POLLUTION NEWS gaia church
You have the power to eliminate the entire amount of pollution caused by one person in an entire lifetime! In fact, it's an easy, simple decision: to have your tubal-ligation or vasectomy sooner!
.
8,000 lbs of waste are typically thrown into the landfill during the construction of a 2,000 square foot home.
Dec 28, 06: [google: minimata disease] A heavy metal believed to be benign in the state's coastal waters does in fact pose a threat to the health and survival of oysters, a U of North Carolina at Charlotte scientist says. The heavy metal cadmium, combined with warming coastal waters, can kill the shellfish or weaken their resistance to disease, according to research.
. . Oysters in North Carolina's sounds are already in decline due to pollution, overfishing and damaged habitat. Because the shellfish take in nutrients by filtering the water in which they live, oysters from tainted water are dangerous to eat because toxins accumulate in the meat.
. . Cadmium from products such as batteries and paint is a common pollutant in the sounds where oysters live. Concentrations are so low that the heavy metal wasn't believed to hurt marine life, but research by Sokolova and three colleagues showed that even low concentrations increase an oyster's metabolism and the harmful oxidation of oyster cells.
. . Cadmium's impact is magnified by warming water, and coastal waters near Wilmington have warmed by 1 to 1.5 degrees since 1949, Sokolova said. Climate scientists expect that trend to continue. "Temperature is a really key player in determining how toxic cadmium is to an organism", Sokolova said.
. . Confronted by both the toxic metal and warm water, the oysters must invest all their energy in staying alive rather than growing or fighting off toxins, she said, and the same thing is probably happening with fish, crabs and other cold-blooded animals.
. . North Carolina's oyster harvests peaked in the 1960s at about 300,000 bushels a year. By the 1990s the catch had plummeted to about 40,000 bushels.
Dec 27, 06: [not your usual pollution...] Researchers at the U of Washington say all that holiday baking and eating has an environmental impact —-Puget Sound is being flavored by cinnamon and vanilla.
Dec 18, 06: [this is really about herbicide-pollution...] The cotton industry is concerned about the discovery of a herbicide-resistant weed that spreads easily, can grow an inch a day even during droughts and could force farmers to return to older growing methods that were harsher on the environment. "It is potentially the worse threat since the boll weevil", said Alan York, weed scientist at North Carolina State U in Raleigh.
. . The weed that is causing concern is Palmer amaranth, a type of pig weed that grows 2-3 meters tall. Amaranth that resists the most common herbicide used in cotton, glyphostate, has been confirmed in 10 of North Carolina's 100 counties, four of Georgia's 159 counties and is suspected in Tennessee, South Carolina and Arkansas, scientists say. In Georgia, where the weed has been confirmed in 48 fields, amaranth took over some fields and the cotton had to be cut down, rather than harvested.
. . If someone were trying to design a particularly nasty weed, Palmer amaranth could be the model, York said. "It's an extremely competitive weed", he said. "It's extremely prolific. It's an efficient ... bad weed." [yet many other Amaranth species are great food plants!]
. . Glyphostate is sold under several brand names, but the leading product is Roundup, made by Monsanto. The company revolutionized cotton growing in the 1990s when it introduced BT cotton —-cotton that was genetically engineered with its own built-in pest defenses. Monsanto also introduced Roundup Ready cotton-— plants that wouldn't perish with the weeds when a field was sprayed with a glyphostate herbicide.
. . Those two developments enabled cotton growers to drastically reduce the amount of chemicals used in their fields and to switch to conservation tillage, which reduces soil erosion and helps to retain moisture in the soil. The improved efficiency also lowered costs for such things as labor, equipment and fuel.
. . Roundup has been "so good, so economical and such a benign herbicide, that we became dependent on it. It had everything everyone would need", he said. "But when you rely too heavily on one technology, resistance will eventually develop."
Dec 18, 06: More than a dozen states sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday to lower soot levels from smokestacks and exhaust pipes, a move the state officials argue would save thousands of lives.
. . The states argue that the Bush administration is ignoring science and its own experts in refusing to slightly reduce the allowed threshold for soot. The "fine particulate matter" in soot contributes to premature death, chronic respiratory disease and asthma attacks, said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The pollution also leads to more hospital admissions and other public health costs, he said.
. . "It is unfortunate that this coalition of states must resort to legal action to get the EPA to do its job — protect the environment and the public health", said Spitzer, the Democratic governor-elect.
. . The EPA said it considered new research cited by the state officials. But the agency decided research that prompted a previous reduction was more reliable and didn't justify a further cut, according to EPA statements. The agency said it will consider the new studies in the next five-year review.
. . The emissions, described as much smaller than a grain of sand, come from automobiles, power plants, factories and wood fires. The states want to reduce the current limit by 1 microgram or 2 micrograms of soot allowed per cubic foot of air. The current maximum is 15 micrograms. The states contend the EPA has ignored their pleas and scientific evidence in choosing to continue the current standard.
Dec 17, 06: Facing federal pressure over worsening air pollution, a state air quality commission today approved its first-ever statewide emissions controls on the booming oil and gas industry. The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission said new rules would reduce emissions by 68% from tanks that collect oil, liquefied natural gas and other byproducts. The rules would take effect in May 2008 if the Legislature approves them.
. . The emissions react with sunlight to form ozone, a primary component of smog. It is a colorless gas and is itself a threat to children and people with asthma.
Dec 15, 06: European emissions of acid rain-causing sulphur dioxide have declined by 65% since 1990, contributing to a decline in air pollution across Europe, a United Nations agency said.
Dec 11, 06: The Environmental Protection Agency granted California long-awaited permission to slash emissions from lawnmowers and other small-engine machines, a change it will seek nationally next year. The EPA waiver will allow the nation's most populous state, starting Jan. 1, to require highly polluting small engines to be sold with catalytic converters that cut smog emissions by roughly 40%.
. . Engines under 50 horsepower account for 7% of smog emissions in California from mobile sources, the equivalent of about 3 million cars. The engines also power pressure washers and small generators, but the bulk are on lawnmowers.
. . California, home to some of the nation's most polluted air in the Los Angeles basin and San Joaquin Valley, is under constant pressure to meet federal air quality standards or risk sanctions including losing money for highway projects.
. . The California Air Resources Board, which passed the mower emissions rule three years ago but couldn't enforce it pending the EPA waiver, welcomed the news as key in developing clean air plans.
Dec 8, 06: Microscopic particles of plastic could be poisoning the oceans, according to a British team of researchers. They report that small plastic pellets called "mermaids' tears", which are the result of industry and domestic waste, have spread across the world's seas. The scientists had previously found the debris on UK beaches and in European waters; now they have replicated the finding on four continents.
. . Scientists are worried that these fragments can get into the food chain. Plastic rubbish, from drinks bottles and fishing nets to the ubiquitous carrier bag, ends up in the world's oceans. Sturdy and durable plastic does not bio-degrade, it only breaks down physically, and so persists in the environment for possibly hundreds of years.
. . Among clumps of seaweed or flotsam washed up on the shore it is common to find mermaids' tears, small plastic pellets resembling fish eggs. Some are the raw materials of the plastics industry spilled in transit from processing plants. Others are granules of domestic waste that have fragmented over the years. They're almost impossible to clean up.
. . The team set out to out to find out how small these fragments can get. So far they've identified plastic particles of around 20 microns --thinner than the diameter of a human hair. Dr Thompson's findings estimate there are 300,000 items of plastic per sq km of sea surface, and 100,000 per sq km of seabed. So plastic appears to be everywhere in our seas. The next task was to try and find out what kind of sea creatures might be consuming it and with what consequences.
. . They looked at the barnacle, the lugworm and the common amphipod or sand-hopper, and found that all three readily ingested plastic as they fed along the seabed. "These creatures are eaten by others along food chain," Dr Thompson explained. "It seems an inevitable consequence that it will pass along the food chain. There is the possibility that chemicals could be transferred from plastics to marine organisms."
. . The second aspect of this research is focusing on what happens when plastic absorbs other contaminants. So-called hydrophobic chemicals such as PCBs and other polymer additives accumulate on the surface of the sea and latch on to plastic debris. "They can become magnified in concentration."
Dec 7, 06: U.S. environmental regulators are considering removing lead, a heavy metal linked to learning problems in children, from a list of regulated pollutants because past rules have greatly reduced levels of the toxin.
Dec 5, 06: A factory manager in east China has been arrested for using grease from swill, sewage, pesticides and recycled industrial oil to make lard for human consumption, state media said.
Dec 1, 06: Underground water reserves in around 9 out of every 10 Chinese cities are polluted or over-exploited, and could take hundreds of years to recover, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Dec 1, 06: Travelers know the warning: Don't drink the water. But tourists to Mammoth Cave National Park might be better off learning a new one: Don't let the water drip on you.
. . National Park Service employees and Western Kentucky University researchers are working on finding out why water at Mammoth Cave has shown spikes in fecal coliform and E. coli bacteria. And to protect visitors, park workers have installed a plexiglass and steel cover at the cave's historic entrance where dripping water naturally finds its way downhill and onto visitors to the world's longest cave.
Nov 29, 06: Billions of gallons of untreated urban sewage and toxic effluents that flow into the Great Lakes each year are threatening a critical ecosystem that supplies drinking water to millions of people, a landmark study concludes.
. . Even though municipalities in the Great Lakes region have spent vast sums of money in recent decades upgrading their wastewater plants, the situation remains appalling, says the report by the Sierra Legal Defense Fund. "The problem of inadequate sewage treatment is particularly disturbing because sewage is not simply what gets flushed down our sinks and toilets", the report states. "In fact, typical municipal sewage is a foul cocktail of human waste, micro-organisms, disease-causing pathogens and hundreds of highly toxic chemicals."
. . Sierra Legal bills the study of 20 Canadian and American cities as the "first-ever ecosystem-based survey and analysis" of municipal sewage treatment and discharges into the Great Lakes basin.
. . The situation is especially bad when heavy rains overwhelm treatment systems in cities where storm run-off is collected in the same pipes as sewage. Some 24 billion gallons of untreated effluent enter the Great Lakes every year through combined sewage overflows, the study found. That's the equivalent of more than 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools full of raw sewage every day.
. . Canada's worst offender was Windsor, Ontario, which — along with U.S. cities Detroit and Cleveland — performed "abysmally." Cities such as Toronto and Hamilton also earned below-average grades.
Nov 28, 06: Dozens of people were hospitalized and 3,000 abandoned their homes after chemical waste was dumped near a river in a town north of the Philippine capital, Manila. Residents of Marilao woke up to foul-smelling fumes which forced 60 people to nearby hospitals due to dizziness, nausea and chest pains. Thirty remained for further treatment. Marilao's chief of police, said two men who were suspected to have dumped the waste from their truck had been arrested and brought in for questioning. The oil-based chemical was thought to be used for cleaning up liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders.
. . Y'day, authorities shut down a public high school in Manila's financial district, sending home 1,200 pupils and evacuating hundreds of residents within a 50-meter radius due to leaking chemicals from a science laboratory.
Nov 27, 06: Delegates from some 120 nations met in Kenya today to tackle the growing global threat from hazardous waste including toxic chemicals, obsolete electronics and rust-bound ships and aircraft.
Nov 24, 06: The international community must pay to clean up Ivory Coast sites polluted by toxic waste, the UN says.
Nov 23, 06: Not a single West Virginia grocery store is warning consumers of the possible dangers of mercury in fish, an environmental group says, even though the state and federal governments have been issuing advisories to anglers for at least two years.
. . Oceana, a Washington, D.C.-based activist group, issued a report this week that concludes fewer than 20% of the nation's grocery stores are posting in-store warnings about mercury. Methylmercury, a form commonly found in fish, is the type most likely to cause health problems. Some studies suggest that coal-burning power plants are the major source of mercury emissions in the United States.
Nov 23, 06: Consumer products using extremely small particles of silver to kill germs will need Environmental Protection Agency approval, part of the government's first move to regulate the burgeoning nanotechnology industry.
Nov 23, 06: A stretch of China's Yellow River, the country's second longest, has turne
d red from pollution for the second time in a month, local media reported.
Nov 18, 06: Air quality regulators in at least 22 states have concluded that the Bush administration's approach to cutting mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants is too weak and are pursuing tougher measures of their own.
Nov 15, 06: Arsenic-contaminated water can be made drinkable cheaply and simply using tiny crystals related to rust, scientists at Rice University in Texas say. The US team says that particles of iron oxide can bind themselves to large amounts of arsenic in water. When a strong magnet is placed above the particles, they clump together like iron filings and are simple to remove. When mixed into contaminated water, the tiny crystals became coated with the poison and began behaving like iron filings. Once the clumps were removed with a magnet, the water was well within international safety limits.
. . If confirmed, it could help nearly 60 million people in Bangladesh who drink water with dangerous arsenic levels.
. . Particles that were just 12 nanometers (billionths of a meter) across, about 5,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Nov 14, 06: The United Nations said that China has made progress in increasing access to water for its citizens but still faces serious challenges in fighting pollution. Water pollution and a lack of clean drinking water are some of the most serious problems facing China, with most of its canals, rivers and lakes severely tainted by agricultural, industrial and household pollution.
