World Population Awareness

Plastic Takes Over the Ocean

Pandora's Box: Digging the Earth, Killing the Future; Landgrabbing and mineral extraction spell disaster for Earth

Across Latin America, Asia and Africa, more and more community lands, rivers and ecosystems are being despoiled, displaced and devoured by mining activities. Over the last 10 years, iron ore production is up by 180%; cobalt by 165%; lithium by 125%, and coal by 44%.

The rights of farming and indigenous communities are increasingly ignored in the race to grab land and water. Each wave of new extractive technologies requires ever more water to wrench the material from its source. The hunger for these materials is a growing threat to the necessities for life: water, fertile soil and food. The implications are obvious, if not widely ignored by the industrial and economic powers that profit from such activities.

The Opening Pandora's Box report was spearheaded by the Gaia foundation and supported by Friends of the Earth International, Grain, Oilwatch, Navdanya in India and other groups.

The increase in prospecting has also grown exponentially, which means this massive acceleration in extraction will continue if concessions are granted as freely as they are now.

The executive summary to the report says: "if we continue in our current direction, our children will be left to clean up an increasingly barren and unstable planet, littered with toxic wastelands and a huge scarcity of water, which we would have left in our wake."

Environment editor at The Guardian, Jon Vidal added: Of the 10 biggest mining deals to be completed last year, seven were in Africa, with Anglo American earmarking $8bn (£5bn) for new platinum, diamond, iron ore and coal projects on the continent, and Brazil's Vale planning to invest more than $12bn over the next five years in Africa.

China now extracts much of the world's mineral resources: 53% of the world's cement, 47% of its iron ore, 46% of its coal and more than 40% of the world's steel, lead, zinc and aluminium and re-exports much of this in the form of finished products for world markets.

The loss of enormous quantities of soil, and the eviction of people to make way for large-scale extraction now threaten to make millions of people landless and hungry, a recipe for social problems.

Water could be the limiting factor in the extraction of minerals in future. If demand continues to grow at the same rate that it has in the last decade, industry demands for fresh water are expected to grow from 4,500bn cubic metres today to 6,900bn cubic metres in 2030. Most mining companies have said they are already experiencing shortages.

"Large-scale mining is now targeting all parts of the planet," said Gathuri Mburu, co-ordinator of the African Biodiversity Network.

Protect Our Waterways From Pesticides

Pesticides in our waters are linked to higher cancer rates, hormone disruption and other serious health effects in people. Fish and amphibian populations have been devastated by these toxics, which can be the last straw for endangered species already in crisis.

Right now chemical and agribusiness lobbyists are pushing a radical revision of our clean-water laws - H.R. 872 - that has already passed in the right-wing-dominated House of Representatives but we may be able to stop this disastrous polluter bill from passing in the Senate.

Our water supply is too precious to poison. Please take five minutes to call your senators and tell them to protect the Clean Water Act. Senate Bill 718 is a hazard to all life in the United States, and should be rejected, along with any companion bill to House Resolution 872, proposed by Sen. Pat Roberts. Tell them to support the EPA's safeguards against pesticides through the "pesticide general permit" process. This protects our environment and public health.

Click here to find the number for your senator: http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/getLocal.jsp Let us know you were able to get through by clicking here: http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=6391

NASA Scientist Hansen Arrested at Tar Sands Protest - a Grim Sign of the Times

In the 1970s, the "blue marble" photo of Earth from space taken by Apollo 17 - suggesting how fragile and precious our planet really is - galvanized the environmental movement. Today the image of the world's best known and most outspoken climate scientist, James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, handcuffed and hauled off to jail is a potent symbol of our times.

Hansen was taking part in a civil disobedience action at the White House organized to halt the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will bring dirty oil from the Canadian tar sands down to US refineries in the Gulf. Nearly 1000 protesters have been arrested in this action began on August 20.

Hansen said of President Obama: "If he chooses the dirty needle it is game over [for the earth's climate] because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction," ... "Canada is going to sell its dope, if it can find a buyer. So if the United States is buying the dirtiest stuff, it also surely will be going after oil in the deepest ocean, the Arctic, and shale deposits; and harvesting coal via mountaintop removal and long-wall mining. Obama will have decided he is a hopeless addict."

The photo tells you everything you need to know about why, more than 30 years after Hansen first warned us that burning fossil fuels is heating up the planet, we have essentially done nothing to change our ways.

Japan's Food Chain Threat Multiplies as Radiation Spreads

Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan's food chain. 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets. 4,108 kilograms of beef suspected of being contaminated was inadvertantly put on sale at 174 stores across Japan

The government on July 19 banned cattle shipments from Fukushima prefecture, though not before some had been slaughtered and shipped to supermarkets. A ban on shiitake mushrooms from another part of Fukushima was introduced on July 23 because of cesium levels, the health ministry said.

Seafood is another concern after cesium-134 in seawater near the Fukushima plant climbed to levels 30 times the allowed safety standards last week,

Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University in central Japan, said "It's possible that contaminated groundwater leaked from the plant."

Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food, leaving local authorities and farmers conducting voluntary tests. Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers from Dai-Ichi.

On June 6, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the plant released about 770,000 tera becquerels of radioactive material into the air between March 11 and March 16, doubling an earlier estimate.

That's about 14% of the radiation emitted in the Chernobyl disaster in modern-day Ukraine. About 2 million people in Ukraine are under permanent medical monitoring, 25 years after the accident, according to the nation's embassy in Tokyo.

Cases of thyroid cancer in Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine, increased for at least 10 years after 1986 in children younger than 14 and for almost 20 years among 20-24 year olds, according to research by Shunichi Yamashita of Nagasaki University.

U.S.: Save the Frogs

April 29 was Save the Frogs Day, and we would like your help to protect frogs from one of the biggest threats to their survival. Please ask the Environmental Protection Agency to ban a widely-used weed killer called atrazine that is threatening frog populations.

Frogs are especially sensitive to chemicals in their surrounding environment. Their numbers have been plummeting around the world, and one of the major causes is the widespread use of pesticides like atrazine. Frogs act as an indicator species for the overall health of the environment.

In agricultural areas, as much as 75% of all waterways contain some level of atrazine. Atrazine in our environment isn't good for us either. The European Union has already phased out its use entirely.

U.S.: NOAA Forecast Predicts Large "Dead Zone" for Gulf of Mexico This Summer

The "dead zone" off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be one of the largest on record. In the dead zone seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. Dead zones are caused by nutrient runoff, principally from agricultural activity, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes, and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water.

Scientists are predicting the area could measure between 7,450 and 8,456 square miles, or an area roughly the size of New Jersey.

This hypoxic, or low-to-no oxygen area, is of particular concern because it threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries by destroying critical habitat.

"The high water volume flows coupled with nearly triple the nitrogen concentrations in these rivers over the past 50 years from human activities has led to a dramatic increase in the size of the dead zone," said Gene Turner, Ph.D., a lead forecast modeler from Louisiana State University.

US Maryland: Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Criticized; Oversight Change Urged

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation wants the voluntary effort to clean up the bay replaced by a governing body to create and enforce laws and levy taxes in six states and the District to pay for cleanup. They concluded that the regional Chesapeake Executive Council, formed to oversee the reduction of bay pollutants, had failed because the scientific data suggests the bay is not improving. This was a misstatement, claimed the executive director of the Council that adopted a plan for improving the water quality by 2010, when the Council hopes the bay will be removed from the list of threatened waterways. The most ambitious goal was to take voluntary steps to reduce runoff from animal manure and wastewater plants by one-third. 40% of the bay is starved of oxygen and fish and plant life have difficulty surviving. The regional council has been making progress and less nitrogen is flowing into the bay than in the mid-1980s. Underwater bay grasses, an indicator of a healthy waterway, have increased since 1984, but must more than double in the next seven years. It will involve farmers and require homeowners to upgrade septic tanks and better storm water management. The bay's watershed includes 16 million people in parts of New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and the District. Any new oversight body would need to levy taxes to raise part of the $12 billion that is needed to reduce pollutants. The governors on the council said they are willing to consider reinvigorating restoration efforts. rw

6 States Aiming to Reduce Dead Zone

Six states that feed water to the Mississippi agreed to experiment to reduce nutrients that cause a "dead zone" that can be 10 to 120 feet deep along the coast of Louisiana and Texas and is bigger than the state of Massachusetts. This occurs when nutrient-rich freshwater forms a layer over saltier Gulf of Mexico water in the spring and summer, causing huge blooms of algae that use up oxygen as they decompose. Shrimp, crabs and fish avoid the low-oxygen water, and bottom-dwelling organisms are killed. Oxygen returns after tropical storms or frontal systems mix the layers. The nutrients are fertilizer and sewage from the 42 states and parts of Canada that drain into the Mississippi. 7% come from Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas, the states represented at the first meeting, in New Orleans, of the Committee on Hypoxia. An official said a federal-state plan to reduce nutrients is 18 months behind schedule. A plan adopted in 2000 called for reducing the dead zone to 2,000 square miles by 2015 by cutting nitrogen entering the river by 30%. Researchers have focused on determining the areas responsible, and how to reduce them. The projects would be similar to one in Louisiana in which farmers are told how best to manage nitrogen use, and provided with detailed instruction. rw

Tests Find Nitrogen is Choking Earth

Plant species replaced, 'dead zones' in water more prevalent. - If farmers continue to depend heavily on nitrogen fertilizer, the agricultural landscape could turn ugly within 50 years, says a University of Minnesota ecologist. David Tilman found, in a two decade study, that, as the amount of nitrogen doubles, species diversity declines by 25%. And as nitrogen levels continue to increase, species are lost at a greater, though less dramatic, rate, leveling off at declines of 40% to 70%. The species that do survive are usually less-desirable, non-native ones such as quack grass, which needs high doses of nitrogen to thrive. Oxygen-starved "dead zones," such as the one now in the Gulf of Mexico, will become increasingly prevalent and many plants will die off, while fewer - and less desirable ones - will take over, he said. To get world food production to double over the past 35 years, farmers have had to use seven times as much nitrogen as they used to, effectively doubling the amount that already comes in from the atmosphere. By 2050, the use of nitrogen may quadruple with the projected increase in the world population by almost 50%, and if it becomes increasingly affluent with a buying power 2.4 times that of today's population and producing a demand for twice as much food. Tilman recommends timing applications of fertilizer better and doing a better job of removing it from sewage. kgp

Fertilizer Levels Safe for Humans, Deadly to Frogs

An Oregon State University study says that fertilizer levels the EPA says are safe for human drinking water can kill some species of frogs and toads. With even low nitrate levels in fertilizer runoffs, the amphibians ate less, developed physical abnormalities, suffered paralysis and eventually died. Also, the nitrates encouraged the growth of algae that feeds tiny parasitic flatworms called trematodes which cause deformities. Other explanations for the decline in amphibian population include water pollution and increased ultraviolet radiation from the sun because of a thinning ozone layer around the Earth.

Humans have more than doubled the amount of available nitrogen in the environment because of excess fertiliser use and burning of fossil fuel. There are now also 50 "dead zones" containing little or no oxygen in coastal waters. The largest one in the Western Hemisphere is in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus flowing down the Mississippi river.

A Special Moment in History

by Bill McKibben Natural cycles of nitrogen production (through algae, soil bacteria and lighting) produce "90-150 million metric tons of nitrogen a year. Now human activity adds 130-150 million more tons...As a result, coastal waters and estuaries bloom with toxic algae while oxygen concentrations dwindle, killing fish; as a result, nitrous oxide traps solar heat, and it stays there for a century or more."

Philippines: Surging Population, Rising Troubles

The Catholic Bishops Conference warned 23 years ago of Nuestro perdido Eden - our imperiled Eden, echoing the country's national hero, Dr Jose Rizal. Today his words have proved prophetic.

Rapid population growth, unchecked and unequal access to natural resources and their subsequent over-exploitation, uncontrolled logging, waste disposal and mining and the pollution of rivers, lakes and sea are the root causes of the environmental destruction and degradation both in coastal and upland areas, states a report released by the German Technical Cooperation agency (GTZ).

All this destruction and its consequences can be curbed only if the population stops growing, now at about 100 million - and projected to reach 140 million by 2050. But Catholic priests and anti-reproductive health bill activists say "No way."

Metro Manila went from 10 million people in 1992 to 16 million. Population growth that is too fast does not leave time to provide public services and the stresses from rapid urbanization harm the environment and the people living in it, according to Gregory C. Ira, who has worked with the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction.

Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 saw forests blanketing 95% of the country. A WWF study showed that more than 119,000 hectares of forest cover disappears yearly, all likely to disappear in 10 years.

"Approximately two-thirds of the country's original mangroves have been lost," reported Kathleen Mogelgaard, of Population Action International (PAI). "The productivity of the country's agricultural lands and fisheries is declining as these areas become increasingly degraded and pushed beyond their capacity to produce." .. "Rapid forest loss has eliminated habitat for unique and threatened plant and animal species," she added.

Fires, slash-and-burn farmers and commercial loggers are mostly to blame. In the past, forest resources helped fuel the economy. In the 1970s, the country was tops among world timber exporters. Urbanization is also to blame.

75% of the over 30 million poor live in the rural areas where poverty has forced many of them to invade the forest.

Deforestation has altered the climatic condition in the country. Periods of drought have become more common and extensive in the dry season while floods have prevailed in the rainy months.

The removal of forest cover has increased soil erosion in the uplands. And siltation, caused by erosion, shortens the productive life spans of dams and reservoirs, reducing the life span of the Magat reservoir, for example, from a probable life span of 100 years to 25 years, and the Ambuklao reservoir from 60 to 32 years.

Deforestation has also reduced the volume of groundwater available for domestic purposes. Cebu, having lost all forest cover, is 99% dependent on groundwater and more than half of its towns and cities, excluding Metro Cebu, have no access to potable water. The country has lost 30% to 50% of its water resources in 20 years.

Soil erosion also affects agriculture, which contributes 20% to the country's gross domestic product and employs nearly one-third of the country's total labor force. Nutrients are lost from the soil, reducing crop yields and leading to expanded use of chemical fertilizers, which in turn, pollutes water sources. The eroded soil is carried by the rivers to the coasts, where it interferes with fish nursery areas.

Rapid population growth and the increasing human pressure on coastal resources have resulted in the massive degradation of the coral reefs, which are some of the world's most ecologically-fragile ecosystems, each reef supporting as many as 3,000 species of marine life. In the Philippines, an estimated 10-15% of the total fisheries come from coral reefs.

