Pentagon Suppresses Details
Of Civilian Casualties, Says Expert
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The study by US and Iraqi researchers, led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, surveyed 1,000 households in 33 randomly chosen areas in Iraq. It found that the risk of violent death was 58 times higher in the period since the invasion, and that most of
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the victims were women and children. "Making conservative assumptions, about 100,000 excess deaths have happened.
full story
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Report Sounds Alarm On Pace
Of Arctic Climate Change
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The most comprehensive international assessment of Arctic climate change has concluded that Earth's upper latitudes are experiencing unprecedented increases in temperature, glacial melting and weather pattern changes, with most of those changes attributable
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to the human generation of greenhouse gases from automobiles, power plants and other sources. full story
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Experts Expect The Northwest
To Feel The Heat As Earth Warms
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Nearly four dozen experts on global warming and its effects say the Pacific Northwest is likely to be hard-hit by a changing climate over the next few decades. Warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, diminished snowpack and water quality, a longer wildfire season -- all are among
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the measurable phenomena at the core of the scientists' "consensus statement" issued Friday. full story
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Study Sees Warming In Arctic
Due To Pollution
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A comprehensive four-year study of warming in the Arctic shows that heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks around the world are contributing to profound environmental changes, including sharp retreats of glaciers and sea ice, thawing of permafrost, and shifts in the weather,
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the oceans, and the atmosphere. The effects of warming may be heightened by other factors, including overfishing, rising populations, rising levels of ultraviolet radiation from the depleted ozone layer. full story
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A Gasoline Additive Lingers
In New York's Drinking Water
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M.T.B.E. had been leaching into the underground water table from thousands of gas tanks, and now the state has more than 13,000 spills that must be cleaned up, one of the worst cases of drinking-water pollution in the nation, experts say. M.T.B.E. contamination has been
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found in the ground water of at least 28 states. full story
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Study Of Pesticides And Children Stirs Protests
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The EPA announced this month that it was launching a two-year investigation, partially funded by the American Chemical Council, of how 60 children in Duval County, Fla., absorb pesticides and other household chemicals. The chemical industry funding initially prompted some
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environmentalists to question whether the study would be biased, and some agency scientists are now questioning whether the plan will exploit financially strapped families. full story
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Bad News Dogs Bush As Election Nears
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The presidency comes with powerful tools that can help incumbents keep their jobs: a mighty public-relations machine, a bully pulpit, a famous airplane. Yet President Bush has been powerless to halt a recent tide of bad news, from surging violence and missing weapons in Iraq, to
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missteps by his own campaign, to a potentially damaging new probe by the FBI. full story
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EPA Points To Dow As Likely Source
Of Aquifer Contamination
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A U.S. EPA report indicates that a Dow Chemical plant on the Mississippi River likely contaminated an aquifer and nearby drinking wells after years of dumping chemicals in a landfill and several major spills. A furor broke out in early 2001 when state health officials told
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residents of the Myrtle Grove Trailer Park that their water was contaminated with high levels of vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen. full story
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Unregulated Nevada Mines Spew Mercury
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A handful of Idaho environmental officials want to monitor the air along the Nevada border to see if mercury pollution from 10 Nevada gold mines poses a threat to Idahoans' health. Their concern comes five years after federal environmental regulators first learned the mines
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were among the nation's largest sources of mercury pollution, which threatens neurological damage, especially in young children, even at low levels. The mines remain unregulated. full story
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European Parliament Votes To
Protect Whales From Sonar
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The European Parliament has called for a halt to loud naval sonars until their effect on marine life has been determined. The lawmakers passed a resolution Thursday calling on the 25 EU member states to adopt a moratorium on the deployment of high-intensity active naval sonars
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until a global assessment of their cumulative environmental impact on marine mammals, fish and other marine life has been completed. full story
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Congo's Rainforest Faces Danger
As Loggers Return
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If controls are not imposed and strictly monitored in the next two or three years, Congo will have lost the chance to harvest its wood sustainably, he said. Many Congolese villagers living in areas where logging companies already operate tend to agree, complaining about broken promises from
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the firms and corrupt local authorities. full story
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Citizens Petition New York Attorney General
To Open 9-11 Inquiry
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Jenna Orkin, who chairs the World Trade Center Environmental Organization, is one of five New York City citizens who signed a complaint and petition Thursday demanding that the New York State Attorney General open a criminal inquiry and/or a grand jury investigation into unsolved
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crimes of September 11, 2001. Chief Investigator William Casey accepted the complaint on behalf of the attorney general.
full story
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Doors Opened For Gas Firm Tied To Neil Bush
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When President Bush came into office in 2001, it was a boom time for the energy industry. And one of the many boats lifted was that of a small Texas company in which the president's brother played an important role. Among other initiatives, the new president had promised to make it easier
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for companies to build coastal facilities to store liquefied natural gas imported from around the world. full story
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Yucca Mountain Looms Over Vote
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All of Nevada cares deeply about the fate of Yucca Mountain, which stands 90 miles west of Las Vegas. Nevada cares so deeply that Yucca Mountain may decide whether President Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry wins the state's five electoral votes on Tuesday -- and with them, perhaps
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the presidency. full story
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Environmental Study Gives
Tribe Lands ‘C’ Rating
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Thirty-five tribes in the region face an onslaught of illegal dumping and unauthorized landfill operations that present serious environmental hazards. The hazards are compounded by "wholly inadequate" law and government agency systems to rectify matters, the report said. |
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full story
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Weather Pounds Shipwreck Against
South Africa's Wild Coast
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Salvage crews have had to watch helplessly while wind and waves pound a grounded cargo vessel with more than 125 tons of oil aboard against a rocky part of the Wild Coast, 110 nautical miles south of Durban. The wreck has already spilled an undetermined amount of oil.