. . "Pollution of water sources is widespread and increasingly serious in China. Meanwhile, more water is being used than is being replenished, which shows in falling groundwater tables and drying rivers", said Alessandra Tisot, senior deputy resident representative of the U.N. Development Program in China. "As the needs of consumers, agricultural and industrial production are pitted against one another in a booming economy, these problems can be expected to grow worse, not better. Currently, out of more than 1,000 cities in China, 400 cities are faced with water shortages.
Nov 14, 06: The European Parliament backed plans to phase out the use of mercury in non-electrical measuring devices, with the exception of barometers and antique instruments. Medical devices such as thermometers and manometers would be covered by the legislation, which now goes to EU member states for assessment.
. . The draft directive follows a call by the EU executive Commission to ban exports of mercury from 2011 as part of efforts to cut down the global supply of the highly toxic chemical.
. . The 25-member EU is the world's biggest exporter of mercury, which is gradually being phased out by industry — even by its main European user, the chlor-alkali sector which supplies chlorine to a wide range of manufacturers.
. . Global demand for mercury is around 3,400 metric tons a year.
Nov 3, 06: The Bush administration today won international approval for U.S. farmers to use thousands of tons of a potent ozone-destroying pesticide without having to dip substantially into large stockpiles that were recently revealed.
. . The pesticide, methyl bromide, was banned under an international treaty nearly two years ago except for uses deemed critical. U.S. officials have secured exemptions to the ban so that growers can use it to kill soil pests for tomatoes, strawberries and other crops in agricultural states like California and Florida.
. . At a meeting in New Delhi, treaty partners approved use of just over 5,900 tons for those needs in 2008, said Michael Williams, spokesman for the Montreal Protocol, which works to phase out substances that deplete the ozone layer. U.S. stockpiles far exceed that amount, but the nations said Americans can meet the need by manufacturing more than 5,000 tons of new methyl bromide.
. . The decision brought strong criticism from environmental advocates attending the session. "It's extremely disappointing that now that the U.S. has finally confirmed its enormous stockpile, it continues to fight tooth and nail to get special treatment in the world to use a gas that will cause increased skin cancer and a host of other environmental effects", said Sascha Von Bismarck of the Environmental Investigation Agency.
. . The ozone layer protects life on earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Scientists reported recently that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is the largest on record.
Oct 26, 06: Haze polluting the Arctic has thickened in the past decade despite lower emissions by Russian factories, perhaps because of more forest fires or pollution from Asia, an international report said.
. . The study said the worst sulphur pollutants in the Arctic, by Russian metals smelters and industries far to the south, had declined in recent years with lower emissions. Many lakes and soils blighted by acid rain and snow were recovering, it said. But some other toxins in the almost uninhabited region, including nitrogen oxides that may be carried by winds from industries or forest fires to the south, seemed to be rising.
. . A brownish haze, which can cut visibility in the near pristine Arctic in spring, had started to increase in the late 1990s after clearing since the 1970s. "The cause of this recent increase is not yet known," the report said. Warmer temperatures in recent decades mean the forest fire season in northern forests starts earlier and ends later.
. . Pollution from growing economies such as China may be adding to haze, whose particles can also fall as acid rain or snow. On the Kola peninsula in northwest Russia, there were signs of recovery. Emissions by the Nikel smelter, for instance, have long blighted forests, killed fish and destroyed lichen that is the staple food for reindeer.
A U.S.-Canadian pact to clean up the Great Lakes has run its course after more than three decades and should be scrapped in favor of a more effective, modern strategy, a binational panel said.
Oct 23, 06: DNA that helps make germs resistant to medicines may increasingly be appearing as a pollutant in the water. This DNA was found "even in treated drinking water."
. . The spread of this DNA could exacerbate the already growing problem of drug resistance among potentially infectious microbes. Diseases once considered eradicated, such as tuberculosis, are making alarming comebacks. Currently, more than two million Americans are infected each year by resistant germs, and 14,000 die as a result, the
World Health Organization reports.
. . Pruden's new research did not focus on the presence of antibiotics in the environment. Instead, she looked for the presence of genes that help confer drug resistance to the germs in the first place. Bacterial genes are encoded as DNA, and microbes often swap genes with each other. In principle, antibiotic-resistance genes could persist and spread long after the drugs they target have dissipated.
. . The levels of antibiotic-resistance genes were hundreds to thousands of times higher in waters directly impacted by urban or farm activity than in relatively pristine waters. Still, the researchers discovered the presence of antibiotic-resistance genes in all the waters they investigated.
. . "Wastewater treatment systems are not designed to treat antibiotic-resistance genes. The treated effluent is usually chlorinated, but even though this inactivates bacteria, it does not destroy DNA", Pruden explained. The DNA they found likely is inside dead or living cells, although it is possible it is floating in the water outside cells.
Oct 20, 06: This year's ozone hole over Antarctica is bigger and deeper than any other on record, U.S. scientists reported: 10.6 million square miles. Scientists estimate the ozone hole will be completely recovered by about 2065.
Oct 19, 06: Thick smoke from forest fires in Indonesia has shut airports and slashed visibility to below 100 meters -- and there is no respite in sight, officials said.
Oct 19, 06: The number of "dead zones" in the world's oceans may have increased by a third in just two years, threatening fish stocks and the people who depend on them, the U.N. Environment Program said. Now experts estimate there are 200 so-called ocean dead zones, compared with 150 two years ago.
. . Fertilizers, sewage, fossil fuel burning and other pollutants have led to a doubling in the number of oxygen-deficient coastal areas every decade since the 1960s.
. . The first "dead zones" -- where pollution-fed algae remove oxygen from the water -- were found in northern latitudes like the Chesapeake Bay on the U.S. East Coast and the Scandinavian fjords. Today, the best known is in the Gulf of Mexico, where fertilizers and other algae-multiplying nutrients are dumped by the Mississippi River.
. . Themeeting came just over two weeks before the start of global warming talks under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change due to begin in Nairobi, Kenya on November 6.
Oct 19, 06: A US-based environmental charity has documented what it calls the 10 most polluted places on the planet. The Blacksmith Institute says three of the hotspots are in Russia, with the remainder dotted in various countries.
. . Heavy metals such as lead are the main sources of pollution, with 10 million people affected across the locations. "There are places where life expectancy approaches medieval rates, where birth defects are the norm not the exception, where children's asthma rates are measured above 90%, and where mental retardation is endemic", the report says.
. . Chernobyl, site of the best known industrial accident in recent years, is on the list; but the remainder would be largely unknown to the uninitiated. They include:
. . * Dzerzhinsk in Russia, a Cold War chemical weapons site
. . * Linfen, heart of China's coal industry
. . * Kabwe in Zambia, site for mining and smelting of metals including lead
. . * Haina in the Dominican Republic, where battery recycling and smelting have left huge concentrations of lead in residents
. . * Ranipet in India, where more than 3m people are affected by tannery waste.
Oct 16, 06: Growing populations and booming economies are threatening fragile coastal areas in East Asia, and the region's coral reefs could face total collapse within 20 years, according to a new UN study.
. . Although millions of people have been lifted out of poverty by economic development over the last 15 years, the impact of rapid growth on the environment has been severe, said the policy brief from the United Nations Environment Program.
. . Fisheries, mangrove swamps, reefs, coastal wetlands and sea grass beds are all threatened, the report said. Mangroves could be gone within 30 years", it added. Large areas of mangrove in Indonesia and Vietnam have been removed to make way for shrimp farms or to convert into farmland, the report said.
. . Cambodia has no sewage treatment facilities outside the capital Phnom Penh, and in Indonesia just 3% of urban areas area connected to sewerage systems, it said.
. . China, the world's most populous country where more than 300 million people live within 100 km of a coast, has the capacity to treat less than half its waste water, the report added.
Oct 12, 06: The discovery of radioactive snails at a site in southeastern Spain where three U.S. hydrogen bombs fell by accident 40 years ago may trigger a new joint U.S.-Spanish clean-up operation, officials said.
Oct 10, 06: The growing number of cosmetics, drugs other products made using nanotechnology need more attention from U.S. regulators to make sure they are safe for humans and the planet, consumer and environmental groups told a government hearing today.
. . Nanotechnology is the design and use of particles as small as one-billionth of a meter. A human hair, by contrast, is about 80,000 nanometers across. Materials at nano-size can have completely different properties from larger versions, such as unusual strength or the ability to conduct electricity. But some complained that dozens of cosmetics and a handful of drugs made with nanomaterials already have made it to the market while regulators have done little to track their use or safety.
Oct 7, 06: Smoke from Indonesian brush fires darkened skies across Southeast Asia today, sending air pollution levels soaring in at least two other nations. Farmers or agricultural companies started the fires on Borneo and Sumatra island as a cheap way of clearing the land.
. . Some hospitals in those parts of Indonesia were crowded with people complaining of difficulty breathing. Flights were cancelled and drivers were having to use their lights in the middle of the day. Firefighters said the blazes were out of control and only the monsoon rains would put them out. The forecast calls for the rains to begin in the next month.
Oct 7, 06: New York City's waterfront is getting cleaner, and bothersome river critters not seen in hundreds of years are once again attacking wooden ships and piers.
. . The waters were once so filthy that early 20th-century sailors could be sure their boats would be safe from such threats --because organisms simply couldn't survive in the muck. But scientists are now seeing a resurgence in gribbles, shrimp-like crustaceans that grow to almost one-mm in length and attack wood from the outside, and shipworms, which latch onto the outside of wood and burrow inward, growing up to several feet long as they devour the material. [that's the trouble with gribbles...]
. . Many of the region's older waterside structures remain, and from the South Street Seaport to the Jersey City waterfront, wooden piers have had to be expensively refitted or abandoned entirely.
Oct 6, 06: Exposure to perchlorate, a widely used industrial chemical found in U.S. drinking water, may prevent some women's thyroid glands from functioning properly, a government study has found.
. . Women with higher concentrations of perchlorate in their urine had lower levels of thyroid hormones, which help control energy, temperature, weight and mood, said the report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC said the study indicates "that even small increases in perchlorate exposure may inhibit the thyroid's ability to absorb iodine from the bloodstream."
. . A component of rocket fuel and pyrotechnics, perchlorate has been detected in milk, vegetables, fruit and grains, in addition to drinking water across the United States.
Oct 5, 06: Federal lawmakers criticized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for not moving faster to determine whether "intersex" fish in the Potomac River and its tributaries signal the presence of pollutants that might be harmful to humans.
. . At a House Government Reform Committee hearing, lawmakers and environmental groups expressed alarm at a survey last year by the U.S. Geological Survey that found an unusually high number of male smallmouth and largemouth bass with female sexual characteristics. They also worried that the presence of egg-bearing males at locations in Washington, Maryland and Virginia could be a sign that something is dangerously amiss.
. . Ed Merrifield, executive director of the environmental group Potomac Riverkeeper, wasn't satisfied. "If scientists have not yet determined what pollutant is causing a reproductive health problem in fish in the Potomac, how can anyone say it is not in our drinking water?"
Oct 4, 06: Sewage is a growing threat to oceans and seas, putting at risk marine life and habitats as the pollution problem escalates, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said in a report.
Oct 2, 06: Ministers from the world's top 20 polluting nations are gathering in Mexico for talks on climate change. The delegates will discuss possible ways to meet future energy demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
. . Former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern is also expected to present findings from his review into the economic impacts of climate change. The meeting in Monterrey is the latest round of talks on the G8 Gleneagles Summit's climate action plan.
. . As well as ministers from G8 nations, representatives from China, India, Brazil, and South Africa will also attend the event, which is being hosted by the Mexican government. Organizers hope the meeting will be able to make progress on a number of issues, including:
. . * economic challenges of tackling climate change
. . * alternative low-carbon technologies
. . * level of investment from public and private sectors
. . * "road map" for a low-carbon future
Oct 2, 06: A satellite has detected record losses of ozone over Antarctica this year, the European Space Agency (ESA) said, further damaging the shield that protects the Earth from cancer-causing ultraviolet rays. In Antarctica, the agencies said ozone layer recovery would likely be delayed until 2065.
. . In the past decade, the level of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere has fallen by about 0.3%, increasing the risk of skin cancer, cataracts and harm to marine life, ESA added.
. . The depth of the hole, however, was greater this year than in 2000, bringing the amount of lost ozone to 40 million tons on October 2, beating 2000's record of 39 million tons, ESA said. The ozone loss over Antarctica is calculated by measuring the hole's area and depth.
. . George Monbiot, a leading environmentalist, in his new book on climate change, warns of disastrous temperature rises unless western countries cut carbon emissions by 90% by 2030, meaning a virtual end to flying.
. . Aviation generates about 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but their warming effect is up to four times greater at high altitudes.
Sept 29, 06: Worsening pollution in China's longest river, the Yangtze, is putting at risk the drinking water supply to millions of people, according to a new report quoted by state media. Dozens of major cities including Shanghai, Nanjing and Chongqing, rely on the Yangtze for drinking water.
