Old news, archives
Salmon Befuddled as Bering Sea Bakes
Alaska - University of Washington scientists report that temperatures in the normally bone-chilling waters of the Bering Sea hit 56 F this summer - 10 degrees higher than normal and 4 degrees higher than the previous record temperature. Alaska's salmon runs were thrown into chaos by the bizarre temperatures. Jack Helle, a researcher at the National Marine Fisheries Service's Auke Bay Laboratory, says that the "warm water and other marine events may be signaling that the ocean is undergoing a rapid and huge climatic change."
Globalization: "Winners and Losers"
United Nations - "Globalization has its winners and losers," says the UN's 1997 Human Development Report. The winners are exporters and financiers in the West. The losers are the world's poor who "too often find their interests neglected and undermined." In the past 20 years, the share of world trade for 48 of the poorest countries has fallen by 50 percent - to a mere 0.3 percent. Other losers: 1.3 billion people living on less than a dollar a day; 160 million malnourished children; one-fifth of the world's population who will die before the age of 40. Also among the losers: 100 million people in the Western economies who are trapped in poverty. Globalization has caused a rise in the gap between the world's rich and poor "not recorded since the last century" and levels of unemployment "not seen since the 1930s." Challenging the "air of inevitability" that surrounds the push for globalization, the UN suggests several strategies to promote growth while benefiting the poor. These include promoting gender equality and giving individuals, households and communities more access to economic, social, political, environmental and personal assets. The UN report concludes with a call to extend debt relief to the world's 20 poorest countries. The estimated $5.5 billion cost is equal to the sum spent to build Disneyland Paris. The UN puts the total price of eradicating world poverty at just 1 percent of the global economy.
Patents from Yellowstone without royalties
US - On August 15, the Edmonds Institute and the International Center for Technology Assessment filed a legal petition to take the National Park Service (NPS) and the Department of the Interior to court "to prevent commercial exploitation of park resources."
The legal challenge stems from the government's decision to allow private corporations to expropriate the unique microorganisms that populate Yellowstone's acidic thermal pools and geysers. The park's tiny life forms have been used to produce meat tenderizers, pharmaceuticals, paper products and beer.
Thermus aquaticus, a microorganism taken from Yellowstone by Hoffman-LaRouche, was used to create - and then patent - an enzyme that lead to DNA fingerprinting. The Swiss drug giant make more than $100 million a year from this patent but neither the parks service nor the public receives any royalties.
Other corporate prospectors are seeking similar lucrative licensing agreements with the NPS, which strikes these deals without public hearings.
"Closed door commercialization of life in Yellowstone is a theft of our national heritage," stated Edmonds Institute Director Beth Burrows. "We didn`t preserve Yellowstone for corporate purposes."
Smoke a Cigarette; Go to Jail
US - Pediatrics magazine reports that women who smoke 10 cigarettes a day can give birth to sons with Severe Conduct Syndrome, a behavioral disorder characterized by rages, physical aggression and acts of arson. If true, US cigarette makers are not only killing millions of citizens through firsthand and secondhand smoke, their tobacco products are also contributing to the country's crime problem. If tobacco firms can be sued to recover healthcare costs for smoke-related illness, perhaps the cigarette lords should also be held accountable for the costs of this criminal behavior.
Genetic Crops Cropped
UK - On August 6, Staffordshire activists destroyed an experimental crop of genetically engineered oilseed rape (canola oil) at Tibs Hill Farm near Coventry. The plants, containing mutant DNA, were owned by the US multinational Monsanto. An anonymous press release warned: "Our natural world is being tampered with for private profit and it is only a matter of time before something goes seriously wrong." Studies have shown that transgenic oilseed rape cross-pollinates with wild plants, spreading genetic pollution. (Unlike chemical pollution, the effects of genetic pollution spread exponentially and can quickly become irreversible.) In April, activists occupying the offices of Britain's Soybean Information Line (SIL) uncovered files showing that the SIL was, in fact, a public relations front for Monsanto. Meanwhile, in Germany, activists occupied four fields to prevent the planting of Monsanto's herbicide-resistant sugar beets. (Information on suppressed scientific studies on biotech hazards can be found on the Web at http: //www.envirolink.org/orgs/shag/genetix.html.)
Climate Changes Killing Koreans
North Korea - The global drought that killed millions in Africa in the mid-'80s may have been just a prelude to more devastating droughts forecast by climatologists. For the last two years, historic floods and droughts have killed and displaced millions in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Two years of floods and months of drought have destroyed 70 percent of North Korea's corn harvest and falling water levels in reservoirs threaten rice harvests. In August, the UN Children's Fund estimated that 80,000 Korean children were in immediate danger of dying of hunger. [Aid donations can be sent to: International Red Cross or UNICEF? Check.]