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High winds, bad weather conditions and high swells with waves breaking over the BBC China have rendered attempts to board the vessel unsafe. full story
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Company Spent $260,000 Lobbying For Herbicide
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The manufacturer of a herbicide that has been linked to frog deformities has spent $260,000 lobbying the EPA and other government officials, an Associated Press review of disclosure forms shows. Syngenta Crop Protection, which makes the herbicide atrazine, enlisted former Senate
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Majority Leader Bob Dole to meet with White House officials on at least one occasion. Dole represents the U.S. affiliate of Swiss-based Syngenta as well as the Kansas Corn Growers. full story
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World's Achilles Heels
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Climate scientists say they have identified a dozen weak links around the world, regions where global warming could bring about the sudden collapse of vital ecosystems, the effects of which will be felt far afield. An abrupt halt in one ocean current could devastate Antarctic fish
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stocks; disruption to another could make temperatures in Europe plunge. When rains return to the Sahara, disease and crop damage from pests could soar. full story
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Amnesty: US 'War On Terror' Mentality
Leads To Torture
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The US is more concerned with getting around international laws which prohibit torture than with safeguarding human rights as it wages its "war on terror", Amnesty International said in a report. The report, a 200-page analysis of the practices and decisions that led to torture in Iraq, and
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alleged abuse in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, argues that Washington's "war mentality" led it down a slippery slope toward disregard for the rule of law. full story
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Proposal Restricts Appeals On Dams
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The Bush administration has proposed giving dam owners the exclusive right to appeal rulings about how dams should be licensed and operated, a change that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the hydropower industry. The proposal would prevent states, Indian tribes
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and environmental groups from making appeals. full story
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Kyoto Sacrificed To Competitiveness
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The UK has increased the amount of carbon dioxide it wants power plants and factories to be able to pump out under a new European Union regime covering greenhouse gas emissions. It has set tougher emission reduction targets but only after raising its estimate of the amount of CO2
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that would have been pumped out over the next three years without the changes. full story
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Report: Texas Leads Nation In Mercury Emissions
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Fish in nearly one-third of the nation's 41 million acres of lakes are contaminated with mercury, and Texas leads the country in emissions of the toxic metal from power plants, a coalition of environmental groups said Wednesday. Mercury is a powerful poison that can cause brain and
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nervous system damage, especially in children, pregnant women and unborn babies. People are exposed to mercury when they eat fish caught in polluted waters. full story
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Tool-Making Chimps Live In Rainforest
Saved From Logging
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A population of innovative chimpanzees that make tools to fish for termite dinners has been discovered in a rainforest in Central Africa that was saved from logging by a unique collaboration among a scientific organization, a timber company, and government officials. If the logging
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had gone ahead, these chimps likely would not have survived.
full story
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NASA: Bush Stifles Global Warming Evidence
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The Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA scientist said. "In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information
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flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now," James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience. full story
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Worries Over Rising Carbon Dioxide Emissions
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Carbon dioxide emissions will be almost 40% higher by the end of the decade than they were in 1990 despite growing use of renewable energy, the International Energy Agency said yesterday. It predicted world energy demand will rise by 60% between now and 2030, with two-thirds of
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the increase coming from developing countries. full story
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Aids Warning Over Bushmeat Trade
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A study of African hunters has shown that a virus similar to HIV has passed from apes to humans from bushmeat of the kind that is being sold illegally in the UK. "This is the area of the world where HIV came from, and this is most likely the mechanism by which HIV emerged into the
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human population," he said. Although the full public health implications are still unknown, the fear is that the new virus could result in a new disease which would have global impact.
full story |
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European Commission OKs Transgenic Corn
For Human Food
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The European Commission, in one of its final acts before handing off to new commissioners next week, has authorized the import and marketing of foods and food ingredients derived from Monsanto's genetically modified maize line NK603. The approval came Tuesday over the
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objections of environmentalists, who fear it will sicken sensitive consumers and contaminate organic crops. full story
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Blair Accused over Greenhouse Gas 'Climbdown'
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Factories and power plants will be able to pour more carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere under allowances announced by the Government today. The move, part of the EU emissions trading scheme, was unveiled by Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett
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amid complaints from green groups and MPs that the Prime Minister has bowed to demands from industry at the expense of the environment and the fight against climate change. full story
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Canada Embraces E-Waste Recycling
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Electronics and electrical equipment of all kinds - from computers to food processors to cell phones to nail guns - are on a new list issued by the government of Ontario of items that could be kept out of landfills and diverted into a special program. Ontario Environment Minister Leona
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Dombrowsky said Tuesday that the provincial government is taking steps to divert electronics and electrical equipment from disposal. full story
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U.S. Sued Over Right Whale Protections
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Conservationists sued a federal agency Monday for allegedly failing to protect North Pacific right whales, which were hunted nearly to extinction more than a century ago and remain among the world’s most endangered animals. Experts believe there are probably fewer than 100
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North Pacific right whales in U.S. waters. full story
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Loss Of Europe's Deadwood Harms Forest Species
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The excessive removal of dead or dying trees from Europe's forests is a putting added pressure on forest dwelling species and emerging as a major cause of biodiversity loss, environmentalists said Monday. A third of Europe's forest dwelling species rely on dead or
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dying trees, logs and branches for their survival, according to a report by WWF, the global conservation organization. full story
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Bush Uses Market Incentives;
Kerry Focuses On Rules
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Few issues divide President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry more starkly than the environment, where the two men have different approaches on matters ranging from curbing air pollution to promoting energy development on public lands. While Bush has focused on containing regulatory
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costs and has targeted selected issues, Kerry has advocated stricter federal rules on a wide array of fronts. full story
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Gold Seekers Turn River In French Guiana
Into Environmental Nightmare
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Their method could not be more simple, or more brutal. From barges moored in the water, they pulverize the river banks with high-pressure hoses, pump out the resulting slurry and amalgamate the tiny specks of gold with quicksilver, or mercury. Once the gold is
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extracted from the mercury, the highly toxic metal is dumped directly into the river along with the slurry. full story
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NASA Expert Criticizes Bush
On Global Warming Policy
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A top NASA climate expert who twice briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on global warming plans to criticize the administration's approach to the issue in a lecture at the University of Iowa tonight and say that a senior administration official told him last year not to discuss
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dangerous consequences of rising temperatures. full story
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Pollution Causing Havoc In New Delhi:
Indian Research Institute
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A prestigious Indian research institute has found that millions of New Delhi residents suffer serious disorders due to pollution despite government claims that it is winning the battle against bad air. Two of every five residents suffer from lung, liver or genetic disorders due to highly-polluted air
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in the capital city of 14 million, the privately-run Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute said in a report seen by AFP Monday.