. . Pollution is so severe in some stretches of the 6,300-kilometer (3,906-mile) river that new legislation is urgently needed to turn around the situation, the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission said in its report. The report said the amount of industrial waste pumped into the Yangtze annually stood at 30 billion tons in 2005, up from 15 billion tons a year in the 1980s.
. . Pollution as well as over-fishing were also a threat to several species of aquatic life, the report said. Twenty fish species are on the endangered list and the white-flag dolphin, found only in the Yangtze, is on the verge of extinction, it added.
. . China is in the grip of an acute water shortage with around 300 million people lacking access to drinking water. More than 70% of rivers and lakes are polluted, while underground water supplies in 90% of Chinese cities are contaminated, previous reports have said.
Sept 28, 06: Scientists said today the Antarctic ozone hole, caused largely by human pollution, is not showing any signs of recovery so far this year. Meanwhile, a separate study shows that nature itself is destroying ozone high in the atmosphere over Earth's North Pole. Ozone is a colorless gas that in the stratosphere (10 to 50 km above the planet's surface) absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
. . In March 2006, stronger-than usual winds circling high above the Arctic pulled ozone-destroying nitrogen oxides down in altitude some 50km, where they could attack ozone in the upper stratosphere, according to a study.
. . This finding shows that the winds have a greater impact on ozone levels than scientists previously thought. The destruction caused by the winds around the North Pole is only rivaled by the nearly 60% reduction in ozone molecules that occurred there in the winter of 2003-2004, when a series of powerful solar storms bombarded the region, creating higher levels of nitrogen oxides.
. . Human-induced climate change might also affect the strength of the polar winds, which could pull even more nitrogen oxides down into the stratosphere, she said. "The atmosphere is part of a coupled system, and what affects one layer of the atmosphere can influence other layers in surprising ways", Randall said. "We will only be able to predict and understand the consequences of human activities if we study the entire system as a whole, not just in parts."
. . "Though it is still too early to tell, the 2006 Antarctic ozone hole has not shown any substantial signs of recovery."
Sept 27, 06: The hole over Antarctica's ozone layer is bigger than last year and is nearing the record 29-million-square-km hole seen in 2000, the World Meteorological Organization said. Ozone depletion had a late onset in this year's southern hemisphere winter, when low temperatures normally trigger chemical reactions that break down the atmospheric layer that filters dangerous solar radiation.
. . While use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has waned, Braathen said large amounts of chlorine and bromine remain in the atmosphere and would keep causing large reductions in the Antarctic ozone layer for many years to come.
Sept 22, 06: Europe's soil is rapidly deteriorating from industrial and agricultural use and new laws are needed to preserve it for future generations, the European Commission warned.
Sept 21, 06: Hong Kong's bad air may be responsible for a significant jump in children being admitted to hospital for asthma, a six-year study has found.
Sept 18, 06: EU agriculture ministers issued seven-year authorizations for two highly toxic crop pesticides today, overriding objections from environmental groups that said the products should be banned outright.
. . The two pesticides authorized today, azinphos-methyl and vinclozolin, may be only be used several meters away from water courses. They may not be sprayed from the air or used in home gardening. Azinphos-methyl is an organophosphate insecticide used on a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.
Sept 13, 06: Households in the UK would recycle more waste if it was easier to understand what rubbish can and cannot be recycled, a survey has suggested.
. . Of those questioned, 88% said they were already putting a proportion of their weekly waste into green bins. But almost half said they were confused about what materials could be recycled. Staff at waste sorting centres said people were often unknowingly putting out the wrong sorts of plastics, resulting in bottlenecks in the recycling process.
Sept 10, 06: The harmful effects of toxic waste, which killed six people in Ivory Coast and made thousands ill after being dumped in Abidjan, are easing as some of the chemicals evaporate, the Health Ministry said.
Sept 8, 06: Microbes with a taste for toxic waste may hold the solution to cleaning up contaminated industrial sites and poisoned waterways across the globe, saving billions of dollars in cleanup bills, an Australian scientist said.
. . Microbes found in old waste sites in Australia not only tolerate lethal soil and water cocktails created by waste petroleum and chlorine, but can break them down so they no longer threaten humans, the scientist said.
. . The researchers said there were millions of toxic dumps scattered through Asia, with waste from the region's mega cities often pouring untreated into waterways meant to be lifelines for nearby communities. But Mallavarapu said there was no single super-bug or solution, especially in heavily contaminated sites. He said scientists first had to look for new types of bacteria and enhance them, or provide oxygen or food to lift their numbers. "It depends on the nature of the contaminant at each particular site."
Sept 6, 06: Scientists say abnormal "intersex" fish, with both male and female characteristics, have been discovered in the Potomac River and its tributaries across the Capitol Region, raising questions about how contaminants are affecting millions of people who drink tap water there. "I don't know, and I don't think anybody knows, the answer to that question right now: Is the effect in the fish transferable to humans?"
. . The worrisome fish were first found in a West Virginia stream in 2003. Now, scientists are finding male smallmouth and largemouth bass with immature eggs in their sex organs at testing sites dotting the region. Last month's testing at three tributaries emptying into the Potomac revealed that more than 80% of all male smallmouth bass found were growing eggs.
. . At a testing site in Washington, seven of 13 male largemouth bass showed some kind of unusual feminine characteristic. Six of the seven tested positive for a protein used to produce eggs and three actually carried eggs.
. . Although scientists have not identified the source or sources of the problem, the results appear to suggest that the Potomac River and its tributaries have a problem with so-called "endocrine disrupters", which can tamper with natural chemical signals. In the past 10 years, pollutants mimicking hormones have raised alarms around the world as alligators, frogs, polar bears and other animals have developed abnormalities.
. . Scientists have identified a large number of pollutants that could be to blame — including human estrogen from processed sewage, animal estrogen from farm manure, certain pesticides and soap additives.
Sept 6, 06: Two thousand Chinese villagers are being treated in hospital for lead poisoning which they say was caused by a local smelting plant. The villagers, including 300 children, had traveled from their northwestern province of Gansu to a hospital in Xi'an in neighboring Shaanxi because hospitals near their three villages had insisted they were fine, the newspaper said.
. . Protests against polluting industries are common across China's countryside, where the environment has all too often been sacrificed in the pursuit of profits.
Sept 2, 06: Bullet fragments left in carcasses of deer and other animals killed by hunters are poisoning endangered California condors with lead.
Sept 1, 06: Ritualistic use of toxic mercury by followers of Voodoo and other religions is dangerous but regulating it could drive the practice underground and possibly violate U.S. guarantees of freedom of religion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said today.
. . Mercury can be worn in amulets, sprinkled on the floor, or added to an oil lamp as part of some Latino and Afro-Caribbean practices including Santeria, Palo, Voodoo, and Espiritismo, according to the EPA's inspector general. Some practitioners believe that the mercury, which forms tiny droplets in liquid form, can attract love, luck or riches, and even ward off evil, the report said.
. . But mercury's toxic effects are pronounced in the nervous systems and brains of exposed children, and can damage organs and cause seizures in adults. "Mercury vapors resulting from ritual uses can pose a health risk", the EPA said. "Persons involved in such rituals should be aware of these risks."
Aug 30, 06: As many as 1.5 million cars are being scrapped illegally in Britain every year, presenting a major environmental hazard, the BBC has learned. Thousands of tons of toxic waste are being created by drivers who fail to dispose of their vehicles in the way demanded by the European Union.
. . Opposition parties say the government must act --or risk being taken to court by the European Commission. The government says it is working to tighten procedures. In 2003, the European Union introduced legislation requiring all cars coming off the roads to be taken to an approved site, cleaned of pollutants, and the owner issued with a certificate of destruction.
. . Two million cars were scrapped every year, but by the end of June this year only 250,000 had received a certificate of destruction.
Aug 29, 06: When used properly, sunscreens are proven to prevent skin damage. But if not applied often enough, a sunscreen can actually enhance skin damage, according to a new study.
. . Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun is absorbed by skin molecules and generates reactive oxygen species, or ROS molecules, which cause visible signs of aging by damaging cell walls and the DNA inside them. Too much sun, especially in childhood, increases the risk of skin cancer.
. . Sunscreens contain UV filters that block radiation from penetrating below the outer skin later, called the epidermis. But over time, the filters themselves penetrate deeper into the skin, allowing more UV radiation in.
. . In the new study, scientists found that three widely used, FDA-approved UV filters (octylmethoxycinnamate, benzophenone-3 and octocrylene) actually generate ROS in skin when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. So the sun's damaging effect is multiplied when the sunscreen has been on too long.
. . The scientists have passed along the advice of the Skin Cancer Foundation, which recommends reapplying sunscreen every two hours, and especially after sweating or swimming.
Aug 29, 06: Any level of dissolved oxygen below 1.4 milliliters per liter is considered hypoxic for most marine life. In the latest findings from one area off Cape Perpetua on the central Oregon coast, surveys showed 0.5 milliliters per liter in 15 meters of water; 0.08 in 90 feet; and 0.14 at 50 meters depth. These are levels 10-30 times lower than normal. In one extreme measurement, the oxygen level was 0.05, or close to zero. Oxygen levels that low have never before been measured off the U.S. West Coast.
. . "Massive numbers of dead crabs and other sea animals have been noted along with a near complete absence of fish." In Oregon and elsewhere in the U.S., researchers are scratching their heads and have no explanations about why this part of the ocean became an hypoxic zone.
Aug 26, 06: One-third of China's vast landmass is suffering from acid rain caused by its rapid industrial growth, while local leaders are failing to enforce environmental standards for fear of hurting business, said officials.
Aug 24, 06: The ocean flowed into historic wetlands today for the first time in more than a century, after bulldozers peeled back the last layer of an earthen dam. Environmentalists who worked for 30 years to restore the massive Bolsa Chica area cheered and sipped champagne as the salty water poured into the fragile ecosystem that had been tapped as an oil field for decades.
. . The event capped a two-year project that cost more than $100 million and shunted a portion of the scenic Pacific Coast Highway onto an overpass. Officials said it would take at least six hours for the ocean water to fill the 387-acre basin. The area had been separated from the ocean for 107 years.
. . The eight state and federal agencies involved in the project call it the largest and most ambitious restoration of coastal wetlands in the history of California, where 95% of saltwater marshes have been given over to development.
Aug 24, 06: The worst red tide in perhaps a decade has shut down shellfish beds all along Puget Sound and prompted serious public health worries, state officials said.
Aug 24, 06: Biologists have discovered a species of shrimp in the Monongahela River for the first time, a discovery the scientists say is evidence that the river's water quality is improving.
Aug 20, 06: This summer has seen a record number of warnings about bacteria at coastal beaches in New Hampshire and Maine. "The record was maybe three postings in a year. This year, we've already had six postings."
Aug 16, 06: [How 'bout "biological pollution"?] Grass that was genetically engineered for golf courses is growing in the wild, posing one of the first threats of agricultural biotechnology escaping from the farm in the United States, a new study says.
. . Aug 18, 06: Long-grain rice samples from the United States have tested positive for trace amounts of a genetically modified strain not approved for consumption, but it doesn't pose a threat to humans or the environment, federal officials said.
Aug 18, 06: The earth's ozone layer is finally on the mend after decades of damage, two UN agencies reported. However, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) said the protective layer, which filters dangerous solar radiation, was recovering more slowly than experts had originally hoped.
. . Over huge areas of Europe, North America and Asia in the northern hemisphere and over southern Australasia, Latin America and Africa, the layer would be back to pre-1980 levels by 2049, the agencies said. This is five years later than forecast in the last major scientific report in 2002.
Aug 16, 06: China will rigorously enforce limits on industrial pollution as it seeks to rein in rampant pollution and tame frenetic economic growth, the nation's top environment official said.
Aug 11, 06: Caviar lovers may benefit from a five-nation deal entering into force today meant to clean up the badly polluted Caspian Sea.
Aug 11, 06: Mercury built into older-model U.S. vehicles will be removed before they are melted down for scrap under an agreement announced today, putting a small dent in a worsening global environmental threat.
. . Droplets of airborne mercury emitted by coal-burning plants, waste incinerators and from small-stakes gold mining operations circle the Earth for up to a year before descending in rainfall, contaminating waterways and converting to a toxic form that is dangerous to humans and wildlife.
. . The agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the industry that dismantles, shreds, and melts down the hulks of old vehicles requires the removal of mercury-laden switches found in the trunks and hoods of vehicles made prior to 2003.
. . The total amount of mercury in vehicles built over the past 30 years totals 250 tons, the group Environmental Defense said. But some 2,000 tons of mercury finds its way into the global environment each year, half of which comes from Asia -- a majority of that from China.
. . While developed countries have sharply curbed emissions of the metal by exerting controls on garbage and medical waste incinerators, tons of mercury from scrapped products is exported to developing countries where lax environmental controls combined with increased coal burning and a gold mining boom have lifted mercury pollution. Applying mercury to ore is an outmoded method of extracting gold, yet it is commonly used by the estimated 15 million small-scale miners attracted to rising gold prices.