Gandhi once said: "There is sufficiency for man's needs, but not for man's greed." Nor, it seems, for ill-judged dogmas and short-term planning.

Amazon Drought Caused Huge Carbon Emissions

The 2010 1.16 million square-mile drought in the Amazon rain forest was worse than a "100-year" dry spell in 2005, according to a study conducted by a collaboration between scientists at the University of Leeds and the University of Sheffield in Britain and Brazil's Amazon Environmental Research Institute

More frequent severe droughts like those in 2005 and 2010 risk turning the world's largest rain forest from a sponge that absorbs carbon emissions into a source of the gases, accelerating global warming. Trees and other vegetation in the world's forests soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow, helping cool the planet, but release it when they die and rot. The 2010 drought was a tree killer and dried up major rivers in the Amazon and isolated thousands of people who depend on boat transportation, shocking climate scientists who had billed the 2005 drought as a once-in-a-century event.

The study predicted the Amazon forest would not absorb its usual 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in both 2010 and 2011. In addition, the dead and dying trees would release 5 billion metric tons of the gas in the coming years, making a total impact of about 8 billion metric tons, according to the study.

In comparison, the United States emitted 5.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use in 2009.

If the droughts are driven by global warming, a vicious cycle of warmer temperatures and droughts could conceivably lead to a large-scale transformation of the forest over a period of decades and large parts of the forest could turn into a savannah-like ecosystem by the middle of the century with much lower levels of animal and plant biodiversity.

World's Last Great Forest Under Threat: New Study

In a paper called "Urgent preservation of boreal carbon stocks and biodiversity", the pristine boreal forest across large stretches of Russia, Canada, Alaska and Scandinavia, is under threat. The paper is the result of a study by researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia, Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada and the National University of Singapore, who are calling for their urgent preservation to secure biodiversity and prevent the loss of this major global carbon sink.

This forest comprises about 1/3 of the world's forested area and 1/3 of the world's stored carbon.

While there has been typically sparse human populations in these regions, the researchers say "now the boreal forest is poised to become the next Amazon."

"Human disturbances caused by logging, mining and urban development have increased in these forests during recent years, with extensive forest loss for some regions and others facing heavy fragmentation and exploitation."

Findings include:

* Fire is the main driver and increased human activity is leading to more fires. Climate change may be increasing the frequency and possibly the extent of fires in the boreal zone. * Fragmentation is increasing with only about 40% of the total forested area remaining "intact". * Russian boreal forest is the most degraded and least "intact. * Except for Sweden, less than 10% of the boreal forests are protected from timber exploitation.

Nature Loss Dwarfs Bank Crisis

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the banking crisis. The annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion, from adding the value of providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

Some conservationists see it as a way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection.

Wall Street has to date lost $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year.

Forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP.

As forests decline, nature stops providing free services and human economy has to provide them through building reservoirs, facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.

The cost falls disproportionately on the poor. The greatest cost to western nations would come through losing a natural absorber of greenhouse gas.

A number of nations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade. The counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the worth of nature have not worked.

By 2010, governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss. rw

Brazil to Increase Monitors in Rain Forest as Illegal Clearing Spreads

Brazil said it would send additional federal police to the Amazon following an announcement that illegal clearing of the rain forest had jumped last year.

Authorities will also monitor areas where the deforestation occurred in an attempt to prevent anyone from trying to plant crops or raise cattle there. The clearing of Brazil's Amazon rain forest jumped in 2007, spurred by high prices for corn, soy and cattle. Officials will try to fine people or businesses that buy anything produced on the deforested land. The plan means a 25% increase in the police force assigned to the region. If the plan doesn't work, Brazil will have an environmental and economic loss.

As many as 2,700 square miles of rain forest had been cleared from August through December, and Brazil could lose 5,791 square miles of jungle by this August. That would be a 34% increase from the 4,334 square miles of forest that was cut down and burned from August 2006 through July of last year.

Although preliminary calculations prove only that 1,287 square miles of rain forest were cleared from August through December, officials were still analyzing satellite imagery and working under the assumption that the higher amount of jungle had been cleared. rw

Brazil: Amazon Deforestation Seen Surging

Deforestation of the Amazon has surged in recent months. The rise raises questions over Brazil's assertion that its environmental policies are effectively protecting the world's biggest rain forest. Nobre, whose government agency monitors the Amazon, said that 2,300 square miles of forest had been lost in the past four months.

That compares with an estimated 3,700 square miles in the 12 months ended July 31, which Brazil officials hailed as the lowest deforestation rate since the 1970s.

Policies such as more controls on illegal logging and better certification of land ownership were reducing the deforestation. But environmental groups warned that rising global commodity prices are likely to fuel more clearing of land for farms.

Nobre said the major drivers of deforestation were illegal logging and land clearing for cattle farming that remained intact, despite the recent annual declines in forest clearing.

The three years of reduced deforestation did not bring a cure for illegal deforestation.

Destruction of forests produces about 20% of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. But the government has struggled to stem deforestation, partly due to strong global demand that has made Brazil one of the world's biggest food suppliers. Infrastructure is associated with aggressive and progressive land use change. Continued high oil prices were likely to result in a surge in demand for Amazon land to produce ethanol. rw

Protect Corals, Fish and Whales From Ocean Acidification

Without swift, national action to protect the ocean's vast diversity of life from acidifying waters corals, shellfish, salmon and a whole host of beautiful creatures will be lost.

We need your help to ask President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency to get working on a bold plan to curb ocean acidification.

Carbon dioxide pollution is also being absorbed by the ocean, causing its chemistry to change and become more acidic. This spells trouble for marine animals that are now having difficulty building shells, growing and sometimes even surviving in increasingly corrosive waters.

Click here or on the left arrow to take action. Everything from the smallest of plankton to the largest of whales has a stake in what the White House and the EPA decide to do about ocean acidification.

Food for 9 Billion: Turning the Population Tide in the Philippines

This story also appeared on PBS NEWSHOUR. A related story can be found on American Public Media's Marketplace.

Fishing villages near the Danajon Double Barrier Reef off of Bohol Island in the southern Philippines are embracing birth control for the first time, not just as a means to plan their families but as a path to long-term food security, ensuring that future generations enjoy the same abundance of fish. The area is one of the richest marine biodiversity hot spots in the world. More than a million people depend on these fishing grounds for their main source of protein and livelihoods. As the population of this area has nearly tripled in the last three decades, the effect on the reef has been devastating.

Illegal fishing has become rampant. Many use dynamite or cyanide, indiscriminately killing everything within their reach.

The shift to smaller families in the rural fishing village Humayhumay is already paying dividends. Fishermen have created a marine preserve to help revive fish stocks. With smaller families, thinking about future generations is a luxury fishermen can afford.

Every year the Philippines, now with 100 million people, adds about 2 million more mouths to feed and isn't expected to stabilize its population until 2080, at 200 million. The country is already beyond its carrying capacity.

Jason Bostero: Family planning is helpful because if you control the number of your children, you don't need as many fish to support your family. If you have many children, it's difficult to support them." .. "My income is just right to feed us three times a day. It's really, really different when you have a small family."

Crisna Bostero: "In my case, we were really hard up before. Sometimes, we would only eat once a day because we were so poor. We couldn't go to school. I did not finish my school because there were just so many of us."

A community-based family planning programs has made birth control options like the pill accessible and affordable - at about 70 cents a month. Distributors are able to sell pills and condoms anytime. They are as easy as buying soft drinks or matches.

PATH Foundation Philippines, a group funded mostly through USAID, has made this possible, placing its emphasis on local partners and bringing access to the people. In just six years since the program was first established here, family sizes have dropped from as many as 12 children to a maximum of about four today.

The program shows how closely tied family planning is with environmental conservation and putting food on the table.

Jason and Crisna Bostero, both practicing Catholics, don't see a conflict between their religious beliefs and family planning. For them, it's about something much more immediate, like what kind of future they're going to pass on to their two children. " I don't want them to be like us, just to fish the sea, just to farm the land. This is not an easy way to earn a living."

Outside of Humayhumay, where birth control remains largely out of reach, the struggle to put food on the table from one day to the next dominates life. People have to collect government assistance checks for food.

Countries like Thailand and Indonesia have largely avoided this scene, thanks to state-sponsored family planning programs. But Congressman Walden Bello says in the Philippines, any efforts to do the same have faced stiff resistance.

The country is 80% Catholic and the Catholic church leadership opposes any form of artificial contraception and has rallied for a decade against a reproductive health bill in Congress that would guarantee universal access to birth control. Recently, it even threatened the president with excommunication for supporting the bill.

Filipino Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz says "if you have more mouths to feed, then produce more food to eat! Not the other way around."

But trying to produce more food tests the limits of ecosystems, both on land and sea. Today, the Philippines imports more rice than any other nation on the planet. And according to the World Bank, every major species of fish here shows signs of severe overfishing.

Technological advances to boost the food supply have not kept pace with the Philippine's surging population growth.

More than half of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Instititute.

The future of the people in the Philippines could easily be overwhelmed by outside forces, in a world that's projected to have 9 billion mouths to feed by the middle of the century.

Tragedy of the Commons

By Richard Grossman - First published in the Durango Herald

"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation…." Great Law of the Iroquois

"They know that they shouldn't fish closer than 500 meters from the coast, but I've seen these boats with their nets out just 200 or 300 meters offshore. The officials don't enforce the laws."

We were visiting the Greek island of Mykonos while on tour with the Durango Choral Society. We walked along the harbor with our guide, David, admiring the many small fishing boats. He explained facets of the failing Greek economy as well as the ancient and modern sites on this beautiful island. The Aegean Sea around Mykonos was so overfished, David said, that there were few fish left to catch.

We found proof that David was correct when we sat down to eat. Restaurants, even those overlooking the beautiful blue Aegean, had menus that listed few seafood dishes. Any seafood was prohibitively expensive since it had been caught in distant seas.

The situation that we encountered in Greece is a good illustration of the "tragedy of the commons". That tragedy can occur when a limited resource is open to uncontrolled use by many people. Any one user may think he can benefit from taking as much of the resource as possible. This behavior is rational only in the narrow sense of self-interest. Regrettably, unbridled use of a resource is likely to lead to its depletion.

The term "commons" referred to pastureland that was available for everyone to graze his sheep in old England. Now it includes many different vital resources such as the air we breathe, the water we drink and the fish in the Aegean.

Most of us learned to share in kindergarten. Unfortunately, some adults never mastered that lesson or have forgotten it. When there are many people using the same resource, any person who takes more than his share may deprive others of their fair share. Even worse, selfish people can deplete the resource, so eventually no one benefits from it.

In the case of fishing off Mykonos, there had been plenty of seafood for centuries. In the past the boats and fishing techniques only allowed small, sustainable catches, so the small proportion of sea life that ended up in nets was quickly replaced. Now, with more fishermen and more effective fishing techniques and many more mouths to feed, the fish supply has been exhausted. The Greek government has tried to prevent depletion by having a "no fish" zone, with poor results. People don't seem to pay attention to the law, or the reason that it is needed.

Human population growth is one factor leading to the tragedy of the commons: more people using the same resource means less for all.

Ironically, some of the pollutants we have unintentionally added to drinking water may serve as a feedback mechanism to slow human population growth. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that have unintended hormonal effects. They are found in much of our country's drinking water. Some come from insecticides and other agricultural chemicals. Many plastics contain BPA, which has undesirable effects. Another source is the waste of women taking hormones. These chemicals have been shown to produce fish and other animals with sexual aberrations. It is possible that endocrine disruptors will lead to decreased human fertility.

The amount of fresh water on the planet is limited and, in some cases, is very slow to be replenished. The Ogallala aquifer is an example of a resource that is being used in an unsustainable manner. Much of the food grown in our country's midwestern breadbasket depends on water from this aquifer. Tragically, there are some places in eastern Colorado (and in other states) that rely on the Ogallala where the water table has dropped 40 feet in just 15 years!

As our human population has grown, the apparent size of the commons has shrunk. Although the first few wells in the Ogallala made little difference to the water table, now we seem to be sucking it dry. Dumping waste into a river or the atmosphere made little difference with few people and fewer factories, but these resources have become toxic in our populous, industrialized nation. We are learning the problems that can be caused by abusing the commons. The people who will suffer the most may be those who come after us, the "seventh generation" in the Iroquois law. Unless we think and plan ahead, our progeny will not have the use of many of the resources that we have enjoyed.

Oceans 'Dying Very Quickly'

Derek Hatfield competes in a solo round-the-world ocean race, this year finishing in third place. Having undertaken long sea voyages since the early 1990s, he has noticed disturbing changes in the ocean wildlife in the last few years.

"You don't see the fish, you don't see the turtles, you don't see the birds," Hatfield said.

"Along the coast you will see the odd humpback whale but it is getting more and more rare. Last year I did a transatlantic race and I didn't see one whale in the whole 15 days of racing across the North Atlantic. Not one whale! . . . The oceans are dying and they're dying very quickly."

Hatfield always used to stop what he was doing when dolphins showed up to race beside the bow of the boat or follow behind. But dolphins have stopped showing. "It is much lonelier without them," he says. "They're such an intelligent animal and such great company, especially when you're out there by yourself. Now it's a rare sight."

Around the world, people who live, work and play on the water are reporting significant changes in marine ecosystems, including fewer fish and shorebirds, growing blooms of algae to shrinking amounts of seaweed, the result of of climate change, pollution and overfishing.

A recent report presented to the United Nations last week warned of looming mass extinctions. "We now face losing marine species and entire marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, within a single generation," the international panel of marine experts state in the report.

Alex Rogers of Oxford University, scientific director of the International Program on the State of the Ocean, said the state of the oceans is declining far more rapidly than even the most pessimistic anticipated.

"The rate of carbon dioxide emissions is huge compared to the past. The closest comparison we have to our present time is about 55 million years ago and at the moment we're pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at about 10 times the rate at which it was entering the atmosphere during that period, which was associated with a major extinction."

Rogers says global warming, ocean acidification and lack of water oxygen are the greatest peril to ocean life.They are common factors which researchers have found to be linked within all known mass extinctions. Global warming builds up carbon dioxide which is then absorbed into the oceans, which causes acidification, while run-off of fertilizers and pollution chokes off oxygen in the water column.

Rogers says he was flabbergasted when he found that the upcoming Rio earth summit, " although they spoke about terrestrial environments and freshwater, the oceans (90% of the living space for life on the planet) weren't even mentioned in much of the documentation for that meeting."