full story
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Cyanide Leak At One Australian Gold Mine
Could Block Another
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Green legislators, environmentalists and indigenous people are concerned that a gold mining company with permission to develop a mine in southern New South Wales has contaminated the waters around another of its mines with cyanide. The developer of the Lake
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Cowal gold mine, Barrick Gold, is under fire over a gold mine it half-owns in Western Australia, where cyanide has polluted groundwater. full story
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Recasting Wilderness As Open For Business
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Under the Bush administration, 2.6 million acres of Utah land that had been shielded from development were suddenly open for business. The actions were part of a sweeping policy shift by Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton. Not only does the new policy cancel protection of the
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Utah land, it withholds the interim safeguards traditionally applied to areas with wilderness potential until Congress decides whether to make them part of the national wilderness system. full story
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Dire Warnings From Global Warming Report
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As much as £200bn-worth of property and infrastructure including 2m homes could be at risk from flooding and coastal erosion by the middle of the century, the projection suggests. The cost of buildings subsidence, exacerbated by weather extremes, could top £600m a year and
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storm damage could add another £800m to annual insurance claims. full story
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Hazmat Rerouting Decision Delayed
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D.C. lawmakers and environmentalists are accusing the Bush administration of waiting until after the Nov. 2 election to decide whether to require railroads to route hazardous materials around Washington, charging that security is taking a back seat to politics. Each year, as many
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as 8,500 rail cars carrying chlorine, ammonia and hydrochloric and sulfuric acid roll through the city. full story
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The Costs Of Fracking
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A recent study by the EPA stated that fracking does not pose a threat to drinking water supplies; Weston Wilson thinks otherwise. He’s an environmental engineer for the EPA in Denver, and has sought whistleblower protection in order to criticize the agency, claiming its review of
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fracking lacks scientific objectivity. full story
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Solvents Linked To Diminished IQ
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Children of women exposed to common organic solvents during pregnancy have significantly lower scores on a wide range of cognitive, motor and behavioral tests, according to a new study. The average IQ of the exposed group was eight points lower than a group of comparable
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unexposed children - a gap one expert described as "huge."
full story
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Russian Vote Saves Kyoto Protocol
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The Russian parliament yesterday voted to ratify the Kyoto treaty, bringing the international climate change protocol to within months of coming into effect. The lower house of the parliament, or duma, yesterday voted 334-73 to approve the treaty. This means that the
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protocol's 126 signatories have eight years to cut their emissions of six greenhouse gases to 5.2% below their 1990 levels.
full story
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A Quiet Struggle For The Conservationist Vote
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The word "environment" was scarcely mentioned in the three presidential debates. But a fierce if quiet struggle is being fought for the support of hunters, anglers and conservationists, and it is being waged from the pages of Field & Stream magazine to the strategy sessions of the Sierra
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Club and the League of Conservation Voters. full story
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Remote Reefs Not Immune To Problems
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Tortugas reefs have the most coral cover in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary - coral cover is the percent of a reef that has coral growing on it, and, while much of the sanctuary has 10 percent coral cover, parts of the Tortugas have 40 percent. Even out here, though, diseases
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and bleaching are killing corals. full story
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Industry-Friendly Ministers, Lack Of Direction
Thwart Kyoto Plan: Anderson
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Canada's $3.6 billion-climate change program is being thwarted by cabinet ministers who act like lobbyists for industry and by a lack of firm direction from the prime minister, says former environment minister David Anderson. In a scathing assessment of Ottawa's efforts to
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achieve compliance with the Kyoto climate treaty, Anderson blasted the government for subsidizing auto plants even while auto manufacturers resist government demands for improved fuel efficiency in new vehicles. full story
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Raw Sewage Spill Was Massive, Reports Say
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More than 400 million gallons of raw sewage - and possibly as much as 750 million gallons - spilled into Roanoke's waterways, streets and back yards after recent floodwaters shut down the regional wastewater treatment plant, according to local and state estimates.