. . Research was presented at the conference showing high concentrations of mercury in the Arctic, where it tends to accumulate under the ice but also in polar bears. Wetlands rich in the microorganisms that convert it to its organic form, methylmercury, can also be heavily contaminated. Methylmercury enters the food chain and accumulates in fish and the animals and humans that eat them. Even songbirds recorded high mercury levels, showing it is not just an aquatic pollutant.
Aug 10, 06: The mother of a one-eyed child born in Chennai, India, in early August might have been given an experimental anti-cancer drug --Cyclopamine-- according to an internal hospital report. However, the report does not say how or why the mother might have been given the drug. The birth defect could have any number of causes, including a rare, but natural, chromosomal disorder.
. . The child was diagnosed with a rare chromosomal disorder, known as cyclopia. She was born with a single eye in the center of her forehead, no nose and her brain fused into a single hemisphere. With such severe deformities, it was a miracle that the girl survived even a few minutes after delivery. Yet now, 11 days later, she has lived significantly longer than other Cyclopean cases.
. . The active ingredient in Cyclopamine was discovered in 1957 when a batch of sheep in Idaho who had been grazing on wild corn lily gave birth to multiple one-eyed kids. Medical experts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture discovered that toxins in the corn lily are powerful teratogens that alter fetal development. The scientists named the toxin Cyclopamine after the one-eyed sheep.
. . The cause of the girl's deformity is still undetermined. But the hospital report's listing of Cyclopamine offers a tragic reminder of concerns over the state of Indian medical regulations, including lax oversight of fertility clinics and low barriers of entry for human drug trials.
. . Quacks there routinely advertise medical treatments with posters on the backs of buses, and roadside billboards offer cures for everything from infertility to AIDS. One particularly memorable sign reads "Got AIDS, No Problem."
Aug 9, 06: Paintings by Claude Monet could shed light on pollution in London at the turn of the 20th Century, experts say. University of Birmingham researchers have pinpointed the dates and times of depicted scenes by analysing the position of the Sun in the sky. The research also revealed the French painter's vantage point: a second floor terrace at St Thomas's Hospital.
Aug 2, 06: An environmental group said today bottles of Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. soft drinks in India still contained traces of pesticide, highlighting weak food safety laws in the country. They'd been warned before.
July 28, 06: Despite strong opposition in neighboring Vermont, New York state has applied for a federal permit to allow International Paper Co. to burn used tires as fuel during a two week air pollution test.
July 28, 06: Tiny, airborne particles Cliff gathers at an air monitoring station just north of San Francisco drifted over the ocean from coal-fired power plants, smelters, dust storms and diesel trucks in China and other Asian countries.
. . Researchers say the environmental impact of China's breakneck economic growth is being felt well beyond its borders. They worry that as China consumes more fossil fuels to feed its energy-hungry economy, the U.S. could see a sharp increase in trans-Pacific pollution.
. . About a third of the Asian pollution is dust, which is increasing due to drought and deforestation, Cliff said. The rest is composed of sulfur, soot and trace metals from the burning of coal, diesel and other fossil fuels.
. . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that on certain days nearly 25 percent of the particulate matter in the skies above Los Angeles can be traced to China. Some experts predict China could one day account for a third of all California's air pollution.
. . The World Bank estimates that 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China, and air pollution is blamed for about 400,000 premature deaths there each year. Coal-fired power plants supply two-thirds of China's energy and are its biggest source of air pollution. Already the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, China on average builds a new coal-fired power plant every week.
. . Meanwhile, car ownership is soaring as the country's economy grows about 10 percent a year, contributing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming. If current trends continue, China will surpass the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the next decade.
. . "China's staggering economic growth is an environmental time bomb that, unless defused, threatens to convulse the entire planet regardless of progress in all other nations", Finamore said. Beijing has set ambitious goals for increasing energy efficiency, fuel economy standards and use of renewable power sources such as wind and solar, she said.
July 27, 06: Growing scientific evidence suggests the most widespread industrial contaminant in drinking water --a solvent used in adhesives, paint and spot removers-- can cause cancer in people.
. . The National Academy of Sciences reported today that a lot more is known about the cancer risks and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene than there was five years ago when the Environmental Protection Agency took steps to regulate it more strictly.
. . TCE, which is also widely used to remove grease from metal parts in airplanes and to clean fuel lines at missile sites, is known to cause cancer in some laboratory animals. EPA was blocked from elevating its assessment of the chemical's risks in people by the Defense Department, Energy Department and NASA, all of which have sites polluted with it.
. . TCE is a colorless liquid that evaporates at room temperatures and has a somewhat sweet odor and taste. It is one of the most common pollutants found in the air, soil and water at U.S. military bases. Until the mid-1970s, it also was used as a surgical anesthetic [ !! ]
. . TCE also has been found at about 60% of the nation's worst contaminated sites in the Superfund cleanup program, the academy said.
July 25, 06: A dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico created by lack of oxygen will be larger than normal this year, scientists predicted today. The dead zone is an area where oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in water at or near the bottom of the sea. It occurs every summer. Researchers expect the dead zone this summer to cover 6,700 square miles, an area half the size of the state of Maryland. Since 1990 the zone has averaged 4,800 square miles.
. . It's caused by nutrients from fertilizers, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, that flow in from rivers. The nutrients stimulate algal growth, which settles to the bottom and decays, consuming oxygen faster than it can be replenished from the surface.
July 24, 06: Brazilian soya producers have pledged to use more ethical methods, following international pressure for change.
. . The key soya producers' association in Brazil say they will not buy goods from recently deforested areas. Most soya is used for making vegetable oil and animal feed. Brazil is the world's second largest producer.
. . This follows a report by Greenpeace linked soya production to destruction of the Amazon rainforest and other unlawful activities, like slavery. It says farmers frequently take over public land illegally, deforest it using cheap labor, and are being funded by large American multinational companies.
. . British companies have welcomed any changes that will bring positive improvements to the environmental impact on the Amazon rainforest.
. . Greenpeace welcomed the announcement from the soya producers, but added more needed to be done. "We are working ... to put in place steps that will ensure not only traceability of the soya beans, but will avoid sourcing from any farms that are involved in the deforestation of the Amazon", said a Sainsbury's spokesperson.
July 24, 06: Nearly half a century after DDT was first dumped across acres of North American farmland and three decades after it was banned in the United States and Canada, the toxic pesticide still has damaging effects on local species, according to a new study.
. . Robins exposed to DDT before birth had damage to regions of the brain that enable them to sing and protect territory. Both functions are integral to mating and were more impaired in male robins, potentially leaving them unable to attract females.
. . The group that came in contact with the pesticide during development had up to 30% less tissue in certain areas of the brain—and they were unable to sing complicated songs, defend their territory or even build nests properly.
. . The researchers aren't sure why some eggs had higher levels of DDT than others, but they think that as mother robins forage for earthworms, they pick up pesticides in the soil, some more than others. Because eggs are rich in fat, they are perfect receptacles for fat-soluble DDT. So as the mother feeds, the DDT is deposited in her eggs. Brain tissue is also highly fatty.
. . Because they live in orchards where soil is not regularly aerated, he sees little hope for change, at least in the near future. As long as it remains there, DDT has the potential to impact a wide range of animals.
. . The researchers don't know how far up the food chain the toxin might travel, but hawks and weasels that eat robins could potentially be at risk as well. Iwaniuk says he is particularly concerned about aboriginal populations that live in the area and subsist on natural food sources.
July 21, 06: Bush administration plans to ease clean air rules for thousands of aging industrial plants might increase air pollution, the National Academy of Sciences said. Those Clean Air Act rules are under review by the Supreme Court, which is due to receive legal briefs on the administration's attempts to rewrite the rules in 2002 & 2003.
. . Those chemicals contribute to smog, acid rain, soot and other fine particles that lodge in people's lungs and cause asthma and other respiratory ailments.
. . The academy also implicitly criticized the Environmental Protection Agency's information gathering, saying "a lack of data and the limitations of current models" prevent anyone from drawing firm conclusions about how the rules might affect air pollution.
. . For almost 30 years, the program has been viewed by proponents and opponents alike as too bureaucratic and complex. In 1999, President Clinton used it to sue owners of 51 coal-burning power plants. The Bush administration continued those cases, but rewrote the rules.
. . Some of the administration's 2002 changes were struck down by a federal court last year; the rest went into effect only in a few states. The 2003 revisions, affecting replaced equipment, was struck down by a court two years ago.
July 21, 06: Pig slurry will be used to clean a polluted pond. Finnish engineers have poured pig manure into a contaminated pond next to an old mine, saying the bacteria in the slurry will clean up metals in the water.
July 11, 06: The cancer-causing chemical dioxin --present in some U.S. water, soil, food supplies and most Americans' bodies-- should be cleaned up to a new, much higher standard, a U.S. scientific panel reported.
. . Even though the EPA draft report was made public three years ago, its findings were not reflected in policy, letting a lower cleanup standard stay in force. The National Academies panel said at a briefing that the EPA's recommended standards --which are as much as 10 times more stringent than the current ones-- should be applied within a year or so, with no further data-gathering required.
. . Dioxin and related chemicals have raised concern since the 1970s, when they were found in the herbicide Agent Orange, used by U.S. forces in the Vietnam War. These chemicals also are by-products of various industries, including paper and pulp production, incinerators and businesses that use chlorine.
. . Dioxin and dioxin-like compounds stay in the environment, allowing them to build up in the food chain. Most Americans ingest dioxin when they eat fatty foods including beef, pork, fish and dairy products, and others are exposed to the chemical on the job or by accident, the National Academies panel noted.
July 5, 06: Children exposed to the pesticide DDT while in the womb experience development problems, researchers say. The pesticide was banned in the US and UK in the 1970s, but it is still used in some countries to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes. It was already known DDT was linked to premature births and low birthweight.
. . DDT, an organochlorine, persists in the environment long after use, accumulating in the food chain and in fatty tissues of animals and humans. Over time, it degrades into DDE and DDD, which have similar chemical and physical properties. Thirty-three years after its use was banned in the US, DDT is still detectable in about five to 10% of people, while DDE is detectable in nearly everyone.
. . For each tenfold increase in DDT levels measured in the mother, the team found a corresponding two to three-point decrease in the children's mental development scores at 12 and 24 months.
July 3, 06: At Greensprings, N.Y., where a burial plot costs $500 plus a $350 fee to dig the grave, bodies cannot be embalmed or otherwise chemically preserved. They must be buried in biodegradable caskets without linings or metal ornamentation. The cemetery suggests locally harvested woods, wicker or cloth shrouds. Concrete or steel burial vaults are not allowed. Nor are standing monuments, upright tombstones or statues. Only flat, natural fieldstones are permitted as grave markers (they can be engraved). Shrubs or trees are preferred. We see it as a natural return to the Earth, becoming part of the circle of life."
. . Contrary to widespread belief, embalming is not required by law so people can refuse it, Fells said. Buy a no-frills wooden coffin. Plant a bush instead of a gravestone. Those options are currently available at most cemeteries, he said.
. . According to the Federal Trade Commission, the average funeral in the United States costs about $6,000. Many exceed $10,000. Even cremation typically costs more than $1,000 —and has its environmental downside: Cremation uses energy and releases dioxin and mercury (up to 6 grams a body) while preventing nutrients in bodies from enriching the land.
. . "Most of what we think of today as the traditional funeral —embalming, expensive caskets, manicured cemeteries— are practices started in the 20th century when burying the dead became an industry", he said.
July 3, 06: The hole in Earth's protective ozone layer won't repair itself until about two decades later than had been expected, scientists announced yesterday. The ozone layer blocks more than 90 percent of the sun's ultraviolet radiation, helping to make life as we know it on Earth possible. For many decades, ozone was depleted by chlorine and bromine gas in the air, produced by man-made chlorofluorocarbons --CFCs. A hole in the ozone layer formed over the Southern Hemisphere.
. . Efforts to curb those chemicals have in recent years led to optimism that ozone would rebuild. Computer models had predicted the hole would fill back in by 2050.
. . An improved computer model, from scientists at NASA, NOAA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, predicts the recovery won't occur until 2068. The model, fed with fresh data from satellites and airplanes, was verified by the fact that it accurately reproduced ozone levels in the Antarctic stratosphere over the past 27 years.
. . The ozone hole is actually more of a broad region with less ozone than ought to occur naturally. It is not confined to Antarctica, as is often believed.
. . "Over areas that are farther from the poles like Africa or the U.S., the levels of ozone are only three to six percent below natural levels", explained the leader of the new study, Paul Newman, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Over Antarctica, ozone levels are 70% lower in the spring.
. . They figure it will not start shrinking a lot until 2018, after which time the recovery should proceed more quickly.
June 29, 06: The federal government may use California's strict pollution rules for lawnmowers and other small-engine machines as a national standard, a top Environmental Protection Agency official said today.
. . While environmentalists and air quality regulators would welcome the development, it would be bad news for much of the small engine industry. California aims to cut smog emissions from the highly polluting engines by about 35%.
. . Without new rules, pollution from small engines is expected to account for 15% of mobile source pollution nationally by 2020. California contains more areas with high air pollution than any other state.