Peter Wells, a marine scientist formerly with Environment Canada and now a professor at Dalhousie University, says "Fishing has created more change over the last few hundred years than any other stress. That's the removal of biomass, that's the removal of species and knocking down populations and in some cases so hard they don't recover, such as the northern cod."

Deeper Peril for Coral Reefs

An administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that coastal development, overfishing and climate change are creating a "perfect storm" for the world's coral reefs, nearly three-quarters of which are now at risk of serious degradation, a top federal environmental official warned this week at the unveiling of a comprehensive new report.

The study, "Reefs at Risk Revisited," an assessment led by the World Resources Institute, is an update to a 1998 study that classified 60% of the world's reefs as threatened.

If unchecked, growing global and local pressures will place more than 90% of reefs at risk by 2030.

The updated report added in global threats from climate and rising ocean acidity caused by carbon dioxide pollution to the list of threats to coral reefs. In 2010, one of the warmest years on record, spiking water temperatures damaged coral on a global scale rarely witnessed before.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, is absolutely necessary to prevent a lot of the dire situations presented in the report.

While 25% of reefs are now within "marine protected areas," less than a quarter of these protected zones were rated as "effectively managed."

It's About the Carbon; What's Worse Than the Gulf Oil Leak?

by Bill McKibben British Petroleum for a while engaged in a public relations campaign to restyle itself as Beyond Petroleum, but perhaps it would be better called Bigtime Pollution. Barack Obama has been careful at every turn not to offend the big oil and coal companies. Just recently he announced that he was suspending a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling, saying that "we are going to need vital energy sources to maintain our economic growth and our security." Judging by the way Americans scream every time the price of oil begins to rise, you would think that maybe the needle BP stuck into the bottom of the sea flows straight into our veins.

If the oil, instead of polluting the Gulf, had made its way up through the drilling pipe, onto the platform, off the gulf into some refinery and thence into the gas tank of a car, or if that West Virginia mine hadn't collapsed on the miners and instead the coal had proceeded smoothly down some rail line to some coal-fired plant, the result would be more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A gallon of gas, which weighs a little more than seven pounds, results in about 22 pounds of CO2. The average American car driven the average American distance releases its own weight in CO2 annually. This CO2 traps heat near the atmosphere that would otherwise radiate back out to space.

The trapping of heat causes everything frozen on the planet to slowly melt; the warm air holds more water vapor than cold, not only putting out more drenching rain storms, but causing more drought in arid areas; with the the extra carbon the oceans have absorbed from the in the atmosphere, they've turned 30% more acidic in recent decades, causing problems forming shells and reproducing for creatures at the bottom of the marine food chain. Coral reef researchers think that the entire ecosystem may be extinct by mid-century. Forget the slick in the gulf; think of the invisible acid slick now covering all seven seas.

Before the century is out, if we don't get off fossil fuel, then the climatologists have made the prognosis clear: five or six more degrees.

This is the ultimate teachable moment, the place where we can insist that our leaders start to take serious action-not just, or even mainly, to make sure that we don't have oil well blowouts in the future, but to make sure that we get off dirty energy.

The Obama administration has been more involved than its predecessors (5,000 hybrid cars for the federal fleet! Tanks running on biofuels!), but compared to the scale of the problem, those actions are like tossing a roll of Charmin into the gulf to soak up the oil.

Certain Senators have devised a weak climate "plan" essentially dictated by oil companies and electric utilities, which would reduce America's carbon emissions only 4% from 1990 levels. They couldn't do much more because Obama wouldn't push harder because he didn't see political gain involved-he already has the environmental vote. There is no movement giving him the push to take the issue to the next level.

We push by becoming politically engaged. On the tenth of October, 350.org is coordinating a Global Work Party, a follow-up to the Global Day of Action last October, which sparked 5,200 rallies in 181 countries. We need to spread the word that 350 parts per million CO2 is the most we can safely have in the atmosphere.

At the Copenhagen climate summit, 117 nations signed on to that 350 ppm concentration target. But they the poor nations. The rich and addicted weren't yet ready to face the truth. On October 10, people around the world will be putting up solar panels and harvesting community gardens and laying out bike paths because they want to send a serious, pointed message to our leaders: If we can get to work, you can get to work.

Last year in Copenhagen, Desmond Tutu preached a service at the city's great cathedral. When he was done, the cathedral bell range 350 times, and then 3,000 churches across Europe did the same thing. It sent a message: what we're doing to the Earth is not only stupid, it's evil. rw

Blue Fin Tuna Decline and Fall

The Atlantic blue fin tuna are delicious and may be on the brink of extinction due to overfishing. The European Union agreed to propose protecting them as an endangered species. Blue fin tuna have been eaten for centuries, but in the 1970s, demand and prices soared, particularly in Japan. As a result, stocks, especially of large, breeding age fish, have plummeted, and international conservation concerns have increased.

This tuna is one of the most highly prized fish used in Japanese raw fish dishes. In January 2009, a 440 pounds (200 kg) blue fin sold for $173,000. Prices were highest in the late 1970s and 1980s. The practice of tuna farming has brought down prices.

Atlantic blue fin populations decline became precipitous after the 1970's.

The EU agreement came ahead of a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) that will take place from March 13 to March 25 to consider a number of species, including blue fin tuna, elephants and polar bears.

The ambassadors attached a number of conditions, including a one year delay to the ban on fishing, and an opt out for fishermen using small boats to supply local markets.

Malta voted against the proposed ban while Sweden and Austria abstained. Environmental groups said the EU had not done enough to reduce over sized blue fin tuna fishing fleets. Over eight years the EU blue fin tuna fishing industry received subsidies totaling 34.5 million euros. Of this, 33.5 million euros was for the construction and modernization of vessels. Several Arab countries joined Japan in arguing it would hurt poor fishing nations and was not supported by sound science.

Supporters of the ban, including the European Union and the United States, say it is necessary this is a migratory species that swims from the western Atlantic to the Mediterranean. There is also a growing threat from illegal fishing fleets and the failure of existing measures to keep the population sustainable. rw

The 2012 Living Planet Report Shows Little Progress Towards Sustainability

The 2012 Living Planet report estimates that demand on natural resources has doubled since 1966. Increasing demand from the industrialisation of developing countries and from rising populations is not being matched by improvements in productivity or efficiency. For example, biodiversity health in the tropics has fallen by 40% since 1970. Freshwater and marine resources are also under huge pressure with the global marine fish catch rising five fold from 1950 to 2005.

We continue as a species to consume 1.5 times the amount that the planet produces sustainably each year. By 2030, that could rise to 2 times as population and per capita consumption rise across the world. Climate change poses further challenges.

The WWF rightly calls for the protection of biodiversity, improved efficiencies in production and consumption, a move to sustainable sources, for developed countries to move to a less meat based diet and for financial and governance frameworks to support sustainable resource use.

However, a key element to advancing sustainability must be to retard and reverse the growth in human numbers. This means providing universal access to family planning, something that is highly affordable, and which pays for itself through an immediate reduction in health and social costs and through freeing up productive labour. It also means promoting the benefits for sustainability and the environment of having smaller families, particularly in developed countries.

Simon Ross, Population Matters chief executive commented: "We need to move away from both our fixation on economic growth and our bias for growing human numbers. Many resources are finite and are being grossly overexploited. We can only preserve our environment and create the headroom for the poorest of the world to improve their living standards if we improve resource use efficiency, rein in excessive consumption AND take steps to slow and reverse the growth in human numbers. As we approach Rio+20 and consider the emerging discussion on Sustainable Development Goals, we should be including strategies for population reduction in our discussions."

Scientists Warn of Emerging Fungal Peril

Fungal diseases are a major threat not just to wild plants and animals, but to us, according to a paper in Nature. More and more of these killer fungi are appearing, and they're increasingly attacking animals. We're already heading for huge fungal damage to vital crops and ecosystems over the coming decades.

Persistent low-level infection of fungi already destroy at least 125 million tonnes a year of rice, wheat, maize and potatoes and soybeans, worth $60 billion. In 2009-10, this lost food could have fed some 8.5% of the world's people. Simultaneous epidemics in several major crops could mean billions starve.

Emerging fungal epidemics already account for 72% of extinctions from disease - more than bacteria and viruses put together. Amphibians are being wiped out by a deadly chytrid fungus that's been spread by the global animal trade; at least 500 species are thought to be at risk. 40% of amphibian species in some parts of Central America have been wiped out in just a few years.

Likewise, bats are being struck down by so-called White Nose Syndrome, which has spread all over North America since it was first spotted in 2006. Because bats eat insects that would otherwise attack crops, White Nose Syndrome could end up costing farmers some $3.7 billion a year.

In the UK the invading North American signal crayfish is wiping out the native white-clawed crayfish with the help of a fungus-like disease that the invader tolerates but that's deadly to its indigenous rival.

In addition, fungi are adept at swapping genes between themselves, so when we bring different species into contact, dangerously virulent combinations can result.

New fungal diseases keep appearing, affecting organisms from bees and corals to sea otters. If we don't do more to control them, we could see species wiped out all over the planet.

By tightening rules on the transport of plants and animals around the world, we could limit these pathogens' spread into new areas. We need to cut down the amount of living material we transport around the world, quarantining what we do transport far more rigorously, and doing more to stop the illegal trade in plants and animals.

Biodiversity: Next Steps: More of Us = Fewer of Them

As the world's population counter keeps ticking higher, more and more species are being driven toward extinction.

Just as we reached 7 billion the Vietnamese Javan rhino, the last mainland Asian rhino, was declared extinct. And this past week, its related western black rhino species in Africa was also declared extinct. Like so many rare species, these rhinos simply ran out of places to live. More humans meant fewer of them, until the last of their kind vanished.

We recently posted a new report on 10 U.S. plants and animals threatened by the effects of overpopulation: loss of habitat, freshwater scarcity, pesticide bombing and an ever-expanding network of roads that keep the threats traveling: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/7_billion_and_counting/species.html . Find out about imperiled species near you with our online Species Finder: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/T_and_E_map/index.html.

We're also hashing it out and keeping you updated on a new Twitter feed, @EndSpcsCondoms.

U.S.: Don't Let Nevada Water Hogs Drain the Great Basin

The Great Basin ecosystem in Nevada and Utah is under attack by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which is trying to export groundwater via a 300-mile pipeline to Las Vegas -- a city hoping to expand in the driest desert in North America.

This is obviously a bad bet, and we need to say so right away.

The proposal would cut the lifeline of a wild area the size of Vermont. Species that are dependent on the Great Basin ecosystem, like the imperiled greater sage grouse (pictured here), would be hurt, while some fish and springsnails that live nowhere else on Earth could die off completely.

Please ask the Nevada state water engineer to deny the Southern Nevada Water Authority's applications.

There are better options for securing water for Las Vegas than laying waste to the heart of the Great Basin.

Click on the link in the headline to see more and to take action.

Top 10 U.S. Endangered Species Threatened by Overpopulation; as Global Population Hits 7 Billion, Panthers, Polar Bears, Sea Turtles Being Crowded Off Planet

As the human population grows and rich countries continue to consume resources at voracious rates, we are crowding out, poisoning and eating all other species into extinction. The Center for Biological Diversity has released a list of the top 10 plants and animals in the United States facing extinction from pressure caused by overpopulation.

Some, like the Florida panther and Mississippi gopher frog, are rapidly losing habitat as the human population expands. Others are seeing their habitat dangerously altered — like the small flowering sandplain gerardia in New England — or, like the bluefin tuna, are buckling under the weight of massive overfishing. Still others, like the polar bear, are facing extinction because of fossil fuels driving catastrophic global warming.

"Human overpopulation and overconsumption are simply taking away the land, air and water other creatures need to survive," Harwood said. "The world population is expected to hit 10 billion by the end of this century. Left unchecked, this massive population growth will have a disastrous effect on biodiversity around the globe — biodiversity we need to maintain the web of life we've always depended on."

The Center launched its 7 Billion and Counting campaign last month to raise awareness of global population growth and its connection to the accelerating extinction of species. As part of the campaign, the Center is giving out 100,000 of its hugely popular Endangered Species Condoms this year to more than 1,200 volunteer distributors around the country.

Click on the link in the headline to see a description of all 10 threatened plants and animals.

Warming Planet Pushing Species Out of Habitats Quicker Than Expected

In a study of regions across the globe, it was found that far more than 2,000 species of plants and animals had strayed from their native habitats. They were moving toward the poles, at an average rate of 11 miles (17.6 km) per decade. They were also moving upward at an average rate of about 40 feet (12.2 meters) per decade. These estimates are about three times farther than previous measures.

In the areas of greatest temperature increases, species were moving farther and faster, researchers found.

"There wasn't any clear overall pattern that different types of species were responding more than others," said study researcher Chris Thomas, of the University of York in the United Kingdom. "The amount of change we are seeing is greater in the regions that have warmed the most, the link to climate change is clear." . Within groups there may a wide range of behavior. For examples, in the avian population, the Cetti's warbler has moved to the north by more than 90 miles (150 km) while another bird, the Cirl bunting, moved south by 75 miles (120 km) because agriculture has disrupted its habitat.

Habitat fragmentation and changing ranges of predators, prey and pollinators (for plants) also influence species' ability to survive in any specific habitat. If a species can't reach the next bit of livable habitat, they would be stuck where they are until climate changes led to their extinction.

Moving to a new habitat is just one response to climate change. Many species are undertaking evolutionary changes in response to climate," Thomas said. "You don't have to just adapt with the physical conditions, but you need to compete with these new species" that have since moved into their newly warmed digs."

New Report Reveals Dramatic Rise in Pesticide Use on Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops Due to the Spread of Resistant Weeds

GE crops of corn, soybeans and cotton have increased use of weed-killing herbicides by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008; 46% of the total increase occurred in 2007 and 2008. However, GE corn and cotton have reduced insecticide use by 64 million pounds, resulting in an overall increase of 318 million pounds of pesticides over the first 13 years of commercial use.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report links the increase in pesticide use on GE, "herbicide-tolerant" (HT) crops to the emergence and spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. Farmers are already critical of GE crops because of drastically rising biotech seed prices.

The agricultural biotechnology industry claims that the higher costs of GE seeds are justified by the decreased spending on pesticides. But the need to make additional herbicide applications in an effort to keep up with resistant weeds is also increasing cash production costs. Corn farmers planting GE hybrids in 2010 will spend around $124 per acre for seed, almost three times the cost of conventional corn seed. A new-generation "Roundup Ready" (RR) 2 soybean seed will cost 42% more than the original RR seeds they are displacing.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, is now being resisted by weeds which are starting to infest millions of acres; farmers face rising costs coupled with sometimes major yield losses.

