corporations are not society's custodians: they are commercial entities that act in the pursuit of profit, not ethical considerations. They are morally ambivalent. Often their business interests happen to coincide with society's, but this is by no means always the case. Governments on the other hand are supposed to respond to citizens. Downgrading the role of the state in favour of corporate activism threatens to make societal improvements dependent on the creation of profit. And governments that stand back while corporations take over, without being willing to set the terms of engagement or retain the upper hand, are in danger of losing the support of the people, whose feeling of lack of recourse or representation is showing itself in a wave of protest that goes beyond individual acts of consumer and shareholder dissent.
Take the 40,000 Frenchmen who gathered outside the trial of French farmer José Bové or Granny D, the 91-year-old American great-grandmother who walked across America to protest against the relationship between big business and politics and was greeted by thousands upon her arrival at Washington DC or the Seattle, Prague and May Day rioters that we saw on our television screens last year - all are examples of a global uprising of people who now see themselves as politically disposed.
All over the world, people are beginning to lash out against corporations, governments and international organisations alike. In a world in which politicians now all sing from the same hymn sheet, people who want to change the hymn have to go outside the church.
But like consumer and shareholder activism, other forms of protest should not be idealised. Their limitations are clear. The commonality of interests often centres on a shared general disillusionment, rather than specific concerns or proffered solutions. In some cases protesters are motivated by a sense of common good, but in others they are concerned only with safeguarding their own interests, or those of a limited group as in the British fuel protests of autumn 2000.
Pressure groups need to play to the media, which encourages posturing, the demonisation of 'enemies', a massive oversimplification of issues and the choosing of fashionable rather than difficult causes to champion. Issues such as forest biodiversity, nitrate leaching or soil erosion in Africa hardly ever get a look in. And, as one of London's May Day protesters told me: 'There has to be trouble, otherwise the papers won't report it.'
But despite the limitations of protest, despite its failure to balance effective means with democratic ends, despite the fact that it can never by itself be a long-term solution, the crucial question is whether protest can change politics in the same way as it is beginning to change the corporate agenda. Can protest put the people back into the forefront of politics?
There are signs that perhaps it can, and that perhaps the political corpse is beginning to twitch. In June of 1999 in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third largest city, the water authority was privatised, following recommendations from the World Bank. At once the price of water tripled, which meant that a typical worker was spending almost a quarter of his or her monthly wage on water charges. People gathered on the streets and protested, there was a four-day general strike, bill payment was boycotted, and 30,000 people marched through the city centre in anger. Finally, in April 2000, the privatisation of the water supply was revoked. Back in 1985, government leaders had asked the Bolivian people for patience and sacrifice as it implemented neo-liberal reforms. Fifteen years later, it seemed that their patience had run out.
In New Zealand, a country that embraced free market fundamentalism with enthusiasm in the early 1980s, the new Labour administration is implementing changes that for the past 20 years would have been considered heretical. Workplace accident insurance has been renationalised, a state-run People's Bank will open soon in which personal banking fees will be 20 to 30 per cent lower than those charged by private banks, tax cuts for high earners have been reversed and trade union rights boosted. As Prime Minister Helen Clark has said, New Zealand's experiment in market fundamentalism has failed.
In the US we are also seeing the beginnings of a turnaround. Prompted by the complete failure of California's privately owned power distributors to deliver electricity at a fair price to citizens, or often to deliver it at all, and experiencing their first state-wide blackouts since the Second World War, Californian politicians are contemplating a once unthinkable change of course: to regain control of the very transmission system that the state privatised five years ago. Even Ronald Reaganland is breaking with its past.
Small signs, it is true, and for now focused on renationalisation rather than issues of global concern, but they represent cracks in an ideology that had become hegemonic over the past 20 years, the beginnings of a recognition that there has to be new thinking.
But while in faraway lands the unthinkable is being thought, here at home do we have any signs that politicians are questioning their certainty that the private sector will be our salvation? Any willingness to admit the dangers of this silent takeover, this world in which corporations not governments are increasingly making the rules? No.
Looking at the choices on offer at the forthcoming election, we see all too clearly the extent of the political consensus. A reduced state, with an ever greater dependence on corporations for solutions, has become the standard line touted by all parties.
As far back as 1968, Margaret Thatcher said in a famous speech: 'There are dangers in consensus: it could be an attempt to satisfy people holding no particular views about anything. No great party can survive except on the basis of firm beliefs about what it wants to do.' The irony is that by buying so wholeheartedly into the form of capitalism initiated by Thatcher and Reagan, British politics has fallen into this very trap, leaving us the electorate increasingly alienated from and distrustful of politics, and providing us with little alternative but to protest rather than vote. Until the Government regains the trust of the electorate, the people will continue to scorn democracy. Until the state reclaims the people, the people will not reclaim the state.
* Noreena Hertz is the Associate Director of the Centre for International Business and Management at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge. Now aged 33, she graduated from University College, London, with a degree in philosophy and economics in 1987, when she was 19, before taking an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Hertz then moved to St Petersburg to help set up the city's stock exchange and help tutor Boris Yeltsin's advisers in market economics following the overthrow of communism. Returning to Britain, she completed her PhD at Cambridge and, in 1996, then went to the Middle East to head a team of 40 researchers developing the role that the private sector might play in the peace process.
Dr Hertz's book The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy , is published by Heinemann at £12.99.