June 26, 06: Canadians and Americans are harming each other with air pollution and must work closely to mitigate climate change and reduce environmental damage, politicians from both sides of the border said.
June 26, 06: People with long-term, low-level exposure to pesticides have a 70% higher incidence of Parkinson's disease than people who have not been exposed much to bug sprays, U.S. researchers reported today. Such workers include mostly farmers, ranchers and fishermen.
. . Their study supports previous research that suggests pesticides can be linked with Parkinson's, which is caused by the destruction of key brain cells. "Future studies should seek to identify the specific compounds associated with risk", the researchers said. A class of chemicals called organophosphates has been linked with Parkinson's risk in other studies.
. . There is no cure for Parkinson's, which starts off with tremors and ends up paralyzing and often killing patients. Globally, it is estimated 6.3 million people have Parkinson's, more than a million in the United States alone.
Consumers say they are willing to pay extra for computers that contain fewer chemicals, research shows.
June 22, 06: Sewage catchment: By separating urine, phosphate and nitrogen that need to be removed can be extracted more effectively. Wilsenach concludes that if 50% of the urine is separately purified, the energy needed to do the treating would be cut by 25%.
. . Those new toilets. Here's how that setup would work: Urine would be collected in tanks that serve a building or a neighborhood, then periodically transported to a purification plant.
. . Another idea might be to use the pee to run a battery, a process perfected in separate research reported last year. Or, maybe the folks over at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be interested. They buy pee, as do drug companies, and it seems there's never enough to go around.
. . Separating urine from the rest of sewage would save electricity at the treatment facilities.
June 22, 06: Thousands of tons of chemicals are to be slowly released into the sea from the wreck of a freighter that sank near the Channel Islands earlier this year.
. . The Ece sank with more than 10,000 tons of phosphoric acid on board after a collision with another vessel. The operation will also recover 40 tons of fuel in the ship's tanks.
. . The chemical is normally used as a fertiliser and initially there were fears it could cause long-term damage to the delicate ecosystem of the English Channel. An impact study by French and British maritime experts says that a controlled and programmed release of the acid would avoid any harmful impact.
June 22, 06: Large factory-style chicken, hog and cattle farms might soon have to get permits from the Environment Protection Agency when animal waste from their operations finds its way into local rivers, streams and lakes.
June 20, 06: Wildlife officials laid traps for California condors to test for lead poisoning after many were spotted feeding on squirrels that had been shot. Even microscopic lead traces from ammunition can paralyze digestive systems in the endangered species and cause the birds to starve to death, park officials said.
. . The traps were laid over the weekend after 11 of the park's 13 condors were seen feeding on the squirrel carcasses, said the park's chief of natural resources. Highly contaminated condors will be taken to the Los Angeles Zoo for surgery or treatment. "We don't know who shot the rodents or why", Louie said. "If rodents have to be shot, maybe their carcasses can be buried to protect not only condors but other carrion eaters and raptors."
. . The species was listed as endangered in 1967 but the population has grown to about 300 birds after intensive breeding efforts.
June 15, 06: Toxic chemicals are harming Arctic animals including polar bears, beluga whales, seals and seabirds, the environmental group WWF said.
. . It said pollutants such as flame retardants, pesticides and fluorinated chemicals made Arctic wildlife vulnerable to health problems including immune suppression and hormone disturbances. "We can no longer ignore the proof that chemicals are damaging the health of wild animals", said Samantha Smith, director of the Swiss-based group's international arctic program.
. . The WWF, formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund, said the chemical contamination of the Arctic threatened the survival of many of the region's animal species, who also faced possible habitat and food supply loss due to climate change.
. . Among health effects, the WWF said the immune systems of polar bears had been disrupted and there were signs of weaker bone growth. Bears in the Barents Sea with high levels of toxic PCBs suffered disruptions to thyroid hormones. "The bodies of some belugas from the St. Lawrence estuary in Canada are so contaminated that their carcasses are treated as toxic waste."
June 14, 06: Back in the 1960s, foul gobs of algae along Great Lakes shorelines made swimmers and sunbathers miserable before a crackdown on phosphorus pollution repelled the invasion. Now, the algae are mounting a comeback and controlling it may be tougher this time, according to the Michigan Environmental Council.
. . Swimmers and pets who accidentally swallow algae-choked water can get sick. Algae blooms can reduce oxygen levels in the waters, causing fish kills. Some clumps are thick enough to block water intake pipes.
. . The surge four decades ago was blamed on excessive phosphorus, an essential plant nutrient. A single pound of phosphorus can stimulate growth of up to 500 pounds of algae. But phosphorus continues flowing into the lakes from fertilizer runoff from farms and residential lawns, pet and livestock waste and leaky residential sewage systems, the report said.
. . Also, although Michigan was among the first states to virtually ban phosphorus in laundry soaps, it exempted dishwashing machine detergents —a loophole the environmental council wants the state Legislature to close.
. . A more likely cause --and the reason the problem may be harder to solve this time-- is the arrival in the 1980s of two exotic species of mussels, the zebra mussel and its cousin, the quagga mussel, he said. The mussels filter water, making it clearer, allowing sunlight to penetrate deep into the lakes, possibly enabling algae to thrive at greater depths than before, Berges said. The mussels also eat microscopic algae and excrete nutrient-rich wastes.
. . Phosphorus levels are lower in the lakes than they were in the 1960s, increasing the likelihood the mussels are the leading cause of the algae's resurgence, he said.
June 13, 06: The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are competing to design the nation's first new nuclear bomb in two decades. Congress approved the new bomb, known as the reliable replacement warhead, with bipartisan support in 2005 as part of a defense spending bill. The weapon would, by law, have the same explosive power as existing warheads.
. . Proponents of the project say the U.S. would lose its so-called "strategic deterrent" unless it replaces its aging arsenal of about 6,000 bombs, which will become potentially unreliable within 15 years. A new, more reliable weapon, they say, would help the nation reduce its stockpile.
. . Critics say the project could trigger a new arms race with Russia and China, and undercut arguments that countries such as Iran and North Korea must stop their nuclear programs. The United States and Russia signed a treaty in 2002 calling for the countries to each cut nuclear inventories to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012.
June 10, 06: A handful of young cyclists took to the streets of central Prague for an hour, wearing paint and in three cases not even that, to mark World Naked Bike Ride day. It was the first time Prague had joined the 50 cities worldwide where naked cyclists demonstrate against the overuse of oil and the growing number of cars. The group encountered "no problems" when it pedalled through major tourist sites.
. . A spokesman said vehicle pollution was "a serious problem in the Czech Republic, which after Slovakia is the biggest vehicle producer per capita in Europe. If our initiative does not lead to a fundamental debate on this issue, there will be many more of us next year", he vowed.
. . Dozens of cyclists rode nude through downtown Mexico City today, demanding respect from motorists and protesting against the car-oriented culture in this megalopolis.
. . Hundreds of nude cyclists pedaled around Spanish cities to protest against car-clogged streets and demand greater respect for pollution-free transport.
June 11, 06: The world uses between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year, according to the advocacy Web site, reusablebags.com. Wrap-happy Japan is a major player, consuming some 30 billion — about 300 for each adult. Those figures don't include the tons of extra wrapping --individual plastic covers for shirts from the cleaners, tiny packages for single cookies-- used in Japan, experts say, suggesting the country is among the world's premier consumers of plastic sheet.
. . Facing criticism from environmentalists, Japan is now trying to reduce plastic use with a law revision that lets the government issue warnings to retailers that don't do enough to reduce, reuse and recycle.
. . Wrapping habits in Japan are excessive. Some fruit stores even wrap each apple or banana in plastic. And when purchased, all they all go in yet another plastic shopping bag. The impulse to wrap may stem from Japan's traditional attitudes toward gift-giving, which is geared to presentation more than content. The layering of wrapping also has important social meaning — more wrapping means more politeness and formality.
. . Plastic bags waste valuable oil resources and the energy it takes to produce them contributes to global warming. Some can release harmful toxins when burned, and many end up in the sea and can kill sea turtles and other marine animals that mistake them for food.
. . The bags are so cheap that shops don't have the incentive to reduce or recycle, analysts say. Germany, for example, saw plastic bag use fall by 70% after the government introduced a small levy in 2002. Similar strategies have been successfully employed in Ireland, South Africa, Bangladesh, Australia, Shanghai and Taiwan.
June 11, 06: The quality of EU lakes and rivers deteriorated to 85.6% from 89.4% in 2004 and 92.3 pct in 2003.
June 9, 06: One in 20 European Union beaches failed to meet EU cleanliness standards in 2005, with pollution for swimmers in lakes and rivers worse than the year before, the EU's environment chief said.
June 2, 06: The government announced an agreement with a Canadian company that is the world's largest zinc producer on paying for a study of heavy-metal pollution in the Pacific Northwest's Columbia River.
June 1, 06: Sydney, Australia's largest city, has had enough of careless smokers who dispose of their butts in the street. Coinciding with World No Tobacco Day, a team of 30 plain-clothed rangers were prowling Sydney streets as part of an anti-smoking and litter crackdown. Nicknamed by local media as "Butt Busters" and the "Butt Force", the rangers have been issuing fines of A$60 ($45) for smokers who dump their butts in the streets instead of in designated bins.
June 1, 06: Air quality in four of six categories is worsening at Yellowstone National Park, a new study by the National Park Service shows. "Even though the levels are increasing, they're still at a relatively low level", said John Bunyak, with the Park Service's air resources division in Denver. "It's still not at alarming levels, but it's not a good thing."
. . Experts say there's no way of telling whether the ozone at Yellowstone comes from pollution from around the globe or from nearby sources, such as vehicles in the park or area power plants.
May, 06: The Pigeon that Blogs is a project by Beatriz da Costa. It's a pigeon, or more precisely, a flock of pigeons that are equipped with some telematics to communicate on the Internet wirelessly, a GPS device for tracing where its flown, and an environmental sensor that records the levels of toxins and pollutants in the air through which they fly. These are the bits of data that the flocks "blog." They disseminate their flight paths, probably viewable on a Google Map, together with information about the current toxic state of the local atmosphere. The Pigeon that Blogs is a mash-up of GPS, GSM communications technology and pollution sensors represents a full-order species evolution. It's a pigeon pollution Google Maps mash-up.
May 30, 06: China's longest river is "cancerous" with pollution and rapidly dying, threatening drinking water supplies in 186 cities along its banks, state media said. Chinese environmental experts fear worsening pollution could kill the Yangtze river within five years, Xinhua news agency said, calling for an urgent clean-up. The river, the third longest in the world after the Nile and the Amazon. It empties into the sea at Shanghai.
. . Industrial waste and sewage, agricultural pollution and shipping discharges were to blame for the river's declining health, experts said. It absorbed more than 40% of the country's waste water, 80% of it untreated. "As the river is the only source of drinking water in Shanghai, it has been a great challenge for Shanghai to get clean water."
. . China is facing a severe water crisis --300 million people do not have access to drinkable water-- and the government has been spending heavily to clean major waterways. Toxic spills are common, the worst recently being in the Songhua river in the northeast which led to the taps of Harbin being turned off for days.
. . Despite immediate concerns for the cities along its banks, the Yangtze, along with the Yellow river, is earmarked for China's ambitious South-North water diversion scheme -- a plan to pump water from southern waterways to the parched north. But environmentalists fear that unless local governments and industries start getting serious about cutting pollution, most of the water shipped north will not be fit to drink.
. . Most of the Yellow River, the second-longest in China and the cradle of early Chinese civilization, is so polluted it is not safe for drinking or swimming.
May 24, 06: India has banned the production and sale of an anti-inflammatory drug used in cattle that is poisoning the country's vultures one step up the food chain. Vultures fulfil a vital role, stripping down animal carcasses that would otherwise slowly rot and attract disease-spreading feral dogs and vermin.
. . But the number of South Asia's Oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures has plummeted more than 97% over 15 years, which scientists say is largely due to the widespread use of the drug diclofenac in cattle, which causes fatal liver damage in vultures.
. . Now, India has ordered drug companies to stop making and marketing diclofenac for veterinary use within three months.
May 24, 06: For years, the Rouge River was among the nation's dirtiest --little more than a dumping ground in the shadow of the massive Ford industrial complex. Today, blue herons and fish have returned, reflecting how much the river's health has improved. Public outrage and the federal Clean Water Act helped draw money to the project, making it a model for conducting massive cleanups of filthy watersheds.
. . It still has problems. Most swimmers avoid it, and heavy rains cause some sewers to overflow into it.
May 24, 06: A new federal study shows that a coal-burning power plant in Eastern Oregon causes pollution in 10 protected parks and wilderness areas in three states.
. . Haze from the Portland General Electric plant near Boardman clouds views from Hells Canyon on the Idaho border, at Mount Rainier in Washington and Mount Jefferson in Central Oregon, according to the study. Air in wilderness areas is supposed to be protected as the cleanest in the nation.
. . The findings raise the possibility that PGE will have to install millions of dollars worth of pollution controls at the Boardman plant, which was authorized in 1975 — just in time to avoid overhauled provisions of the federal Clean Air Act. Federal authorities later acknowledged in a court case that the early authorization was a mistake.