A UCS report claims that engineered crops have largely failed to increase crop yields, despite the industry's consistent claims to the contrary. Dr. Margaret Mellon, food and environment program director for the Union of Concerned Scientists. said that "growth in pesticide use has important implications for farmers' bottom lines, public health and the health of the environment."

"The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it's bad news for farmers, human health and the environment."

Global Temps Set Record for Warmest Winter; NASA Also Reports That Earth Has Lost Some Aerosol 'Sunscreen'

This winter was the warmest on record worldwide and the report comes after the IPCC said global warming is very likely caused by human actions. A NASA study report found that an important counter-balance to warming, sunlight blocked by pollution and other aerosol particles, appears to have weakened.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the combined land and ocean temperatures for December through February were 1.3 degrees F above average for the period since 1880.

During the past century, global temperatures have increased at about 0.11 degrees per decade. But that increase has been three times larger since 1976. Most scientists attribute the rising temperatures to greenhouse gases that build up in the atmosphere and trap heat somewhat like a greenhouse.

Also contributing to this winter's record warmth was an El Nino. It was particularly strong in January, but the ocean surface has since begun to cool.

In the N. Hemisphere the combined land and water temperature was the warmest ever at 1.64 degrees above average. In the Southern Hemisphere, the temperature was 0.88 degree above average and the fourth warmest. rw

USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes

The Agriculture Department has given preliminary approval for the commercial production of a food crop containing human genes.

The plan calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds.

The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to yogurt and granola bars.

The idea is to help children with diarrhea get better faster. Protection should keep the engineered plants and their seeds from escaping.

Critics say gene-altered plants migrate out of their home plots and could result in pharmacologically active proteins in the food of unsuspecting consumers.

Als there would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to. Other companies grow such plants in vats and it is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.

Consumer advocacy groups also opposed the plans. Ventria has developed three varieties of rice, each with a different human gene that makes the plants produce one of three human proteins. Two are bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva.

A study concluded that children with severe diarrhea recovered a day and a half faster if the fluids they were prescribed were spiked with the proteins.

Production in plants is cheaper.

The company is talking to the FDA about putting the proteins into health foods. Its third variety of rice makes a blood protein used in medical therapies.

Ventria sought permission to grow its rice commercially on as many as 3,200 acres in Geary County, Kan. A previous plan to grow the rice in southern Missouri was dropped when Anheuser-Busch, the nation's largest rice buyer, threatened to stop buying rice from the state if the deal went through.

Because no other rice is grown in Kansas the risk of escape or cross-fertilization is nil, the company said. It will mill seeds on site to minimize the risk of seeds getting mistakenly released or sold.

The Agriculture Department concluded that the project posed no undue risks. The public can comment until March 30.

The agency revealed that a type of rice seed in Arkansas had become contaminated with a different variety of genetically engineered rice, that was never released for marketing. The error was discovered in the investigation into the contamination of U.S. rice by another gene-altered variety, LL601, which has seriously disrupted rice exports.

Those problems, along with the previous discovery of unapproved, gene-altered StarLink corn in food and the accidental release of crops that had been engineered to make a vaccine for pig diarrhea, undermine the USDA's credibility. rw

This Crop Revolution May Succeed Where GM Failed

New technologies have made gene splicing and transgenic crops obsolete. The new technology is called marker-assisted selection (MAS) and offers a method to accelerate classical breeding. A growing number of scientists believe MAS will eventually replace GM food. Environmental organisations are guardedly supportive of MAS technology.

Instead of using molecular splicing to transfer a gene, scientists are now using MAS to locate desired traits in other varieties or wild relatives of a particular crop, then crossbreeding those plants with the existing varieties. This reduces the risk of environmental harm. Using MAS, researchers can upgrade classical breeding, and cut the time needed to develop new plant varieties.

Researchers at the US department of agriculture have used MAS to develop a strain of rice that is soft on the outside but remains firm on the inside after processing. Most of the transgenic crops introduced into the fields express only two traits, resistance to pests and compatibility with herbicides. There is still much work to be done in understanding the factors which interact to affect the development of the plant. Also, MAS is of value when used as part of an approach to farming that integrates new crop introductions with a proper regard for all factors that together determine the sustainability of farming.

The continued introduction of GM crops could contaminate existing plant varieties. MAS technology is being looked at with interest within the EU. The struggle between a younger generation of sustainable-agriculture enthusiasts and entrenched scientists determined to maintain control over the world's seed stocks is likely to be hard-fought. MAS technology could be the right technology at the right time in history. rw

US Biotech Companies Urge Africa to Catch Up

Dow AgroSciences specializes in the provision of "innovative crop protection, seeds, and biotechnology solutions." The reluctance of African countries to establish regulatory frameworks to guide the use of biotechnology will be one of the continent's undoings. The continent faced the risk of isolation because of its reluctance to embrace biotechnology. Biotechnology has the potential to improve biodiversity, reduce insecticide use, advance food security and transform agriculture in the next 10 years.

Africa's solution to drought and crop diseases may be in growing genetically engineered crops specifically tuned to resist weather conditions and mature quickly. This could result in saving crops from losses of harvests, which are followed by hunger and starvation. Nearly 200 million people in Africa are undernourished. The consequences are manifest in the prevalence of hunger and malnutrition. The FAO stated that 27 countries in sub-Saharan Africa were in need of urgent food assistance. They included Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to almost one-quarter of the developing world's food-deprived people. Surveys revealed that 33% of African children are stunted, underweight, or emaciated. The majority of African countries still do not favor GMO crops or foods due to the lack of systems to safeguard biodiversity.

This is so despite the fact that more than 35 countries have signed the Cartagena Protocol, that seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by biotechnology. Agricultural science and technology must work with local governments and scientists to make biotech available starting with capacity building and infrastructure for the approval of regulatory frameworks and adoption of the technology.

Issues that need to be addressed,include the availability of seeds to farmers at affordable prices and providing safety procedures to protect human beings and the environment during field trials. This may not be possible if the governments do not understand people's needs and how technology can solve them. We cannot underestimate the importance of establishing strong regulatory frameworks to protect the environment and the food chain. Proponents of GMO argue that Africa has serious food gaps and should embrace biotechnology farming for enhanced food production and nutrients. Since 1996 , the global planted area of biotech crops has soared 4.2 million acres in six countries to 222 million acres in 21 countries in 2005.

At present, most African countries cannot advance GM crop research because national policies or regulatory systems are not prepared to deal with safety requirements. Only South Africa and Nigeria have a specific policy for biotechnology.

South Africa began growing its first genetically modified commercial crops in 2003, with cotton farmers reporting yields improved up to 89%. It was also among the 11 developing countries where biotech crops have increased income of 7 million poor farmers.

Research is ongoing that is focusing on staple crops in many developing countries. These include rice, cassava, sweet potatoes, cowpea, banana and maize. Researches are focusing on problems such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, and pest resistance.

Farming is the most important economic activity in Africa, occupying 60% to 80% of the population and contributing 30% to 50% of the GDP in African countries. Eighty percent of farming is in the hands of small-scale farmers and remains an unattractive occupation and those involved are members of the lowest rungs in the poverty index.

Lands in developing countries, especially in Asia, are degraded due to exploitation and they must be helped to restore their soil fertility if they are to grow commercially attractive crops and compete in the global food economy. rw

Europe Bridles at WTO View on National Biotech Bans

European countries bristled at a world trade ruling that touches on sovereignty over genetically modified (GMO) foods, with some saying they would do their level best to keep farming GMO-free. Europe's consumers are well known for their hostility to GMO crops, often dubbed as "Frankenstein foods." The biotech industry insists its products are perfectly safe, however, and no different to conventional foods. A WTO panel ruled that various EU countries had broken international rules by imposing national bans on specific GMOs. Some reacted angrily saying they would defend their legal right to block EU-approved products if they wanted. EU law dictates that bans must be scientifically justified. Austria has banned imports of three GMO maize types and is considering a ban on growing a GMO rapeseed and said they will be as restrictive as possible. Greece is against genetically modified foods. All prefectures have declared their area GMO-free and need to discuss with Brussels and scientists safeguards before lifting the ban. Last June, EU governments rebuffed attempts to order the five countries to lift their national GMO bans. The Commission did not think the bans justified, nor did the WTO. It also said the EU's de facto GMO moratorium between 1999 and 2003 broke world trade rules. France has a long-standing consumer opposition to biotech food and bans two types of GMO rapeseed but has allowed some small-scale growing of GMO maize. French consumer and farming groups deplored the WTO ruling, insisting that a majority of consumers opposed GMOs. A poll in France this week showed that 78% would like a temporary ban to evaluate their health and environmental impact. Green groups said consumer resistance has increased in Europe since the three major GMO growers filed their WTO complaint. U.S. officials regretted there was a level of misinformation in Europe about the benefits of biotech crops but hoped that the WTO ruling would let the EU open its doors more to GMO imports. In Argentina, officials said it was too early to contemplate seeking some kind of economic compensation from the EU. rw

Bionic Growth For Biotech Crops; Gene-Altered Agriculture Trending Global

Since genetically modified crops were planted a decade ago, the acreage worldwide has been growing, last year jumping 11% to 222 million acres. The crops are gaining in countries such as China, India and Brazil, with small cotton farmers embracing a technology that allows them to grow more cotton while reducing the use of pesticides. Rice could be on the verge of a transformation. Iran has commercialized gene-altered rice and China is ready to do so. Widespread acceptance could put crop biotechnology into the hands of the millions of small rice farmers who grow nearly half the calories eaten by the human race. Commercialization of rice that has been genetically altered to resist insects has implications for alleving poverty, hunger and malnutrition for all biotech crops and their acceptance on a global basis. Proponents welcomed the findings saying it demonstrates their usefulness for farmers and society. But two groups attacked the new report disputing the impact of gene-altered crops noting that the technology is concentrated in a handful of countries, with the US, Argentina, Canada and Brazil accounting for 90% of the world's biotech acreage. The technology is used in mainly cotton, corn, soy and canola. Industry claims that the technology would alleviate poverty in Africa have proven illusory, a point echoed by a report from environmental group Friends of the Earth. Growing biotech crops can hurt farmers' export markets in countries that are skeptical of the technology. Even after a decade, biotech crops are grown on under 1% of the world's arable land. But by 2005 farmers were planting them on 222 million acres in 21 countries. Almost a third of the agricultural land in the US is planted in gene-altered crops, and more than half in Argentina and Paraguay. Brazilian farmers had been illegally planting biotech crops for years, but that country has now legalized them and the acreage there is growing rapidly. 2,000 scientists in China are working on gene-modified crops. Bacterial genes give some plants the ability to resist worms, and others gain the ability to survive heavy applications of herbicides that kill nearby weeds. But a controversy in Europe in the late 1990s had advocacy groups saying the crops posed unnecessary environmental risks. The US has been trying to open the European market, with some success. Five of 25 European countries are now growing at least small quantities of biotech crops. The US filed a complaint against Europe over the issue with the WTO and a ruling is expected soon. The European Commission ordered Greece to permit a variety of gene-altered corn. rw

The Fake Environmentalists and Their Pretend-Game

Regional planners, under the direction of their political overlords---the proxies of developers - are trying to shove tens of thousands more people into the North Vancouver Island region. And they don't want people to grasp the full implications of their devious plans. What is transpiring here is transpiring across Canada and the continent of North America--and elsewhere. New subdivisions are sprouting up all over the map in place of greenbelts, woodlands and marshes and the people have little say in the matter.

The most frustrating thing is that fake environmentalists are able to pose as resisting this imposition. But their issue is not with population growth, but with "sprawl"---even though at least half of sprawl is driven by population growth and not by poor land-use planning. They want to 'manage' growth and steer it away from farmland, while packing the unending stream of newcomers into tighter and denser lots alongside existing residents, who are encouraged to surrender their living space in the interests of food security and the environment.

Thus people are presented with a false antithesis. Either accept growth with sprawl or so-called 'smart' growth without it. The local NDP (New Democratic Party), Greens and environmentalists tell people that population growth is something not in their jurisdiction, that immigration (or child benefits) policy is a federal matter and that nothing can prevent inter-provincial migration as guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, growth out of their hands.

Yet which political parties receive top marks from the Sierra Club? The federal Greens and the federal NDP. And what is their immigration policy? To increase the absurdly high immigration intake quota of the Harper Government by 25%, while matching or besting its pro-natalist programs.

This is the pretend-game that environmental NGOs play. Either population growth is not controllable, or even if it is, they have nothing to do with it--- and in any case, it has little bearing on environmental degradation, whether farmland or species loss, or GHG emissions. "It's not whether we grow", they argue, "but how we grow". Just squeeze tighter in the sardine can so that incoming migrants can snuggle up to you. And above all, feel guilty about having extra space in the backyard for your son to play in or a nature trail at the end of your block to take your dog. If it is nature that you want, well, you can get that on the Outdoor Living Channel, can't you?

Let me confess that, whether it is the white-flight "Freedom 55s" from Alberta or California, or people from across the world, I've never felt lonely enough to want them living under my nose, and neither do most of us who chose our 'low-density" lifestyle. Some may call that selfish, I call it a human right. Is it my demand for space that is unreasonable, or the demand that I accept as reasonable a human population level that is 250% higher now than when I was born? Why are we being forced to accept population growth? Because population growth is thought to be a necessary agent of economic growth, our Great God.

The myth that continued economic growth is necessary, desirable, inevitable or even possible remains our major stumbling block, the first domino of misconceptions that must fall before we can reclaim any semblance of the quality of life that we once enjoyed. We are in a foot race with Mother Nature. If we don't stop growth, she will stop us. Time is almost up. Don't let the Pied Pipers of Fake Environmentalism lead you down a futile path. Fight growth, not the symptoms of growth. rw

Uganda: Will Mother Nature Survive Population Pressure?

According to the UN Habitat report 2009, the population density in Kampala is so high, about 12 families occupy a single plot of land, and about 1.5 million people live in slums in Kampala. The wetlands and swamps have now been turned into residential areas because of the increase in population.

This has caused environmental damage. In Kampala, damage to wetlands and swamps has resulted in floods, especially in Kalerwe, Bwaise, Kawempe, Zana, Ndeeba, Bwaise and Kanyanya. In the east and north east of Uganda, mudslides and floods are becoming common.

The 20-year stability and improvement in livelihood and child mortality, coupled with a high fertility rate have contributed to a population growth rate of 3.3% compared to the global average of 1.1%. This makes Uganda one of the countries with the fastest growing populations in the world.

