a free e-zine from Alternatives for Simple Living

#2 -- June, 2002

Each issue contains the columns Ebb & Flow, Eco-Mole, Solutions, Positive Notes, Making Waves, and Around the World.

Earth Island Journal, Summer 2002

Summer 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 2

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=7&journalID=64

Ebb & Flow

These Roofs Last a Lawn Time

Japan - With summer temperatures rising, cities like Tokyo and Fukuoka have found a cheap, natural way to beat back the swelter of urban "heat islands." This year, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) began "greening" Tokyo's rooftops with 2.3 hectares of grass. The UDC has found that adding a six-inch layer of soil, water-absorbing perlite and grass to the tops of city buildings, high-rises and parking garages can cut the heat of a concrete structure by 37 C (99 F). The installation of rooftop grass offer a cheap alternative to installing 2,500 air conditioners. Korean velvetgrass and lilyturf require little irrigation and need only be weeded twice a year. Look Japan reports that these turf roofs are "providing insulation and improving the energy efficiency of buildings [while] restoring nature in an urban setting."

Something Fishy

China - Singapore National University biologists have created transgenic zebra fish that flash fluorescent red and green when exposed to toxic chemicals. Project leader Zhiyuan Gong boasts that "biomonitoring fish" are the perfect tool "to monitor aquatic environment and water quality." On the other fin, Richard Winn of the Aquatic Biotechnology and Environmental Lab at the University of Georgia worries that the consequences of releasing transgenic fish into the environment "could range from inconsequential to localized extinction of native species." Since zebra fish rely on color as a "mate-attraction strategy," these flashy man-made creatures might have an edge over nature's originals.

Tree-free Paper. A Staple Item?

US - Staples Inc., the $11-billion office-supply giant, will honor Earth Day (April 22) by stocking its shelves with Vanguard Living Tree printer and copier paper made from hemp, flax and post-consumer waste. Although it is only 10 percent tree-free, Living Tree President Carolyn Moran can still proudly claim that "No new trees went into this paper." ForestEthics' Paper Campaign Director Todd Paglia calls Staples' gesture "corporate greenwash" since more than 90 percent of Staples' paper is still made from trees.

A Climate 'Threshhold' Looms

US - In 2001, the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that Earth's average surface temperature would gradually rise by as much as 10 F during this century - a shift larger than any seen in the past 10,000 years. The IPCC's forecast may have been too conservative. This past winter, global temperatures increased 4.3 F - the largest jump in recorded history. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) now cautions that the theory of a gradual temperature rise may prove false. Instead, a dramatically "abrupt" shift in climate could be triggered within a matter of years, causing mass extinctions of plant and animal life. At the end of the Younger-Dryas interval, some 11,500 years ago, NAS notes, "global climate shifted dramatically... over a few years." With CO2 emissions expected to double over the next century, the world could be edging toward an irreversible "threshold event" that could plunge the climate into chaos. Writing in the London Guardian, US author Jeremy Rifkin notes that sudden climate change could occur "within less than 10 years - as has happened many times before in geological history." If the US continues to refuse to act on global warming, Rifkin notes, "we may already have written our epitaph."

A Really Attractive Cooler

US - Someday soon, instead of putting magnets on your refrigerator, you may be putting magnets inside your refrigerator. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory in Iowa have teamed with the Astronautics Technology Center in Wisconsin to create a magnetic refrigeration unit. By moving packets of powdered gadolinium through the field of a permanent magnet, the scientists have been able to chill refrigerators at room temperatures. Science News predicts that "magnetic refrigerators and air conditioners promise to be more efficient than conventional ones."

Is That a Chip in your Shoulder?

US - Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. (ADS) has invented an "identification chip" the size of a dime that can be implanted in the human body "to save lives, enhance personal security and improve quality of life." The VeriChip's(tm) personal ID number can be activated by "an external scanner" that can read and transmit the stored data via phone lines or satellite links to a "secure data-storage site." While ADS promotes the VeriChip as a medical device comparable to "pacemakers [and] artificial joints," the company admits that VeriChips could be a veritable goldmine in the "rapidly evolving marketplace" of biometric surveillance. Unlike "fingerprints, voiceprints, retina characteristics and face recognition," an ADS document states, the VeriChip relies on "embedded, tamper-proof, microchip technology, which allows for non-invasive access to identification." Installing a VeriChip is a simple matter that "requires only local anesthesia, a tiny incision and perhaps a small adhesive bandage."

The Last Winter Olympics?

US - The organizers of the Winter Olympics are taking bids for the 2010 games but have they taken global warming into account? The World Resources Institute (WRI) warns that Earth's rising temperatures mean there will be "less snow and shorter and warmer winters." There may be enough snow for the 2006 games in Turin, Italy but (unless Iceland submits a bid) future games may be in doubt. WRI notes that Montana's Glacier National Park "will have no glaciers by 2030.

Journal staff contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal.

Summer 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 2

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=4&journalID=64

Eco-Mole

Greenscam

Stephen S. Boynton ushered in the new year with a speech that seemed to possess a familiar environmental stance. "Our human population is expanding. Our land and water masses are not," he declared. But within moments, Boynton was assailing "environmental and animal rights advocacy groups rampaging about the globe destroying field tests of... [genetically modified] crops" and using "the tactics of strong-arm extortionists and thugs against retailers such as Trader Joe's."

Boynton, who is identified as the President of the International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources (a name suspiciously close to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature), lambasted so-called environmentalists" who use "tortuous logic" to criticize "agricultural and medical biotech research, consumption of meat or the use of fur, private firearms ownership, capitalism... the demise of economic globalization, etc." According to Boynton, these green-minded zealots push "harsh ideologies calling for strict vegetarian (vegan) life styles" and condemn "modern science's attempts to feed, clothe, shelter and heal an ever more population-strained world."

Why do these enviros take their responsibility for nature "too seriously"? According to Boynton, "evidence exists that many within their ranks thrive on the power, wealth and popularity that comes with the celebrity of posturing as the Earth's and its animals' messiah."

And who is Stephen Boynton? In his speech, he describes himself as "an advocate for the wise and sustainable use of Nature's resources." The phrase "Wise Use" is the tip-off. The EcoMole has dug up the fact that Boynton was one of the two operatives who ran the American Spectator's "Arkansas Project" (which resorted to financial and sexual innuendo in a failed attempt to drive President Bill Clinton from office). The $2.4-million Arkansas Project was funded by billionaire conservative Richard Mellon Scaife.

Spooks in the Media

The Los Angeles Times reports that the CIA is running an overt propaganda war on America's movie and TV screens. When Tom Cruise starred in Top Gun, Navy recruitment figures went off the scale. Former CIA operative Chase Brandon (described by the Times as the CIA's "first official liaison with Hollywood") explains that it took the agency "a long time to follow what the FBI and the Pentagon have done and engage filmmakers and support projects that portray us in the light we want to be seen in." Brandon's efforts resulted in no less than the debut of three primetime TV shows - The Agency (CBS), Alias (ABC) and 24 (Fox). Brandon also lent a hand on two forthcoming movies - Sum of All Fears (with Ben Affleck as CIA agent Jack Ryan) and Bad Company (a spy-comedy pairing Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock). Brandon refused to assist the producers of Spy Game because "it showed our senior management in an insensitive light." Thanks to Brandon's efforts, today's TV generation was treated to an opening episode of The Agency that showed the benevolent CIA foiling a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro. (Older viewers may recall that the CIA actually undertook many attempts to murder Castro.)

Infirmative Action?

After an investigation revealed that hundreds of contractors were still being awarded federal contracts despite convictions for defrauding the government, President Clinton signed an order that banned corporate felons from receiving federal contracts. In January, the Bush administration swept that rule aside, reopening the federal trough to companies that had broken environmental, labor, tax and other US laws.

Journal staff contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal.

Summer 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 2

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Positive Notes

Flight Paths Saved

More than 618,000 acres of protected wetlands that provide habitat for birds migrating through the Azov and Black seas in Ukraine and Russia are due to be dramatically improved thanks to a $6.9-million grant from the UN's Global Environment Facility. Wetlands fringing the seas provide east-west and north-south flight paths, the most critical area being an intersection of marshes, lagoons and mudflats. With around 7 million inhabitants, the area also has the densest human population in the Ukraine. The project, which has World Bank approval, will reduce soil and nutrient runoff from farms and build the capacity of local organizations to improve environmental protection.

Moore Money for Conservation

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Gordon Moore is a co-founder of Intel Corp.) has given $261 million to Conservation International (CI) to help save threatened and unique wildlife in tropical wilderness and biodiverse areas. The grant will be used as seed money to generate $1.5 billion from private sources and another $4.5 billion from the public sector. "The rate of species loss and habitat destruction demands immediate attention," said Moore. CI's programs will operate in more than 40 countries but are focused on tropical wilderness areas including the Congo River Basin in Central Africa, the Amazon in South America and New Guinea.

Shantytown Recycles for Profit

The Kenyan town of Korogocho (the name means "without hope" in the local dialect) provides an example of how recycling can be a significant source of income for local residents. In 1995, American student Mathew Meyer and Kenyan Benson Wikyo founded the Wikyo Akala Project to recycle rubber tires from the town dump into "ecosandals." In 2001, the project set up a website [www.ecosandals.com] and sold around $1,500 worth of ecosandals in North America within the first three weeks. As the most fortunate of Korogocho families earns around a dollar a day, the profits from handcrafting ecosandals has made a significant difference to the small Kenyan community.