See also a review of Noreena Hertz book by Charles Leadbeater at
http://www.clickmt.com/books/archive/book0104271618041200.cfm
6/6/01
10:31:19 AM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM STUDY LAUNCHED ON WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY
TORINO, Italy, June 5, 2001 (ENS) - Scientists, governments and environmental groups from around the world are planning a cooperative assessment of all the planet's wildlife habitats and ecosystems. The United Nations Environment Programme unveiled the plans at World Environment Day 2001 celebrations in New York, Tokyo and Torino, Italy this week.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-05-01.html
ITALY'S NEW GOVERNMENT MAY SIDE WITH BUSH ON CLIMATE CHANGE
ROME, Italy, June 5, 2001 (ENS) - Italy will back a strong European Union statement condemning American climate policy later this week despite having earlier attempted to water down the wording, Environment Minister Willer Bordon said yesterday. The statement will be the last from the environment council before negotiations on the Kyoto climate protocol resume in Bonn, Germany in July.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-05-05.html
STATE OF HAWAII ACQUIRES FILM STAR OF A BEACH
HANALEI, Kauai, Hawaii, June 5, 2001 (ENS) - Lovely Lumahai Beach on the North Shore of Kauai, made famous as the setting for the film South Pacific, has been transfered from private landowners to the state of Hawaii for protection as a scenic beach.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-05-04.html
ARGENTINA'S FIRST NATIONAL COASTAL PARK CREATED IN PATAGONIA
By Alejandra Herranz
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, June 5, 2001 (ENS) - The first steps towards the creation of Argentina's first national coastal park were accomplished Monday in celebration of World Environment Day.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-05-03.html
MEXICAN OIL COMPANY PLEDGES GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTIONS
WASHINGTON, DC, June 5, 2001 (ENS) - Petroleos Mexicanos, the world's fifth largest oil and gas company, has become the first Latin American company to publicly announce it is taking steps to reduce greenhouse gases. Pemex joins eight other multinational corporations in the Partnership for Climate Action, a collaboration organized by the U.S. conservation group Environmental Defense to combat global warming.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-05-07.html
CANADA, U.S. ENERGY DEAL COULD BOOST GREENHOUSE GASES
TORONTO, Canada, June 5, 2001 (ENS) - Canada's greenhouse gas emissions will rise a staggering 44 percent above targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol if Ottawa increases oil and gas production to meet mounting U.S. demands, says a new report from the David Suzuki Foundation. The report offers additional ammunition to critics who charge that U.S. energy plans will increase the already heavy burden of greenhouse gases produced by developed countries.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-05-06.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 5, 2001
Environmental Groups Meet with Bush Administration on Energy
Builders Industry Group Supports Bush Energy Plan
Comment Periods Reopened on USFWS Policies
River Corridors in California Get Permanent Protection
Pit Viper Takes Workers' Place in Radioactive Jobs
Willamette Industries Donates Critical Habitats
Maine Yankee Nuclear Plant Will Survey for Radiation
Idea of Privatizing Public Lands Could be Revived
Nike Launches Pilot Program of Curbside Shoe Recycling
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-05-09.html
6/5/01
9:44:07 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
PETA enlists celebrities to press Burger King - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11068
UPDATE - Bush tours Everglades, polishes green credentials - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11074
US high court won't review rule on PCBs disposal - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11075
Galapagos seeks $10 mln from Miami insurer - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11078
FEATURE - Controls eyed for anticipated growth at Denali - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11079
UK BNFL's Mox N-plant unlikely to make money - report - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11069
Ex-Beatle McCartney leads new anti-landmine drive - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11070
Japan's Idemitsu plans to stop MTBE production - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11072
Scientists join forces to check Earth's health - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11076
Italy's outgoing govt to approve EU Kyoto protocol - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11077
Bougainville peace prospect leaves mine idle - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11071
Pollution killing Australia's Barrier Reef - report - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11073
6/5/01
5:31:47 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. WHAT WOULD JESUS DRIVE? In one of the first protests of its kind, religious leaders joined environmentalists on Saturday at auto dealerships in Lynn, Mass., to try to persuade shoppers to buy something other than an SUV. "These lots are where Americans make the most environmentally significant decisions of their lives," writes Bill McKibben in Grist, "and that's why a hundred of us were there, in the pouring rain -- to remind our neighbors that these private decisions have a public dimension. That in this case, how they spent their money was not absolutely their own business." Read more on the Grist Magazine website.
read it only in Grist Magazine: Ministers help kick off new phase of anti-SUV campaign -- by Bill McKibben <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/mckibben060501.stm>
2. MAKING ASSESS OF THEMSELVES To recognize World Environment Day today, the U.N. is launching a $21 million, four-year assessment of the planet's ecosystems. The study will be coordinated by the U.N. Environment Programme and involve 1,500 scientists, who will have the tough task of balancing the needs of people (food and resources) with the needs of animals and plants. An additional challenge will be for the scientists to mesh data on small, local ecosystems with information on the country- and continent-wide scale.
straight to the source: BBC News, Andrew Craig, 05 Jun 2001 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1371000/1371251.stm>
3. PHOENIX RISING FROM THE TOXIC ASHES Hundreds of mostly African-American and Latino residents living in southeast Phoenix accused the city yesterday of turning their neighborhood into a toxic dumping ground. They are backing a class-action lawsuit that claims that they are the victims of more than two decades of environmental racism. Last August, an industrial fire in the area sent toxic smoke through many homes in the neighborhood, and the lawsuit says more than 1,000 residents in the city suffered illnesses as a result of the fire.
straight to the source: Phoenix Arizona Republic, Elvia Diaz and Mary Jo Pitzl, 05 Jun 2001 <http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0605firesuit05.html>
4. RIVER OF GROSS In an attempt to boost his image on the environment, President Bush visited the Everglades National Park yesterday and called attention to what he said would be budget increases for Everglades restoration. But Mary Munson, Florida director of the National Parks Conservation Foundation, said the president's proposed spending is less than what former President Clinton asked for last year. Enviros had kind words, however, for Fran Mainella, Bush's choice to head the National Park Service. Mainella currently leads Florida's Division of Recreation and Parks. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll found that public support for Bush has dropped 8 percentage points since late April, to 55 percent, in part because of concerns over his energy and environmental policies.
straight to the source: Washington Post, Dana Milbank, 05 Jun 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20890-2001Jun4.html>
straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Associated Press, 05 June 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/582918.asp>
straight to the source: Washington Post, Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, 05 Jun 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20927-2001Jun4.html>
5. GRIN AND BEAR IT British Columbia this fall will begin its most ambitious wildlife reintroduction effort ever, a long-term plan to increase grizzly bear populations in the core of its North Cascades mountain range. The Environment Ministry hopes to increase the population in the 3,800 square-mile area from fewer than 25 individuals to 150 bears by 2050. Trapping and shooting nearly wiped out grizzlies in the mid-1800s, and while the bear has hung on since then, the population in the North Cascades is now considered too small to recover on its own.
straight to the source: Vancouver Sun, Larry Pynn, 05 Jun 2001 <http://www.vancouversun.com/newsite/news/010605/5113307.html>
catch it only in Grist Magazine: The subtleties of species reintroduction -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha011000.stm?source=daily>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
Something's fishy -- a day in the life of Mercedes Lee, National Audubon Society's Living Oceans Campaign <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/lee060401.stm?source=daily>
Chicken soup for the soulless -- benefit from Dick Cheney's motivational speeches! -- satire in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho052901.stm?source=daily>
Daring to order small in a super-sized world -- a review in Books Unbound <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books111299.stm?source=daily>
6/5/01
3:18:01 PM
FAIR
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
ACTION ALERT:
Boston Globe's Continued Hypocrisy on Free Speech
FAIR sent out an action alert on April 9 asking readers to contact the Boston Globe about the paper's apparent hypocrisy. The Globe had written an editorial (3/20/01) upholding the free-speech right of right-wing activist David Horowitz to place a racist ad in campus newspapers attacking the idea of slavery reparations. The paper told student editors and campus activists: "Far more dangerous than offensive ideas is their censorship, because censorship knows no ideology and will eventually muzzle the views of the minorities as well."