80% of the Ugandan population relies on resources like land and lakes for livelihood. 99% uses firewood and charcoal for cooking, putting a strain on forests, wetlands and causing a shortage of agricultural land. Kampala has swallowed up the greenery that once covered the empty hills and valleys.

More wetlands in Kampala have been cleared for human settlement and industries.

When the floods hit Kampala early this year, the former minister of environment, Dr. Kezimbira Miyingo, issued a directive that all houses in wetlands be demolished. However, owners opposed the directive, claiming they did not know they were building on wetlands.

The problem of flooding is so severe in the Kampala suburbs of Kalerwe, Kisenyi and Bwaise that tenants shift to other areas to escape the floods. Latrines are built above water streams.

During rainy seasons, the area residents often open a hole to release faeces from the latrines. The rain then washes the faeces into streams, from where they fetch water. Many people have no toilets and incidents of people using polythene papers as toilets is common.

In May this year, KCC received money from the World Bank to boost the fight against flooding in Kampala suburbs. The money was for reconstruction and rehabilitation of high risk areas, starting with a 3.6km drainage channel in Bwaise. Part of the channel was constructed, but it has not been helpful in controlling floods.

According to the 2002 population census, 12% of Uganda's population lived in the urban areas. The United Nations indicated that by 2007, 3.7 million Ugandans lived in urban areas.

According to Uganda National Bureau of Statistics, Kampala's population in 2010 is about 1.6 million people.

It is possible for sparsely populated areas to be overpopulated as such areas may have a meagre or non-existent capability to sustain human life. Already this is beginning to show in Uganda. Although access to water has improved, (67% of the population has access to an improved water source), it takes an average Ugandan over 30 minutes to collect water.

Rural households are also increasingly spending more time looking for firewood. Overpopulated places compete for the basic life-sustaining resources, hence a diminished quality of life. Increase in time for collecting water or fuel impacts on women more. Girls cannot complete their education, thus early marriage and childbearing which starts a cycle of poverty.

Despite the increase in population density in world cities, the UN Habitat says in its report that urbanisation may be the best solution to managing the rising global population.

Cities concentrate human activity within specified areas, limiting the extent of environmental damage. But this mitigating influence can only be achieved if urban planning is significantly improved. rw

Australia: Survey Unveils Coast Future No-One Wants

This year, the Sunshine Coast Daily, Seven Local News, Thedaily.com.au and the University of the Sunshine Coast joined forces to present a survey to guage what matters to you on the eve of a new era for our region. The Your Coast Your Say Survey attracted 1582 entries and three clear messages emerged. * We do not want high rises. * We do not want to be another Gold Coast. * We don't want our environment and lifestyle ruined by overpopulation.

The biggest the question was whether population growth was a concern, to which 77% said yes and only 13% answered no.

The Sunshine Coast's influential players met to discuss the formation of a committee for the Sunshine Coast.

The bipartisan committee consisting of members from community groups, business and development sectors and environmental agencies, would develop innovative and practical ideas. The state predicts an extra 180,000 people will move here in the next 20 years. The South-East Queensland Plan has allocated $13.2 billion to Sunshine Coast projects.

The plan includes 11 new schools for $437 million, the Kawana hospital at $940 million, the $1.7 billion Traveston Crossing Dam and $564 million Northern Pipeline Interconnector.

The government is planning a multi-modal transport corridor to cope with growth. Each council has drafted a Strategy to cater for proposed growth, but have not been signed off at a state level.

Caloundra's LGMS predicts the population will grow by another 70,000 people in the next 20 years. Maroochy's LGMS projects 53,000 new homes.

Only one in five think these plans will contribute to a better Sunshine Coast by 2020.

Look at the Gold Coast and you look at the Sunshine Coast and we're 10 years behind. To stop that from happening, maybe the new regional council might be able to have a whole of region approach, where some of the good things that have happened up in Noosa can be applied around the region.

Dr White believes public transport will be the major issue in the near future.

Public transport needs to be improved dramatically, and certainly that is on the cards, but we're spending huge amounts of money to make it easier for people to drive cars. It would be good to see light rail across the Coast, tram systems and buses that run on gas rather than diesel.

Only 20% chose public transport as their preferred mode of transport for the future. Recycled water is the most preferred option to address the coming water crisis, whereas, the Traveston Dam has lost support since last year's survey from 12% approval to 8%.

In last year's survey, the biggest crime concern was drink-driving. This year, 67% were listed street violence as the most significant problem. Daylight saving gained more support with 61% for it, compared to less than half last year. rw

U.S.;: Sold! the Sierra

Since the 1950s, Donner Summit has been the site of roughly 800 homes. In 1971, John Slouber began purchasing land for the largest cross-country ski resort in the country, Royal Gorge. Slouber eventually owned 4,000 acres of land and leased an additional 5,000 acres of Forest Service land to operate his resort.

Slouber sold the property to Foster and Kirk Syme, in 2005. The companies proposed to build 950 housing units, a hotel, commercial spaces, and ski lifts. They have pledged to preserve 70% of their property as open space. All the property owners at Serene Lakes are against the plan.

They believe they have a responsibility to take into account the unique state of the summit, and they don't want development to destroy it.

Everybody's got to deal with development of some kind; California is growing.

Counties want new development to boost their revenues from more property tax from new homes and commercial properties.

Counties believe development will increase the tax base, but it's better to get more out of the tax base you have. "We've got a nice quiet community; putting in a hotel and timeshares, changes the nature of the community."

Some believe the project has many flaws. "We should be looking at restoring the environment and using development as a positive impact. This would include affordable housing, jobs, access to recreation, an increased tax base, and things like better water quality through upgrades. How much of the community do we give up so they can make a profit?"

"One element of a conservation community is preservation of open space, and that is an important part of our plan," Livak says. "We see nature as an amenity of this development. Without new development, the Royal Gorge ski area will lose too much money to be a viable business. Who will manage the open space? Concerns are our sewer and water, traffic, density of development, and time shares, which will change the character of the community. The quality of their water supply concerns many residents. Runoff from roads, contaminated melt water from plowed snow, and nutrients from lawns are all concerns. Many worry that traffic will become dangerous, especially on crowded winter ski days. "Condo owners won't buy into the community. They come up on one weekend and won't come back."

How to mitigate the impacts of the development will be addressed by California's extensive environmental review policy, codified as CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act). A positive impact would include affordable housing, jobs, access to recreation, an increased tax base, better water quality. Royal Gorge is the classic land use story what will the impacts of development be on the local community versus what is a reasonable return of investment for the developer? rw

NYC's Newest Rush Hour: 24/7

Long Islanders may be spending more time in their cars and trains by 2030.

By 2030, every major infrastructure system in our city will be more than a century old, and pushed to its limits, The city could expect to gain about a million more residents by that time, He also predicted 750,000 new jobs and Long Islanders may be commuting in record numbers.

The infrastructure's components must work seamlessly for all of us to survive.

The Long Island Railroad began along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn in 1832.

As our population grows and our infrastructure ages, our environment will be pushed to new and possibly precarious limits. Unfortunately for Long Islanders who commute to the city daily, there will be nothing to combat the frustration of a daily commute to a city bursting at the seams. rw

California Seal Pups Beat Kids in Battle Over Beach

This week San Diego officials roped off a prime stretch of the La Jolla shoreline to keep people from disturbing the harbor seals who have taken up residence.

Any move can spook the animals to flee into the ocean and abandon their newborn babies, violating federal marine mammal protection laws.

Seals need adequate sun and sand time in order to maintain good health. The city was urged to act after receiving an increase in complaints that angry residents were harassing the marine mammals.The council voted to erect the barrier each year from January 1 through May 1. Federal officials have installed 24-hour surveillance cameras to watch for people deliberately swimming, kayaking or sunbathing in the area.

Many residents said they were undeterred as it's the only place around with a lifeguard station and bathrooms. A steady stream of tourists and environmental activists clusters around the roped area, unfazed by the stench. The cove has been a popular La Jolla spot since the early 1930s. Nobody knows why the animals began flocking to the shore in the late 1990s but about 200 seals live there. The rope barrier is also meant as a warning to stay away from seal fecal matter and birth byproducts.

A California judge ordered the city to dredge and clean up the beach but the decision has been tied up in litigation and a foul fishy stench remains.

San Diego Council president Scott Peters said he did not feel there was evidence of seal harassment. "The issue isn't so much that people can't get along with seals, it's that people can't get along with people," Peters said. rw

Why is an overpopulation group interested in Aids?

Answer: AIDS is prevalent in Africa, where some of the world's biggest population growth is
taking place. In Sub-Sahara Africa, it often the norm for unmarried females
to have children to prove fertility so that they can be eligible for
marriage. So, with the high promiscuity rate, the resulting high growth
rate, and the high concentration of AIDS, there is the possibility that AIDS
will mutate into a disease that is airborne (think: "Black Death", the
Bubonic plague)

New, Muscular Microbes Emerge as Planet Warms

Climate change, tropical deforestation, poverty, education levels, trends in
agriculture and international trade, have bearings on disease.
Microbes are configured to respond amazingly quickly to environmental
changes. Urban migrations spread diseases. Infectious diseases happen with
inadequate sanitation, air pollution, poverty, malnutrition, and the misuse
of antibiotics. The body's defenses may be overwhelmed by toxins in the air,
water, and diet. Transport of humans and food products by air spread
diseases quickly. The sheer volume of urban growth, by political upheaval,
economic turmoil, or corruption is overwhelming health initiatives. Free
markets mean lack of controls.

High Population Density is Greatest Risk Factor for Water-Linked Diseases

When a region's population density is growing, water-associated infectious disease outbreaks are more likely to occur, according to a new global analysis by Ohio State University scientists of economic and environmental conditions that influence the risk for these outbreaks.

About 1,428 water-associated disease outbreaks reported between 1991 and 2008 around the world were analyzed. By combining outbreak records with data on a variety of socio-environmental factors known about the affected regions, the researchers developed a model that can be used to predict risks for water-associated disease outbreaks anywhere in the world.

Of the five different categories of water-associated diseases (category depending on the disease transmission process), population density was a risk factor for all. Prolonged and excessive heat was shown to be a driver of water-related diseases that are transmitted to people by insect bites.

Western Europe, Central Africa, Northern India, Southeast Asia, Latin America and eastern Brazil were targeted as potential "hot spots" at highest risk for future water-associated disease outbreaks ranging from E. coli-related diarrhea to dengue fever.

4% of deaths worldwide - almost 2 million annually - and 5.7% of illnesses around the world are caused by infectious diseases related to unsafe water and sanitation and hygiene problems.

Understanding the socio-environmental factors that affect the risks for water-associated disease outbreaks will help guide policymakers as they prioritize the distribution of health resources around the world, the researchers say.

The model shows how global environmental changes affect outbreak risks, providing early warning and informed policy decisions which are needed because resources are limited.

Among the information included in the Ohio State database were disease-causing agents, such as bacteria or viruses, and their biological characteristics; water's role in disease transmission; disease transmission routes; and details about whether the recorded outbreak represented an emergence or re-emergence of a water-associated disease for a given region. These details were crossed with a socio-environmental database that contained data on population density, global average accumulated temperature, surface area of water bodies, average annual rainfall and per-capita gross domestic product.

Each disease tracked in the database was classified into one of five categories:

* water-borne (such as typhoid and cholera): 70.9%, caused by microorganisms that enter water through fecal contamination and cause infection when humans consume contaminated water.

* water-based (such as schistosomiasis): 2.9%, caused by parasites that spend part of their life in water

* water-related (such as malaria and trypanosomiasis): 12.2%, which need water for breeding of insects that act as vectors in transmitting disease to humans

* water-washed: 6.8%, caused by poor personal or domestic hygiene because no clean water is available; and * water-dispersed (such as Legionella): 7.3%, caused by infectious agents that thrive in water and enter the body through the respiratory tract.

Fewer water-washed diseases occurred in places with larger bodies of surface water, and areas with higher average annual rainfall had fewer outbreaks of water-borne and water-related diseases.

Economic status did not appear to influence risk for water-associated disease outbreaks, at least on a global scale.

The research appears in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, a journal published by the Public Library of Science.

Swine Flu - Dependent on Large Population

The major deadly infectious diseases of humanity through history - smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera - evolved from animals. Such diseases need a numerous and densely packed human population to sustain themselves lest they wane from lack of new nearby victims who have not had time to develop resistence.

Growing by 82 million a year, and on our way to 9 billion by 2050, and with jet travel, how can we be surprised that infectious diseases easily sweep across the planet with fearful speed?

Most scientists and ecologists say that Earth is over-populated by billions and that the carrying capacity of the United States will support far less than our current 306 million.

Looming catastrophes of climate instability, ecological impoverishment and resource shortages like oil, food, and fresh water are happening on that same population battle ground as Swine Flu.

If we don't get a handle on our population, death and disease will become more the norm than the exception.

Death of the Bees: GMO Crops and the Decline of Bee Colonies in North America

There are many reasons given to the decline in Bees, but one that matters most is the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and "Terminator Seeds" that are being endorsed by governments and utilized as our agricultural needs of survival.

Genetically modified seeds are produced by biotech conglomerates who manipulate government agricultural policy with a view to dominance in the agricultural industry. American conglomerates have created seeds that reproduce only under certain conditions, often linked to the use of their own brands of fertilizer and/or insecticide.

The genetic modification leads to the concurrent genetic modification of the flower pollen. When the pollen becomes genetically modified or sterile, the bees will become malnourished and die of illness due to the lack of nutrients and the interruption of the digestive capacity of what they feed on.

There are arguments that the blame be placed on mites, pesticides, or cell phone radiation, but digestive shutdown due to hard material in the digestive tract that compromises the immune system points to GMO flower pollen.

This increased epidemic of the bee colony collapse has risen significantly since the use of GMO in our foods. It is also suspect in the rise of new cases of medical ailments in humans such as colon cancer, obesity, heart disease, etc.

The Ecological Impact of horizontal gene transfer and increase of rampant disease is not fully examined and if so, is kept silent by these Conglomerates. Organic farming is relatively untouched as the bee crisis. The economic impact that the scarcity of bees will potentially have on our society is very worrisome. rw

Our Decrepit Food Factories

The word "sustainability" has gotten such a workout lately that the whole concept is in danger of floating away on a sea of inoffensiveness, and we must re-examine it's true meaning.