Women Found Eco Law in Iran

Victoria Jamali, director of environmental research at the University of Tehran, and several colleagues, are creating Iran's first environmental law program. Jamali founded the Women's Society Against Environmental Pollution, one of the country's most active non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that now boasts 2,500 members and publishes a bilingual journal, Cry of the Earth. Jamali is a pioneer of citizen initiatives in a country where women are not generally found in leadership roles. Iranians are becoming increasingly aware of severe water and air pollution, over-fishing in the Caspian sea and the loss of large predators such as the Persian cheetah. [To contact Victoria Jamali, write to: Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Tehran, 16 Azar St., Enghelab Ave., Tehran, Iran]

Parrots and the Apes

What the Orangutan Told Alice, a new environmental storybook by Dale Smith, tells the story of two teenagers who wander into a Borneo rainforest where they encounter endangered orangutans and a primatologist working to save them from extinction. The novel, aimed at readers aged 11 to 17, shows how young people can become involved in efforts to save endangered species. The book is part of a series that also includes Smith's highly acclaimed, What the Parrot Told Alice. [Deer Creek Publishing, PO Box 1594, Nevada City, CA 95959, (530) 478-1758, fax -1759, www.deercreekpublishing.com]

So Much for Progress

The Salvatierra residential development, a 200-foot-long, four-story apartment complex in Rennes, Brittany, France, employed some ancient building techniques to produce a highly energy-efficient structure. Adobe-like cob construction (made from straw, clay soil and cement) provides thick walls for the project's 40 homes while hemp fiber was used to further insulate walls, lofts and partitions. The 969 square-feet of rooftop solar panels provides 45 percent of the building's hot water. As a member of CEPHEUS (Cost Efficient Passive Houses as European Standards) the project leaves one home open for public display and monitors the residences to assess energy use.

Spiritual Movement Launched

The Tikkun Community, a new multi-denominational organization of spiritual politics, promotes love and caring as antidotes to an America mired in a spiritual crisis generated by selfishness and materialism. Writing in Tikkun magazine [http://www.tikkun.org], Rabbi Michael Lerner named some of their challenges as: "the despair generated by yet further escalations of violence in Israel [and] the complete lack of vision of a mainstream alternative to the Republicans."

Greenworks TV

This Pennsylvania-based website [www.greenworks.tv] boasts live webcasts, streaming wildlife webcams and the "world's largest collection of online environmental videos." And if that's not "green" enough for you, the website is powered entirely by the sun, thanks to Solar Host [www.solarhost.com], the country's only web hosting company powered by solar panels.

Green Press Initiative

More than 40 percent of logged timber is turned into paper. The nonprofit Green Press Initiative believes that "authors and publishers have the power to save trees" by pledging to have their words printed only on 100 percent postconsumer recycled paper. The first authors to make the commitment include Paul Hawkin, Julia Butterfly Hill, Fritjof Capra, David Suzuki, and Winona LaDuke - all Earth Island Journal contributors. Book publishers can become GPI-certified by agreeing to print at least 10 percent of their titles on 100 percent recycled paper. GPI hopes to meet the even higher standard set by Earth Island Founder Dave Brower, who had his last book, Let the Mountains Talk; Let the Rivers Sing, (New Society Publishers) printed on 100 percent tree-free kenaf plant paper. [Green Press Initiative: 137 N. El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024, (800) 694-8355, www.greenpressinitiative.org]

Journal staff contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal.

Summer 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 2

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=9&journalID=64

Making Waves: EII in the News

Bluewater Network has achieved a breakthrough in attempts to reduce greehouse gas emissions from California's passenger vehicles. The approval of Assemblymember Fran Pavley's AB 1058 (sponsored by Bluewater), requires the California Air Resources Board to develop regulations for the most cost-effective and technologically feasible means to reduce CO2 emissions from cars and light trucks by January 1, 2004. The Legislature will then have one year to review and adopt these regulations. Transportation accounts for 58 percent of the state's greenhouse gas emissions (compared to 31 percent nationwide). If the California Senate approves AB 1058 this summer, the bill will go to the governor later this year. For more information on AB 1058, visit www.bluewaternetwork.org.

Faultline Magazine [http://www.faultline.org], Earth Island's newest project, covers California's environment from a Californian perspective. From the time of John Muir, California has been the birthplace of green sensibility, and many environmental issues play out in California first as the world watches. No other independent publication covers the broad range of California environmental issues - wilderness to urban, bad news and hopeful trends - with a regional perspective. Heading Faultline's team of veteran journalists is Chris Clarke, a former EIJ editor. By promoting a deeper connection to the land, Faultline hopes to help its online readers protect this diverse place called the state of California.

SAVE International was one of 25 organizations, companies and individuals chosen to receive the Favorite "Little Engine That Could" Award bestowed by GoodThings, Inc., a Seattle-based media group. SAVE International's work to save Taiwan's endangered Black-faced Spoonbill admirably fit GoodThings' mission to promote and celebrate reasons for being hopeful about the world. SAVE was nominated for the award by readers of GoodThings' e-magazine, the GoodLetter [http://www.goodthings.com/02_00_goodletter_archive.asp].

Journal staff contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal.

Summer 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 2

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=591&journalID=64

Bluewater Network To Become Independent

Bob Wilkinson, President of Earth Island Institute, and Russell Long, Director of Earth Island's Bluewater Network (BWN) announced on February 4, 2001 that BWN will become independent of Earth Island Institute effective April 15, 2002 after some six years as a project of the parent organization.

During that time, Bluewater has grown into a national organization with membership in four countries and all 50 states. In six years, Bluewater Network has led the successful effort to ban two-stroke marine engines, rid almost all US National Parks of snowmobiles and jetskis, convinced the EPA to regulate air pollution from ships, helped ban the gasoline additive MTBE in California, and led the environmental community in a historic fight to reduce global warming pollution from cars and light trucks. "We believe our work has just begun and we look forward to many more victories," said Long.

Summer 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 2

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=8&journalID=64

Around the World

Chartering a New Course

United Nations - A delegation from the Cousteau Society (founded in 1973 by French oceanographer/environmentalist Jacques-Yves Cousteau) has presented United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan with a petition calling for stronger UN action in defense of the Earth's environment. The petition, bearing the signatures of more than 9 million people from more than 100 countries, insists that "future generations have a right to an uncontaminated and undamaged Earth and to its enjoyment." The petition asks that this commitment be incorporated into the UN Charter. Cousteau Society volunteer Pierre Chastan carried the petitions from the society's Paris office to New York during a solo trans-Atlantic voyage in a 34-foot boat.

AFRICA

Coal Is Bad; Charcoal Is Worse

Kenya - Nine percent of the energy in oil-rich Nigeria is derived from burning charcoal. Most of the residents of Africa and Southeast Asia still get much of their heat from charcoal. The Journal of Geophysical Research reports that the production of charcoal is generating more CO2 than the combustion of fossil fuels. Although charcoal burns cleaner than wood, Science News explains, "inefficiencies in its manufacture result in much of the carbon in the original wood literally going up in smoke." Charcoal manufacture also produces methane and carbon monoxide.

Tinder or Tenure?

Ethiopia - "Ethiopia is currently losing 200,000 hectares every year as a result of forest fires," warns agriculturist Dechassa Lemessa, "If something is not done soon... there will be no forest land in 15 to 20 years." Lemessa is the co-author of a UN study on the country's increasingly catastrophic fires. Only 40 years ago, 40 percent of the country was covered with forests. Today only 2.7 percent of the land is forested. Most fires are caused by farmers burning the land to prepare for spring planting. In January 2000, these deliberately set fires erupted into a conflagration that destroyed more than 300,000 hectares of forests, crops and wildlife habitat. It took $39 billion and an international force of 15,000 firefighters to combat the fires that raced through the Bale and Borena forests. Lemessa's report concluded that the key to saving the remaining forests was to transfer state-owned land to local communities "who would then have a greater incentive and responsibility to care for the land. Land tenure is perhaps the single most important factor in natural resources management."

Be It Resolved...

Africa - World Trade Organization rules covering the patenting of "intellectual property rights" are being used to grant multinational corporations the rights to claim "ownership" of traditional food crops and medicinal plants exchanged freely between farmers for generations. These laws, crafted and promoted by US trade negotiators, would prevent small-scale farmers from saving or exchanging seeds once they have been "patented" by the multinationals. The introduction of seeds genetically modified to survive the application of patented pesticides would make it possible for a company like Monsanto to spray cropland, killing any natural plant that it does not yet "own." Last November, US California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters [House of Representatives, Washington, DC 202515, (202) 224-3121] introduced House Resolution 260, the AFRICA (Agriculture and Farm Resources for the Indigenous Communities of Africa) Resolution. HR 260 would protect the right of African farmers to control their seeds and food crops. The resolution is consistent with the position of the Africa Group, which maintains that seeds, plants, crops and other agricultural genetic resources must never be patented for private gain. [Africa Faith & Justice Network, 3035 4th St., NE, Washington, DC 20018, (202) 832-3412, http://afjn.cua.edu]

ASIA

Responsible Carry-away

Nepal - To most people, Nepal is "the Roof of the World" but to some well-known chemical companies it's more like "the Basement of the World." Nepalese agricultural technicians, working with a team of Greenpeace activists from India, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, announced a deadly harvest of six tons of chemical pesticides abandoned in rusting barrels scattered across Katmandu. The chemicals were shipped to Nepal through international aid organizations more than 25 years ago. Ostensibly called "donations," the shipments were intended to open new markets for Western pesticide products. The donations also included products so dangerous that they had not been registered for use in their countries of origin. The chemicals were manufactured by Bayer, Shell, Union Carbide (Dow), Sandoz, Du Pont, Monsanto and Rhône Poulenc (now Bayer). "It's time for the chemical industry to move beyond "responsible care" rhetoric and take genuine responsibility for its products from cradle to grave," Greenpeace trade expert Andreas Bernstorff stated. Greenpeace has invited the giant chemical firms to carry the toxic burden back to their home countries for proper disposal. Greenpeace estimates that 500,000 metric tons of obsolete pesticides have been dumped and abandoned around the globe - mainly in developing countries. Greenpeace has called for the industry to make a full accounting of all these dump sites and make plans for the safe retrieval and disposal of the chemical wastes. [Greenpeace International, Keizersgracht 176, 1016 DW Amsterdam, www.greenpeace.org]

Time to Stop Cloning Around

Japan - Research at Tokyo's National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) revealed that cloned mice have something in common - premature death. Or, as The Guardian (London) put it: "a clone's life is wheezy, liverish and short." According to findings published in the journal Nature Genetics, NIID's 12 cloned mice began dying within a year of birth and the survivors barely lived longer than two years. Autopsies revealed that the clones all had severe pneumonia and seriously damaged livers. The scientists concluded that the "possible negative long-term effects of cloning, as well as the high incidence of spontaneous abortion and abnormal birth of cloned animals, give cause for concern."