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full story
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Global Warming Effects
Faster Than Feared: Experts
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Recent storms, droughts and heat waves are probably being caused by global warming, which means the effects of climate change are coming faster than anyone had feared, climate experts said on Thursday. The four hurricanes that bashed Florida and the Caribbean within a
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five-week period over the summer, intense storms over the western Pacific, heat waves that killed tens of thousands of Europeans last year and a continued drought across the U.S. southwest are only the beginning, the experts said. full story
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Nigerian Tribe Gives Shell An Ultimatum
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Nigeria's Ogoni tribe has threatened mass action against the local unit of Royal Dutch Shell if the oil giant fails to withdraw troops from the area within seven days. The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People said the troops were deployed to protect Shell's facilities and
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speed up its return to oilfields it abandoned in 1993. full story
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Ontario Failing To Monitor Projects For
Environmental Safety: Report
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Ontario landfills are brimming with 1 billion aluminum pop cans and mounds of discarded cell phones, computers and televisions, the province's environmental watchdog said as he pushed for an aggressive plan to deal with the problem. Gord Miller also accused the province
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of allowing thousands of development projects to escape environmental scrutiny and noted that 40 per cent of Ontario cities have no bylaws forbidding toxic material from entering the sewer system. full story
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WWF: Human Ecological Debt
Now Too Great to Repay
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Humans are devouring Earth's resources at a pace that is overwhelming the planet's capacity to support life, according to a new report by WWF, the global conservation organization. The health of the planet is declining at a rapid rate due to our increasing consumption of natural
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resources, especially in North America. full story
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30 Thai Tigers Die Of Bird Flu,
30 More To Be Culled
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Disease control authorities Wednesday ordered that at least 30 tigers with symptoms of avian influenza at a private zoo will be killed to stop the disease from spreading. Tigers began to sicken with flu-like symptoms last week, and 30 have died since October 14. The zoo, a family
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tourist attraction, is closed until further notice. full story
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Traffic Soot Linked To Heart Attacks
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Fighting traffic can triple the risk of heart attack in people who are already susceptible. But don't blame the stress that comes with stalled freeways and missed appointments. The likely culprit, scientists said yesterday, is the hefty dose of particulate air pollution, or soot that
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people breathe when they spend time surrounded by exhaust pipes. full story
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Environmentalists Battle Use Of Ozone Depleter
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Environmentalists say action by two agencies, the EPA and the DOA, will cause an increase in production of methyl bromide. The substance destroys ozone in the stratosphere the same as chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other substances. The rule, approved by APHIS,
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would require anyone shipping products to the United States to treat crates, shipping pallets and other wood to kill pests.
full story
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Renewable Energy Could Mean Billions
In Benefits, Jobs For Ontario
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Ontario is losing out on a huge opportunity to create thousands of new jobs and pump billions of dollars into the economy because the province is not focusing enough on renewable energy, says a new report released Wednesday. Ontario could install 8,000 megawatts of wind
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power by 2012, resulting in nearly $14 billion in economic benefits and 5,000 jobs in the industry. full story
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Excess Mercury Levels Increasing
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One-fifth of women of childbearing age have mercury levels in their hair that exceed federal health standards, according to interim results of a nationwide survey being conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. The study, which was
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commissioned by Greenpeace, offers the latest evidence of how much mercury Americans are absorbing by eating fish. full story
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Marble Trade Sucks Indian Villages Dry
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Kishangarh lies some 350 kilometres south-west of Delhi. Large blocks of marble are brought here from quarries and cut and polished, before being ferried to customers across India. The local Makrana marble was, for instance, used to build the Taj Mahal. But it is a process which
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needs large quantities of water, in an area which has very little of the precious resource. full story
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$100 Million Fuels U.S. Progress
Along Hydrogen Highway
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The Energy Department and the private sector are beginning to roll towards the creation of a hydrogen economy to replace today's petroleum economy. On Tuesday, the agency awarded more than $75 million in hydrogen research projects, a figure that mounts to nearly $100
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million when private sector funds are added. In addition, a hydrogen technology park opened in Michigan that can produce hydrogen to refuel fuel cell vehicles. full story
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Insights: The Politics Of Wilderness Protection
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I’m Jim DiPeso, with REP America - Republicans for Environmental Protection. We’re practicing what we call political conservation biology - keeping alive that small but still extant gene pool of Republican conservationists. Back where I live, Mount St.
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Helens has been rumbling of late after an 18 year sleep. This has been quite the spectacle. full story
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Chemical Cocktail Found In
Blood Of European Ministers
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The blood of ministers from 13 European Union countries is contaminated with dozens of industrial chemicals, including some that were banned decades ago. The officials have an average of 37 industrial chemicals in their blood, according to tests conducted in June and
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released Tuesday by the international conservation organization WWF. full story
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Aid Agencies' Warning On Climate
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The greenhouse effect could wreck attempts to lift the world's poorest people out of poverty and reverse human progress, campaigners say. "Most notable as a major issue of concern is the nexus between climate change and the widespread prevalence of poverty in the world.
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The impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor, within all countries."
full story
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Big Production Incentive Energizes
Canada's Wind Industry
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Delegates to the Canadian Wind Energy Association Annual Conference and Tradeshow in Montreal this week are buzzing over the opportunities opened by the federal government, which is quadrupling the financial incentive it offers for wind power production. The
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government has committed to purchase 20 percent of its electricity from emerging renewable power sources by 2006.
full story
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World's Amphibians Face Bleak Future
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Amphibian species are disappearing at a dramatic rate and their plight reflects the declining health of the planet, according to a comprehensive study of known amphibians.