To call a practice or system unsustainable means is that the practice or process can't go on indefinitely. Critics have been speaking of modern agriculture as “unsustainable" though what form the “breakdown" might take or when it might happen has never been certain. But if a system is unsustainable the signs of breakdown may show up in the most unexpected times and places.

The methicillin-resistant staph posed a threat mostly to elderly patients. But a more virulent strain is now killing young and healthy people who have not set foot in a hospital. No one is yet sure how or where this strain evolved, but some researchers are looking elsewhere for its origin, to concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO.

At at least 70% of the antibiotics used in America are fed to animals living on factory farms. Without these pharmaceuticals, meat production practiced as we practice it could not be sustained. Sooner or later, the profligate use of these antibiotics would lead to the evolution of bacteria. Recent studies found that confinement pig operations have become reservoirs of MRSA. Honeybees, have their own epidemic. Beekeepers in 24 states were reporting losses of between 20 and 80% of their bees. Suspects include a virus, agricultural pesticides and a parasitic mite. They've become vulnerable to new infectious agents.

You need look no farther than a California almond orchard to understand how these bees, which have become indispensable workers in the vast fields of industrial agriculture, could have gotten into such trouble. Like a great many other food crops, the almond depends on bees for pollination. No bees, no almonds. Almonds today are grown in such vast monocultures, 80% of the world's crop comes from a 600,000-acre swath of orchard in California's Central Valley. When the trees come into bloom there are not enough bees in the valley to pollinate those flowers. So every February the almond growers must import an army of migrant honeybees. Because pollination is critical and the bee population so depleted, almond growers will pay up to $150 to rent a box of bees for three weeks. February bees swap microbes and parasites from all over the world before returning home bearing. We're asking a lot of our bees.

Whenever we try to rearrange natural systems along the lines of a machine or a factory, whatever we may gain in industrial efficiency, we sacrifice in biological resilience. rw

Canada: Climate Change Ticks Ever Closer

At the foot of Leslie St., a spit of land fans out into Lake Ontario. The peninsula, built with rubble from Toronto construction sites, has grown into a home to butterflies, birds, rabbits and coyote.

The park is popular with migratory birds many coming from as far away as South America.

But among these birds and animals are ticks that can carry Lyme disease.

Every morning the co-ordinator of the Bird Research Station in Tommy Thompson Park organizes a group of volunteers who track the birds. It is part of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network sites across southern Canada and the northern United States that monitor the population trends of northern breeding birds.

From March to June, volunteers plucked ticks from migrating birds and mailed them to scientists who are trying to gain a better understanding of how birds and climate change might increase the spread of Lyme disease through Canada.

Since the 1970s, parts of the US have suffered an epidemic of Lyme disease, mostly within the northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and north-central states.

In the US, approximately 20,000 new cases are reported each year. The disease is rarely reported in Canada, but ranks among the top bug-borne diseases in the United States.

Ten years ago, eastern Canada had only two known populations of blacklegged tick. Today, there are 13 or 14. They tend to settle in migratory bird landfalls. Leslie St. Spit, the Toronto Islands and the Toronto lakeshore are popular resting spots for migrants.

Toronto has always been on the migration highways, there are lots of green spaces where the birds can drop in and rest. The birds may be bringing ticks into Canada after passing through the northeastern and north-central states, where they're abundant.

All the stations from western Ontario to Nova Scotia captured migratory birds with ticks on them.

Canada's cooler climate offered protection from the diseases of warmer regions. But as climate change brings milder winters, scientists worry that the ticks may move farther north.

The warmer air temperature can make it easier for the insect to survive the Canadian winter. Should greenhouse gas emissions remain high, average summer temperatures in southern Ontario are expected to be 4 to 5C warmer and average winter temperatures about 6C warmer before the end of the century. rw

Wasted Food, Wasted Energy: the Embedded Energy in Food Waste in the United States

Food is not only a form of energy but also a consumer of fossil energy in its production, transportation, and preparation.

A study calculated the energy intensity of food production from agriculture, transportation, processing, food sales, storage, and preparation for 2007 as 8080 ± 760 trillion BTU. In 1995, approximately 27% of edible food was wasted (according to the USDA), and the study concluded from this that 2030 ± 160 trillion BTU of energy were embedded in the 2007 wasted food. This represents approximately 2% of annual energy consumption in the United States, which is substantial when compared to other energy conservation and production proposals.

Recent food shortages, blamed in part on the growth of the biofuels industry, have created a new awareness of the relationship between food and energy.

Over last 50 years we have seen increased agricultural productivity thanks to the adoption of new technologies and inputs, which are largely based on fossil fuels. The increase in the energy intensity of agriculture has brought with it unprecedented yields with minimal human labor.

Mechanization of the agriculture sector, improved fertilizers, more resilient crops, and the development of pesticides, all of which rely on fossil fuels, are the reasons for the increased productivity.

The 27% food waste figure does not include food wasted on the farm, in fisheries, and during processing and relies on outdated food consumption and waste data, some of which is from the 1970s.

Because of economic and population growth, the total amount of food production and consumption has grown since the latest food loss study for 1995, and the portion of income Americans spend on food has dropped. From this, the researchers hypothesized that the current amount of food wasted to be higher compared to the USDA's 1995 estimates. If this is true, addressing food waste represents an opportunity for avoided energy consumption.

Follow the link in the headline to read the complete report.

African Deaths Highlight Illegal Toxic-waste Trade

Activists campaigned against the dumping of toxic waste while regulations adopted in Basel in 1989 attempted to restrain the business.

The worst practices are back, but instead of toxic waste, the developed world is dumping old ships, and electronic goods on poorer countries ill-equipped to deal with them.

Trafigura Beheer BV, which chartered the tanker that offloaded the waste in Ivory Coast, rejects claims that the waste was high in poisonous hydrogen sulphide, but activists say the export of hazardous waste is widespread. The tanker concerned was Korean-built, Greek-managed, Panamanian-flagged and Dutch-chartered.

The chemical sludge it unloaded in Abidjan was dumped around the city in August, causing a foul stench and prompting tens of thousands of people to seek medical attention. Recyclers promise to find homes for the ever larger mountain of discarded electronic gadgets in the developing world.

A U.S. group campaigning for a crack-down on hazardous waste, said last year 500 containers of computers were being shipped into Lagos every month.

Seventy five per cent ended up being dumped and burned, releasing hazardous fumes. The UN estimates that 20 to 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is produced every year, and 48% of EU waste exports were illegal. rw

Sanitation in Ghana; a Far Cry From Millennium Development Goals

According to Mr Demedeme, the sanitation condition is "an indictment to Ghanaians" considering the magnitude of resources that have been disbursed towards containing the situation. In the 1990s, huge sums of money went into sanitation, but as of this day the condition is still deplorable. He blamed ignorance and indiscipline for the litter and disposal of waste, compounded by an obsolete legal regime. Seventy per cent of the diseases treated at health institutions are sanitation related and bring pressure on the National Health Insurance Scheme.

District Assemblies are directed to undertake updating by-laws and embark on aggressive marketing of construction and use of domestic latrines, and enforcing laws on provision of sanitation facilities by landlords.

As a solution to the problem, Mr Demedeme called for the streamlining of the fragmented approaches to the tackling of sanitation and urged that all efforts must be made to increase the collection of waste from its current 60% to 90%. The most critical problem facing Ghana currently is that of solid waste management and environmental sanitation. Waste generation, is estimated to grow at 2.7% in developing countries to the year 2010. Ghana's current population growth is estimated at 2.6%. One of the major factors is the rise in per capita incomes plus the rural to urban migration drift.

Accra, with an estimated population of four million, generates about 2000 metric tons of solid waste a day out of which it is able to collect 1500 tons. Constraints are inadequate resources, irregular payment of contracts, weak capacity for expansion, and serious negative impact on health delivery system. rw

Mexico: The Green Line: Tourism and Water Issues Require Full Participation

With tourism the world's largest industry, a coalition of 18 conservation groups in Mexico is trying to bring sustainability to this economic sector. The coalition is Alcosta, the Alliance for the Sustainability of the Northwest Mexican Coast. Its preliminary study based on monitoring 48 coastal tourist developments, provides an unprecedented starting point from which to gauge efforts to protect opportunities for future generations.

The monitoring is a stepping stone towards creating region-wide control for natural resource management in the Gulf of California states. This must provide information for expanding protected areas, improving their operation, and saving the ecosystems. Alcosta is also outlining the best practices for sustainable tourism. The monitoring, reveals that 66% of the gulf's tourist development is in the form of hotel or condominium building associated with golf courses and marinas. Gulfwide, 17% of the development is in places where some tourism already existed, and 48% in spots with none.. The growth areas coincide with those pinpointed by the federal Tourism Secretariat's megaproject called "Sea of Cortes". With 34,000 hotel and condominium units operating or under construction, including 45 golf courses, the demands on the natural resources are overwhelming. The influx of workers and their families signifies a population boom that the region is in not prepared to absorb.

For these ventures to be sustainable they must not exceed the available water supply or contaminate it, and they must be able to handle the waste their visitors and workers generate. This is a challenge, as all the communities face water shortages even before further development, none have adequate sanitary landfill facilities, only 6% have sewage treatment, precipitation in the gulf region is among the lowest in the country, 17% of the underground water tables are over exploited and 10% have salt water intrusion.

People who depend on farming and fishing in the same communities where tourism development is booming find competition for the resources a threat to their livelihoods. What Alcosta advises is to involve the social groups in tourism promotion and create networks of small businesses that can take part in it.

But much of the development is powered by foreign investors. Not a single hotel-condominium has involved local people nor has any initiative emerged strengthen small business.

It's clear from the preliminary results what needs to be done. There's no time like the present to get started. Mexico's commitment to Agenda 21 transcends political administrations. rw

U.S.: As Landfills Close in Big Cities, Garbage Travels Farther

The trains from the Harlem River rail yard are filled with garbage and are part of an armada that performs a nearly constant exodus of waste from the nation's largest city. Each day, they carry 50,000 tons of trash from New York to landfills and incinerators in New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina. In 2003, nearly a quarter of all municipal trash crossed state lines for disposal Congressional Research Service. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now pushing to extend his city's trash, putting garbage on barges that could be shipped up and down the East Coast. The plan is fueling a fresh round of debate in places that could be potential destinations. At issue is the smell and the threat to the environment. New York transports more than 1,300 tons of garbage each day to Fox Township, Pa., 130 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Living near the landfill isn't bad because it's hard to smell or see from the street. But the landfill's protective liners won't hold up forever and 50, years from now, they'll be saying, 'What were those guys thinking, allowing this to be built in this community?. New York's new disposal plan is being watched in Virginia, which imported 7.8 million tons of garbage last year, up 67% from 1997. The issue has been contentious since laws to slow the importation of trash were struck down by the courts. Officials in the Portsmouth area are considering a port that could receive up to 2,500 tons of waste a day from New York with a fee for every ton brought in, generating $1 million per year, plus $7 million more if enough went to an existing incinerator. "We're rich," executive Keller said, noting the township has bought new police cars and fire trucks with trash tipping fees. "We have millions of dollars in the bank." The risks for these communities are few, said Mickey Flood, chief executive of IESI Corp., a Fort Worth company that owns landfills throughout the eastern part of the country. Standard landfills don't accept hazardous materials and waste is also transported in sealed containers that are designed to be leak-proof. All water that touches garbage is required to be treated for pollutants. Still, problems arise. In December 2003, two schools near a landfill in Pennsylvania temporarily shut down when an overwhelming stink made it impossible for students to concentrate. Investigators blamed decaying gypsum board and made adjustments to a system that extracts vapors and burns them off. "Transporting garbage so far away means that the people that generate it don't have to deal with it, and where is their incentive to create less of it?" rw

Plastic Bottles Pile Up as Mountains of Waste

The biggest growth in bottled beverages is water. The recycling rate of plastic water bottles is extremely low yet the demand from recyclers is high. The recycling system hasn't kept up with consumption especially when it comes to water. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over the last decade, from 10.5 gallons in 1993 to 22.6 in 2003. The number of water bottles sold has risen from 3.3 billion in 1997 to 15 billion in 2002. But most bottled water is consumed in areas where there's usually no recycling. rw

Despite Massive Clean-up, Mount Everest Remains Under Threat

Mount Everest may have lost its nickname as the world's highest garbage dump, but the growing number of climbers still pose a threat. The once untouched mountain is littered with evidence - tons of garbage and some of the bodies of the 172 people who failed to reach the peak. But the mountain is being restored to its former state. There is no more garbage at the south col, and there are no bodies on the route. 50 tons of plastic, glass and metal have been dumped on Everest; in 1993 the government began imposing fines on climbers failing to bring back oxygen bottles and gas cartridges. The kingdom also forbade the cutting of trees in the valley leading to Everest. The government and private sector have financed clean-up expeditions, the last collected 2.4 tons of garbage and cleared the mountain of oxygen bottles. The main source of pollution now is human excrement, particularly at high levels. Climbing teams have reduced their garbage and the world's highest mountain has become much more tidy. But the main problem is that there are more expeditions. rw

The Policy Drought on Climate Change

In an editorial in Science, Donald Kennedy, its chief editor, called the current administrations plan for climate change, as outlined in the US Global Change Research Program and the Climate Change Research Initiative, a "wait and see document" which "merely urges more study on the role of anthropogenic sources in global warming". He underscored its failure to analyze trade-offs involved in improving fuel efficiency in autos, to submit a plan to reduce CO2 emissions and to study sequestration technologies. He calls the evidence for global warming "now beyond doubt", citing "one careful study after another" which have proven the "role of anthropogenic sources of ... greenhouse gases in global warming", shown the effect of "climate change on marine and terrestrial ecosystems" and "measured rates of glacial melting in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and on the tops of low-latitude mountains." Nevertheless, he finds some encouragement in the fact that certain oil companies, British Petroleum in particular, and electric power companies are already voluntarily responding to the threat of climate change and that hybrid vehicles are slowly becoming available. He notes that Congress may be slowly recognizing the potential political popularity of US energy independence and that some states, particularly California, are ahead of the federal government in initiating carbon emissions standards despite opposition from auto manufacturers. Particularly important is an upcoming "independent review of the administration’s plan by a National Research Council panel" which hopefully will reveal to this government "what is missing from the report". He notes that the "nonparticipation of the US in the global effort on climate change is more than a national embarrassment. It’s dangerous".