Versatility, Thy Name is Kenaf

Japan - Kenaf, the plant that has been used to produce "tree-free" issues of Earth Island Journal, is now being used to produce "pollution-free" air in downtown Nagoya City. Sachio Ogasawara, a researcher with the Kenaf Club of Japan, convinced the city's Public Works Bureau to plant kenaf on the traffic islands. While the fast-growing plant is adding greenery to the scenery, it is also sucking nitrogen oxides and other pollutants from the air. "The harvested kenaf is burned to make charcoal," Ogasawara explains. The charcoal is then used to filter impurities from the Hori-kawa River, which flows through Nagoya. After finishing its service as a water filter, Ogasawara reports, the kenaf-charcoal "will be tilled into the soil as a fertilizer."

Dhaka Says 'Bag It!'

Bangladesh - Like many poor countries, Bangladesh is plagued by the detritus of discarded plastic. Each year more than 9 million polyethylene bags are tossed into the streets of Dhaka, the capital city. As many as 90 percent wind up clogging storm drains and sewer lines. The bags do not biodegrade and when they are burned, they produce deadly hydrogen cyanide gas. With the support of Environment and Forest Minister Shahjahan Siraj, the Environment and Social Development Organization [House 307/1, Road-8A, West Dhanmondi Dhaka-1209, Bangladesh, http://www.esdobd.org] convinced the government to impose a ban on poly-bags in Dhaka as of January 1. ESDO activist Hossain Shahriar declared, "We can start with a polythene-free city, which will gradually lead to a polythene-free country."

EUROPE

Tobin or Not Tobin

France - French Foreign Minister Lionel Jospin has publicly proposing that France adopt the "Tobin tax." The levy, proposed by Nobel prize-winning Yale Economics Professor James Tobin, would impose a 1 percent tax on all international currency trades. With global financial speculation moving $1.5 trillion every day, the tax would generate billions of dollars in aid for the world's poorest nations. Jospin confessed that his dramatic announcement had come in response to the arguments of French anti-globalization campaigns. The British group, War on Want, has challenged the Labour government to support the Tobin tax. The Bush administration, predictably, is opposed to this reform. Expressing widely-felt exasperation, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine declared: "We shall pursue our efforts towards a humane and controlled globalization, even if the new high-handed American unilateralism doesn't help matters."

A Good Right's Sleep

UK - In an act of desperation, red-eyed residents living near London's Heathrow Airport (the world's fourth-busiest with 64.6 million passengers a year) complained to the European Court that the airport noise was depriving them of sleep. In October 2001, the court ruled in the residents' favor and declared that a good night's sleep was "a human right." John Stewart, chair of the coalition that hauled Heathrow into court, explained that his group would not be satisfied until there was total ban on night flights. Buoyed by the court's decision, neighborhoods in the flight path of Birmingham International Airport are demanding an end to night flights as well.

It's Not Noise: Call It a 'Blare'

UK - Despite complaints and lawsuits from people living near Heathrow Airport, the Labour government plans to build a fifth airport at the sprawling complex. Labour Transport Secretary Stephen Byers argues that Britain must spend £2.5 billion ($3.5 billion) on a new terminal to stay "competitive." It would make more sense to build a new airport elsewhere, countered Robert Evans, who represents the Heathrow residents in the European Parliament. With increased security measures, passengers are spending more time in terminals and, Evans charged, British Airways simply "wants to encourage us to spend money in the terminals." The new terminal would add another 25 million passengers and another 20,000 flights per year. Green Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Caroline Lucas called the plan "breathtaking in its inability to comprehend the impact of aviation on climate change."

Toxic Testing Gets Serious

France - By a vote of 242 to 165, the European Parliament called for widespread testing of the environmental and health risks of 30,000 chemical products. The European Commission is set to introduce a new standard on testing and labeling chemicals later this year. The goal, explained Inger Schoerling, a Green Party MEP from Sweden, is a new regime where "no marketing [of a chemical product] will be possible without data." Western Europe's $430.7 billion (488 billion euro) chemical industry produces one-third of the world's chemical products. The European consumers association, BEUC, noted that hairsprays contain, on average, 15 potentially harmful chemical ingredients. A joint statement from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife Foundation noted that "little is known about the safety and environmental hazards" of the chemicals. Europe's chemical industry complained that rigorous testing would be too cumbersome, costly and would "kill many small firms."

As If DU Wasn't Bad Enough...

Kosovo - Scientists in Ireland report that rounds of depleted uranium (DU) shells fired by NATO troops in Kosovo contained plutonium. In addition, The Irish Times reports, the DU rounds contaminated local water supplies and people exposed to DU contaminants are now suffering from cancer and leukemia.

Overfishing Now a Global No-No

Malta - Last December, the United Nations celebrated the ratification of the first global treaty to control overfishing on the high seas. The treaty went into effect when Malta became the 30th nation to adopt the new rules. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization believes that more than two-thirds of the ocean's fisheries are being unsustainably overfished. Lisa Speer, of the Natural Resources Defense Council (which devoted two years to crafting the treaty) calls ratification "a very big step" but notes that "it only applies to the parties to the agreement." The US, which is a party to the treaty, will now be allowed to use Coast Guard ships to intercept, board and detain vessels suspected of violating sustainable fishing practices.

Fission Fades as Renewables Rise

Sweden - Prime Minister Goeran Persson plans to close the Barseback 2 nuclear reactor by 2003. The powerplant's energy will be offset by renewable energy projects and conservation measures. In Belgium, the government plans to start phasing out the country's seven nuclear reactors as early as this December.

Wind's Up, So Wind Down Nukes

UK - The British government is contemplating spending £6 billion ($10 billion) to construct six 600 MW nuclear powerplants. But for a mere £100 million ($143.2 million), the British Wind Energy Association estimates, the UK could build 117 500-MW windfarms - more than 16 times the power for 1/60th the cost. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has challenged the Labour Party to stop "pandering" to nuclear power interests and invest in renewable energy. The IPPR's research suggests that the typical British home could supply all its electric needs in-house by retrofitting central heating boilers to also generate electricity. Instead of relying on transmission lines, which lose 70 percent of the power, the IPPR notes, solar panels, solar water heaters and household energy systems can "generate power and heat more cost-effectively... where we need it."

Missile Pretense System

UK - There's a big problem with the Pentagon's plan for bringing down enemy missiles during a "boost-phase interception." While it's easier for a US missile to locate and hit a flaming booster rocket within the first six seconds of its launch, destroying the booster would most likely not destroy the nuclear warhead, which would then proceed to tumble back to Earth considerably short of its target. According to MIT Professor Ted Postol, if the US intercepted a missile fired from North Korea, the nuclear payload could come down in Alaska or Canada; a similar missile destroyed after blasting off from Iraq could land in Britain or Europe. US nuclear physicist Richard Garwin notes pragmatically that: "If you ask how many people are going to be killed, you're better off having the warhead fall short." Of course, Garwin adds, "the people who it's going to land on may have a different view."

Courting the Earth

France - "People no longer look to their political representatives to defend their interests," notes Francine Cousteau, president of the Cousteau Society. Faced with a lack of responsive leadership, "civil society is getting organized and demanding accountability and action." On June 19, 2001, 130 countries met at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague and approved a set of rules for the international arbitration of disputes involving natural resources and the environment. The PCA is now empowered to hear cases from people seeking justice for ecological damages. "This is a major victory for the environment and the rights of future generations," Cousteau declares. As to the dream that someday the world will see the convening of an International Court of the Environment, Tjaco T. van den Hout, Secretary General of the PCA observes that, "a growing number of thinkers see a role here for the Permanent Council."

Money Makes the World Go Green

Denmark - The European Environment Agency (EEA) wondered why wind energy was making faster strides in Germany than in Britain; why solar panels were being installed more readily in Spain than in Greece. An EEA investigation concluded that the keys to successful transition to a renewable included "political, legislative, fiscal, financial and administrative support." The EU's members are committed to producing 22.1 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

Freiburg's Latest Solar Goal

Germany - The university town of Freiburg, known far and wide as the "sunniest city in Germany" because of its towering solar-powered downtown train terminal and the "Zero Emissions Hotel Victoria," has added two more environmentally sustainable attractions for solar-minded ecotourists. Freiburg now boasts a "Solar Cafe" and the city's main soccer stadium is now solar-powered.

'Solar Is Hip in Germany'

Germany - Solar power is blazing hot in Germany thanks to the government's passage of the Renewable Energies Law (REL) in April 2001. "It was not fear of power outages, high gas prices or tripled power bills, but economic incentives that jump-started the solar revolution in Germany," says reporter Reiner Gaertner. Solar power used to be associated with Müslies and Ökos (i.e., Granola-eaters and eco-freaks), but 2000 saw the sales of 75,000 solar systems generate $435 million in revenue. The REL, brainchild of Germany's Social-Democratic/Green government, pays citizens for producing their own power - 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for biomass, 9 cents per kWh for wind and 43 cents per kWh for solar. The government's "100,000 roofs" campaign, which provides low-interest loans to install solar panels on roofs, led to a 50 percent increase in the number of orders for 2000. Last year, the program financed the installation of 65 MW of rooftop power. "We should start discussing a 1,000,000-roof initiative," joked Philippe de Renzy-Martin, an official with Shell Solar BV. Seven "Solarfabriks" (solar factories) are now running day and night in Germany and British Petroleum (BP) and BP Solar have joined forces to build an eighth Solarfabrik with an annual capacity of 20 MW. "Solar is hip in Germany," enthuses Rian van Staden, executive director of the International Solar Energy Society [Villa Tannheim, Wiesentalstr. 50, 79115 Freiburg, Germany, http://www.ises.org]. "People are not just in it to save money, they really believe in alternative energies with their hearts and are willing to jump in head-first."