. . Boardman is now one of only two major coal plants in the West without modern pollution controls and no immediate commitment to add them, said Patrick Cummins, air quality program manager for the Western Governors Association.
. . But an updated state study could take more than five years. Fitting the plant with scrubbers and other devices to capture compounds that create haze and acid rain could cost $150 million.
The US dumps 2.3 million tons of styrofoam per year! Imagine, considering how light it is, what a volume it is! There is a soil bacteris that eats it, tho... slowly. We need to recycle it!
May 18, 06: Government testing found the cancer-causing chemical benzene in some soft drinks but not at high enough levels to cause harm, U.S. regulators said.
May 18, 06: A team of scientists from Scotland is proposing to carry out experiments on killer whales in the wild in order to study their reaction to sound. They want to work out at what frequencies and volume the orcas show signs of stress. Sound is considered as important to some marine mammals as sight is to us. Some scientists believe that military sonar --powerful sound waves-- could be harming whales and dolphins.
. . A few meters below the waves, sound is the only way to communicate, navigate or hunt. Yet oceans are now full of background noise from shipping, drilling and naval exercises. Cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) now have to swim through what some researchers described as "acoustic fog".
. . The report identified 13 cases of strandings by whales and dolphins which appear to have been linked to specific sources of noise; most of those sources involved naval vessels. Post-mortem evidence gathered after a number of whales beached themselves during military exercises in the Canary Islands four years ago indicated the presence of tiny gas bubbles in the animals' internal organs, particularly the liver, which scientists believe is linked somehow to sonar.
May 17, 06: The rusting hulk of a decommissioned French warship turned away as an environmental hazard by India three months ago limped home today after a costly fiasco that badly embarrassed President Jacques Chirac.
May 16, 06: Oil spilled 17 years ago by the tanker Exxon Valdez still threatens wildlife around Alaska's Prince William Sound, scientists reported, a finding that could add $100 million to cleanup costs for Exxon Mobil Corp.
May 12, 06: India's Supreme Court refused to stop a former cruise liner that environmental activists say has hundreds of tonnes of toxic material on board from entering Indian waters.
May 9, 06: Royal Dutch Shell Plc said oil spills at its facilities rose 50% in 2005, due to hurricane damage in the Gulf of Mexico and sabotage in Nigeria.
. . Shell missed its target to reduce spills, with discharges rising to 9,000 tons from 6,100 tons in 2004, the Anglo-Dutch company said in its annual Sustainability Report.
. . Shell lost 3,900 tons due to hurricane damage, while the bombing of a major pipeline in Nigeria by ethnic militants in December led to a 340 ton spill, which reversed a downward trend in that country. Shell said it remained on track to cut gas flaring in Nigeria by its revised deadline of 2009.
May 9, 06: Here's how to create your own personal Stage 2 Smog Alert: Buy an indoor air purifier. Using a popular process called ionization, the air cleaners can actually generate ozone levels in a room that exceed the worst smog days in Los Angeles, a new study finds.
. . The devices are popular in urban areas. They are touted as getting rid of dust, pollen and other airborne particles. Ionic air purifiers, one type of these devices, are said to work by charging airborne particles and then attracting them to metal electrodes. They emit ozone as a byproduct of this ionization process. Ozone can damage the lungs and cause shortness of breath and throat irritation, and it can also exacerbate asthma.
. . They tested various air purifiers in homes, offices and cars. In many cases, ozone levels inside climbed above 90 parts per billion, exceeding California's basic safety threshold. In some cases, ozone soared higher than 350 parts per billion, which if measured outside would trigger a Stage 2 Smog Alert, an event that hasn't occurred in the Southern California coastal air basin since 1988.
. . California lawmakers are considering legislation to reduce emissions from indoor air purifiers. Meanwhile, both the state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have issued advisories discouraging their use. "These machines are insidious", said Barbara Riordan, acting chairperson of the California Air Resources Board (ARB), in a warning last year. "Marketed as a strong defense against indoor air pollution, they emit ozone, the same chemical that the ARB and EPA have been trying to eliminate from our air for decades. More chilling is that some people susceptible to the ill effects of ozone will eagerly bring these Trojan horses home."
May 9, 06: A former cruise liner with hundreds of tons of asbestos and other toxic material on board is heading for an Indian scrapyard, Greenpeace said, threatening a repeat of a controversy over a French warship.
May 8, 06: Tanzania is lifting a 2004 ban on the pesticide DDT, so it can be used to fight mosquitoes carrying malaria in the east African nation. Tanzania had signed up to an international treaty --known as the Stockholm Convention-- which seeks to outlaw the use of dangerous industrial chemicals dubbed the "dirty dozen" and blamed for deaths, cancer or birth defects. DDT, while covered by the convention, is exempted when used for disease control.
May 8, 06: The nation's worst polluting plant is the BP PLC oil refinery where 15 workers died in an explosion last year, raising questions about whether the company has been underreporting toxic emissions.
. . BP's Texas City refinery released three times as much pollution in 2004 as it did in 2003, according to the most recent data from the EPA. The increase at BP was so large that it accounted for the bulk of a 15% increase in refinery emissions nationwide in 2004, the highest level since 2000.
. . The company is investigating whether it has been accurately documenting pollution. There could be more federal fines levied against the energy giant if mistakes are found. BP already faces a record $21.3 million fine from the U.S.
. . The company reported that it released 10.25 million pounds of pollution in 2004, up from 3.3 million pounds the year before, according to EPA's Toxics Release Inventory, which tracks nearly 650 toxic chemicals released into the air, water and land.
May 4, 06: Scientists urged industry to disclose how it conducts safety tests for products containing nanoparticles. The Royal Society, an academy of leading scientists, said a new inventory shows that 200 consumer products such as laptops, cosmetics and stain-resistant clothing use nanotechnology.
May 4, 06: Half the world's population burns wood, coal, dung and other solid fuels to cook food and heat their homes, exposing them to dangerous smoke that kills 1.5 million people a year, the U.N. health agency said.
. . Women and children in Africa and Asia were especially vulnerable to indoor air pollution from open fires and poorly ventilated stoves. Children make up 800,000 of the 1.5 million people who die each year from polluting household fuels, women account for 500,000 deaths and the remaining 200,000 are men. "Day in day out, and for hours at a time, women and their small children breathe in amounts of smoke equivalent to consuming two packs of cigarettes per day."
. . The Geneva-based agency said it could cost as little as $6 per family to install better-insulated and fuel efficient stoves in developing countries. Making better-ventilated stoves available to half of those currently using inefficient cookers could save $34 billion in fuel expenditure each year, it said.
May 3, 06: Used batteries in the European Union will have to be collected and recycled under rules agreed by EU lawmakers and member states this week that aim to protect people and the environment from the effects of dangerous metals.
. . From 2009, batteries will also have to be labeled to show how long they will last. The rules ban the sale of batteries containing more than 0.0005% of mercury, and portable batteries with more than 0.002% of cadmium, except in alarm systems, medical equipment and cordless power tools.
May 3, 06: The ozone layer is showing signs of recovering, thanks to a drop in ozone-depleting chemicals, but it is unlikely to stabilize at pre-1980 levels, researchers said. Full recovery is still decades away. "We now have some confidence that the ozone layer is responding to the decreases in chlorine levels."
. . The depletion of the ozone layer increases the risk of skin cancer and cataracts in humans and may harm crop yields and sea life. People should still protect themselves from harmful ultraviolet rays. The researchers said depletion has been most severe at the poles and to a lesser extent at mid-latitudes.
Apr 22, 06: Chernobyl's coffin is cracking. Birds and rainwater have gotten inside the steel-and-concrete shelter hastily built over the reactor that blew up in 1986, and officials worry about what is getting out.
. . The "sarcophagus" over reactor No. 4 is reaching the end of its life span. A multinational $1.1 billion project to build a new shelter —-a giant steel arch designed to last 100 years-— is still on the drawing board.
. . The sarcophagus of nearly 700,000 tons of steel and 400,000 tons of concrete was hastily built to seal in an estimated 200-ton mix of radioactive fuel and materials like concrete and sand that fused when the explosion spiked temperatures to 1,800 degrees inside. No one knows exactly how much radioactive fuel remains since only 25% of the reactor is accessible. Some estimate it all was discharged during the 10 days when the reactor spewed out its insides. Others counter that as much as 90% is still there. Sensors constantly check for signs of new reactions taking place.
Apr 19, 06: A conservation group is calling an 80-mile stretch of the Yellowstone River in Park County, Mont., the second "most endangered river" in the United States because of development and bank stabilization projects.
. . American Rivers said development in the Upper Yellowstone River's floodplain poses a risk to new homes and the wild quality of the waterway. "The Yellowstone River is a national treasure, but building these homes right on the river sets the table for massive bank stabilization and flood control projects in the future, and wrecks the very reason people want to live there in the first place."
. . The other rivers making the 2006 list are, beginning with the most endangered: the Pajaro River in California; Willamette River in Oregon; Salmon Trout River in Michigan; Shenandoah River in Virginia and West Virginia; Boise River in Idaho; Caloosahatchee River in Florida; Bristol Bay Watershed in Alaska; San Jacinto River in Texas; and the Verde River in Arizona.
Apr 13, 06: Federal regulators said they want to get a better handle on the burgeoning use of nanotechnology in everyday products, as their German counterparts struggle to understand why nearly 100 people suffered respiratory problems after using a novel cleaning product made with the submicroscopic particles.
. . The Food and Drug Administration said it plans an October meeting to discuss the new kinds of nanotechnology materials being developed for use in the products it regulates, including drugs, foods, cosmetics and medical devices. FDA-regulated products account for about 25 cents of every dollar spent each year by U.S. consumers.
. . Nanotechnology involves the manufacture and manipulation of materials at the molecular or atomic level. At that scale, materials are measured in nanometers or billionths of a meter. Nanoscale materials are generally less than 100 nanometers in diameter. A sheet of paper, in comparison, is 100,000 nanometers thick.
. . The FDA announcement comes as officials with Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment continue to probe 97 cases of intoxication, some of them severe, in people who had used a recently introduced aerosol cleaning product called "Magic Nano." The product, which is not sold in the United States, has since been withdrawn from sale in Germany.
Apr 8, 06: In Puget Sound, pollution is forever. That's the message scientists hope residents of Western Washington will remember the next time they flush chemicals down their toilets or curbside drains.
. . Because the sound is shallow at the northern end like a bathtub, ocean water does not easily come in to flush out pollutants. Because of that, polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs are still being found in Chinook salmon caught in its waters, at levels up to six times higher than fish from the Columbia and Sacramento rivers and along the east side of Vancouver Island. PCBs have been banned since the 1970s.
. . Scientists are also finding fish dosed with antidepressants and shellfish tainted with amnesia-causing toxins. PCBs, for example, have been cycling through the ecosystem for decades, getting picked up by worms and other mud-dwelling invertebrates, which are eaten by fish that are consumed by larger fish, mammals and birds. The animals die, then decompose and the cycle repeats.
. . The same thing happens with flame retardants that O'Neill found in herring, lingcod, rockfish and English sole. Researchers reported that chemical flame retardants —-which are still added to electronics, seat cushions and fabrics-— can cause developmental and hormone problems in fish.
. . Research shows that some of these chemicals can skew the ratio of female to male fish, or reduce the fertility of male fish. Exposure for the fish is "constant, direct and unavoidable."
Apr 7, 06: Italy faces the prospect of daily fines for failing to comply with rulings by the European Union's top court that it broke EU environment laws, the bloc's executive said.
China has punished eight officials for polluting a chain of once thriving lakes near Beijing, pushing a drive for greener growth, state media said.
Apr 6, 06: Greenpeace said McDonald's was fueling Amazon rainforest destruction by using soybeans grown in the region as feed for chickens that end up served in the fast-food chain's European restaurants.
. . Soybean production in the Amazon has skyrocketed in recent years thanks to growing international demand and the development, by Brazilian-government labs, of a type of soybean that can grow in the region's poor soil and punishing sun. Environmentalists say that soybeans' success has driven up the value of cleared jungle, leading to a cycle in which cattle ranchers sell off pasture land to soybean farmers and then clear new areas, selling the wood to loggers.
. . Greenpeace argues that much of the soybean production in the Amazon is illegal because strict environmental regulations requiring landowners in the region to keep 80% of their forested areas standing, but these regulations are often ignored.
. . The southern Amazon region, where soybean production is growing most quickly, is also notorious for using so-called "debt slaves" to clear away jungle brush to prepare land for pasture and planting. Debt slavery involves ranchers employing poorly paid workers and then forcing them to pay exorbitant prices for basic goods and transportation, ensnaring them in ever-deepening debt.
Apr 6, 06: New powers which allow local authorities to issue stiffer, on-the-spot fines of up to 80 pounds for littering, scrawling graffiti or failing to clear up dog mess come into force today.
Apr 6, 06: China's environment ministry has ordered cleanups at 20 chemical and petrochemical enterprises, including CNPC and units of Sinopec, after they were found to pose serious safety threats.