'Ecological Meltdown': Huge Dust Cloud Threatens Asia

An "ecological meltdown" in the form of massive dust storms stretching for thousands of miles over Asia are threatening China. The current storm is unprecedented in both size and number. According to the Chinese Meteorological Agency, there were only 5 major storms in China during the 50s; this rose to 23 in the 1990s and to 20 during only 2001 - 2002. The Gobi desert expanded by over 20,000 miles in the last half of the 1990s and now affect 40% of China's land sharply reducing grain harvests which had previously quadrupled between 1950 and 1998. The Earth Policy Institute (EPI) attributes the desertification to "over-cultivation, overgrazing, over-cutting and over pumping". The dust represents "millions of tons of topsoil from Chinese fields and pastures ... which will take centuries to replace". It causes respiratory difficulties in millions of people and ruins thousands of acres of crops. It is evidence of decreasing cropland in the face of China's large and rising population. Lester Brown of the EPI observes that China has thus far "compensated for its falling harvests by eating stocks", but dwindling grain production will soon force the country to buy on the world's grain markets. This will rapidly raise grain prices and "impoverish more people in a shorter period of time than any event in history". For more on the China's dust bowl, see http://www.earth-policy.org/Alerts/Alert13.htm ; for more on the world's falling grain harvest, see http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update3.htm

Bangladesh: Filtering Water Can Halve Cholera Cases

Using a filter made from old saris can reduce cholera by about half, according to a study in Bangladesh and the sari filters may also reduce other gastrointestinal illness. Sari cloth is cheaper and more effective than nylon mesh. In laboratory studies, most of the cholera bacteria in standing water was attached to or in the gut of a copepod, a type of zooplankton. When people drink unfiltered water, they swallow the copepods and introduce cholera bacteria into their system. Filtering the copepod reduced the cholera rate by at least half. There also was evidence that other types of germs were removed because with sari-filtered water, there was less diarrhea and other problems. Cholera is easily controlled, but the untreated disease kills 50% to 80% of those infected. The Bangladesh villages where the system was tested are hours of travel from medical care. It is estimated that there are a million cases of cholera in Bangladesh annually and thousands of deaths. Old sari cloth filtered better than new cloth. As the sari is washed the spaces between threads narrow and trap finer particles. Folded eight times it filters particles as small as 20 microns.

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Hong Kong Veiled by Smog

Hong Kong was covered in smog and the government warned people with respiratory and heart diseases to stay away from heavily polluted areas. Levels were highest in Causeway Bay reaching 140, in Central at 111 and in Mong Kok at 118. Everyone is advised to stay indoors if the figure of 200 is reached. Hong Kong has been plagued by smog, due to high levels of nitrogen dioxide which cannot be disperse because of calm weather. The government has various measures to tackle the problem including reducing motor vehicle emissions, and requiring taxis to run on cleaner liquefied petroleum gas. Last year there were more than 4,000 deaths in 2000 due to cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, arising from persistent air pollution. There were also 17,555 hospital admissions in 2000 as a result of cardiovascular and respiratory problems. rw

Salmon Kill Blamed on Water Sent to Farmers

In the largest die-off of adult salmon ever recorded in the West, 33,000 dead salmon stacked up along the Klamath River in Northern California, the result of the administration's decision to divert water from the river to farming interests, say California biologists. 25% of the river's fall chinook run died from overcrowding. There is also risk of more kills if the divertion to farmers continues. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would conduct its own investigation. rw

U.S.: FDA Policies for Gene-Altered Foods Faulted in Report

Genetically modified food could contain dangerous compounds because of the failure to regulate the production of such foods. The Food and Drug Administration made errors in reviewing GM crops, and the agency will not ensure the safety of food as more companies market transgenic foods. Experts fear "anti-nutrients," or harmful compounds, could appear in higher concentrations in genetically altered crops. These are common in miniscule amounts, the amount could increase when plants are genetically altered. The FDA has not established guidelines for testing in GM foods. rw

Organo Failure California Study Suggests Link Between Autism and Pesticide Exposure

California found that exposure to two pesticides may make women more likely to give birth to children with autism. But the scientists cautioned that their finding is preliminary because of the small number of women and children involved.

Very preliminary data suggests there may be an association. The two pesticides are compounds developed in the 1950s and used to kill mites, primarily on cotton as well as some vegetables and other crops. Scientists determined that the Central Valley women lived within 500 meters, or 547 yards, of fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides during their first trimester of pregnancy. Eight of them had children with autism, six times greater than for mothers who did not live near the fields. This is a sixfold risk factor in comparison to someone who is not exposed. The findings suggest that 7% of autism cases in the Central Valley during 1996 through 1998 might have been connected to exposure to the insecticides drifting off fields into residential areas. Scientists have been exploring various environmental factors, including children's vaccines and chemical pollutants.

Scientists collected records of nearly 300,000 children born in the 19 counties of the Sacramento and San Joaquin river valleys, 465 had autism. They compared the addresses during pregnancy to records that detailed the location of fields sprayed with pesticides.

For most pesticides, no unusual numbers of autism cases were found, but the exception was a class of compounds called organochlorines. Most, including DDT, were banned in the US several decades ago, only dicofol and endosulfan remain.

The autism rate was highest for children of mothers who lived the closest to the fields. The scientists concluded that the possibility of a connection requires further study.

A July report said endosulfan can spread far from fields via the air. The agency is likely to designate endosulfan as a toxic air contaminant, and dicofol could follow. That triggers a review to see whether steps should be taken to minimize the chemicals drifting off fields.

More work on the potential link is needed before it can carry much weight in assessments of the chemicals' risks.

The two insecticides are used much less than in the years in which the possible connection to autism was found. Insects have built up resistance and cotton farmers have switched to new compounds.

The chemicals are used most extensively in Fresno, Kings, Imperial and Tulare counties. Dicofol is used on cotton, oranges, beans and walnuts. Endosulfan is used in tomato processing and on lettuce, alfalfa and cotton crops. rw

Pollution Leaves Women at Greater Risk for Heart Disease, Death

The most rigorous study to link pollution and heart disease has found that women are at much greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Women living in cities with the highest levels of air particles, such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York, were 76% more likely to die from a heart attack or stroke than women breathing cleaner air. "The magnitude of the findings are higher than what's been seen in prior research. The study monitored the health of more than 65,000 post-menopausal women for up to nine years.

It used pollution meters to measure the amount of particles in the air. The EPA compiled the results.

The findings were consistent regardless of a woman's weight, smoking history, blood pressure or cholesterol levels.

The particles affect the lining of the blood vessels, which makes it easier for cholesterol plaque to form, and also makes the blood stickier so clots are more likely to form. Women may be more vulnerable, in part, because they have smaller coronary arteries. rw

China Fails Environment Targets

Only Beijing and five other provinces or municipalities improved energy efficiency by 4% and cut emissions by 2% in the first six months of 2006.

These targets are part of the 2006-10 Five Year Plan, and call for energy consumption per unit of GDP to be cut by 20%, while pollution emissions should fall 10%.

National Development and Reform Commission Minister Ma Kai said "it is extremely hard to achieve this year's goal".

Much of China's airborne pollution comes from coal-burning power stations and car exhaust fumes, neither can be reduced quickly.

Many factories also ignore the law and pump toxic waste into rivers and lakes.

There is little sign that things are going to get better any time soon. Senior officials said the situation was worse than ever.

2006 has been the most grim year for China's environmental situation, vice-minister Pan Yue said on the Web site of the State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa). rw

House That Can ‘Eat’ Pollution

Coating buildings and roads in Europe and Japan with a "smog-eating" titanium dioxide cleans surfaces and nearby air. It can reduce some pollutants by 20% to 70%. A breakthrough by a British company can create buildings that absorb pollution. The technique involves applying titanium dioxide as a spray coating to the surface of buildings or as an ingredient in plastics, fabrics and ceramic tiles. It acts as a catalyst to break down the pollutants from vehicle exhausts.The material could be applied to the outside of existing buildings or be incorporated in new ones. In addition to keeping walls clean, it has the potential to cut breathing problems by cleaning the air around buildings.

Trials are under way in the City. Titanium dioxide has been used as a whitener in products such as toothpaste, but its ability to soak up pollution has been recognised only recently.

The titanium dioxide allows the pollutants in the air to react with the oxygen in the air and coverts it to a form which then falls onto the ground and is washed away by the rain. rw

U.S.;: Engineers Gone Wild

General Motors Corp., BMW AG and DaimlerChrysler AG plan to invest over US $1 billion in the development of a new hybrid transmission and related systems. They have about 500 engineers who have been working on the development of the next-generation hybrid engine technology. An onboard computer determines when and at what speeds the two motors will be used and how the battery will be recharged.

Development of the transmission is expected to cost about US$300. The remainder of the investment represents the cost of integrating the new hybrid system. The hybrid engine will be available in two rear-wheel drive configurations or a front-wheel drive system. It can be adjusted to provide either improved value or high performance.

DaimlerChrysler plans to use the new system in its 2008 Dodge Durango.

GM will use the hybrid in versions of the Tahoe and Yukon SUVs. BMW has said it will make vehicles available with the system over the next 3 to 5 years.

A collaborative development effort on an expensive emerging technology will become increasingly common in the auto industry.

GM is considering an alliance with Renault-Nissan that could include shared development efforts. rw

U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas

American cars and pickups are responsible for nearly half of the greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles globally. Cars in the U.S. are driven more miles, face lower fuel economy standards and use fuel with more carbon than in many other countries. It is hoped a report's findings will bolster efforts to raise fuel economy standards and set a mandatory cap on greenhouse gases from all sources. Small cars emitted more carbon dioxide than SUVs, because there are more older small vehicles with higher emissions in service. SUVs get worse fuel economy but there's twice as many small cars. That will change in a few years with SUVs bought taking the lead. The study concludes that vehicles manufactured by General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler produce the most emissions, with Toyota fourth.

GM said it was committed to cutting emissions through research and development of alternative fuels and technologies. The company would like to see greenhouse gases eliminated with the development of hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. The study was designed to show the amount of carbon dioxide released by American cars and to stimulate passage of tougher laws aimed at reducing it.

Auto industry companies have fought efforts to pass tougher federal fuel economy standards and is suing California and several other states to block state-by-state tailpipe emission laws. rw

Asian Pollution May Harm Washington Air

Most pollution in Washington state is produced locally, but some, like mercury in lake fish, or the haze that rings Mount Rainier, could have Asian connections.

A team of researchers recently received two state-of-the-art planes as part of the first concerted federal effort to decipher how air from Asia carries pollutants to America.

The added pollution could push parts of the country over clean-air thresholds, or erase gains made from costly efforts to cut local pollution.

In 2003 the EPA struck a deal to help Chinese officials to monitor air-pollution levels and cut emissions.

More sensitive equipment to track the pollution and a growing Asian industry has created greater awareness that Asia is a source of U.S. air pollution.

The team uses computer models to search for pollution associated with industrial activity. 1997, near the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, was found higher-than-expected levels of CO2 and a chemical that helps create ozone when the winds were blowing from Asia.

Dust from Asian dust storms made up more than half the small-particulate pollution in Seattle during one week. In 2003, ozone that had pushed Seattle-area levels above federal air-quality limits could be traced to Siberian forest fires.

Mercury in the air around the summit of Mount Bachelor had originated in Asia, where coal burning is a major source of atmospheric mercury.

A modified C-130 cargo and a DC-8 jet from NASA was added to help their efforts.

Both planes will spend next month over the Pacific Ocean, taking samples from plumes of pollution from Asia as part of a project spearheaded by NASA. rw

France: Belching Cows Join the Apocalypse

According to a researcher, France's 20 million cows account for 6.5% of national greenhouse-gas emissions. Each year, their belches send 26 million tonnes of gases into the atmosphere. Their faeces account for 12 million tonnes. Bovine gas comprises methane and nitrous oxide, which are 21 and 310 times more effective at trapping solar heat than CO2. Methane is to blame for a fifth of the greenhouse effect of the past 200 years. Agriculture and forestry have been identified as major factors in the greenhouse debate, but data is sparse, and has made decisions difficult. Yet scientists warned that the assumption that forests are "carbon sinks" was uncertain and possibly dangerous. France's cow population accounts for 80% of emissions from farm animals, with the rest from sheep, goats, pigs and fowl. Ideas for attenuating bovine pollutioninclude higher-protein fodder as soya can reduce the gastic fermentation, and faecal waste put in a closed silo that traps the methane, which can be burned as a biofuel. Australian scientists are trying a vaccine against three species of microbe that produce methane in sheep's stomachs. rw

Methane Targeted by U.S. as McCain Raps Bush on Global Warming

The U.S. signed an agreement with 13 other nations that calls for investing up to $53 million in companies that will profitably control emissions of methane, mainly from landfills. They are second behind carbon dioxide for warming the earth's climate. Earlier Sen. McCain called on President Bush to do more to fight global warming. McCain had been playing down his policy differences with Bush to support the president's re-election. McCain said the study demonstrates that climate change is real but Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the environment committee, called the study yet another scare tactic. A study released says the Arctic is vulnerable to warming from greenhouse gases and projects that polar bears could become extinct, and seals, caribou, reindeer herds and the people who depend on them for food also could be threatened. The Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality said that the administration's strategy is broader than perceived and will reduce the greenhouse gas in the American economy by 18%. Research and technology programs exceed $5 billion yearly. The climate plan, unveiled in 2002, calls on industry to voluntarily reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released by 18% by 2012, or about 1.5% a year - about the same rate that has occurred over the past 12 years. Bush rejected an international climate treaty for controls on carbon dioxide and other gases. McCain has held hearings to build support for a bill he sponsored with Sen. Lieberman, to impose modest mandatory controls on U.S. greenhouse gases. The 13 other countries signing the agreement were Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, China, Colombia, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia and Ukraine. rw

Methane Hydrates Could Be Next Big Energy Source; Enviros Concerned

Methane hydrates under the ocean floor and the Alaskan permafrost may be the world's next energy source, if they can be extracted safely. Ten trillion tons of carbon are trapped in the compounds which form when methane is subjected to cold and high-pressure. They can explode or release methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Extracting and processing them is six times more expensive than traditional oil and gas drilling. The DoE is paying for technological advancements that could make it cheaper. Environmentalists worry as burning methane hydrates is like opening a Pandora's box with quite probably a genocidal genie within it. rw