Greeting Guests with Open Palms

Dubai - Two immense man-made islands are being built off the coast of Dubai. The islands, which will add nearly 75 miles (120 km) of new beaches to the country's coast, are being built in the shape of two palm trees. Knowing that oil reserves will not last forever, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum is spending $3 billion to transform 80 million cubic meters of rock into a world-class tourist mecca, complete with dozens of hotels, golf courses, two marinas and a marine park featuring captive whales and dolphins. Luxury villas (starting at $550,000) will be offered to wealthy foreigners with 100-year leases. Dubai's Palm Islands will be visible from space. The only other man-made artifacts visible from space are the Great Wall of China and the Fresh Kills garbage landfill in New York.

US Blocks Critical Investigation

Iraq - Six years after the Gulf War, cancer cases in Iraq had nearly doubled to 10,931, according to Iraq's Health Ministry. Iraqi health officials blame exposure to the toxic residue of depleted uranium (DU) munitions for unprecedented increases in cancer, leukemia, birth defects and fetal deformaties. Iraq's plea for an independent United Nations investigation of the health impacts of DU weapons was defeated by a 45 to 54 vote of the UN General Assembly (there were 45 abstentions). According to Reuters, UN observers attributed the defeat to "a lobbying campaign by Washington."

SOUTH AMERICA

Gene-Pooling Earth's Resources

Brazil - Activists from 50 countries gathered at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in February, called for a global treaty recognizing the gene pool as a global commons. More than 250 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) pledged support for the Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons, which "aims to prohibit all patents on plant, microorganism, animal and human life." Governments around the world will be asked to support the treaty at the Rio+10 Conference in South Africa in August-September. [www.tradeobservatory.org]

Trading Forests for Trade

Mexico - Between 1993 and 2000, 19 million acres of Mexico's jungles and forests disappeared forever. If present trends continue, environmentalists fear that the country will become a totally deforested barrens by 2059. Unless the government moves to spend four to five times more to address the problem, the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula and the Lacandon rainforest of Chiapas state - the most biologically rich area in Mexico - could be gone in 10 to 30 years. Loss of these forests and jungles would alter the course of entire watersheds, destroy soil fertility and increase landslides. Mexico's Environment Secretary Victor Lichtinger admits that illegal logging plays a role but he believes a larger villain is behind Mexico's environmental woes. According to the Associated Press, "Lichtinger blames NAFTA-related government policies that subsidize the expansion of farmlands in an effort to compete with the US and Canada's farming subsidies." As many as 15 million poor Mexicans have been driven into the forests in a desperate attempt to make a living from farming and logging.

Foiling the Aluminum Dams

Brazil - Three of the world's largest aluminum companies - Alcoa, BHP Billiton (Australia) and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (Brazil) - want to build a huge dam in the Amazon to generate electric power to process aluminum. The Santa Isabel dam, planned for the Araguaia River, would flood an ecological reserve, displace 7,000 people and destroy the culture of the indigenous Suruí-Aiwekar tribe. The Big Three are responsible for building the Tucurui dam which displaced 35,000 Amazon Basin dwellers and flooded 2,820 sq. km. of rainforests in 1984. According to Hélio Meca of Brazil's Movement of Dam-Affected People, "By investing in energy efficiency and conservation, and alternatives such as biomass and wind energy, the expulsion of families from their homes for Santa Isabel can be avoided." "The Araguaia should be kept dam-free," says Glenn Switkes of International Rivers Network [1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley CA 94703, (510) 848-1155, www.irn.org]. "The Araguaia is an ecological jewel which supports world-class wetlands, rare pink dolphins and Amazon turtles." [To protest the dam, contact: Alcoa Corporation, 201 Isabella St., Pittsburgh, PA 15212-5858, (412) 553-4545.]

Storming the Fortis

Belize - A power company from Newfoundland is playing hardball in Belize in an attempt to build a dam in a rainforest. Fortis, the power company, wants to erect a 50-meter-tall Chalillo dam in the Macal River Valley. Burning biowastes from Belize's sugar fields could generate twice as much electricity as the 7.3 MW Chalillo dam and for seven cents per kilowatt-hour. According to Canada's National Post, "Belize consumers now suffer power rates two to four times higher than Mexico and other Central American countries." Belizeans pay a premium for power because Fortis has become the majority owner of Belize Electricity, a state-protected monopoly. The National Post reports that Fortis "is using its monopoly power [to] shut out local power producers, keep out imported Mexican power, deny Belize consumers low-cost power and undermine Belize's fastest growing industry, ecotourism." Belize environmental leader Tony Garel has traveled to the Toronto Stock Exchange to publicize Fortis' strong-arm tactics. Garel has also asked the Belize Public Utilities Commission to dissolve Fortis' monopoly and open the energy field to competition. With anger against Fortis rising and Belize Reporter columnist Meb Cutlack characterizing the company as an "expensive evil," Canada's Probe International has advised the company to "see the writing on the wall and call off its bulldozers."

OCEANIA

That Sinking Feeling

Tuvalu - Rising seas linked to global warming are forcing the evacuation of an entire country. Earlier this year, 10,000 citizens of the Pacific Island of Tuvalu became environmental refugees. The Tuvaluans will be relocated to New Zealand in a series of mass evacuations that will take 20 to 30 years. According to the Australian quarterly Third Opinion [PO Box K133, Haymarket 1240, Australia]: "The islanders are fiercely critical of nations that do not support the Kyoto Protocol, which they believe might perhaps have saved their country." On March 3, Tuvalu's Prime Minister Koloa Talaka announced that his nation was considering suing the US and Australia in the International Court of Justice for their refusal to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Australia was targeted because it generates the world's highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions per-capita.

NORTH AMERICA

Kennedy to Bayer: "Chicken Out"

US - The Bayer chemical corporation's plans to sell fluoroquinolone antibiotics to owners of factory-farmed chickens has run afoul of Robert Kennedy, Jr. and a coalition of health and environmental groups who fear that the overuse of antibiotics "puts consumers' health at risk." Abbott Laboratories has agreed to respect an FDA ban on the product but Bayer has fought to keep the fluoroquinolone Baytril on the market. [www.bayerwatch.com (now requires password to view site); www.keepantibioticsWorking.com].

The Old Shell Game

US - A Shell Oil refinery in Louisiana has been responsible for pollution, chemical leaks and accidents that have risked the health and lives of the nearby residents of Norco. The African American community has demanded to be relocated to a safer site. For 15 years, Shell has refused. [Send a message to Shell at: PO Box 2463, Houston, Texas 72252, USA, or fax (713) 241-5522.]

Something to Get Steamed About

US - There's a lot of sun and wind in Nevada, but the state's biggest renewable energy resource might lie in the superheated water trapped far underground. Nevada's nine geo-thermal plants could easily become 90 plants, Jane Long, dean of the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada in Reno told the Las Vegas Sun. US geothermal plants (located mainly in the West) currently produce about 2,700 MW - sufficient to satisfy the power demands of 3.5 million people.

Botswana Beats US

US - A survey of the "environmental health" of 142 countries has placed Finland in the top spot, followed by Norway, Sweden, Canada and Switzerland. When it comes to protecting land, water and air, the US places 51st - taking a back seat to Botswana (15) and Cuba (47). (Botswana and Cuba beat out the US by virtue of the fact that they are not highly industrialized economies.) The US ranked higher than Germany (54), Japan (62) and Britain (98). Bringing up the rear were Haiti, North Korea, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (the last three are oil-rich states). The survey, conducted for the World Economic Forum by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information, torpedoed the myth that economic wealth guarantees environmental quality. Proven beyond a doubt, however, was the fact that "the more corrupt the government, the less likely it is to pay attention to the environment." Sadly, not even Finland can take heart at it's ranking. As the report's authors conclude: "No country is on a truly sustainable path."

Trees and Bogs: Climate Refugees

US - Scientists with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change warn that rising temperatures will cause a 400-mile northward shift in the Earth's ecosystems within the next 100 years. According to the Pew report on Aquatic Ecosystems and Global Climate Change, as the planet's temperature rises from 3 to 10 F during this century, "silver maple-ash-elm forests of the upper Midwest could be replaced by cypress-tupelo swamps" and familiar lakes, rivers and streams would be replaced by marshes, swamps and bogs. It would be difficult enough for plants and animals to relocate 400 miles north in the space of a century but the problem is compounded by the existence of thousands of man-made barriers - cities, suburbs, highways, dams and flood control projects - that now block potential migration corridors. The Cox News Service noted that "one potential dramatic result of global warming could be peat fires covering thousands of square miles." The fires would result from the melting and drying of permafrost in Alaska, Canada and Russia. If the permafrost were to ignite, it would release a pall of CO2 that would likely extinguish most life on the planet.

Irradiation Worse than Anthrax?

US - Irradiating mail to zap potential anthrax spores is making millions for manufacturers of electron (e-beam) irradiators but it could be making Americans sicker, not safer. An investigation by Public Citizen reveals that bombarding suspect envelopes with the equivalent of 233 million chest x-rays can damage shipments of film and pharmaceuticals and leave paperclips and staples unacceptably radioactive. The e-beam kills spores by "breaking down water," Public Citizen's Wenonah Hauter explained. But anthrax spores are only 15 to 20 percent water. Since the e-beams only penetrate 3.75 centimeters, anthrax spores packed in the center of a package would escape harm. Meanwhile, the ozone produced by the e-beam devices will endanger the lives of operators. "The long-term effect on lungs can be deadly," Hauter warns.