The study finds 122 species of frogs, toads, salamanders and legless amphibians have
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probably become extinct since 1980 and warns a third of all amphibian species currently face the same fate. full story
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Japanese Charged With Whaling
Inside Australian Sanctuary
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The Humane Society International today filed an application in the Australian Federal Court for a case against the Japanese company that hunts whales in the Australian Whale Sanctuary as part of a so-called scientific research program. If the application is successful, the society plans to
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seek a declaration that the hunt in the sanctuary is illegal and ask for it to be restrained this season. full story
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Under siege: The Wonders Of The West
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George Bush's environmental record is the worst in recent US history. Now the red-rock canyons of Utah, some of America's most treasured landscapes, are in danger. What could possibly justify such a blight on some of the most stunning scenery in the American West? A plentiful oil
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supply would certainly be one argument, but the scandal of Long Canyon, and dozens of wells like it, is that it is pitifully unproductive. full story
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Bush Environmental Policies Spur
Some Outdoorsmen to Consider Kerry
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Bob Elderkin's vote would appear to be a sure bet for President Bush on Nov. 2. He is a hunter, part of a conservative-leaning group of outdoors people that is 38 million strong and avidly supports gun rights. But after backing Bush in 2000, Elderkin and some like-minded
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outdoorsmen say the Republican won't get their vote again because of his environmental policies. full story
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Bush VS. the Laureates:
How Science Became A Partisan Issue
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For nearly four years, and with rising intensity, scientists in and out of government have criticized the Bush administration, saying it has selected or suppressed research findings to suit preset policies, skewed advisory panels or ignored unwelcome advice, and quashed
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discussion within federal research agencies. full story
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The Future Of The Planet:
Which First - Improvements Or Growth?
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The debate about how to control mercury illustrates some of the main differences between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry on environmental and natural resource issues. "People and wildlife are at risk of impaired health from eating fish from these waters," wrote
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Sheryl Corrigan, commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, in a letter to EPA officials in June. full story
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Sustainable Development Blocked By
Ruinous Natural Disasters
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Jan Egeland, under-secretary-general of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told a committe of the UN General Assembly considering sustainable development that in 2003 alone, disasters had affected more than 254 million people. Locusts in Africa and
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tropical cyclones and floods in the Caribbean and Asia have already caused "immense losses" in 2004, he said. full story
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Indonesian Orangutans Focus
Of Thai Smuggling Case
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The Indonesian government is insisting on a speedy repatriation of more than 100 orangutans that are believed to have been illegally obtained in Indonesia and smuggled into Thailand. The endangered apes currently are being held in Thailand at Safari World, a zoo in suburban
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Bangkok. full story
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EU Comes To The Rescue Of
Zakynthos Loggerhead Turtles
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The European Commission is pursuing legal action against Greece for failure to protect the rare loggerhead sea turtle on the island of Zakynthos. Greece was already condemned by the European Court of Justice in January 2002 for this failure. The Court found that Greece was
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not doing enough to protect the breeding sites of the sea turtle on a number of beaches on Zakynthos. full story
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Hold The Phone - Or It Will Pollute The Planet
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An international convention in Geneva will try to tackle the latest toxic waste crisis - mobile phones. The phones, a billion are in use around the world, are packed with chemicals and metals that can endanger people and the environment once they are thrown away. Tests by the US and
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the Californian environmental protection agencies have established that they should be classified as toxic waste. full story
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Villagers Allege Byproduct Of U.S. Firm's
Mining Venture Is Making Them Sick
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For the residents of Buyat Beach, the cause of their affliction seems as obvious as the three-story industrial station rising at the entrance to their village, a structure of pipes and girders that, until last month, pumped an average of 1,700 tons of mining waste a day beyond the pounding
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surf. The villagers blame Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., for poisoning their idyllic tropical bay with arsenic and mercury.