But as columnists Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman pointed out ("Focus on the Corporation," 4/3/01), the Globe itself recently refused to publish an ad critical of the Staples office supply chain for using paper made from old-growth forests. The environmental group that wanted to place the ad, Forest Ethics, says it was told that the paper would not print an ad that criticized Staples, a major Boston-based company, by name. The paper told Mokhiber and Weissman that it was uncomfortable with the way the group expressed its views.
Hundreds of activists sent messages to Boston Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas, asking him to explain why his paper lectures student journalists about the need to print any ad, no matter how offensive, while censoring an ad that might hurt its commercial interests. The response from Thomas: total silence.
Now the Globe is scolding students again about their insufficient regard for the free speech rights of advertisers. On May 30, the paper ran an op-ed by regular columnist Cathy Young taking campus feminists to task for their protests against an ad from the right-wing Independent Women's Forum, explicitly inspired by the Horowitz ad, that was published in UCLA's paper.
Some students at the school criticized the paper for running the ad, which claims to debunk "feminist myths" while referring to campus feminism as "a kind of cult" promoted by "factually challenged professors." While Young, whose own work was cited in the ad, described it as "factually impeccable," much of the ad's content is deeply misleading.
For example, it asserts that it's a myth that "one in four women in college has been the victim of rape or attempted rape"-- a statistic based on a National Institute of Mental Health study of sexual assaults from age 14. (See Extra!, 11-12/93, 11-12/00.) The ad counterposes this with the number of rapes that happen *on campus* and are reported to campus police-- obviously a fraction of all the rapes and attempted rapes college-aged women have ever experienced.
Accusing the UCLA students of disdaining "intellectual openness," Young wrote that "esteem for freedom of expression seems to be in equally short supply." She said that other student paper's decisions whether or not to run the ad would be an "important test" of whether the "free exchange of ideas" is imperiled.
Of course, one could argue that student papers ought to publish such intentionally provocative ads-- if only to prevent the advertisers from achieving the free-speech martyrdom that they crave. But the Boston Globe op-ed page is hardly the appropriate place for campus editors to receive lessons on the "free exchange of ideas"-- not when the paper hasn't explained why it doesn't seem to practice the openness to uncomfortable advertisements that its editorials and op-ed writers preach.
ACTION: Please contact Boston Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas and remind him that he has never addressed the hundreds of questions he has received about his paper's apparent double standard regarding advertising acceptance. You might also contact Globe editor Matthew Storin and ask him to ensure that the ombudsman does his job of responding to complaints from the public.
CONTACT:
Matthew V. Storin, Editor
617-929-3049
Jack Thomas, Ombudsman
617-929-3020
Feel free to respond to FAIR. We can't reply to everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate documented example of media bias or censorship. And please send copies of your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to us at: fair@fair.org
6/5/01
3:12:17 PM
Silence Of The Lambs: The Failure Of U. S. Journalism
by Greg Palast
Here's how the president of the United States was elected: In the months leading up to the November balloting, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, ordered local elections supervisors to purge 64,000 voters from voter lists on the grounds that they were felons who were not entitled to vote in Florida. As it turns out, these voters weren't felons, or at least, only a very few were. However, the voters on this "scrub list" were, notably, African-American (about 54 percent), while most of the others wrongly barred from voting were white and Hispanic Democrats.
Beginning in November, this extraordinary news ran, as it should, on Page 1 of the country's leading paper. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country: Britain. In the United States, it ran on page zero — that is, the story was not covered on the news pages. The theft of the presidential race in Florida also was given big television network coverage. But again, it was on the wrong continent: on BBC television, London.
Was this some off-the-wall story that the Brits misreported? A lawyer for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called it the first hard evidence of a systematic attempt to disenfranchise black voters; the commission held dramatic hearings on the evidence. While the story was absent from America's news pages (except, I grant, a story in the Orlando Sentinel and another on C-Span), columnists for The New York Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post cited the story after seeing a U.S. version on the Internet magazine Salon.com. As the reporter on the story for Britain's Guardian newspaper (and its Sunday edition, The Observer) and for BBC television, I was interviewed on several American radio programs, generally "alternative" stations on the left side of the dial.
Interviewers invariably asked the same two questions, "Why was this story uncovered by a British reporter?" And, "Why was it published in and broadcast from Europe?"
I'd like to know the answer myself. That way I could understand why I had to move my family to Europe in order to print and broadcast this and other crucial stories about the American body politic in mainstream media. The bigger question is not about the putative brilliance of the British press. I'd rather ask how a hundred thousand U.S. journos failed to get the vote theft story and print it (and preferably before the election).
Think about "investigative" reporting. The best investigative stories are expensive to produce, risky and upset the wisdom of the established order. Do profit-conscious enterprises, whether media companies or widget firms, seek extra costs, extra risk and the opportunity to be attacked? Not in any business text I've ever read. I can't help but note that the Guardian and Observer is the world's only leading newspaper owned by a not-for-profit corporation, as is BBC television. But if profit-lust is the ultimate problem blocking significant investigative reportage, the more immediate cause of comatose coverage of the election and other issues is what is laughably called America's "journalistic culture." If the Rupert Murdochs of the globe are shepherds of the new world order, they owe their success to breeding a flock of docile sheep, the editors and reporters snoozy and content with munching on, digesting, then reprinting a diet of press releases and canned stories provided by officials and corporation public relations operations.
Take this story of the list of Florida's faux felons that cost Al Gore the election. Shortly after the UK and Salon stories hit the worldwide web, I was contacted by a CBS network news producer ready to run their own version of the story. The CBS hotshot was happy to pump me for information: names, phone numbers, all the items one needs for a quickie TV story.