Fluoride Gets the Brush-off

Canada - Two Canadian dental researchers, writing in the Journal of the Canadian Dental Association, have characterized the practice of fluoridation as "immoral." Howard Cohen, Ph.D. and University of Toronto Professor David Locker reviewed studies on the benefits of fluoridation and concluded that "the quality of the evidence provided by these studies is poor." Locker, who is also the director of the university's Dental Health Services Research Unit concluded that most studies "exaggerated" the benefits of fluoridation and "minimized" the risks. "The percentage of the population with severe enough dental fluorosis requiring costly dental restorations to repair defective tooth structure has been steadily increasing," Locker and Cohen wrote. Hardy Limeback, the university's Head of Preventative Dentistry, concurs that "Dental fluorosis should never have been classified as a simple 'cosmetic' side effect - it is a biomarker for systemic fluoride poisoning during early childhood." Limeback cited studies showing that systemic fluoride exposure can "permanently affect bone and tooth growth and the mechanical properties of these hard tissues." Noting that modern fluoridation standards rely on epidemiological data "collected more than 50 years ago," Cohen and Locker called for "new guidelines... based on sound, up-to-date science." In the absence of unequivocal evidence that fluoridation's benefits outweigh its risks, Cohen and Locker concluded that "the moral status of advocacy for this practice is, at best, indeterminate and could perhaps be considered immoral." [www.fluoridealert.org]

Bush Boosts Tobacco Terrorists

US - The Bush White House attempted to sneak a provision into the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act that would have protected US tobacco companies accused of smuggling cigarettes abroad in a scheme to avoid paying US taxes. A two-year investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reports that the backroom deal would have protected RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris and British American Tobacco from lawsuits filed by Canada, the European Union, Colombia and other South American countries under the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). According to a report in Public Citizen, the ICIJ unearthed evidence of "tobacco company involvement in cigarette smuggling and corporate ties to organized crime." The original version of the bill would have outlawed "any scheme to defraud... a foreign government" if such conduct would constitute a violation of interstate commerce laws in the US. The US Chamber of Commerce wrote to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill twice last October proposing language to water-down the money laundering provisions. According to Public Citizen, the Chamber's wording "appeared in near-identical form one day later in the House bill." One insider told Public Citizen that "the White House put pressure on us to make the case even stronger." The move was pushed by Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX), who has bagged $64,500 from tobacco company Political Action Committees since 1999. The Democrats torpedoed the pro-tobacco rule and it was stripped from the final version of the PATRIOT Act.

Author Offers Cash to Trash Dam

US - The nation's largest Superfund site consists of toxic runoff from abandoned mines that has accumulated in the sediment behind a dam at the confluence of the Clark and Blackfoot Rivers near Missoula, Montana. Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), the company responsible for the cleanup, would prefer spending $20 million to strengthen the dam and leave the toxic sediment in place. Environmentalists prefer a $120 million plan to raze the dam, remove the sediment and restore the river. Historian and best-selling author Stephen Ambrose has offered $250,000 to help restore the watershed.

Sylvan Savior or Frankentree?

US - A privately owned biotech company has created a genetically engineered "Empress Tree" that grows four times faster than a normal tree and promises to "revolutionize the US and international timber markets." World Tree Technologies, Inc. believes the Empress Tree will be an environmental boon because, with four times the growth and four times the leaves, the tree can "consume four times as much CO2 [and]... emit four times the oxygen." The Empress is designed to be grown in timber plantations, not in forests. But if the tree's patented pollen were to spread to wild woods, its engineered features could create a mutant species that might dominate nature's time-tested trees.

Ground the Airlines: Save Amtrak

US - After the September 11 calamity grounded the nation's airlines, the US turned to Amtrak. The railroads helped save the US economy but now the Bush administration (which handed a $15 billion gift to the airline industry) plans to gut the nation's rail system. "What other transportation mode can move so many for so little, while polluting far less per passenger mile?" asks Andrew Whittaker of the Northern Forest Forum. "Infatuation with high-speed rail at the same time we lack a plan to upgrade existing track is rather ludicrous." Also ludicrous: Congress' failure to increase fuel-efficiency for cars and SUVs.

The Rich-Poor Gap Divides the Earth

The first attempt to study wealth and poverty on a global level has produced disturbing news. The five-year study for the World Bank, published in the January issue of the Economic Journal, reports that the richest 1 percent of people (50 million households) earn more than 60 percent of the world's poorest 2.7 billion people. The study by economist Branko Milanovic was the first to compare incomes across countries. The survey covered 84 percent of the world's population and 93 percent of world income. According to the BBC Online, "the gap between rich and poor is much greater than previously understood."

During the five years of the study, world per-capita incomes rose 5.7 percent but all these gains accrued to the richest 20 percent of the world's people. While incomes of the top fifth rose 12 percent, the earnings of the poorest five percent plummeted 25 percent. "The study raises the concern about the lack of a 'middle class' at the world level," the BBC commented. "The huge gap between rich and poor with 84 percent of the world receiving only 16 percent of its income - has become more worrying since the world has faced the threat of organized terror from groups based in some of the world's poorest countries."

Thanks to the growing reach of global telecommunications, more and more people will be getting the message that the world's richest 10 percent now earn 114 times more than the world's poorest ten percent. The situation has become so dire that UK's top finance official, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, has called for the world's industrialized nations to double financial aid to the world's poor. The White House has rejected this appeal. Meanwhile, the BBC observes, "aid flows and the movement of private capital to poor countries continues to slow" signaling that the consequences of the world's spreading equity gap will only grow "more urgent in the future."

Buy a 'Green Thermometer' And Help Us Plant Trees

When mercury thermometers break or are discarded, the mercury escapes into the environment. Now there is a solution: A plastic wallet-sized card that contains a flat mini-thermometer imprinted with a delicate pattern of heat-sensitive liquid crystal dots. Made by NexTemp [(888) 930-4599], these non-toxic temp-takers register 96 to 104.8 F and last up to five years. Earth Island Journal's Green Pages Fund has joined with NexTemp to create a special "Plant a Tree" card. Help us keep the Earth's temperature down buy purchasing a card with a $3 donation to the "Green Pages Fund." We use the donations to help plant trees around the world.

Journal staff contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal.

The Rise of Robots and the Decline of Humanity

In the new millennium, we will become our machines," says Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Brooks noted that work is well advanced on the creation of a new species of sentient machines known as "Robo Sapiens."

"We are talking about the emotional coupling between the robot and the human," Brooks says. "It's inevitable." Brooks foresees that these thinking, autonomous robots - with their enhanced computational skills and physical strength - will find ready use both in the business world and on the battlefield.

In the words of Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com and inventor of Ethernet: "Robots are becoming more human and humans are becoming more robotic."

Freelance writer contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal. Courtesy Sony.

Summer 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 2

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=12&journalID=64

Solutions

Designing Products as if the Earth Really Mattered

By Edwin Datschefski

Products are the source of all environmental problems. It may seem surprising, but most environmental problems are caused by unintentional side-effects of the manufacture, use and disposal of products.

An individual product may look harmless enough, but the environmental damage it causes happens elsewhere, out of sight and mind, "hidden" from the consumer and often from the designer as well.

Major issues such as pollution, deforestation, species loss and global warming are all by-products of the activities that provide consumers with food, transport, shelter, clothing and the endless array of consumer goods on the market today. I call this the "Hidden Ugliness" of products.

Many environmental impacts are literally invisible. Vapors and gases float around unseen. Pesticides and other pollutants can be found in perfectly clean-looking water, radiation from nuclear or electrical sources can't be seen or sensed without special equipment.

More than 30 tons of waste are produced for every ton of product that reaches the consumer. And then, 98 percent of those products are thrown away within six months. When you include these hidden impacts of manufacturing, we each consume our own body weight in materials every two days. If there is no plan or system for product take-backs, full re-use and cyclicity, then every product sold represents a toxic release.

A computer is about one-quarter plastic. The candy-colored translucent plastic called polycarbonate is the same stuff that CDs are made from. It is made from phosgene (which was used as a poison gas in the First World War) and Bisphenol A (an endocrine disruptor). The gold in the circuit boards may have come from Romania, where a gold mining accident caused one of the worst river pollution accidents in Europe. The life span of a computer is only about three to five years. Every year about 30 million computers are dumped, incinerated, shipped as waste exports or put into storage in people's attics.

All over the world, designers, manufacturers and consumers are starting to go beyond the way products look and perform, to consider what goes on when products are made and what happens when they are eventually disposed of. An award-winning chair may look beautiful, but can it really represent the pinnacle of mankind's genius if it is made using polluting methods or by exploiting workers?

Sustainability is inevitable. It will be a trillion-dollar business in the next five years. BP Amoco, Shell, DaimlerChrysler, Cargill Dow Polymers and Xerox have all initiated billion-dollar projects involving solar panels, fuel cells, bioplastics and remanufacturing.

Design is the key intervention point for making radical improvements in the environmental performance of products. Environmental thinking is an abundant source for innovation. Product developers are running out of ideas. Almost all new product areas are refinements of existing ones - the smaller laptop computer, the sleeker car, the wider-screen TV. When the enormous might of the new digital economy can only offer fridges that alert you to being out of milk, you know that manufacturers are looking for direction. Sustainability can give that new direction.

We have to create products that have "total beauty." These products, also known as "sustainable products," are those that are the best for people, profits and the planet.

When you've been looking at sustainable products for a while, you notice the same solutions come up time and again. Based on a review of 500 products, I found that 99 percent of all environmental innovations use one or more of these five principles:

* CYCLIC. The product is made from compostable organic materials or from minerals that are continuously recycled in a closed loop. Instead of emitting waste and poisons, they biodegrade to produce materials that can be "food" for something else.

* SOLAR. The product in manufacture and use consumes only renewable energy that is cyclic and safe. As the US Department of Energy notes: "Each day more solar energy falls to the Earth than the total amount of energy the planet's 6 billion inhabitants would consume in 25 years. We've hardly begun to tap the potential of solar energy."

* SAFE. All releases to air, water, land or space are food for other systems. A safe process or product cannot chemically or physically disrupt people or other life.

* EFFICIENT. The product in its manufacture and use requires 90 percent less energy, materials and water than products providing equivalent utility in 1990.