Apr 3, 06: Pennsylvania is trying to find a solution to a multibillion-dollar problem left over from its days as a coal production leader: What to do with the billions of gallons of orange, acidic water pouring out endlessly from its abandoned underground mines. In one experiment, the resulting sludge is being turned into powdered metals. In another, the water may be used to make a different kind of powder: snow.
. . The state has so far awarded $4 million in grants to businesses, academics and entrepreneurs to find creative uses for the water and its deposits of iron oxide and, to a lesser extent, aluminum, manganese, zinc, nickel and cobalt. The lessons learned here could help in other mining states, particularly in West Virginia, Kentucky and western Maryland, where the geology is similar.
. . Pennsylvania's mines are flooded with as much as two trillion gallons of water, according to state officials, who base the number on the amount of coal removed. That's almost two cubic miles of water, or enough to cover Los Angeles in 21 feet of water, based on calculations by the U.S. Geological Survey.
. . The polluted water flows out through about 5,000 mine shafts or holes and is contaminated with iron oxide, a byproduct of pyrite that was exposed by mine shafts cut deep into the earth. It has turned thousands of miles of Pennsylvania waterways acidic, coated the bottoms of some rivers with an iron-based orange paste and killed off fish and plant life.
. . What's worse, the water in the mines is constantly replenished by the water table. Only a small number of the leaks are treated, generating tons of doughy sludge each day with nowhere to go except a landfill.
. . The Loyalhanna Watershed Association, in southwestern Pennsylvania, received $211,000 to try routing high-pressure mine runoff through turbines to generate electricity at a sewage treatment plant.
Apr 3, 06: New rules, extra inspections and the threat of a 3,500-percent fee hike hang like an ax over the shipment of tons of Canadian waste to dumping grounds in Michigan, raising fears of a ban or a possible trade war.
. . The City of Toronto has been shipping trash to Michigan since 1998, and now sends out about a million tons a year. Combined with commercial and industrial waste from the city and other parts of Ontario, it adds up to almost 4 million tons, or 18.6% of the trash dumped in Michigan's landfills.
Ten Most Polluted U.S. Cities (ozone rated only)
. . 1. Los Angeles (including Long Beach and Riverside, California)
. . 2. Bakersfield, California
. . 3. Fresno-Madera, California
. . 4. Visalia-Porterville, California
. . 5. Merced, California
. . 6. Houston (Baytown and Huntsville, Texas)
. . 7. Sacramento (Arden and Arcade, California, and Truckee, Nevada)
. . 8. Dallas/Forth Worth
. . 9. New York (Newark, New Jersey, and Bridgeport, Connecticut)
. . 10. Philadelphia (Camden and Vineland, New Jersey)
Source: American Lung Association (for 2005)
Mar 18, 06: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that catalytic converters can safely be added to lawn mower and jet ski engines to meet tougher clean air rules the agency plans to propose later this year.An agency report cleared the way for the government to require less-polluting gasoline engines that are smaller than 50 horsepower. Small engines emit about 10% of the pollutants that make up smog. EPA spokesman John Millett said after the agency proposes the rules, they should be finalized in 2007.
Mar 13, 06: Mexico City is plagued by an almost diabolical combination of floods and water shortages, rising sewage and sinking water tables. What better place for world leaders to come together to discuss how to better manage water? Many of the 20 million people of this metropolis get by on as little as one hour of running water per week, while almost all the copious rainfall is flushed unused down the sewers, creating a gargantuan flow of wastewater that the city's few treatment plants can't handle.
. . As with New Orleans, Mexico City is on life support, but on a much larger scale. Huge pumps work day and night to suck sewage-laced water out of the rapidly sinking, mountain-ringed bowl in which the city lies. Some areas suffer floods of sewage. Around seven in every eight toilet flushes goes untreated. Mexico City has paved over its rivers and made them into underground sewers or expressways --often both at the same time-- while pumping so much water from underground aquifers that some neighborhoods sink by up to a foot a year.
. . The city would probably flunk in all the five topics to be discussed at the 4th World Water Forum starting [16th]: how water can be harnessed for growth, be provided more efficiently, better benefit the poor, be used environmentally, and be prevented from causing natural disasters.
. . As aquifers are depleted, the ground subsides and breaks underground pipes, causing more of the leaks that already waste about 40% of drinking water. Sewage pipes also fracture, releasing sewage that contaminates the aquifers. As the sewer-rivers, the population, and water wastefulness all multiply, the city must spend even more --about $2 billion over the next five years-- not to fix the system or create separate storm drains, but simply to build larger pipes out of the valley. Built on what was once a lake, Mexico City now wallows in waste.
Mar 10, 06: Maligned as the fuel behind surging rates of asthma and other diseases in the United States, diesel will get an overhaul this year that could save thousands of lives, experts say. New federal regulations, which take effect in June, will reduce the amount of sulfur in diesel to less than 15 parts per million (ppm) from 500 ppm, cutting tailpipe emissions from trucks, buses and cars that use the distillate fuel.
. . The law, which was passed during the Clinton presidency, is expected to prevent the premature deaths of 8,300 people per year, along with about 5,500 cases of chronic bronchitis and more than 360,000 asthma attacks, according to EPA estimates. Plus, the new standard will help prevent 1.5 million lost work days, 7,100 hospital visits and 2,400 emergency room visits for asthma each year.
. . While the new regulation will reduce sulfur emissions directly related to the fuel, it will also enable pollution controls which can remove 90% of diesel soot.
. . School buses are major sources of pollution, and children who ride them face 5 to 15 times as much particulates inside the buses compared with outside.
. . Hospital admissions among the over-65 population due to heart failure increased every time particulate pollution increased, studies show. "Most of these admissions occurred the same day as the rise in fine particle concentration, which suggests a short lag time.
Mar 11, 06: An oil spill discovered at Prudhoe Bay field is the largest ever on Alaska's North Slope region, US officials say. They estimate that up to 267,000 gallons (one million litres) of crude leaked from a corroded transit pipeline at the state's northern tip. The spill was detected on 2 March and plugged. Local environmentalists have described it as "a catastrophe". The source of the spill was a hole caused by internal corrosion in the pipeline, officials say. It remains unclear when the leak started.
Mar 10, 06: China currently uses more than four times as much energy to generate a unit of output than the average Group of Seven developed country. A net exporter of oil until 1992, China now imports more than 40% of its needs. Acid rain falls in more than a third of the country and air pollution is linked to some 400,000 deaths a year.
Mar 6, 06: Just because something is derived from a plant, doesn't mean it's entirely safe for humans to use — especially on your skin. Have you ever heard of poison ivy?
. . The Environmental Working Group created an interactive guide rating the product safety of personal-care products on its Web site. "Skin Deep" is a searchable database featuring information on more than 14,000 shampoos, lotions, deodorants, sunscreens and other products. Cosmetics do not need FDA approval before hitting the market, though the FDA can seek enforcement action. The FDA does have laws overseeing the labeling of beauty products but not the safety studies. That's left to the companies.
Mar 6, 06: Buckyballs, among the most used and certainly the most celebrated of manmade nanoparticles, might represent a potent health threat.
According to computer simulations the 60-carbon-atom, soccer-ball-shaped molecule can damage or even destroy DNA. Researchers have suggested that buckyballs, whose technical name is "fullerenes", might be used in chemical sensors and hydrogen fuel cells. And some researchers are testing biomedical applications in which buckyballs would encapsulate especially toxic drugs or radioactive materials.
. . Scientists already realized buckyballs could be toxic. Studies at Duke University in 2004 showed that when buckyballs were introduced to laboratory aquariums they damaged the brains of largemouth bass and may also have prevented certain water-borne bacteria from reproducing. Until then, scientists had theorized that the strong attraction that buckyballs have for each other would cause the molecules to clump together and safely sink to the bottom of any body of water, be it a test aquarium or a lake.
. . As it turns out, says Peter Cummings, a professor of chemical engineering at Vanderbilt University and director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Nanomaterials Theory Institute, in water, the attraction between a buckyball molecule and a DNA molecule is several times stronger than the attraction between two buckyballs. "We found, somewhat surprisingly, that these buckyballs bond quite strongly to both double-stranded and single-stranded DNA", said Cummings, whose group designed the simulation. "They bond strongly enough that they distort the structure of the DNA."
. . The buckyballs break apart vital hydrogen bonds within the DNA molecule's double helix and they can stick to grooves on DNA's surface, causing the molecule to bend. Not only do the buckyballs damage the DNA, Cummings says, they cripple its ability to heal. The buckyball actually forces a piece of nucleotide from one of the DNA's double helixes and takes its place, preventing the strands from reuniting.
. . Cummings cautions that this simulation work didn't test whether buckyballs can breach the cell walls that house DNA molecules. That would require another simulation project and, eventually, laboratory tests on living organisms. And, he notes, these results don't mean that all nano-scale building blocks pose such threats.
Mar 7, 06: Despite being made 95% of air, Styrofoam's manufactured immortality has posed a problem for recycling efforts. More than 3 million tons of the durable material is produced every year in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Very little of it is recycled. Help may come from bacteria that have been found to eat Styrofoam and turn it into useable plastic. This is the stuff recycling dreams are made of: Yesterday's cup could become tomorrow's plastic spoon.
. . Kevin O’Connor of University College Dublin and his colleagues heated polystyrene foam, the generic name for Styrofoam, to convert it to styrene oil. The natural form of styrene is in real peanuts, strawberries and a good steak. A synthetic form is used in car parts and electronic components. The scientists fed this styrene oil to the soil bacteria Pseudomonas putida, which converted it into biodegradable plastic known as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates). PHA can be used to make plastic forks and packaging film. It is resistant to heat, grease and oil. It also lasts a long time. But unlike Styrofoam, PHA biodegrades in soil and water.
Mar 2, 06: Environmental group Greenpeace said its members prevented a boat from leaving a Chilean port with materials to construct a controversial wood pulp plant in Uruguay. The construction of two large wood pulp mills in Uruguay has sparked environmental concerns, protests and a diplomatic crisis between Uruguay and Argentina, which is worried runoff from the plants would contaminate waters shared by both countries.
. . Greenpeace said 11 members of its group participated in the action to stop the Baltimar Sirius and one was chained to the boat's anchor in the port of Talcahuano.
. . The $1.7 billion wood pulp plants project on the Uruguay River is one of the biggest investment projects in Uruguay's history.
Mar 2, 06: In the dead of night, shadowy figures armed with axes, drills and poison are leaving a trail of death around Sydney's wealthiest suburbs. Their victims are trees, and the perpetrators are property-obsessed Sydney homeowners seeking to increase the value of their land by adding or improving views of the city's world-famous harbor and beaches. In some of the worst cases, entire groves of mature trees have been poisoned.
Feb 26, 06: Every year there are at least 2.3 million tons of polystyrene (in the form of Styrofoam cups, plates, packing film and CD jewel cases, to name a few) dumped into the nation's landfills, in large part because the petroleum-based plastic waste is difficult to recycle.
. . The study's authors investigate turning Styrofoam into a biodegradable form through pyrolysis, a process that involves heating polystyrene in the absence of oxygen to convert it into styrene oil. The soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida then feed on the oil, converting it to PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates) -—a biodegradable plastic that can be used to manufacture medicines, plasticware and other disposable items. Like polystyrene, PHA is resistant to hot liquids and oils and has a long shelf life. Unlike it, PHA breaks down readily in soil, water, septic systems and backyard compost.
Feb 26, 06: Workplace watchdogs and industry advocates agree: too much hexavalent chromium --the same chemical at the heart of the movie "Erin Brockovich"-- puts people at risk for lung cancer. But how much is too much? The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is set to rule on that in 2 days. But in the run-up to the decision, the journal Environmental Health reported that industry-commissioned scientists withheld data suggesting even small amounts of the known carcinogen, which is used in the steel, aerospace, electroplating and industries, can be deadly.
. . "We think we have an example in which all of the standard elements of scientific distortion are present: hiding behind the lawyers, statistical manipulation, failure to publish ... all that kind of stuff which comes right out of the tobacco industry playbook", said Dr. Peter Lurie, one of the report's authors.
. . That 63-year-old standard is 52 micrograms per cubic meter of air. In 2004, OSHA proposed a standard of 1 microgram per cubic meter, and has been collecting data on it since then, from industry and other groups. The watchdog group Public Citizen asked for a 0.25 microgram per cubic meter level.
. . OSHA estimated that a 1 microgram level would cause two to nine excess deaths for every 1,000 workers exposed during their lifetimes, above the agency's target of one excess death per 1,000 workers. If the level is raised to 5 micrograms, OSHA estimated it would cause five to 45 excess deaths for every 1,000 workers.
Feb 26, 06: It is estimated that at least 1,000 miles of river are ecologically destroyed by sheep dip every year. Now sheep dip has been banned. That is to say, sheep dip with synthetic pyrethroids in it. If a few drops of the stuff drips into a river from a sheep’s woolly coat, it will kill invertebrate life for some 10 km downstream.
. . Buglife is a small conservation charity that deals with invertebrates: not the sexiest or cuddliest of beasts, true. But this is a feisty organization that punches above its weight.