I also freely offered up to CBS this information: The office of the governor of Florida, brother of the Republican presidential candidate, had illegally ordered the removal of the names of felons from voter rolls — real felons, but with the right to vote under Florida law. As a result, thousands of these legal voters, almost all Democrats, would not be allowed to vote.
One problem: I had not quite completed my own investigation on this matter. Therefore CBS would have to do some actual work, reviewing documents and law, and obtaining statements. The next day I received a call from the producer, who said, "I'm sorry, but your story didn't hold up." Well, how did the multibillion-dollar CBS network determine this? Why, "we called Jeb Bush's office." Oh. And that was it.
I wasn't surprised by this type of "investigation." It is, in fact, standard operating procedure for the little lambs of American journalism. One good, slick explanation from a politician or corporate chieftain and it's case closed, investigation over. The story ran anyway: on BBC-TV. Let's understand the pressures on the CBS producer that led her to kill the story on the basis of a denial by the target of the allegations. (Though let's not confuse understanding with forgiveness.) First, the story is difficult to tell in the usual 90 seconds allotted for national reports. The BBC gave me a 14-minute slot to explain it.
Second, the story required massive and quick review of documents, hundreds of phone calls and interviews, hardly a winner in the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am school of U.S. journalism. The BBC gave me two weeks to develop the story. Third, the revelations in the story required a reporter to stand up and say the big name politicians, their lawyers and their PR people were freaking liars. It would be much easier, and a heck of a lot cheaper, to wait for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to do the work, then cover the Commission's canned report and press conference. Wait! You've watched "Murphy Brown," so you think reporters hanker every day to uncover the big scandal. Bullshit. Remember, "All the President's Men" was so unusual they had to make a movie out of it. Fourth, investigative reports require taking a chance. Fraudsters and vote-riggers don't reveal all their evidence. And they lie. Make the allegation and you are open to attack, or unknown information that may prove you wrong. No one ever lost their job writing canned statements from a press conference.
Fifth — and this is no small matter — no one ever got sued for not running an investigative story. Let me give you an example close to home. The companion report to my investigation of the theft of the election in Florida was a story about Bush family finances. I wrote in the Guardian and Observer of London about the gold-mining company for which the first President George Bush worked after he left the White House. Oh, you didn't know that George H. W. Bush worked for a gold-mining company after he lost to Bill Clinton in 1992? Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that this company has a long history of suing every paper that breathes a word it does not like — in fact, it has now sued my papers. I've gotten awards and thousands of letters for these stories, but, honey, that don't pay the legal bills.
Finally, there's another little matter working against U.S. reporters running after the hard stories, papers printing them or TV broadcasting the good stuff. I'll explain by way of my phone call with a great reporter, Mike Isikoff of Newsweek. Just before the elections, Isikoff handed me some exceptionally important information about President Clinton, material suggesting corruption in office — the real stuff, not the interns-under-the-desk stuff. I said, "Mike, why the hell don't you run it yourself?" and he said, "Because no one gives a shit!" Isikoff was expressing his exasperation with the news chiefs who kill or bury these stories on page 200 on the belief that the public really doesn't want to hear all this bad and very un-sexy news. These lambchop editors believe the public just doesn't care. But they're wrong. When I ran my first story in the London Observer about the theft of the Florida vote, Americans by the thousands flooded our Internet site. They set a record for hits before the information-hungry hordes blew down our giant server computers. When BBC ran the story, viewership of the webcast of Newsnight grew by 10,000 percent as a result of Americans demanding to see what they were denied on their own tubes. Obviously, some Americans care. And it's for them that I say, This is Greg Palast reporting from exile.
Award-winning investigative reporter Gregory Palast's column, "Inside Corporate America" is published every other week in The Observer, London (Guardian Media Group).
To reprint, to comment, or to read other Palast reports, go to
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/whistleblower/palast.shtml
6/5/01
3:11:43 PM
Breakdown of the World
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same there would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 females / 48 males
70 nonwhite / 30 white
70 non-Christians / 30 Christians
89 heterosexuals / 11 homosexuals
6 people would possess 59 percent of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
The need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent. Count your blessings.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/5/21/203514.shtml
6/5/01
3:10:11 PM
World Peace and Prayer Day, Summer Solstice, June 21st
On Monday, June 11th at mountain Standard 11:00 am, 1:00 pm Eastern time, Native America Calling will be sponsoring a call in to report where and how people will be honoring Sacred Sites or any place that you feel is significant, on World Peace and Prayer Day, Summer Solstice, June 21st,
6/5/01
2:54:36 PM
Silence of the Lambs: The Failure of US Journalism
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=33&row=1
Alternet.org: The 13 Scariest White Guys in America
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10949
6/5/01
2:50:07 PM
Boycott ExxonMobil
A Tiger by the Tail
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
And now for a wild prediction. Within 12 months President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and all their backers in the oil industry will be begging - begging - to revive the Kyoto protocol on climate change, the accord Mr. Bush yanked America out of after taking office.
Why, you ask? Well, look what's happening in England. A group of celebrities there have joined with environmentalists to launch a boycott against Exxon Mobil gas stations, which in Europe go by the name Esso. Bianca Jagger, the pop star Annie Lennox and Anita Rodrick, founder of the Body Shop chain, helped launch the boycott because, as Ms. Jagger said, "This is a way to tell Esso that it's not right for them to be claiming that there is no connection between CO2 emissions and climate change."
People connected with Exxon reportedly contributed more than $1 million to the Bush campaign. Exxon is a key supporter of research and advertisements that try to cast doubt on the seriousness of global warming and its link to fossil fuel emissions. Exxon was a big backer of President Bush's decision to pull the U.S. out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which called for industrialized nations to steadily reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. Exxon is also a major force behind the Global Climate Coalition, a business lobby that opposed Kyoto.
The "Stop Esso Campaign" is asking British drivers to shun Esso stations until the company supports Kyoto (see www.stopesso.com). The campaign recently spread to France. What's funny is that probably none of this would have happened had Mr. Bush not bowed to the oil companies and pulled the U.S. out of Kyoto. That may turn out to be his greatest gift to environmentalism.
You see, as long as everyone was discussing how to implement Kyoto, no one wanted to take any radical steps. Governments could say they were working on the problem, but that negotiations were hard. Corporations could mumble nice words about environmentalism, but not worry anything serious was going to happen. And environmentalists could feel their cause was being advanced, even though implementation was far off.