* SOCIAL. Product manufacture and use supports basic human rights and natural justice. Human capital is our most valuable resource and we should look after it. Exploitation and maltreatment of our fellow man is unsupportable, yet companies do it all the time because such abuse is hidden to the end-user.

We often hear that the world is running out of resources. But there is still the same amount of atoms around. We have simply converted atoms into molecules that are of no use to us. With continuous cycling of both organic and inorganic materials, we will never run out of the resources we need.

Excerpted from The Total Beauty of Sustainable Products by Edwin Datschefski, (c) RotoVision SA 2001 [RotoVision, Rue Du Bugnon 7, 1299 Crans-Pres-Celigny, Switzerland, sales@rotovision.com, www.rotovision.com].

The publishers call this book "a unique resource for the... urgent job of redesigning every product on the planet to be 100 percent sustainable." A good half of the book's pages are devoted to 100 products that can help you live a Sustainable Day - from the morning cup of organic shade-grown coffee to the electric car than carries you home from work.

The book also includes a chapter on "How to Assess the Beauty of Products" and a guide to environmentally safe materials.

Building as if Forests Mattered.

From the introduction to Building with Vision.

By Sim Van der Ryn

The following passages are excerpted from Building with Vision: Optimizing and Finding Alternatives to Wood - the second volume of The Wood Reduction Trilogy from Watershed Media [556 Matheson St., Healdsburg, CA 95448, (707) 895-3490, http://www.watershedmedia.org. Cost: $22].

With only 4 percent of US old-growth forests remaining and wood consumption still rising, the forest products industry is resorting to the use of smaller, younger trees. Because of over-harvesting, many builders are choosing to revive and update traditional systems - rammed earth, adobe and cob - rather than relying on intensive layering of processed industrial materials. Some industrially manufactured systems that have emerged over the past two decades - steel framing, insulated concrete forms - can significantly reduce or eliminate wood from the building frame.

A full range of alternatives is available to the Green builder. Some of these materials include: strawboard, fiber-cement, sandwich construction with pre-insulated panels, bamboo, Rastra adobe (incorporating polystyrene packaging beads), paper adobe, wood waste masonry, rubber slate, biocomposites (from crop wastes and recycled plastic), papercrete (made from recycled newsprint) and farm board (fashioned from row-crop wastes).

Building with Vision contains 132 detailed pages on Green Building tools and strategies, with scores of photos and hundreds of essential links to Green Building practitioners, manufacturers, books and websites.

True to its calling, this book contains its own eco-audit, admitting to the consumption of 35,400 pounds of paper. But, since the paper was 100 percent recycled stock from New Leaf paper [215 Leidesdorf St., San Francisco, CA, (888) 989-LEAF, www.newleafpaper.com] the production of the book saved the equivalent of 62 trees, 5,598 pounds of solid waste, 6,159 gallons of water, 8,034 kilowatt hours of electricity, 10,178 pounds of greenhouse gases and 15 cubic yards of landfill.

Sim Van der Ryn, a former California State Architect under Gov. Jerry Brown, is the founder of Van der Ryn Architects and the Ecological Design Institute.

Basic Tenets of Resource-Efficient Building

Build small.
Pick a resource-efficient location.
Design simply and elegantly.
Design for flexibility.
Build for disassembly.
Build a durable structure.
Plan to minimize waste.
Collaborate with the rest of your team.

The 380-square-foot Household

by Dean A. DiSandro

Would you believe we can create housing for two adults and one child at unsubsidized rents as low as $206 per month per home? And, for no more than $575 per month (including taxes and insurance) the tenants could become mortgage-free owners within only 10 years.

Design, engineering and construction are the easy part. The hard part is our culture. One-third to one-half of all US "housing" space is now dedicated to storage. Storage of furnishings (cooking, dining, bedding, working, cleaning), clothing, recreational items and "stuff."

I live in an "affordable housing" dwelling of my own creation. An area just 20-feet-deep by 19-feet-wide includes a full kitchen, a full toilet with bathtub/shower combo, a multimedia entertainment center, ample closet and cupboard space, dual office desks with computer, printer and the like, music recording equipment, breakfast nook and even a gathering room where we have hosted dinner parties for eight.

As a point of reference, 390 square feet is about the same size as two SUVs parked tightly by a Newport Beach valet.

The place is a snap to clean up and to keep clean. Our utility bills were tiny. Everything was easy to get to. Costs were so low my savings account swelled.

Because mundane household chores didn't occupy my life, I found I had time for 5- to 10 -mile bike rides, including trips to the market, movies, restaurants and clubs. The use of my car declined to the point where I often had trouble keeping my car battery charged.

I also had time to tend a garden that included fruit trees, herbs, vegetables and row crops. I had time to compose and practice music, to write, to think, even to sleep. I learned that living small translated into better living.

A typical housing tract of 50 1,500 square-foot homes - each occupying 5,000 square-foot lots set along 50-foot-wide streets (plus five additional feet on each side for sidewalks) - can cover 10 acres of land with asphalt, housing and cement surfaces.

Instead, 50 of our 400 square-foot homes (each graced with a 320 square-foot private garden and arranged in checkerboard fashion along 20-foot-wide pedestrian paths) uses less than one acre of land, leaving nine acres of open space for larger-scale agriculture, recreation and tranquility. These villages would feature auto-accessible streets only at the perimeter.

The numbers are do-able, even for single parents and workers earning the current minimum wage. Using an equity-building structure, the pride of private ownership would ensure proper care and maintenance by residents.

This style of living encourages tight-knit communities, personal food-gardening, lower consumption and less accumulation of stuff.

Because this type of housing takes profit out of developers' pockets, promoting such housing would require significant political will along with some necessary cultural adjustments. But we can do it. We can create dignified and affordable housing to accommodate all.

Excerpted from Hope Dance Magazine [PO Box 15609, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406, (888) 206-7070, www.hopedance.org]. For the full text of this article, along with floor plans, cost figures and financial calculations for the mini-homes, check out ~~www.alternation.com/alternazine.htm~~ (site seems to be broken?)

Edited reprint. Not available for distribution.

Building Codes and Sustainability

by David Eisenberg

Building codes are supposed to protect the health and safety of people from the built environment. If building codes are actually jeopardizing the health and safety of everyone on the planet, resulting in the destruction of the ecosystems that sustain us, we are obligated to re-invent the codes.

Though the consequences are enormous, building codes ignore where resources come from, how efficiently they're used, or whether they can be reused at the end of the useful life of a structure.

Building accounts for one-fourth of the world's wood harvest, two-fifths of its material and energy usage, and one-sixth of its fresh water usage.

Modern building codes were initially developed by insurance interests and have been influenced heavily by the industries that produce the materials and building systems that are regulated by the codes.

In many climates, the indigenous buildings are far more comfortable and have far fewer negative impacts and costs than the modern buildings that have replaced them.

The Development Center for Appropriate Technology [DCAT, PO Box 27513, Tucson, AZ 85726-7513, http://www.dcat.net/] is heading a coalition to focus attention on the issue of building codes and sustainability. The Civil Engineering Research Foundation, an affiliate of the American Society of Civil Engineers, has incorporated sustainable development principles into the full spectrum of civil engineering activities.

David Eisenberg is the co-director of DCAT. Excerpted from The Last Straw [http://www.strawhomes.com].

Freelance writer contribution. Copyright of author.

Great Green Reads

*** Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth

by Lester R. Brown (Earth Policy Institute, 2002, www.norton.com)

* Crashing the Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President by Ralph Nader (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press)

* Stupid White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation by Michael Moore (Harper-Collins)

* The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World by Joel Kovel (Zed Books)

* Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum (Common Courage Press)

* Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance by Peter Rossett (Food First)

*** Global Showdown: How the New Activists are Fighting Global Corporate Rule by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (Stoddart)

*?? Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled Planet by David Suzuki and Holly Dressel (Stoddart)

*** Global Uprising: Stories from a New Generation of Activists by Neva Welton and Linda Wolf (New Society Publishers)

* Turning the Corner: Energy Solutions for the 21st Century by the Alternative Energy Institute, Inc. (www.altenergy.org)

*** A Cafecito Story by Julia Alvarez (Chelsea Green)

* Ecocities: Building Cities in Balance with Nature by Richard Register (Berkeley Hills)

* Inciting Democracy: A Practical Proposal for Creating a Good Society by Randy Schutt (SpringForward Press)

* Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West by Chip Ward (Verso)

* The Blue Frontier by David Helvarg (H. Holt)

* Epicurean Simplicity by Stephanie Mills (Island Press)

Journal staff contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal.

Back to the Table of Contents

Earth Island Journal

Spring 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 1

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=8&journalID=63

Around the World

EUROPE

Sweden Ranked "Greenest"

Switzerland - The Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Canadian International Development Research Center's joint-report, "The Well-being of Nations," placed Sweden at the top of 180 countries graded on the basis of wealth, human services, public education, political freedom, peace, conservation and environmental quality. Sweden was followed by Finland, Norway, Iceland and Austria. Germany ranked 13th and Japan 24th. The US came in a distant 27th, behind Belize, Guyana, Uruguay, Surinam, Peru and the Dominican Republic.

The Kids Are Not All Right

Belgium - Researchers at the University of Liége believe that they have solved the mystery of "precocious puberty" that has caused immigrant girls from India and Colombia to start developing breasts at the age of eight and to begin menstruating at 10. It turns out that 75 percent of the children tested had high levels of DDE in their blood. DDE, a derivative of the insecticide DDT, mimics the effect of the sexual hormone estrogen. While DDT has been banned in the US and Europe for decades, it is still used in many developing countries - including India and Colombia.