. . But perhaps you don’t like bugs. Perhaps you think that the world would be a better place without those creeping and crawling things that spoil picnics, make you jump and make out of doors a difficult place to be. So let us wipe out invertebrate life, and see where that gets us. A better world? Well, for a start, it’s a world without freshwater fish, but that hardly begins to tell you about the importance of bugs to human life.
. . Most pollination takes place because of insects. Two of every three forkfuls that you put in your mouth are the result of pollination. Soil is normally reckoned to be quite important for plants, and for soil, you need earthworms.
Feb 26, 06: State and local wildlife experts are trying to figure out what led more than a thousand flounder, spot and pin fish to beach themselves at the Marine Corps' New River air base — and then swim away. They believe it may be related to a popular phenomenon known in coastal Alabama as "jubilee." The fish surfaced in shallow water on the 24th. They were lethargic, but alive. One expert estimated about 1,000 to 1,500 were crowded in the waterline. But by afternoon, they were gone. The timing matched another oddity: the water's oxygen level, which veered from one extreme to the other.
. . "We measured the oxygen levels in the water this morning and they were very low", said Stephanie Garrett, environmental technician with DWQ. "Then two and a half hours later, they were high." She said that might be a clue that the area saw a case of the "jubilee" phenomenon, in which thousands of live, healthy fish beach themselves. Scientists know that a jubilee occurs when variety of factors deoxygenate the water, forcing fish to the shore. [So... unrelated to whale-beachings.]
. . Jubilees occur in a number of places, but nowhere as often and as regularly as on Mobile Bay's eastern shore. Jubilees usually occur during the summer, providing a free feast to locals who head to shore to gather the fish up.
Feb 21, 06: Wal-Mart has announced a new partnership with Toshiba to develop and sell the first Restriction on Hazardous Susbstance (RoHS) laptop. RoHS is a directive that forbids the use of a variety of hazardous substances in electronic equipment, including laptops. Green Star, a non-profit organization, is reporting that consumer electronics make up 40% of the lead found in landfills. This environmental-friendly laptop is the 15-inch Toshiba Satellite A55-S1064, priced less than $700 in most markets. Wal-Mart’s says that all computers sold at their stores will meet RoHS standards by July.
Feb 21, 06: San Francisco, a leader in urban recycling, is preparing to enlist its canine population for a first in the United States: converting dog poop into energy. Norcal Waste Systems Inc., the city's garbage company, plans to test collection carts and biodegradable bags in a city-center park popular with dog walkers. A city study found that almost 4% of all the garbage picked up at San Francisco homes was from animal waste destined for the city's landfill. San Francisco has an estimated 120,000 dogs.
. . Dog feces could be scooped into a methane digester, a device that uses bugs and microorganisms to gobble up the material and emit methane, which would be trapped and burned to power a turbine to make electricity or to heat homes. Dogs and cats in the United States produce about 10 million tons of waste a year.
. . San Francisco runs an aggressive program to recycle bottles, cans, paper and other trash and now diverts two-thirds of its garbage away from landfills. The city's goal is a 75% diversion by 2010 and zero new waste in landfills by 2020.
Feb 21, 06: There are days in Beijing the smog is so thick residents can stare straight at the sun. Now the country is trying to calculate exactly what price it is paying for choking smog, poisoned rivers and toxic waste, floating the concept of a "Green GDP" index likely to be debated at the annual parliament session that convenes on March 5. "Green GDP deducts ecological and environmental losses. It is able to more fully test and measure the quality of economic development and avoid false achievements", Pan Yue, deputy chief of China's environment body and its most outspoken green crusader, said.
. . It's an idea that fits with the model of development that the leadership under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao has been trying to project, one of tempering the pace of economic growth with a focus on balanced growth. The changes are likely to be tough to implement. Local leaders are accustomed to being judged on growth above all else and would be fearful that stricter environmental controls would impact their bottom line. A first step, analysts say, is establishing a system of green accounting to get a more accurate idea of the costs associated with degradation.
. . But with China home to 20 of the world's 30 most smog-choked cities (& at least the ten worst), with some 400,000 premature deaths a year linked to air pollution and with degradation a frequent cause of riots, the need to transform near-daily pledges to clean up the environment into action is becoming ever more acute.
China has warned local environmental protection officials that they will be punished if they allow or cover up damage to the environment in favor of economic growth, state media said. China has been struck by a steady string of environmental crises, including a river pollution case that left millions in northeast China without drinking water for days.
. . "China's environmental problems will be four or five times as bad 15 years from now if it continues in current energy consumption and pollution trends", Zhang Jianyu, a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University, told the China Daily.
. . A new regulation that has taken effect set out penalties for officials who approved projects that had not passed environmental impact assessments, improperly cut or canceled fees for industry waste discharge, held back or falsified reports or tried to cover up accidents, the China Daily reported.
. . The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) named and shamed 11 companies for heavy pollution from their factories and told them to clean up offending projects or face closure and fines.
Feb 17, 06: Large amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx) -—key chemicals in the production of ozone, or smog—reach North America in the spring, a new study indicates. The peak is in May. "Ozone production is faster in May than April because there is more ultraviolet light and water vapor available in May." The data is from aircraft about 5 to 7 kms over the western United States and north to Greenland.
. . In Februrary and March, there was almost no NOx up there. A big lump appeared in April. By May, there were three regions with high concentration, Wang told LiveScience. The composition of the pollution and some computer modeling suggests it must have been in the atmosphere for some time, riding the prevailing winds rather than wafting up locally. While the source has not been pinned down (it could be traveling from as far away as Europe) the likely culprit is Asia, where industrial pollution is on the rise as economic output soars. Detecting foreign pollution at Earth's surface is virtually impossible, because it gets lost in the shuffle of local bad air.
Feb 7, 06: China named and shamed 11 companies, including large metals smelters, for heavy pollution from their factories. The companies targeted as having "serious problems" had to improve and clean up the offending projects or face closure orders and fines, the State Environmental Protection Administration said.
. . In January, three officials of a south China smelter were arrested after the plant dumped 1,000 tons of waste water contaminated with cadmium into Guangdong province's Beijiang River. Pan also named 10 metals, transportation and power projects under construction or in trial operation near rivers, areas of dense population and ecological protection zones as posing serious environmental dangers. The exposed factories and projects had to submit reform proposals within a month or face fines and orders to shut production or construction.
Feb 6, 06: Environment ministers from around the world are meeting in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to discuss the rising use of man-made chemicals. The United Nations-backed conference, the largest yet, is expected to issue a declaration on the way chemicals should be managed around the world.
. . According to UN figures, around 1,500 new chemicals are produced each year, adding to the 80,000 the world currently produces. And those figures are only going to rise. It is estimated that over the next 15 years there will be an 85% increase in the manufacture of chemicals globally. Many, says the UN, have not been tested fully or are insufficiently labelled, particularly in the developing world.
Jan 31, 06: A flock of pigeons fitted with mobile phone backpacks is to be used to monitor air pollution. The 20 pigeons will be released into the skies over San Jose, California, in August. Each bird will carry a GPS satellite tracking receiver, air pollution sensors and a basic mobile phone. Text messages on air quality will be beamed back in real time to a special pigeon "blog", a journal accessible on the Internet. Miniature cameras slung around the pigeons' necks will also post aerial pictures.
Jan 27, 06: California has become the first US state to classify second-hand tobacco smoke as a toxic air pollutant. The decision by the California Air Resources Board puts drifting smoke in the same category as diesel exhaust, and could lead to tougher regulation. The agency said many scientific studies had linked passive smoking to a range of cancers and respiratory diseases. Some health experts say the ultimate impact of California's decision to classify second-hand smoke as a toxin could reach beyond the US.
. . The decision to declare second-hand smoke as a pollutant relied on a September report that found a sharply increased risk of breast cancer in young women exposed to it. It also linked second-hand smoke to premature births, asthma, and numerous health problems in children. The study found that about 16% of all Californians smoked, but that 56% of adults and 64% of adolescents were exposed to second-hand smoke.
Jan 27, 06: The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that built-up urban areas generate nine times the amount of runoff water than woodlands of a similar size. As the percentage of the world's population living in cities continues to grow, the problems of flooding and pollution are set to increase.
. . "Rain gardens" can dramatically cut the amount of pollution in urban storm water, according to a study by US researchers. Most of the rain that falls on cities lands on impervious surfaces, such as roads, where it absorbs pollutants before it finally drains away. The team says a shallow depression in a garden containing bark mulch and shrubs can remove up to 99% of toxins.
Jan 26, 06: A proposed Russian oil pipeline could cause permanent damage to the unique wildlife of Lake Baikal and must be stopped, scientists who conducted the state's assessment of the plan said. The pipeline, due to run from Eastern Siberia to the Pacific coast, would hook round the northern end of Baikal --the world's deepest lake and home to hundreds of endemic species including a rare fresh water seal.
. . State monopoly Transneft says it will take all possible precautions to make the pipeline safe, but the scientists said nothing could protect it from the frequent earthquakes that afflict the zone and make the lake wider every year.
Jan 24, 06: Commercial fishing has been banned in Sydney's famously beautiful harbor due to dangerous levels of poisonous dioxin being found in prawns and fish. The dioxin, which can cause cancer and birth defects, was a hangover from past industrial waste. Levels of dioxin found in the fish had not dramatically increased from those found a decade ago, but international standards relating to dioxins had changed. Dioxins are a group of chemicals produced as an unwanted by-product of some industrial processes.
. . "The dioxins found at Homebush Bay are associated with the past production of organochlorine herbicides by the multinational chemical giant Union Carbide", the Greenpeace group alleged. "From 1957 to 1976 Union Carbide made chlorinated herbicides including 2,4,5,-T a component of the infamous Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War."
Jan 24, 06: People who survive a toxic encounter with carbon monoxide, one of the most common types of accidental poisoning in the United States, run a risk of death years later because of damaged heart muscle, according to a study. The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation said a look at 230 patients treated for moderate to severe poisoning from the colorless, odorless gas found that 37% suffered heart muscle injury. Of that group nearly a quarter died within the next seven years. About 40,000 people in the United States are treated in emergency rooms for it every year.
. . They recommended that victims be screened for heart damage and that more study be done on the risks they face.
Jan 20, 06: California has the worst rate of soot pollution in the United States, according to a report released by an environmental group. Environment California released the report, "Plagued by Pollution", which lists data of fine particle, or soot pollution, from environmental agencies across the country. The report blames California's power plants and large numbers of diesel trucks, cars and ships for air pollution. Although the state has tightened environmental regulations, a growing population may be contributing to more pollution.
Jan 20, 06: Smog is blocking sunlight in China and making much of the country significantly darker than it was half a century ago. Using nearly 500 instruments spread throughout the country that record the amount of sunlight reaching the ground, researchers found that solar radiation has decreased by about 2% per decade since 1954. The country is roughly 10% darker on average than it was 50 years ago.
. . The researchers also found that water evaporation rates across the country have decreased in the same period, by about 1.5 inches per decade. The dip in solar radiation, combined with other factors such as increased temperatures and wind speeds, are likely behind this trend, said lead researcher. Adding further support to this hypothesis is that cloud cover, the other likely explanation, has actually decreased in China over the past half century, by 0.78% each decade. Eliminating clouds from the dimming equation leaves little doubt that fossil fuel emissions, which have increased by nine-fold in the past half-century, is blanketing China in a foggy haze that absorbs and deflects sunlight, the researchers say.
. . China’s expected increase in economic activity will only make the situation worse and could lead to other problems as well, Qian said. "Haze doesn't just block the solar radiation, it is also infamous for acid rain and respiratory diseases."
Jan 6, 06: A panel appointed by India's Supreme Court recommended that a French aircraft carrier bound for an Indian ship-breaking yard not be allowed to enter the country because of worries of toxic waste. Environmental group Greenpeace has urged Paris and New Delhi not to allow the decommissioned Clemenceau to reach a scrap yard in the western state of Gujarat next month without first being 98% decontaminated in France.
Jan 3, 06: Police detained around a dozen Greenpeace activists in New Delhi today during a protest over the planned scrapping in an Indian yard of a French aircraft carrier they said contains tonnes of highly toxic material.
. . The environmental group, which organized the protest outside the French embassy, urged Paris and New Delhi not to allow the Clemenceau to reach a scrapyard in the western state of Gujarat without first being decontaminated in France. Greenpeace says that vulnerable scrapyard workers in countries such as India risk developing serious health problems after handling toxic waste. Greenpeace says the decommissioned ship --which served in the 1991 Gulf War-- is fitted with hundreds of tonnes of hazardous material, including 500 tons of asbestos.
Jan 1, 06: China's environmental woes spilled visibly over its borders as a toxic slick flowed into Russia in December, but exports of pollution are becoming common. The country's leaders are only starting to grapple with the political fall-out at home after years of pursuing economic expansion at almost any price. Dirty or scarce water, choking air and toxic factory effluent are some of the common problems fouling China's environment and its neighbors'.
.
If you got here from the GAIA HOME PAGE, click on
"minimize" or "eXit". (upper right browser buttons)
If you didn't: the site.)