"As long as Kyoto was there, everyone could avoid real accountability and pretend that something was happening," says Paul Gilding, the former head of Greenpeace and now chairman of Ecos, one of Australia's leading environmental consulting firms. "But now George Bush, by trashing Kyoto, has blown everyone's cover. If you care about the environment you can't pretend anymore. Emissions are increasing, the climate is changing and people can now see for themselves that the world is fiddling while Rome burns."
The result: Environmentalists refuse to sit on their hands anymore. Instead, the smart ones are mobilizing consumers to fight multinational polluters on their own ground. You have to admire it. It's so Republican ó using the free market.
If I were Exxon, I would be worried ó especially when U.S. college students come back to campus in the fall. Remember Monsanto? It was going to sell genetically modified food to Europeans. But environmentalists in Europe ó worried, rightly or wrongly, about the safety of what they were eating ó mobilized the weakest link in the value chain: consumers. Consumers demanded "G.M.O.-free" food. So supermarkets demanded it from their suppliers, suppliers demanded it from farmers and farmers demanded it from Monsanto. Goodbye, Monsanto.
This is real globalization activism. "The smart activists are now saying, `O.K., You want to play markets - let's play,' " says Mr. Gilding. They don't waste time throwing stones or lobbying governments. That takes forever and can easily be counter- lobbied by corporations. No, no, no. They start with consumers at the pump, get them to pressure the gas stations, get the station owners to pressure the companies and the companies to pressure governments. After all, consumers do have choices where they buy their gas, and there are differences now. Shell and BP- Amoco (which is also the world's biggest solar company) both withdrew from the oil industry lobby that has been dismissing climate change.
What Mr. Bush did in trashing Kyoto was to leave serious environmental activists with nowhere else to turn but the market. The smart ones get it. You will be hearing from them soon - at a gas station near you.
6/5/01
2:49:34 PM
Peruvian Son of the Poor Is Elected Over Ex-President
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/04/world/04PERU.html
6/5/01
2:49:01 PM
NEW - Alternative Energy Web Pages
http://www.mothersalert.org/energy2.html
Flouride and the Nuclear Industry
http://www.fluoridealert.org/nuclear.htm
6/5/01
2:46:39 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2001: NO PESTICIDES, FRESH WATER AND GREEN GAMES FOR ALL
TORINO, Italy, June 4, 2001 (ENS) - At the age of 10, Jean-Dominic Levesque-Rene became an environmental campaigner in his home town of Ile Bizard, near Montreal Quebec. Diagnosed with a cancer known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, he became convinced that he was ill as a result of exposure to pesticides.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-04-04.html
BUSH PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR EVERGLADES, ENVIRONMENT
By Cat Lazaroff
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Florida, June 4, 2001 (ENS) - President George W. Bush took a stab today at redefining himself as an environmentalist, during a visit to Florida's Everglades National Park. While protesters rallied against some of the president's more controversial decisions, Bush outlined his agenda for helping the federal government work more closely with state and local officials to promote environmental stewardship.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-04-07.html
JAPAN SUSPENDS FUNDING FOR KENYA'S SONDU MIRIU DAM
By Jennifer Wanjiru
NAIROBI, Kenya, June 4, 2001 (ENS) - The Japanese government has suspended funding to a controversial hydroelectric power project in Western Kenya which is still in the first phase of construction.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-04-05.html
WORLD'S SPRAWLING CITIES UNMANAGEABLE, UN HABITAT WARNS
NEW YORK, New York, June 4, 2001 (ENS) - Sprawling in every direction, the world's metropolitan areas are dangerously unmanageable, the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) warned today during the launch of its first ever report on "The State of the World's Cities."
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-04-01.html
VULNERABLE CARIBBEAN NATIONS PREPARE FOR GLOBAL WARMING
KINGSTON, Jamaica, June 4, 2001 (ENS) - Global warming is predicted to hit the Caribbean islands with natural disasters of increasing number and severity, regional climate change experts are warning. Government and inter-governmental agencies, community groups and scientists are mobilizing to deal with the danger.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-04-02.html
BUSH WILL NOT OVERTURN CLINTON MARINE PROTECTIONS
WASHINGTON, DC, June 4, 2001 (ENS) - The Bush administration has decided to retain an executive order passed by former President Bill Clinton, which would authorize a new nationwide system of marine conservation areas. The announcement comes as President George W. Bush works to win over skeptical environmentalists amid a storm of criticism of his environmental policies.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-04-06.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 4, 2001
Bush Names New National Parks Director
LCV Puts Congress on Notice for Important Environmental Votes
Caution Advised in Releasing Genetically Modified Species
Annual Assessments for Nuclear Plants Released
National Fishing and Boating Week Starts Today
15 New National Recreation Trails Designated
Minnesota's Twin Cities Join Clean Cities Program
MIT Forms Laboratory for Energy and the Environment
Illinois Project Makes Butterfly Identification Easier
Dwarf Minke Whales Make Star Wars Sounds
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-04-09.html
6/5/01
2:45:34 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
New Democratic Senate to clash with Bush on energy - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11060
Californians respond to energy conservation pleas - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11062
US House energy chair says nation faces crisis - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11063
FEATURE - Wool goes beyond sweaters to warm hearth and home - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11065
FEATURE - Floating houses make waves in the Netherlands - NETHERLANDS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11064
FEATURE - New coffee research brewing up glass, cement - MEXICO http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11067
FEATURE - Japan ocean sluice gate project stirs controversy - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11066
Timber group urges campaign to push demand - CAMEROON http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11061
Most Brazilians blame govt for energy crisis - poll - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11059
6/5/01
2:44:54 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. ALL FIRED UP Three logging trucks were set on fire on Friday near the Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon where environmental protesters have been trying to prevent trees from being cut. Donald Fontenot of the Cascadia Forest Alliance, which has helped to organize the longtime protest, said, "The torching of the trucks strays from what is really important, which is the protection of the watershed." Meanwhile, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday blocked logging on thousands of acres of federal land in the Northwest, ruling that the feds haven't done enough to protect salmon from the impacts of timber cuts.
straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Associated Press, Joseph B. Frazier, 02 Jun 2001 <http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/25759_arson02.shtml>
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Kim Murphy and Kenneth Weiss, 01 Jun 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010601/t000045735.html>
2. SURGE, IN GENERAL Canada will see its pollution levels surge if it boosts its oil and natural gas exports to meet the needs of its power-hungry southern neighbor, according to a report released on Friday by the David Suzuki Foundation. For example, the report says a big increase in exports to the U.S. would cause greenhouse gas emissions to rise 44 percent above the amount Canada set as its target in the Kyoto treaty on climate change.
straight to the source: Vancouver Sun, Chris Nuttall-Smith, 2 Jun 2001 <http://www.vancouversun.com/newsite/news/010602/5099223.html>
do good: Take action to be part of a Canadian energy revolution <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.stm#chretien>
3. ENRON END RUN With the Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate, prospects for President Bush's energy plan have gotten significantly dimmer. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the incoming chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he would try to force the Energy Department to draft rules to increase the fuel efficiency of SUVs and light trucks. He also said he would oppose opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. On a related note, here's an item that you may (or may not) find shocking: At least three of the top White House advisors who helped draft the Bush administration's energy plan own stock in the Enron Corporation or have earned fees from the Texas-based energy trading company.
straight to the source: USA Today, Jonathan Weisman, 04 Jun 2001 <http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010604/3369364s.htm>
straight to the source: New York Times, Joseph Kahn, 03 Jun 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/03/politics/03DISC.html>
4. THE RETURN OF THE SWAMP THING The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to weaken rules meant to protect thousands of streams and wetlands, making it easier for developers to move ahead with building projects. The corps, for example, has proposed scrapping a rule requiring developers to obtain case-by-case permits for projects that disturb more than 300 feet of streams. It also wants to put the kibosh on a rule requiring developers to replace or protect as many wetland acres as they are destroying. No word yet on whether President Bush has weighed in on the issue.
straight to the source: Washington Post, Michael Grunwald, 04 June 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16798-2001Jun3.html>
do good: Take action to reform the Army Corps <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/rivers.stm#Corps>
5. TO MARKET, TO MARKET, TO BUY A FAT PIG Groups that promote "free-market" solutions to environmental problems were once thought of as loonies, even by some officials in the Reagan administration. No more. Ideas developed by groups such as the Political Economy Research Center in Bozeman, Mont., and the Reason Center in Los Angeles are now held dear by the Bush administration. The groups contend that market incentives, instead of government regulations, are the most effective way to protect the environment. But many mainstream environmental groups say so-called free-market environmentalists often put the market ahead of protecting the environment.
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 04 Jun 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16332-2001Jun3.html>
6/5/01
2:42:07 PM
TomPaine.com
HARVARD UNIVERSITY'S GIFT TO THE NATION
Goodbye Meddlesome Health, Environment, and Workplace Safety Rules
by David Corn
Incoming "regulation czar" John Graham has the power to block or bury any new consumer, health-and-safety, or environmental regulations. At Harvard, he reliably backed the industries that funded his "Risk Analysis" center.
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/06/01/index.html
IT'S NEVER BEEN EASIER TO 'FOLLOW THE MONEY'
Bush Donors Cash In
by Mark Weisbrot
Bush's energy proposal is the latest in a series of initiatives that give "transparency" in government a whole new meaning. Campaign contributors are cashing in on their investments, and every week is "payback" week.
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/05/22/4.html
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
We Scan the Internet for Tips, Leads and Links
by Andrew Werbrock
An anti-globalization protester is released from jail -- on the condition that he'll retire his megaphone... Jesse Ventura hunts man... activists hunt SUV buyers... and more!
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/05/30/index.html
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Reactions From Our Readers: A message from a Drug War Casualty... Pride blossoms in the Green Mountain State... A computer geek shows his hip side... And more!
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/05/31/index.html
6/5/01
2:32:22 PM
The Myth of the Media's Role in Vietnam
by Jeff Cohen
Of the many myths that mushroomed from the carnage of the Vietnam War perhaps none is more specious than the fable about how a bold, aggressive mainstream media turned America against the war. As the pundit class sinks into a new quagmire debating former Sen. Bob Kerrey's Vietnam mission, it's a good time to dissect the myth.
Let's begin with the My Lai massacre of March 1968, where hundreds of Vietnamese civilians were executed by American soldiers. My Lai would later be cited as proof of a mainstream press bent on sensationalizing U.S. atrocities in Vietnam.
The reality was just the opposite. Beginning months after My Lai, evidence of the massacre was presented to top national news media by Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour and others, but not one outlet would touch the story. It wasn't until November 1969, more than a year and a half after the My Lai slaughter, that the story was finally published by the small, alternative Dispatch News Service and dogged investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
In the middle of the 20-month period of media silence on My Lai, an inexperienced lieutenant named Kerrey and his team of Navy Seals were sent into a "free-fire zone" at Thanh Phong under rules of engagement that had just been loosened. One wonders if the lives of Vietnamese civilians there or elsewhere could have been spared if mainstream U.S. journalists had been aggressive about My Lai, instead of burying the story for so long.
Myths and empty cliches flourish if unexamined. Professor Daniel Hallin of the University of California at San Diego conducted perhaps the most thorough study of U.S. media coverage of Vietnam in light of the standard rhetoric that Vietnam had been the "living room war" -- an "uncensored war" showing its "true horror."
What Hallin found was a war, especially on TV, that was largely sanitized, as a result of media coziness with government and military sources and network TV policies against airing footage that might offend soldiers' families. Pictures of U.S. casualties were rare, Vietnamese civilian victims almost nonexistent.
It wasn't the mainstream media that turned the public against the war. Quite the contrary: it was the public -- especially the ever-growing anti-war movement fortified by Vietnam veterans who spoke out against the war -- that prodded mainstream media toward more skeptical coverage.
In February 1968, the Boston Globe surveyed the editorial positions of 39 leading U.S. dailies with a combined circulation of 22 million and found that not one advocated withdrawal from Vietnam. But that was the position of millions of Americans who'd educated themselves about the war -- not through the nightly news or Time magazine -- but via alternative media or attending protests or talking to returning vets. Campus teach-ins on Vietnam began in 1965.
The Kerrey controversy begs us to reexamine a key fixture of mainstream media complicity in Vietnam War deception: the body count. We may never know the whole truth of how or why the civilians were killed at Thanh Phong, but there is no dispute that Kerrey received a Bronze Star for the assault based on the official lie that his Seals had bravely killed 21 Viet Cong soldiers -- a standard method of padding the official body count of enemy dead.