Russian Anti-Nuke Camp Attacked
Russia - The former USSR began construction of the Rostov nuclear powerplant in the 1970s, but when residents of nearby Volgodonsk learned that the reactor was to be built on an active earthquake fault and that radioactive wastewater from the plant would threaten the town's drinking water, their protests led to the cancellation of the project. In 1996, Russia's nuclear power ministry announced plans to complete the plant and open it for operation by 1998. On July 27, 70 young protesters from Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Poland, Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic blocked the road to the plant, handcuffing themselves to 11 200-pound barrels of concrete. Calling themselves the Rainbow Keepers, this international coalition erected banners calling for a regional vote on the Rostov powerplant. Two days later, while armed soldiers watched impassively, 500 Rostov workers led by the head of the trade union committee attacked the camp, beating the nonviolent protesters and setting fire to their tents. Many men and women were brutally beaten. One villager sustained a broken nose and another's arm was broken. Five other Rainbow Keepers were hospitalized with brain injuries.
US Moves to Militarize Public Power
US - In August, President Clinton signed an order permitting the Energy Department to produce tritium for US nuclear weapons at a civilian power plant in Sweetwater, Tennessee. This action breeches the ethical firewall that has historically separated the military's nuclear programs from the civilian power programs. Thanks to President Clinton, the civilian reactor in Sweetwater has now become a legitimate target of war.
Whistleblower Wins Big
US - Steve Jones was fired as safety manager at the US Army's Tooele, Utah, chemical weapons incinerator after refusing to certify that the plant's operation posed an "acceptable" risk [Winter '95 EIJ]. Jones' refusal was based on his identification of 3,016 hazards at the incinerator. The Government Accountability Project [1612 K St. NW, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 408-0034] filed suit on Jones' behalf. In August, Labor Department Administrative Law Judge Ellin M. O'Shea ruled in Jones' favor and ordered Tooele's contractor, EG&G, to reinstate Jones with full back pay and an additional $500,000 in punitive damages.
"I want my job back because," Jones explained, because "Tooele is still operating unsafely and endangering the citizens of Utah. The same circumstances that created the Bhopal and Chernobyl disasters exist at the Army's chemical weapons incinerator." (If EG&G fails to rehire Jones, the court requires the company to pay him an additional $500,000.)
"The illegal firing of Jones could not have happened without Army approval," noted Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group [PO Box 467, Berea, KY 40403, (606) 986-7565]. "It's time for President Clinton and the Congress to stop the Pentagon's dangerous incineration program."
Plague-Rounds of the Rich
US - In 1993, a trio of Southern lawyers filed a $1 billion class-action suit on behalf of more than 5,000 Gulf War veterans, accusing scores of multinational corporations and their subsidiaries of contributing to the mysterious affliction known as Gulf War Syndrome. A trial date has been set for early 1998 in Texas. The suit charges 75 firms with "helping Saddam Hussein construct his war machine by selling Iraq material and equipment for an advanced biochemical weapons system." Among the US firms named are Teledyne Wah Chang Albany (Oregon - sold zirconium to a Chilean arms maker, who then sold zirconium cluster bombs to Iraq), Rexon Technology (New Jersey - conspired to export 300,000 artillery fuses to Iraq), Alcolac International (Maryland - sold 440 tons of thiodiglycol that was used by Iraq to make mustard gas), American Type Culture Collection (Maryland - made 70 shipments of disease-causing pathogens to Iraq) and Al-Haddad Trading (Tennessee - shipped several tons of chemicals that were used to make sarin nerve gas). The suit also names a number of foreign firms, including the Belgian division of Phillips Petroleum, which sold 520 tons of thiodiglycol that eventually turned up in Iraq.
US military helicopters to Sadam
Canada - US Customs agents raided a Canadian warehouse filled with 34 Bell OH-58A military helicopters. The choppers, worth $12.5 million, were equipped to spray chemicals and reportedly were destined for sale to Iraq. Among the enterprising businessmen charged with shady dealings with Iraq: a retired US Army colonel.
US Fired Uranium Shells in Panama
Panama - The US military suppressed evidence that it test-fired depleted uranium projectiles in Panama, according to a munitions expert contracted by the Pentagon and a report obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, it is suspected that the US stored, on Panamanian sites, chemical weapons that now pose a significant public health risk from corrosion and toxic leaching. The report, "Unexploded Ordinance Assessment of US Military Ranges in Panama," confirms that a variety of unexploded munitions (tens of thousands of grenades, mines, mortars and bombs) and nerve gas reside on three firing ranges. The draft document states that the Army's Tropic Test Center used a range in Panama "to test anti-tank mines and depleted uranium projectiles," even though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees such activity, did not license the Army to do so. The Fellowship of Reconciliation [905 Market St., No. 801, San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 495-6334, fax -5628], a national peace and justice organization that obtained the documents, is calling on the US government to meet its treaty obligations and clean the bases of all hazardous chemicals before the site is returned to the Panamanian government in 1999. Panama has proposed the establishment of an environmental center, which would ensure the cleanup of the bases (even after 1999) and extend the mandate of the Joint Environmental Commission, a group of citizens appointed by the presidents of each country, to address environmental concerns in the Panama Canal area.