full story
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Pacific Currents: Mexico's
Floating Gardens Endangered
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The pastoral scene is so traditional, so rooted in ancient Mexico, that one can't help thinking of a Diego Rivera mural of idealized pre-Hispanic life. Below the surface, however, where industrial heavy metals and other contaminants lurk in Xochimilco's water and mud, the worst of
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modernity intrudes and the picture is not so pretty. full story
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Standoff In Congress Blocks Action
On Environmental Bills
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For another year, the confluence of partisan tensions, ideological differences, regional conflicts and interest group politics has blocked action on key environmental legislation including reducing air pollution and protecting endangered species, according to lawmakers, advocates and
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academics. Some analysts warn that the long-standing impasse is reaching a crisis point. full story
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Blair Is 'Using Our Troops To Boost Bush'
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Tony Blair last night stood accused of conspiring to use British troops in Iraq as a "political gesture" to help George W Bush in the US presidential election. The Prime Minister faced protests from all sides over plans to redeploy British forces to an area 25 miles south of
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Baghdad, freeing the US 24th Marine Expeditionary Force for an expected assault on the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. full story
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Introduction: Planet Under Pressure
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Scientists now say we are in a new stage of the Earth's history, the Anthropocene Epoch, when we ourselves have become the globe's principal force. But several eminent scientists are concerned that we have become too successful - that the unprecedented human pressure on the
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Earth's ecosystems threatens our future as a species. full story
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Antarctic Glaciers Melting Faster
Than Being Replaced
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Some of Antarctica's glaciers are melting faster than snow can replace them, enough to raise sea levels measurably, scientists reported. Measurements of glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea, on the Pacific Ocean side of Antarctica, show they are melting much faster
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than in recent years and could break up. And they contain more ice than was previously estimated, meaning they could raise the sea level by more than predicted, the international team of researchers wrote in the journal Science. full story
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Poll Reveals World Anger At Bush
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George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries - including some of its closest allies - growing more hostile to the United States while he has been in office. According to a
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survey, voters in 8 out of the 10 countries, including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat President Bush in next month's US presidential election. full story
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Conference Tackles Pharmaceutical
Water Pollution
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Fish and frogs are changing sexes. Male alligators aren't developing working reproductive organs. Scientists are discovering that a wide range of chemicals - including pesticides, hormone therapy drugs, psychiatric drugs, steroids, flame retardant and cosmetics - all
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share troubling properties. Known as endocrine disrupters, the chemicals in these drugs slip unregulated through drinking water treatment plants and out of faucets around the country. full story
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Reforestation To Continue In China's West
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China will maintain its drive to return reclaimed farmland to forest in its western regions, but will proceed with caution to ensure sustainable development and a better life for farmers. Li Zibin, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said Thursday in
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Beijing that the policy was not to blame for the country’s declining grain harvest. full story
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China's Growth Takes Toll On Resources
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China's economic frenzy has threatened the environment so severely that a country which was once almost self-sufficient now imports not only grain but also huge quantities of other resources. Its natural resources, air, land and water, are suffering badly. China has already
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become the world's second-biggest generator of co2 emissions and could overtake the US as the biggest source of greenhouse gases in three decades. full story
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Global Endangered Species Trade Rules
Set For Two Years
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A two week meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) closed here Thursday after deciding to strengthen wildlife management, combat illegal trafficking and update the trade rules for a wide range of plant and animal species. Decisions
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reached in Bangkok will stand until the next CITES meeting in 2007 in The Netherlands. full story
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The Polluted Planet: Alarm As Global Study Finds One-Third Of Amphibians Face Extinction
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A global study revealed yesterday that almost a third of amphibians face extinction - and pollution is cited as the biggest cause. The three-year survey, involving 500 scientists from more than 60 countries, has found that a third of the 5,743 known species are threatened with being wiped
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out and at least 427 are so critically endangered that they could disappear tomorrow. full story
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Scientists Sound Alarm Over Biodiversity
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Increasing numbers of plants and animals in Switzerland are dying out through loss of habitat, according to a report on the nation’s biodiversity. Figures show that 224 species of plants and animals have disappeared over the past 150 years. The authors called on the government to
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honour the commitment it made to protect wildlife when it signed the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 1994. full story
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Male Bass in Potomac Producing Eggs
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Scientists believe this inversion of nature is being caused by pollution in the water. But they say the exact culprit is still unknown: It might be chicken estrogen left over in poultry manure, or perhaps human hormones dumped in the river with processed sewage. Hormones, drugs and other
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man-made pollutants appear to be interfering with the chemical signals that make fish grow and reproduce. full story
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EU Wants To Cut Greenhouse Gases
In Cars, Shoes
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The EU's battle against global warming will force companies to change automobile air conditioning systems and restrict the sale of air-cushioned sports shoes. The measures, included in draft legislation, are part of the EU's commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gas
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emissions. The draft laws will also limit the leakage of environmentally-harmful fluorinated gases from items like refrigerators. full story
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Halliburton's Interests Assisted By White House
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Over the last four years, the Bush administration and Vice President Dick Cheney's have backed a series of measures favoring a drilling technique developed by Halliburton Co., Cheney's former employer. The technology, known as hydraulic fracturing, boosts gas and oil production and
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generates $1.5 billion a year for the company. In recent years, Halliburton has been fighting efforts to regulate the procedure under a statute that protects drinking water supplies. full story
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Polluters Face Fewer Lawsuits Under Bush EPA
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The Bush administration has not vigorously enforced the nation's key environmental laws and has allowed polluters to escape litigation over alleged violations, according to a former top enforcement official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "The Department of Justice
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and the EPA have gotten shy about taking polluters to court lately," said Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former head of the EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement. full story
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State Announces $1.5 billion
In Everglades Projects
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Florida is planning $1.5 billion in projects designed to speed up Everglades restoration, including the construction of reservoirs that could ease future suburban flooding and environmental damage from hurricanes, officials said Thursday. The eight projects include ones to improve
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freshwater flow into Biscayne and Florida bays and to reduce dirty water flow from rain-swollen Lake Okeechobee. full story
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Several U.S. Utilities Being Investigated for Lead
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The EPA is reviewing the validity of lead testing reports across the country. EPA and state regulators are investigating whether to order some utilities to take quick steps to protect public health, including those in New York City, Detroit, Portland, Ore., and some northern New
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Jersey communities full story
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Pollution Cleanups Pit
Pentagon Against Regulators
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About one in 10 Americans — nearly 29 million — live within 10 miles of a military that is listed as a national priority for hazardous-waste cleanup under the federal Superfund program, a USA TODAY analysis shows. In all, the Defense Department is responsible for more than