Another Nuclear Near-Miss

UK - A nuclear disaster was narrowly avoided last September when 24 radioactive fuel rods fell from a crane and crashed onto the concrete floor of the Chapelcross nuclear reactor complex near Annan. Chapelcross, which is run by the state-owned British Nuclear Fuels, hosts four 50-MW reactors and a secret plant that produces tritium for Trident missiles. The local press reported that the accident risked "the death of workers at the plant and the release of a radioactive cloud which would have contaminated the entire region." Nuclear engineer John Large called the accident "a cock-up that was potentially very serious indeed because of the risk of a fire." The fuel rods, which were being moved to a "cooling pond" for storage, had to be bathed in liquid CO2 to keep them from overheating. Despite the danger, the mishap was not publicized. Two months earlier a "grab-release" mechanism failed during another defuelling operation. In 1999, Chappelcross racked up four pollution incidents. In May 1967, the plant suffered a partial meltdown in a reactor fire that sent a radioactive cloud over the countryside.

The Med Goes Whale-Friendly

Italy - Italy, France and Monaco have approved the creation of an 84,000-square km (32,400-square mile) whale sanctuary in the Mediterranean - the first such treaty in the northern hemisphere to include international waters. Creation of the reserve caps a 10-year campaign by the World Wide Fund for Nature and other groups to protect the 2,000 whales and 45,000 striped dolphins that summer in the Mediterranean. Driftnet fishing will be banned from an area twice the size of Switzerland.

WTO Hoaxer Applauded

Finland - Last August, Hank Hardy Unruh took the stage at the "Textiles of the Future" conference in Tampere and railed against Mahatma Gandhi and Abe Lincoln. The 150 delegates, believing the speaker to be an official representative of the World Trade Organization, applauded as Unruh called Gandhi's "self sufficiently" movement a case of "misguided" protectionism and criticized Lincoln's opposition to slavery as "criminal interference with the trade freedom of the South." Unruh concluded that the Civil War was "just a big waste of money" since the advent of modern sweatshops had proved the historic inevitability of slavery. To the cheers of the audience, Unruh ripped off his business suit to reveal a golden leotard adorned with a three-foot-long inflatable phallus. The phallus, Unruh explained, contained a powerful electronic device that could be used "to monitor distant, impoverished workforces and to administer shocks to encourage productivity - assuring that no 'Gandhi-type situation' develop again." Andy Bichlbaum, the ringleader of the Yes Men, the group that staged the hoax, commented: "If a group of Ph.Ds cheers at such crudely crazy things just because it's the WTO saying them, what else can the WTO get away with?" [This and other anti-WTO hoaxes can be viewed on the Yes Men website: www.theyesmen.org.]

Roddick Rocks the Shop

UK - Body Shop Founder Anita Roddick once said that she would sooner "slit her wrists" than become part of corporate Britain. Body Shop stockholders must have been ready to hand Roddick a razor after she strode to the podium at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and declared "The Body Shop is now really a dysfunctional coffin." Roddick complained that her dream of "ethical capitalism" had begun to fade after the company went public. The drive to earn stockholder dividends has killed the company's spirit and blunted its celebrated "political edge." Roddick stated that she was particularly chagrined when she asked "every shop to challenge the World Trade Organization" and found, to her dismay, that "they won't do that."

Carbon Storage in Tree Trunks

UK - With the support of pop stars Stella McCartney, Atomic Kitten, the Pet Shop Boys and other British celebrities, Forest Futures has become, in the words of Green Futures magazine, "a veritable Heineken of the green movement." People are drawn to Forest Futures [www.futureforests.com] by the group's promise to "plant trees to offset your carbon emissions, making you a carbon-neutral citizen or corporation" [Solutions, Winter 2001-2]. But critics warn that simply planting trees won't solve the global warming problem - especially if multinational logging firms continue clearcutting the world's remaining forests. Mike Mason, who used to head a similar campaign called the Carbon Storage Trust, observes that absorbing the UK's carbon emissions would require planting trees over "an area the size of Devon and Cornwall every year." Offsetting the world's CO2 emissions would require planting enough new trees to cover Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. And the solution would only be temporary since, when the trees die, they will release much of the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Mason now heads a new group called Climate Care [www.co2.org], which is promoting the use of renewable energy.

Tourism's a Draining Experience

Spain - Water tables are falling worldwide and one of the biggest drains is tourism. A tourist visiting Spain soaks up 880 liters (232.5 gallons) a day, more than three times the amount used by a local resident. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the water needed to sustain 100 tourists for 55 days could grow enough rice to feed 100 local villagers for 15 years. The Mediterranean tourist town of Benidorm now has to import water through a 300-mile pipeline from Madrid just to keep its 30,000 swimming pools filled. In the Caribbean, hundreds of thousands of residents watch their taps run dry as water is diverted to supply hotels during the tourist season. An 18-hole golf course built in the tropics requires as much water as a town of 10,000. "Tourists in Africa will be having a shower and will see a local woman with a pot of water on her head and they are not making the connection," says Tricia Barnett, director of Tourism Concern [Stapleton House, 277-281 Holloway Road, London N7 8HN, UK, www.tourismconcern.org.uk]. "Sometimes you'll see a village with a single tap, when each hotel has taps and showers in every room." Tourism Concern is the publisher of Being There, "the world's only travel magazine dedicated to ethical and fair-trade travel."

Renewables Sprout in Brussels

Belgium - The European Parliament has approved a law requiring member nations to double the amount of renewable energy produced in the European Union by 2020. Even the German chemical industry association, VCI, has called on the US to abide by the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gases. (George Bush rejected the treaty in 2000.) VCI contends that it makes economic sense to adopt more efficient energy technologies.

Gulag for Scientists

Russia - Dr. Yuri Bandazhevsky discovered the hard way that it isn't safe to investigate radiological contamination. Bandazhevsky, the director of the Gomel Medical Institute in Belarus, reported finding high levels of Cesium-137 contamination left over from the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear powerplant. After he published studies linking the contamination to heart and nervous-system problems in children, Bandazhevsky was arrested and charged with bribery.

Witnesses who testified against him subsequently claimed that they had been forced to lie. When the judge trying the case refused to convict Bandazhevsky, the case was transferred to a military court, which has no appeals process. According to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service [www.nirs.org], the prosecutor "literally disappeared - no public entities have heard from him since."

On June 18, 2001, despite his ill health, Bandazhevsky was sentenced to eight years in a prison work camp. He is allowed only three annual visits from his wife and is banned from conducting scientific research for five years.

Two days after Bandazhevsky was sentenced, Alexander Nicolaievich Devoino, one of Bandazhevsy's colleagues, was found unconscious outside the door of his home, covered in blood. While working at the Institute Belrad, Devoino had conducted more than 300,000 independent measurements of Cesium-137 contamination in food. The Institute's study of 120,000 children found radiation levels that were eight to 10 times higher than those reported by the Ministry of Health.

Friends claimed that Devoino was the victim of an attempted assassination. They reported that he had been attacked from behind with "American fists" (the local term for "brass knuckles"). Doctors who treated Devoino for severe head injuries described the assault as a "professional" attack. [Follow the story on www.bandazhevsky.da.ru]

Taking a Back Seat to Europe

Sweden - Portland, Oregon is celebrated as an eco-friendly town, with six percent of commuters using mass transit, but this pales to insignificance compared with European cities. In Stockholm, 70 percent of peak hour trips are on public transit. In Berlin, the figure is 40 percent (with a goal of 80 percent) and in Copenhagen, 34 percent of commuters ride bicycles. "European transit development has evolved from a rigorous planning process, precisely what is lacking in most American models," notes Jim Motavalli in his new book, Beyond Gridlock (Sierra Club Books). "In the US, the auto industry and its close friend, the highway lobby, are in the driver's seat."

Don't Bogart that Reef

UK - Coral reefs are found in 101 countries and territories, but they occupy less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the world's ocean territory. According to the United Nations Environment Programme's World Atlas of Coral Reefs [www.unep.org; www.icran.org], these "rainforests of the oceans" comprise only 284,300 square km (110,938 square miles), an area about half the size of France. Coral reefs support an estimated 2 million marine plants and animals, including one-fourth of all marine fish species. "Coral reefs are under assault," says UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer. "They are overfished, bombed and poisoned. They are smothered by sediment, and choked by algae growing on nutrient-rich sewage and fertilizer runoff. They are damaged by irresponsible tourism and being severely stressed by the warming of the world's oceans. Each of these pressures is bad enough in itself, but together, the cocktail is proving lethal."

Bush to Reefs: "Drop Dead"

Scotland - Glasgow University Marine Biologist Rupert Ormand warns that the world's coral reefs cannot survive the onslaught of global warming triggered by the burning of fossil fuels. "It is hard to avoid the conclusion that most coral in most areas will be lost," Ormond told the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The intricate reefs could be reduced to crumbling, bleached ruins by 2050. Even if the US and other greenhouse polluters stopped burning fossil fuels immediately, it would be 50 years before ocean temperatures would cool. By that time, the coral reefs could be dead and the ocean's ecology severely disrupted. Without the protection of the reefs, coastal cities will be more vulnerable to extreme weather events. Ormand offered only one positive note: In a warmer world, coral reefs might be able to re-establish themselves in the cooler waters of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean seas.

Green Bombs Set for Future?

UK - NATO could one day be firing "green bombs'' that will still kill people but won't release toxic chemical byproducts. Munich University Chemistry Professor Thomas Klaptoke claims that a proper mix of explosive ingredients will "produce nothing but hot air." Reuters reports that the technology can be "scaled down for handguns, making them safer for soldiers and police officers who risk lead poisoning from hours of indoor target practice."

ASIA

Chairman Murdock Strikes a Deal

China - News Corp. media mogul Rupert Murdock has finally attained his long-sought goal of extending his communications empire to China. Murdoch's Star TV has been granted permission to transmit to cable viewers in "a restricted area in Guangdong province." China asked only one thing in return: that Murdoch ensure that a China Central Television channel be widely available in the US. To accommodate China's rulers, Murdoch removed the BBC from the Star network after the BBC broadcast documentaries critical of the Chinese government. Star TV's pitch was doubtless enhanced when Murdoch's son, James, openly criticized the Falun Gong, an outlawed religious movement that has been brutally suppressed by Beijing.