Japan's EPA EndangeredJapan - Earlier this year, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, under the guise of streamlining government, proposed placing Japan's Environment Agency (EA) under the control of the Ministry of Construction. In April, Japan's Administrative Reform Council (ARC) went even further and called for the EA's elimination. The ARC, chaired by Hashimoto, includes six academics, some politicians and the heads of Toyota Motors, Mitsubishi Heavy Industry and the Yomiuri newspaper empire.
The ARC concluded that the EA could be eliminated since much of its work was duplicated by other agencies. But the EA is the only independent agency dealing holistically with environmental issues and is praised as one of the most open and responsive agencies in Japan's traditionally secretive government.
A compromise proposal to place the EA within the Ministry of Health and Welfare or the Science and Technology Agency was strongly opposed by environmentalists who noted that the former mishandled HIV-infected blood supplies and the latter was responsible for attempting to cover up accidents at the Monju fast-breeder reactor.
The EA has responded to the proposal by demanding that its role and powers be strengthened and elevated to a Ministry of Environment.
According to Sakuma Tomoko of Peoples Forum 2001, the ARC's proposal could have "negative effects" on the Climate Change Convention set for Kyoto in December. If Japan were to eliminate or downsize its EA, this would send a chilling message to other governments throughout Asia and the world.
Japan is the only member of the G-7 counties that lacks a strong and independent environmental agency. Tomoko is worried by reports that "similar moves [to abolish environmental protection agencies] are observed in the UK and France, as well, and could be a part or effect of globalization."
Japanese nongovernmental organizations have called on sympathetic organizations around the world to rally to the defense of the Environmental Agency. The ARC's recommendation was due to be finalized in September and will be sent to the Parliament for passage early in 1998.
What You Can Do: Send comments to Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, 2-3-1 Nagatacho, Chiyodaku, Tokyo 100, Japan, fax (011) 81-3-5511-8855; Embassy of Japan, 2520 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008, fax (202) 265-9482.
Whose Organic Standards?
Will the USDA Label Genetically Engineered food "Organic"?
Since 1990, organic food sales have jumped 20 percent annually, reaching $3.3 billion in 1996, and are projected to grow to $6.5 billion by the year 2000. Organic cropland has more than doubled since 1991, and organic dairy sales are increasing by more than 100 percent a year.
Currently, a "certified organic" label indicates that the farming methods employed were verified by one of approximately 40 private or state certification programs. Genetically engineered foods cannot be labeled as "organic."
Consumers generally define organic foods as those produced naturally, without toxic chemicals, drugs or factory-farm techniques. But how millions of US consumers define "organic" will soon become a moot point because the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is about to create its own definition of "organic."
"This is the institutionalizing of the word 'organic' by the government, and we should pay close attention," says Michael Sligh, director of the Sustainable Agriculture Program at the Rural Advancement Foundation International. Sligh is also former chairman of the National Organics Standards Board (NOSB), a committee established by Congress to advise the USDA on organic standards and labeling practices.
Despite the NOSB's recommendation to maintain strict organic standards, Washington sources report that the USDA intends to disregard the NOSB's explicit ban on genetically engineered food and intensive confinement of farm animals.
The USDA also is expected to make it illegal for regional or nongovernmental organic certification bodies to uphold standards stricter than federal standards. If such a rule were approved, the legal hammer of the World Trade Organization (WTO) could be used to force European and other nations to lower their organic standards as well.
The Codex Alimentarius, the WTO's official rule-making body for international trade issues related to food, has already held a series of meetings to define the term "organic." The US delegation and the biotech industry have lobbied the body for weaker international standards.
The USDA is in a critical position. Central to defining the word "organic" is to admit that a host of agribusiness practices - pesticide use, animal confinement, hormone injection and genetic engineering - are somehow less healthy. But the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been staunch defenders of genetically engineered foods and high-chemical-input agriculture. Both agencies have actively opposed labeling genetically engineered foods, despite a February 1997 poll by biotech giant Novartis that found 93 percent of US consumers wanted mandatory labeling of such products.