Any alert journalist should have known the official count was grossly inflated, in large part by adding in dead civilians -- yet Walter Cronkite and the other network anchors dutifully read it straight faced week after week.
Cronkite is often remembered for his uncharacteristic on-air commentary in 1968 calling the war a "stalemate" and urging negotiations. But by 1968, a half-million U.S. troops were already in Vietnam. Professor Hallin's study found that, with few exceptions, network coverage prior to 1968 was "strongly supportive" of the war.
As for the country's turning against the war, Hallin concluded: "Television was more a follower than a leader of public opinion." And the mainstream media debate that intensified in 1968 tended to focus narrowly on the war's winnability -- not on the war's morality or its effect on the Vietnamese population, two million of whom were ultimately killed.
The media's relatively minor focus on the war's impact on the Vietnamese -- in whose interest the war was allegedly fought -- persists today. Editors at Newsweek say that when they decided two years ago not to publish the story of Kerrey and the Thanh Phong massacre, it was largely because Sen. Kerrey had chosen not to run for President. It may be a sign of racism, or at least ethnocentrism, that journalists would judge this not so much a story about multiple Vietnamese casualties as about the presidential aspirations of a single American.
Though not a veteran, I played a minor role in the Winter Soldier hearings convened in Detroit in January 1971 by Vietnam vets to try to communicate directly to the American people the horrors they'd experienced. In three days of testimony open to the press and public, dozens of veterans described -- often tearfully -- atrocities against Vietnamese they'd witnessed or participated in, events similar to and more grisly than the killings at Thanh Phong.
The national hearings were dramatic and visual, but few major U.S. media bothered to cover them. Many of the veterans expressed hostility toward the media, blaming gung-ho pro-war coverage for deceiving them into going to Vietnam in the first place.
During particularly gripping testimony, one of the few mainstream camera crews present turned off its lights and packed up; the crew's exit sparked boos and jeers from the vets. That was the moment I became a media critic.
Jeff Cohen is the founder of FAIR, a national media watch group based in New York -- and a panelist on "News Watch" on the Fox News Channel.
http://www.fair.org/articles/kerrey-vietnam.html
6/5/01
2:31:07 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Long Island authority seeks new Shoreham power plant - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11049
Arsonists torch logging trucks in Oregon - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11055
PPL installs emissions equipment at Pa. plant - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11046
Colonial mops up 60,000 gallons after pipeline spill - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11054
Federal court blocks some logging in US Northwest - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11043
US presses EU for changes in crop rules - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11053
US to study letting snowmobiles into Alaska park - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11058
MGM Mirage to implement energy surcharge - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11052
Turn buried bodies into organic soil - scientist - SWEDEN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11056
Malaysia to promote gas-powered cars in Thailand - MALAYSIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11047
UPDATE - Japan power utility bows to nuclear 'no' vote - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11050
German rapeseed oil buyers seek alternatives - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11057
EU assembly toughens up 10-year green action plan - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11044
UPDATE - Estonia closes environment chapter in EU talks - ESTONIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11045
Radioactive water leaks in Czech n-plant - CZECH REPUBLIC http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11051
Global warming melts Australia's glaciers - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11048
6/5/01
2:30:33 PM
The Nation
Few national columnists are as well-placed to write about George W. Bush and the culture that formed him than the inimitable Molly Ivins. Don't miss this legendary Texas writer's most recent Nation article on the difference between Texas Tough and Texas Stupid, "Shrub Flubs His Dub," available exclusively at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010618&s=ivins
And don't miss the host of recent articles of interest still available, including Eric Foner on Silvio Berluscioni; Bruce Shapiro on Timothy McVeigh; Katha Pollitt on America's day-care crisis; Jason Vest on the State Department's secret Andean war; Christopher Hitchens and Jonathan Schell on Bob Kerrey's war crimes; Maude Barlow on the FTAA protests; Eileen Stillwaggon on AIDS and poverty in Africa; Amy Bach on problems with indigent defense; William Greider on global sweatshops; and Eric Alterman, Alec Dubro and Peter Kornbluh on tainted Bush appointee Otto Reich. All accessible at:
6/5/01
2:30:01 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
"We Cover the Earth For You"
ENERGY DEPARTMENT INITIATIVES BACK BUSH PLAN
WASHINGTON, DC, June 1, 2001 (ENS) - Despite objections from Democrats and environmentalists, the Energy Department is moving ahead rapidly with actions to support the Bush administration's long term energy plan. Alongside efforts to reinforce the nation's electric grid and natural gas network, the agency is also working to boost research into alternative energy sources.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-01-06.html
SALMON COURT VICTORY AFFECTS 170 PACIFIC NORTHWEST TIMBER SALES
SEATTLE, Washington, June 1, 2001 (ENS) - Companies poised to log timber sales in the Pacific Northwest will have to take note of a court decision Thursday in favor of the region's beleaguered salmon. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the federal fisheries agency violated the law by allowing certain federal timber sales to proceed in threatened salmon habitat.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-01-02.html
PIRATE FISHER SEIZED PREYING ON CHILEAN SEA BASS
CANBERRA, Australia, May 30, 2001 (ENS) - One of the most notorious pirate fishing vessels of the Southern Ocean, Salvora, has been arrested again - this time by France.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-01-04.html
TRANSPORT MINISTERS GREEN LIGHT SUSTAINABILITY
LISBON, Portugal, June 1, 2001 (ENS) - Transport ministers from over 30 European countries plus the United States and Canada met in Lisbon this week to debate the many challenges associated with achieving sustainable transport systems.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-01-01.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JUNE 1, 2001
Dismissal of Snowmobile Suit Paves Way for Legal Change
Snail Study Suggests Genes Not Best Conservation Criteria
Jeffords Offers Refunds to Disgruntled Vermonters
Chemical Exposure Called Unlikely Cause for Marines' Blisters
Satellite Aids in Monitoring Global Deforestation
Studies Review Federal Remediation Projects
New Regulations Protect Humpbacks from Whale Watchers
EPA Meetings Offer Chance for Public Input
Eurasian Watermilfoil Accelerates Invasion of Wisconsin Waters
Yogurt Lids to Offer Environmental Message
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-01-09.html
6/5/01
2:28:33 PM
PRESS RELEASE FOR VITAL SIGNS 2001
ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT ECONOMY IS MAKING THE WORLD SICK
We're eating more meat, drinking more coffee, popping more pills, driving further and getting fatter. Around the world we are consuming more than ever before: but more than one billion people still don't have access to safe water; natural disasters are taking a worsening toll; and we have yet to vanquish some of the world's biggest killers-diarrhea, malaria and AIDS-reports a new publication by the Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2001: The Trends That are Shaping Our Future.