After 200 Years of Growth, Level of Methane Stabilizes

After a 200-year rise, levels of methane have stopped growing - which shows that curbing emissions could slow global warming. Methane contributes to the formation of ozone, an ingredient of smog. Methane remains in the atmosphere for only 8 to 10 years; carbon dioxide can last a century. Human actions appear to be the cause, specifically the shutdown of oil and gas extraction after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Old production methods released gas from leaking pipelines, uncapped wells and the like. Less leaky methods are being adopted now. Emissions of methane are more controllable than carbon dioxide, but this is the first time that scientists have found a sustained plateau in methane concentrations. Methane has many sources, about 70% from fossil-fuel extraction, but also from cattle and termites, wetlands, rice paddies and garbage dumps. There was a drop in emissions in 1991 and 1992 in a region dominated by Russia and Canada and evidence pointed to Russia. The drop in methane levels have compensated for a rise in emissions from Asia. Some scientists note that the estimates of emissions from nonindustrial sources like rice cultivation, are extremely rough. Flares on oil rigs destroy only a portion of the methane and could reveal overall activity and leakage. Will methane resume the climb? Now that natural gas has become a valuable commodity, there are economic incentives to stop leaks. rw

Extinction Traced to Methane Burp

Many forms of life, including 80% of some deep-sea species, suddenly
vanished 183 million years ago. In an article published in the journal target=_top href="http://www.nature.com/nature/">Nature, huge
reservoirs of methane trapped beneath the ocean floor rapidly escaped during
prehistoric volcanic-caused global warming and depleted much of the sea's
oxygen, according to new research by Stephen Hesselbo, an Oxford University
researcher. The study also raised questions about the stability of today's
sea floor reservoir of methane hydrate, which the federal government plans
to study as a possible energy source. "How easy it is to release the methane
that is there," Hesselbo said. Methane hydrate is formed beneath the sea
floor when algae from the surface dies and sinks. Beneath the ocean floor,
methane exists in an ice-like state but is susceptible to changes in
pressure and temperature. Researchers believe that during the Jurassic
period carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were spewed into the
atmosphere by massive volcanic eruptions, warming the subocean floor by deep
ocean currents, which in turn freed the methane from its suboceanic cage.
The methane then used the oxygen in the water or atmosphere to form carbon
dioxide, accelerating the global warming. The release was estimated to be
20% of the present-day 14,000 billion tons of gas hydrate on the sea floor.
The event took place over 5,000 years. Note: Other governments, including the
Japanese, are also studing this possibility. Harvesting the methane also has
a potential for releasing it into the atmosphere. But, as our huge
population uses up available petroleum, the attention of energy hogs will
turn to risky alternatives.

Forget Global Warming and Move Up to Real Climate Change

Deputy Director of the IEA , Ambassador Richard Jones, said at the IEA 'Clean Energy Progress' conference that global temperatures may rise by "6 degrees celsius" by 2050. Many people dispute this claim, including Fritz Vahrenholt, a former leading figure of the German environmental movement who wrote the book: 'Die Kalte Sonne' (The Cold or Cooling Sun).

Vehrenhol, while affirming climate change, is highly critical of current global warming theory. He does supports the idea of 'Energiewende' or Energy Transformation, but says the current German approach is too costly, technologically uncertain. running much too fast and could wind up counterproductive. Germany national biodiversity is being threatened with forests being hacked up to produce biomass and build windfarms.

Global warming proponents consider this rush to renewables imperious because of a) global warming, and b) the high cost of oil and gas imports. Coal seems to be left out of the picture, but they consider other European imports as bad for European trade balances and expensive. Vehrenholt is convinced that CO2 and global warming are being exaggerated: he says we have a lot more time, and more options for developing genuinely sustainable solutions.

He says a lot of climate change depends on the influence of the sun's energy cycles and whether or not we are moving into a longer-term period of low activity sunspot cycles, in which case global temperatures could drop significantly.

In addition, he claims we should not be Ignoring the other and real anthropogenic causes of climate change, especially deforestation and monocrop agriculture over 148 million sq kms of the earth's surface.

Vahrenholt was the CEO of RWE Innogy, which had a renewable energy subsidiary, is a major user of nuclear power, an oil producer, and also the biggest German producer of coal- and lignite-based electricity. Critics conclude from this that Vahrenholt is simply furthering RWE's corporate interests. But Vahrenholt was also CEO of REpower Systems, a wind energy company whose competitors are Vestas and QCells -- QCells, once German and world leader in solar PV production is now in receivership and the Vestas share price is down about 75% in 12 months.Vahrenholt says the basic reason for this was the industry was going too fast, in a casino capitalist market system with no safety nets and where only expansion succeeds.

In his book Vahrenholt tells us that wind power is being affected by deforestation and agriculture development, giving the examples of the the Hadley Cell -- the main driver of all equatorial and lower latitude circulation of air and humidity -- and the Walker-Hadley climate system, both which are weakened by wind speed and frequency reduction due to massive ongoing deforestation and agriculture development, causing radical changes of albedo and average humidity, and directly reducing wind speeds. This concerns Earth-sized chunks of the planet - all the tropical forest areas and is known for at least 25 years. These weakening and more variable wind regimes overturn longstanding cycles of the global climate system, which feature in UN IPCC global warming models, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This is a natural cycle with a period of about 60 years, split into two 30-year subcycles of more wind in winter, for 30 years, and then less - with much colder winters when there is less wind. Tropical forest deforestation has already eliminated 8 million square kilometres of forest on the 16 million total that the Earth had for at least 50 000 years until 100 years ago.

Vehrenholt also claims that the UN IPCC wants to ignore natural climatic variation, such as the 'Medieval Warm Period', around the year 1000 when the Vikings settled in Greenland and were able to live there for a couple of centuries, followed after a 300 year interval by the so-called 'Little Ice Age', starting about 1695. The IPPC claims the Little Ice Age was just a local European phenomena, but many experts claim it was not.

IPCC is a political organization; many of its 31 members are developing countries mostly interested in investment in their energy sector. IPPC should be looking at black carbon emissions, from burning wood and animal dung, which growing evidence shows may contribute at least 50% of the imputed or claimed effect of CO2.

Vahrenholt claims Germany's biomass production -- mainly rapeseed and maize -- could grow to take as much as 20% of all agricultural land. This will be monocrop agribusiness farming, producing almost zero (or even negative) net energy yield. In addition he says that Germany and some other EU states - especially the UK - claim they will or may import wheat and maize, as well as palm oil for biofuel from tropical forest land in Indonesia.

Countries are dropping out of the Kyoto accord. China contributes 25% of global CO2 emissions and its share will grow rapidly. Carbon correct and running a trade surplus is becoming difficult.

Also mentioned in the book are the inadequacies of the smart grid/super grid default solution and no alternative.

More important however -- something that the book skates around -- is that, with the IPCC bending the figures to suit its CO2 theory, we must not overlook that "climate is above all real, is anthropogenic, and is dangerous".

UN: Meat Consumption Must Be Cut to Reduce Greenhouse Gases

A recent study by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that the developed world needs to cut its meat consumption by 50% per person by the year 2050. This is a necessary step in reducing one of the most potent greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide (N2O), currently the third highest contributor to global warming, but the most difficult to control and the most potent of the three big greenhouse gases because it is a better absorber of infrared radiation.

The main sources of N2O are the spreading of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers used in agriculture, the storage of fertilizers, and the use of livestock manure. Microbes break down the fertilizers and manure, and then release N2O into the air.

Reducing meat consumption would decrease both sources of nitrous oxides. Less livestock means less manure as well as less need for synthetic fertilizers due to less agricultural produce required to feed them. N2O emissions can also be controlled by better management of fertilizer and manure.

IPCC author Dr. Eric A Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Center, outlines four scenarios which represent possible pathways of reductions in greenhouse gases. The most aggressive scenario, where N2O concentrations would stabilize by 2050, would require a 50% cut in meat consumption, 50% cut in industrial emissions, and an equal level of improvement in agricultural practices.

Dr. Davidson said, "If you had asked me 30 years ago if smoking would be banned in bars I would have laughed and said that would be impossible in my lifetime, and yet it has come true. Are similar changes possible for diet? That will depend not only on education about diet, but also upon prices of meat. Some agricultural economists think that the price of meat is going to go way up, so that per capita consumption will go down, but those are highly uncertain projections."

NOAA: March was An Epically Weird Weather Month

A mega tornado outbreak early in the month spawned 2012's first billion-dollar disaster, as warmer-than-average conditions created a juicy environment for severe weather. There were 223 preliminary tornado reports in March, a month that averages 80 tornadoes.

It was the warmest March on record for the contiguous United States, a record that dates back to 1895 - 8.6 degrees F above the 20th century average for March and 0.5 degrees F warmer than the previous warmest March in 1910.

The freakish weather was due to a persistent weather pattern that put a kink in the jet stream and kept cold away from the eastern two-thirds of the Lower 48.

Every state in the nation experienced a record warm daily temperature during March. There were 21 instances of nighttime temperatures being as warm, or warmer, than the existing record daytime temperature for that date.

Precipitation was either really wet or really dry compared to the 1981-2010 average, with not a whole lot in between.

According to NOAA's US Climate Extremes Index (USCEI)—which tracks the highest and lowest 10% of extremes in temperature, precipitation, drought, and tropical cyclones across the contiguous US—38% of the contiguous US racked up the second highest USCEI rank on record for the nation's normal cold season: October 2011 to March 2012.

Greenland Ice Melt Seen at Lower Temperatures

A complete melt of the Greenland ice sheet melt could happen if global temperatures rose between 0.8 and 3.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a best estimate of 1.6 degrees. Previously it was between 1.9 to 5.1 degrees, with a best estimate of 3.1 degrees. Already a global warming of 0.8 degrees has already been recorded. If no action is taken, the earth could warm by 8 degrees Celsius. If the entire ice sheet melted it would be equivalent to a long term 6.4 meter global sea level rise, previous research has shown.

While it would take 500 years for one fifth of the ice sheet to melt and a complete loss in 2,000 years, "If the global temperature significantly overshoots the threshold for a long time, the ice will continue melting and not regrow - even if the climate would, after many thousand years, return to its pre-industrial state," said tresearcher Andrey Ganopolski. "The more we exceed the threshold, the faster it melts." If temperature rise is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, a complete melt of the ice sheet could happen in 50,000 years.

Greenland has 1/20th of the world's ice, is about 1/4 the size of the United States and about 80% of it is covered by the ice sheet.

U.S.: Myhrvold Finds We Need Clean Energy Yesterday (and No Natural Gas) to Avoid Being Cooked

Several years ago, Nathan Myhrvold - former Microsoft executive, inventor, founder of Intellectual Ventures, all-around genius type - was said in the book SuperFreakonomics to dismiss climate change. But he went on to build a specialized set of models to capture the global temperature effects of transitions to low-carbon energy of varying speeds, using varying technologies, and now has produced a paper on his results, co-authored with climate scientist Ken Caldeira, published in Environmental Research Letters.

They ask: What effect will deployment of clean energy have on global temperature? Assuming economic growth will continue as it has, then 10-30 terawatts of carbon-neutral power will be needed by 2050 to meet global energy needs while limiting atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 450 ppm. (which would, according to the latest science, itself be quite dangerous.)

Myhrvold and Caldeira explored some crucial features of energy transitions:

1) They take quite a while to have an appreciable effect on CO2 concentrations. The world's oceans have considerable "thermal inertia" — it takes them a long time to absorb heat and a long time to release it. Even after CO2 concentrations start falling, it will take the oceans a while to stop releasing the excess heat they've already absorbed.

2) The building of a clean-energy infrastructure involves enormous expenditures of energy and thus CO2 emissions. The emissions released during the construction of any given power source will put it into "carbon debt" and it takes a while of generating carbon-free energy for it to work itself to the break-even point. Add thermal inertia to carbon debt and you get a fairly long time lag between the energy transition and its carbon effects.

3) So much CO2 accumulation is already "baked in" that temperature will continue to rise for a while even in the context of rapid emission reductions.

4) If we transitioned to something with half of coal's emissions (like natural gas), it would take more than a century to produce even a 25% decline in CO2 relative to the status quo baseline.

The result is that substantially affecting global temperature is all but impossible in the first half of the century; and reductions difficult in the second half of the century, illustrating the need for an immediate rapid transition to no carbon energy.

If we're not willing to substantially reduce population growth or economic growth, we're going to need a tremendous amount of zero-carbon energy, without delay.

It is urgent that we develop realistic plans for the rapid deployment of the lowest-GHG-emission electricity generation technologies. Technologies like natural gas and even carbon capture and storage, cannot yield substantial temperature reductions this century. Achieving substantial reductions in temperatures relative to the coal-based system will take the better part of a century, and will depend on rapid and massive deployment of some mix of conservation, wind, solar, and nuclear, and possibly carbon capture and storage.

U.S.: The Coming Mega Drought

Over the last decade Australia experienced the worst and most consistent dry period in its recorded history. The Murray River failed to reach the sea for the first time ever in 2002. Fires swept much of the country, and dust storms blanketed major cities for days. Australia's sheep population dropped by 50%, and rice and cotton production collapsed in some years. Tens of thousands of farm families gave up their livelihoods. The drought ended in 2010 with torrential rains and flooding.

What happened in Australia could happen in the U.S. Southwest, with devastating consequences to the region and to the nation. However, we can learn from Australia's experience.

There is a resemblence between the southwestern U.S. and parts of Australia before the drought. Both include arid regions where thirsty cities and irrigated agriculture are straining water supplies and damaging ecosystems. The Colorado River no longer flows to the sea in most years. Water levels in major reservoirs have steadily declined over the past decade; some analysts project that the largest may never refill.

In Australia average rainfall has decreased 15% since 1950, while from 1995 to 2006 average temperatures over southeastern Australia were 0.3 to 0.6 degree Celsius higher than the long-term average. The combination of higher evaporation and lower precipitation depletes soil moisture and reduces runoff, making droughts more intense and more frequent. Australian scientists forecast a 35 to 50% decline in water availability in the Murray-Darling river basin and a drop in flows near the mouth of the Murray by up to 70% by 2030.

Australians responded to this Millennium Drought with a wide range of technical, economic, regulatory and educational policies. Urban water managers in Australia have been forced to put in place aggressive strategies to curb water use and to expand sources of new and unconventional supplies. They have subsidized efficient appliances and fixtures such as dual-flush toilets, launched public educational campaigns to save water, and more. Between 2002 and 2008 per capita urban water use declined by 37%.

Other efforts include reuse of gray water, cisterns to harvest rooftop runoff, sewage treatment and reuse, and desalinization by the country's five largest cities, which will meet 30% of current urban water needs. The government has continued with plans to restore rivers and wetlands by cutting withdrawals from the Murray-Darling river basin by 22 to 29%.

The southwestern U.S. states would do well to push for these kinds of reforms before a similar disaster strikes.