This year, despite warnings from scientists, a wide variety of genetically engineered foods will be placed, unlabeled, on supermarket shelves. Thousands of products - including nearly all non-organic processed foods - will soon include at least some genetically engineered ingredients. Two dozen biotech foods and crops have already been approved for commercialization in the US, and millions of acres of biotech crops will be harvested this fall.
The proposed federal regulations would allow the NOSB to evaluate individual genetically engineered products on a case-by-case basis. Those approved would be passed on to the USDA, which would make the final decision.
But NOSB members are appointed by and subject to the authority of USDA officials. USDA Secretary Dan Glickman is an outspoken supporter of genetic engineering and factory farming.
"We must fight against an 'unfriendly takeover' of the organic food movement by Monsanto and the giant food cartels," says Ben Lilliston of the Environmental Education Group. "We must not allow the destruction of organic standards by Washington bureaucrats and Corporate America."
Every food co-op, natural food store, buying club and organic farm must become a center for activism - mobilizing members, workers and customers to send letters, faxes, e-mails and phone calls to elected officials. Unless the USDA and Washington politicos feel the heat, they could be hell-bent on destroying the alternative food system that has been so laboriously built up over the last 30 years.
- Ronnie Cummins Pure Food Campaign
What You Can Do: To get involved, contact the Pure Food Campaign, 1130 17th St. NW, No. 300, Washington, DC 20036,
(202) 775-1132, fax (202) 775-0074,
http://www.geocities.com/athens/1527.
USDA at 301-734-7601, Mr. Daniel Glickman, Secretary, AGSEC@USDA.GOV President Clinton's Comment Line 202-456-1111 #1 #0, president@whitehouse.gov
Also, vice.president@whitehouse.gov, first.lady@whitehouse.gov
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. 20500
Deregulating Radiation: The NRC's Fatal ERROR
In May, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued new regulations that increased permissible levels of radiation exposure near "nuclear sites" in US communities.
"Today's NRC action allows deadly amounts of radiation to remain on sites of retired nuclear reactors and other contaminated facilities," said Bill Magavern, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project. "In the Orwellian world of the NRC, the agency would declare a site 'clean' even if it had a radiation level that would kill one out of every 286 people exposed to it."
"The NRC, because of its coziness with the nuclear power industry, continues to treat radiation as a privileged pollutant," charged Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service [NIRS, 1424 16th St. NW, No. 404, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 328-0002, http://www.nirs.org].
In 1986, the NRC tried to minimize radiation monitoring by exempting nuclear operators for any radioactive pollution deemed "below regulatory concern." This attempt to deregulate nuclear poison caused a public outcry and, in 1992, Congress ordered the NRC to revoke the policy.
In 1993, however, the NRC and its industrial clients returned with a proposal for a new standard, the Enhanced Rulemaking on Residual Radioactivity (ERROR).
The proposed rule, Now under debate in Washington, the proposed rule would allow owners of contaminated facilities to abandon the sites even if the remaining radiation in "unrestricted" sites could expose people to as much as 25 millirems annually. (The NRC's own statistics indicate that one out of every 1,144 people exposed to 25 millirems over a lifetime will die.)
According to NIRS, "unrestricted" use includes "farming, homes, daycare centers and other uses - i.e., anything." There are thousands of these sites around the US.
The NRC also has failed to adopt standards for protecting groundwater from radioactive contamination, as urged by the EPA, which proposed an individual exposure level of only 15 millirems and a limit of 4 millirems per year in groundwater.
At "restricted" sites, meanwhile, radiation levels as high as 100-500 millirems would be permitted. These exposures, however, are in addition to normal "background" radiation. When background radiation is factored in, the 500-millirem exposure could kill one in every 57 people who receive lifetime doses.
According to NIRS' analysis, a "restricted" site emitting 500 millirems per year could comply with the NRC's new cleanup standards by "simply fencing in the area or planting obstructing bushes."
What You Can Do: Contact EPA Administrator Carol Browner, EPA, Washington, DC 20460, and urge action on protecting public health and upholding provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Contact your elected representatives [Capitol switchboard: (202) 234-3121] and urge them to resist corporate attempts to remove polluter liability from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, the law that governs the Superfund program.
Joe Camel's Best Bud: Uncle Sam
South Korea - The US, the world's biggest drug pusher, continues to promote tobacco smoking to Asia's children. It's part of a grand tradition. The Washington Post recently unearthed a January 1986 letter from George Griffin (commercial counselor at the US embassy in South Korea) to Matthew Winokur (public affairs manager of Philip Morris in Asia). Griffin wrote: "No matter how this process spins itself out, I want to emphasize that the embassy and various US government agencies in Washington will keep the interests of Philip Morris and the other American cigarette manufacturers in the forefront of our daily concerns."
contact Obama! 