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10% of the 1,240 total sites listed for priority cleanup under the program, which aims to restore the nation's most polluted properties, both public and private. full story
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New Wildlife Refuge to Conserve
Minnesota Tallgrass Prairie
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Acquisition of 35,000 acres of wetlands and tallgrass prairie habitat in northwest Minnesota for America's newest national wildlife refuge was authorized Tuesday, to mark National Wildlife Refuge Week 2004. Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced the authorization of the
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Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul after flying over the new refuge earlier in
the day. full story
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Carbon 'Reaching Danger Levels'
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The UK government's leading scientist says levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already represent a danger. Professor Sir David King told a London audience the world had to adapt to prepare for significant changes ahead, and also to reduce greenhouse gases. On present
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trends, Sir David said, the world was just 60 years from triggering an irreversible climate disaster. full story
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Iraq Faces Soaring Toll Of Deadly Disease
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Soaring rates of disease and a crippled health system are posing a new crisis for the people of Iraq, threatening to kill more than have died in the aftermath of the war. Deadly infections including typhoid and tuberculosis are rampaging through the country, according to the first official
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report into the state of health in the country. full story
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Bush Funds US Spying On Internet Chat Rooms
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Amid the torrent of jabber in Internet chat rooms - flirting by QTpie and BoogieBoy, arguments about politics and horror flicks - are terrorists plotting their next move? The government certainly isn't discounting the possibility. It's taking the idea seriously enough to fund a
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yearlong study on chat room surveillance under an anti-terrorism program. full story
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Bush Policy Gets A Ride On The House
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House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) has launched an aggressive mail campaign, at taxpayer expense, to promote the environmental work of President Bush. This month Pombo mailed fliers to 100,000 residents in Minnesota, Wisconsin and a few western
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states touting the president's push for snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park. full story
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Developing Countries Voluntarily Limit
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
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The Kyoto climate protocol has not yet come into force, but governments of developed and developing countries alike are moving ahead to control their emissions of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming. Russia is expected to bring the protocol into force with its ratification
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shortly, but the Netherlands, South Africa and Mexico are taking steps to limit their emissions now. full story
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New Radioactivity Limit Could Sink Shellfish
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Thousands of tonnes of British shellfish currently eaten in Europe could be banned under new international safety limits for radioactivity in food. Lobsters, cockles and scallops from the north west of England and the south west of Scotland are so contaminated with plutonium from the
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Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria that they will breach limits due to be introduced by the United Nations in 2005. full story
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Jamaica Conserves Forests With
Debt-For-Nature Pacts
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The governments of Jamaica and the United States, along with The Nature Conservancy, have concluded agreements to reduce Jamaica's debt to the United States by nearly $16 million. In return, the Jamaican government has committed itself to spend an equivalent sum over
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the next 20 years to fund projects to conserve and restore tropical forest resources. full story
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Elephant Ivory Ban Upheld,
Rhino Trade Allowed By CITES
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Members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) have rejected proposals to lift the 14 year ban on commercial ivory trade and have adopted an action plan to crack down on unregulated domestic ivory markets across Africa. White
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rhinos did not fare so well in Monday's voting by 166 governments in Bangkok for their biennial meeting to update trade rules, but the great white shark was protected. full story
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Kerry Promotes Plan For Energy Independence
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America is now more dependent on foreign oil than when President George W. Bush came into office, which puts national security at risk, Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry charged Monday. In a speech to a Santa Fe crowd outlining his energy independence
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proposal, Kerry took aim at Bush's energy policy which, he said, has helped the oil industry but has squeezed families and the environment. full story
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A Facelift At The EPA
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The Bush administration has committed itself to reshaping the EPA by staffing key regulatory posts with industry lobbyists and lawyers. These high-level Bush appointees at EPA, the Interior Department and elsewhere have launched a broad effort to rewrite pollution rules, ease curbs
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on development of natural areas, and allow more drilling, logging and mining on federal lands. full story
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GM Crops Row Splits Italian Government
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Farmers warned that delays in agreeing rules could lead to next year's Italian harvests being unintentionally "contaminated". The dispute has cut across traditional loyalties, pushing growers, environmentalists, leftwingers and nationalist-minded "post-fascists" into an unlikely alliance.
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Opinion among farmers and the public is overwhelmingly opposed to the introduction of GM seeds. full story
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Climate Fear As Carbon Levels Soar
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An unexplained and unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere two years running has raised fears that the world may be on the brink of runaway global warming. Scientists are baffled why the quantity of the main greenhouse gas has leapt in a two-year period
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and are concerned that the Earth's natural systems are no longer able to absorb as much as in the past. full story
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Time To Curb The Wildlife Trade: Jane Goodall
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"In a world that seems to grow smaller with each passing year, human beings continue to consume with a voracious and insatiable appetite. We are consuming natural resources at an unprecedented rate and seem obsessed with "Band-Aid" solutions to environmental problems. I have
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spent my life working with chimpanzees in Africa and am increasingly concerned about the fate of not just individual populations, but the species in general." full story
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Elephant Conservation Move Rejected
By CITES Delegates
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Governments failed to adopt a resolution to put an end to the illegal ivory trade and improve control of domestic ivory markets today at the meeting of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The delegates from 166 countries have
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agreed to extend protection to one dolphin species, and to medicinal plants including five species of yew trees, used in anti-cancer medicines. full story
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Illegal Skin Trade Pushes
Asia's Big Cats To The Brink
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Wild tigers are vanishing, and the tiger skin trade is "spiralling out of control," finds a new report based on extensive field investigations by an international environmental organization. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) warns that "a sophisticated network of criminal
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masterminds" is driving the tiger skin trade in urban and cross-border areas of India, China and Nepal. full story
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Global Child Mortality Rates
Are Slow To Drop, U.N. Reports
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In Sierra Leone, one in four children dies before age 5. In Iraq, one in 10 does not make it to a fifth birthday. Across the globe, poor care for newborns, malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and measles snuff out lives of the very young, according to a U.N. report to be released
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Friday. The United Nations Children's Fund reported "alarmingly slow progress on reducing child deaths" -- one in 12 children worldwide does not live to age 5, with half of all those deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. full story
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New Orleans' Growing Danger
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Wetlands, which absorb much of the storm surge of approaching hurricanes, are disappearing at the rate of 28,000 acres a year, bringing the sea that much closer to the city. So New Orleans, tucked below sea level between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, is in growing
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danger of drowning. A direct hit by a very powerful hurricane could swamp its levees and leave as much as 20 feet of chemical-laden, snake-infested water trapped in the man-made bowl.