"We're finding more and more evidence that the developed world's consumption-filled lifestyle choices are often as unhealthy for ourselves as for the planet we inhabit," said Worldwatch researcher and Vital Signs Project Director, Michael Renner. "And while much of the world remains too poor to afford such choices, the emerging middle classes in developing nations are following the same damaging patterns pioneered in the developed world: meat and coffee consumption is on the rise, as is obesity and over half of the world smokers are now in developing nations."
This 10th anniversary edition of Vital Signs-made possible with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the W. Alton Jones Foundation-illustrates how an economy geared only towards meeting insatiable consumer demand can adversely affect human, environmental, and economic health. A greater reliance on cars not only heats up the planet but also leads to more sedentary lifestyles-a major cause of obesity. The development of lucrative drugs to treat diseases of the First World is keeping money away from critical research on vaccines and medications aimed at diseases like malaria that afflict far larger portions of the world population. Industrial farming practices have created one of the most gruesome crossovers of disease from animals to humans, Bovine or 'Mad Cow' disease.
"The challenge of this new century is to extend the economic progress of the last 50 years, while halting the ecological decline -- a sick planet will, sooner or later, lead to a faltering economy," said Executive Director of UNEP, Klaus Toepfer. "The question is whether humanity will forge a healthier, sustainable future or risk the downward spiral as a result of not understanding the ecological and economic threshold the world is now on. I hope that the statistical snapshot contained in Vital Signs 2001 will help fill this information gap."
In a year when oil prices hit a 15-year high, car production also peaked. The world's fleet of passenger vehicles reached 532 million in 2000. At the same time, average fuel economy remained stagnant at mid-1980's levels. Just before the Bush Administration effectively pulled out of the Kyoto protocol, Americans were driving their cars further than ever before. Total U.S. carbon emissions were 13 percent higher than they were in 1990.
While technological innovation soars, 90 percent of commercial energy use worldwide continues to come from fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources such as wind still only account for one percent of the world total, reports Vital Signs 2001.
"Living in the 21st century, we like to think of ourselves as sophisticated, post-modern, technology-savvy world citizens," Renner said, "but the truth is that our cyber economy is still fueled by the same old energy sources. And as long as consumers do not demand change, manufacturers will continue to churn out environmentally destructive products."
Gasoline, aluminum and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics-which are manufactured through highly polluting processes-represent the resource binge we're on. Consumer demand for common items such as automobiles, aluminum cans and children's toys spurs these industries. But while alternatives are available for almost every PVC use and aluminum recycling requires only five percent as much energy as primary production, little pressure is being placed on manufacturers to change production methods.
Our appetite for meat has also been soaring. The number of four-footed livestock on earth at any given moment has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of chickens, ducks and other fowl, has quadrupled, from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion.
Feedlot production-the fastest growing method for raising livestock-has emerged as a major threat to soil, air and water quality. In the U.S., livestock produce 130 times more manure than humans do. Though concentrated in North America and Europe, feedlots are also popping up near urban centers in Brazil, China, India, the Philippines and elsewhere in the developing world. The demand for more meat has also spurred the feeding of antibiotics to farm animals, a practice which has been increasingly implicated in reducing the effectiveness of these drugs in humans.
Drug resistance is rising across a wide range of bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi that are responsible for diseases from malaria to AIDS. At least half of all antibiotics used in human medicine are prescribed unnecessarily, creating greater opportunities for the survival and spread of resistant bacteria.
Pharmaceuticals are one of the most profitable and fastest-growing industries in the world, increasing from $132 billion in 1983 to $337 billion today. But big pharmaceutical companies have tended to neglect the health of large portions of humanity. All of the world's top selling drugs are designed to treat First World conditions including heart disease, high blood pressure, indigestion and obesity. A survey of 1,233 drugs that reached market between 1975 and 1997 found that only 13 were approved specifically for tropical diseases.
In the face of all these changes, Vital Signs 2001 points to some encouraging mass movements that may become major forces in reshaping today's consumerist lifestyles:
* Growing numbers of people are using socially responsible criteria to guide their investments. In the United States alone, socially responsible investments climbed from $59 billion in 1984 to $2.16 trillion in 1999-or $1 out of every $8 under professional management.
* As demand for coffee has risen-up 10 percent to 7.1 million tons in 2000 and reaching $11.2 billion in exports-changing consumer preferences are influencing how and where the bean is grown. The vast majority of this coffee comes from full-sun plantations-the ecological equivalent of a rainforest clear-cut. But a growing consumer movement is supporting a return to traditional shade growing techniques, which maintain rainforest habitat and biodiversity. 'Ethical' coffee is now the fastest growing segment of the market and half a million farmers participate in programs that guarantee a fair price and working conditions to growers and coffee workers.
* The alternative energy sector offers considerable promise in meeting increased energy demands and providing short and long-term solutions to shortages like those in California. Though still a very small market segment, global wind energy generating capacity was up 30 percent over 1999 and production of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells jumped 43 percent.
"The findings from Vital Signs 2001 show that when consumers demand it, environmentally friendly and socially responsible methods of production can be achieved, Renner said. "The power of consumer choice cannot be underestimated; for good or for bad it can sicken or save our planet."
A worldwide perspective on consumption:
Food
* Largest grain producer: China = 353 million tons
* Largest producer of milk: India 79 million tons
* Largest coffee producer: Brazil = 1.8 million tons
Energy and transport
* Leading petroleum user: United States = 26% of world supply (The U.S. constitutes less than 5% of world population)
* Highest carbon emissions: United States = 24% of world total
* Largest manufacturer of solar electric panels: Japan = 128 megawatts (enough generating capacity to power 50,000 small homes)
* Biggest producer of bikes: China = 43 million in 1999
Health
* Largest population of smokers: China = 350 million (equal to the combined populations of Russia and Mexico)
* Leading cigarette exporter: United States (21% of world exports)
* Largest population of overweight adults: United States = 61% of adult U.S. population
* Biggest buyers of pharmaceuticals: US = almost 40% of world sales
* Biggest selling drugs: antiulcerants (antacids, for indigestion) = $15.8 billion