full story
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Medical Plea To Save Forests
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Fearful that growing pressure for development could cause the loss of vital plants and animals, biologists and conservationists are trying to rally new interest in protecting tropical forests and the keys they may hold for vital medicines. "Other issues in recent years have turned the focus
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from environmental matters, but development in these ecosystems should make them a priority now, before undiscovered species that could help produce new medicines go extinct." full story
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Toxin Build-up Is Highest In Young
|
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Children as young as nine have more manufactured chemicals in their blood than their grandparents and these substances are suspected of disrupting development and hormones, according to tests on seven volunteer families across the country. Eighty manufactured
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chemicals were detected in blood tests for 104 substances on 33 people. Children were found to have 75 in their blood, as did their parents, but their grandmothers only had 56. full story
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Pesticide Persisting Beyond
Scheduled Elimination Date
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Methyl bromide is considered more destructive to the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere than some banned chemicals and has been linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer in farm workers. After a decade in which the use of the fumigant decreased by more than 70 percent
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among developed nations, consumption of methyl bromide is poised to rise next year. full story
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Wild Tigers Disappearing, Experts Warn
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The wild tiger is under grave threat unless China and India attack the growing illegal skin trade, an environmental lobby group's report has warned. The EIA said there were fewer than 5,000 wild tigers left in the world -- down from about 100,000 a century ago. About half of them live
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in India. full story
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Iowa's First Orangutans Arrive At Great Ape Trust
|
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The first orangutans to live in Iowa, Azy and his sister Indah, arrived last week at a new 200 acre facility a few miles southeast of Des Moines. They will be the focus of a language and behavior study program which launches the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, a research center dedicated to
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the great apes. full story
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Bush And Blair's Case For War Is Demolished
|
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Now we finally know what we had long suspected. When US and British forces invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein had no chemical weapons; he had no biological weapons; he had no nuclear weapons. In fact, he had no banned weapons at all. That is the considered judgment
|
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of the Iraq Survey Group, set up by President Bush to prove his case for removing the Iraqi dictator, and released in Washington last night. full story
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Iraqi Environment Minister
Seeks Suppport In Washington
|
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The Iraqi Environment Minister Dr. Mishkat Al Moumin is in Washington this week meeting with Bush administration officials, seeking help to handle the difficult environmental challenges facing Iraq. In a media briefing this morning with Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the minister
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said the right to a clean environment is a human right. full story
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CITGO Petroleum Agrees To
Emissions Cleanup In Five States
|
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The CITGO Petroleum Corporation has agreed to spend $323 million to install and implement state-of-the-art control technologies to reduce emissions at its refineries in five states, the federal government and the company announced Wednesday. The Clean Air Act settlement is
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expected to reduce harmful air emissions by more than 30,000 tons per year from six petroleum refineries. full story
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Bush Officials Halt Montana Gas Drilling Plan
|
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The Bush administration officially abandoned a plan Tuesday that could have allowed a Canadian company to drill for natural gas along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. The decision comes in the wake of strong opposition by environmentalists, hunters, anglers and ranchers
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to development of the scenic landscape, which has long been recognized as one of the nation's most significant wildlife areas.
full story
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Iraqi Ports Blocked, Polluted By
Hundreds Of Shipwrecks
|
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Access to Iraq's two deepwater seaports is blocked and the marine environment of the entire northern Persian Gulf is threatened by hundreds of sunken ships that were wrecked in wars over the past 25 years, according to a detailed new report by the United Nations Development
|
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Programme. Munitions, pesticides and fuels are still aboard many of the ships, and pollutants are leaking from the wrecks.
full story
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Pre-Election Battle Axes Clash
Over Tasmania's Tall Trees
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Prime Minister John Howard announced today that if his Coalition wins the general election on Saturday, he will protect one million hectares of Tasmanian forest, 150,000 hectares more than is protected under the Regional Forest Agreement currently in place. But conservationists
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campaigning against the cutting of Tasmania's old growth say the offer protects too little of the unique and irreplaceable forest.
full story
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Banana Pickers Allege Use Of
Toxic Substance By Firms
|
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Thousands of banana pickers in Costa Rica have filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against two chemical companies and three major U.S. fresh produce companies, claiming exposure to a toxic pesticide caused a range of reproductive disorders. The suit, filed against Dole Food Co.,
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Chiquita Brands Inc., Del Monte Produce Inc., Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Chemical Co., accuses the companies of using dibromochloropropane on bananas in Central America after it was banned in the U.S. in 1979. full story
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Change In The Chinese Wind
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The world's largest wind power project will begin construction this month near Beijing, bringing green energy and cleaner air to the 2008 Summer Olympics and city residents coping with some of the worst air pollution in the world. The new wind power plant will generate 400
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megawatts per day, nearly doubling the electrical energy China currently obtains from wind. full story
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