Agent Orange Victims

Vietnam - During the Vietnam War, the Pentagon sprayed 19 million gallons of Agent Orange herbicide over 3.6 million acres of Vietnam (not to mention Laos and Cambodia). The spraying of the dioxin-laced defoliant went on for nine years. Now, 27 years later, one million Vietnamese (including 100,000 children) suffer from chemically induced deformities and disease. A quarter century after the conflict ended, 25 percent of the dioxin released by the spraying is still detectable in soil, fish, animals and human tissues. Diseases linked to Agent Orange include: soft tissue sarcoma, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, spina bifida, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, porphyria and diabetes. Last September, after six years of negotiations, the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences reached an agreement to provide aid to Vietnamese health researchers. Noting that people are still being poisoned, University of Texas Researcher Dr. Arnold Schecter told the Raleigh News & Observer, "We need to move quickly. In America, this would be a public-health emergency."

Buy a Frame, Doom an Ape

Indonesia - Powerful syndicates are illegally cutting ramin trees in Kalimantan's Tanjung Puting National Park to feed the global demand for blinds, picture frames and moldings. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak Indonesia report that the trees are shipped through Malaysia and Singapore to mask their illegal origin. The US imported approximately $330 million of stolen rainforest timber in 2000. The forests being destroyed by loggers are also home to 80 percent of the world's surviving orangutans. "Malaysia's role in this business is tantamount to state-sanctioned theft of a neighbor's natural resources," EIA Director Dave Curry declared. "Indonesia's forests can't survive this onslaught any longer. Serious action must be taken to stop illegal logging now."

Oil in a Day's Work

India - The Kerala University womens' college has replaced coke machines with stalls selling ilaneer (coconut water). The move was undertaken to boost local agriculture and give the boot to globalization. Meanwhile, the Express News Service reports, coconuts have come to the aid of auto-rickshaw owners who can no longer afford to run their vehicles on costly 2T oil. Auto-rickshaw owners in Malappuram were the first to discover that their vehicles run farther when coconut oil is added to the fuel tank. Coconut oil costs half as much as 2T oil, provides better engine lubrication and appears to increase mileage.

Fighting Dams with Flashlights

India - The Gujarat government is trying to force villages to abandon farmlands doomed to be flooded by the Narmada dam. When the villagers refused to leave, the government switched off their electricity. The village children who work in the fields all day can only pursue an education at night. With the high cost of kerosene for lanterns, the loss of electric light was devastating. But the kids have been fighting back by building pedal-powered generators for their homes. Fifteen minutes of pedaling produces an hour of light for studying. But it takes money to build the generators. The Rainforest Information Centre, AID Australia and AID/WATCH are raising funds for a revolving loan fund to pay for pedal generators. Flowtrack, an Australian alternative technology firm, is providing LED flashlights that produce more than 30 hours of light on a single charge of a rechargeable 9-volt battery. Donations from the US, UK and Australia are tax-deductible. Contact RIC [PO Box 368 Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia, ~~www.forests.org/ric~~, johnseed@ozmail.com.au].

Villagers Save "Mother Forest"

India - By 1987, the Dhani Forest in southwest Orissa State had been nearly destroyed by logging and cattle grazing, but the elders of five local villages along the Bay of Bengal decided to join forces to save the "Mother Forest." More than 1,200 villagers met and agreed to new rules banning woodcutting, grazing and logging. Certain areas were declared "non-harvesting zones" and were patrolled by volunteers. Today much of the dying forest has been reborn, with once-stripped slopes replaced by 250 species of plants and trees. As the forest returned, so did the wildlife - boar, wild buffalo, deer, fox, wolf, porcupine, jackal, parrots, hornbills, pigeons, woodpeckers and doves. The sustainable harvesting of forest herbs and bamboo has given the villagers new financial security. "Remarkably, all this was achieved without any expert help from the state forest authorities," marvels BBC Wildlife. The World Resources Institute [http://www.wri.org] calls the Dhani Forest a "840-hectare classroom." Today, more than 400,000 hectares in Orissa state are being sustainably managed by 10,000 villagers.

Renewable Energy Windfalls

Japan - The power and steel company NKK reports that orders for windpower plants increased by more than 350 percent in 2001, representing a combined output of nearly 49 MW. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry predicts these nonpolluting plants will be producing 3,000 MW of free electricity by 2010. By mid-2001, NKK had received orders totaling nearly 67 MW of wind power.

Add This to the Bill of Rights

India - Last August, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the right to food was a legitimate human right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to life. With millions of Indians facing starvation, the government was preparing to dump several million tons of unsold food grains into the sea. The Hindu reported that the court "maintained that it was the primary responsibility of the Central and State Governments to ensure that the food grains overflowing in [government] facilities reached the many starving people" and that "no person should be deprived of food merely because he had no money."

MIDDLE EAST

The Not-So-Fertile Crescent

Iraq - After the end of the Gulf War, Iraq's Saddam Hussein called for a massive construction project to destroy the culture of the rebellious Marsh Arab society by draining the marshlands of southern Iraq. This vast engineering project devastated a critical flyway for 40 species of migrating waterfowl. Comparing satellite images from 1992 and 2000, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reports that nearly 90 percent of the Mesopotamian marshlands - an area also known as the Fertile Crescent - has vanished in less than a decade. UNEP has called the destruction a "major ecological disaster, comparable to the drying up of the Aral Sea and the deforestation of the Amazon." Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey are being urged to agree to a recovery plan to increase water flow through the heavily dammed Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and to re-flood the drained marshlands.

AFRICA

New Ozone-Eating Chemicals

Nairobi - Last September, as the Antarctic ozone hole over the South Pole expanded to expose more than 17 million square miles (about the size of North America) the UN Environment Programme [www.unep.org] issued some good news and some bad news. The good news was that programs to phase out ozone-damaging chemicals under the Montreal Protocol are on schedule and would allow the ozone layer to recover by 2050. The bad news was the discovery that four new man-made chemicals, which are not covered by the 1987 treaty, could pose a new threat to the ozone shield. The compounds are hexachlorobutadiene (a solvent used to make vinyl chloride), n-propyl bromide (a solvent that is used in pharmaceutical production), 6-bromo-2-methoxyl-napthalene (used to make the fumigant, methyl bromide) and halon-1202 (used in fire extinguishers). UNEP has called for "immediate scientific assessments of these new chemicals" and for a ban on their use if they are shown to have "real ozone-depleting potential."

United Against Privatization

Burkina Faso - Union workers poured into the streets of Ouagadougou last August to protest government plans to privatize 13 public companies. "We've seen the consequences of the first privatizations, which brought about sorrow, misery and death," said union member Issobie Soulama. Since 1991, Burkina Faso has received $16 million from the sale of state companies. The unions counter that more than 4,000 workers have lost their jobs.

SOUTH AMERICA

Destroying Nature to Pay Debts

Ecuador - The proposed $1.1 billion, 500-mile Oleoducto de Crudos Presados (OCP) oil pipeline will double the number of wells in the Ecuadorian Amazon and impact the Yasuni and Cuyabeno National Parks. Last August, a peaceful sit-in at the OCP office in Quito was broken up by company security guards who destroyed news cameras and assaulted nine women environmentalists. A journalist from El Universo was dragged to a locked room and beaten by OCP employees. Amazon oil drilling is opposed by Acción Ecológica and Oilwatch International, which note that armed rebels bombed Ecuador's pipelines at least five times in 2001. Last May, the existing pipeline ruptured in a landslide, releasing 7,000 barrels of oil - the system's 14th major spill since 1998. Two US firms, Kerr-McGee and Occidental Petroleum, are members of the OCP consortium. The German bank WestLB, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are funding the pipeline. Why is Ecuador willing to risk the survival of the Amazon forest for temporary oil wealth? The World Bank explains that the project is the "cornerstone" of an economic plan aimed at alleviating Ecuador's burgeoning external debt to repay loans to foreign banks.

Another World Is Possible

Brazil - Last August, 279 representatives of civil society organizations from 39 countries met to begin preparations for the second meeting of the World Social Forum and the convergence of the International Encounter of Social Movements in Porto Alegre. The meetings are intended to build the international alliance of social movements as an alternative to neoliberal globalization. One of the first goals of the new world social alliance is to demand that the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas be put to a vote of the people in the affected countries [www.movimientos.org].

Goldman Winners Freed

Mexico - On November 8, President Vicente Fox released Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, two campesino leaders tortured and jailed for two years after blockading Boise Cascade logging operations in the forests of the Sierra de Petalán. Fox, who promised to root our corruption in government, had wanted to use the judicial process to release the environmental activists. Instead, Fox decided to act unilaterally after the murder of the campesinos' lawyer, 37-year-old Digna Ochoa. Friends suspect that Ochoa's execution was carried out by death squads in the service of powerful landowners.

US Smokescreen in China?

With 300 million male and 20 million female smokers, China now accounts for one-third of the world's consumption of tobacco. The World Health Organization estimates that, of the 10 million people worldwide who will die from smoking-related diseases, two million will be Chinese. In some cities, nearly 60 percent of high school boys and 22 percent of girls are addicted to tobacco.

Chinese attorney Tong Lihua wants to sue tobacco companies for selling cigarettes to children, but foreign tobacco companies are not the only ones making a killing off cigarette sales. China's government-run tobacco companies raked in $12.8 billion in nicotine-stained revenue in 2000.

The Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine reports that most Chinese smokers have no idea that smoking can cause heart and lung disease. China, unlike the US, does not require health warnings on cigarettes. US tobacco companies doing business abroad do not include health warnings on their packages.

A Citizens' Health Research Group (CHRG) [Public Citizen, 1600 20th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009, www.citizen.org] survey of 45 countries found that 42 percent "either had no warning requirement or had only a very general health warning." Labels in developing countries tend to be smaller, harder to read and placed somewhere other than on the front of the pack. Vietnam and Romania do not require health warnings and 14 other developing countries - Argentina, China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Senegal, Turkey and Ukraine - lacked meaningful warning labels. Among developed nations, only Israel and Japan do not require health warnings on cigarettes.

The information in the warnings is sometimes minimal. The strongest warnings are found in Norway and South Africa. US warning labels are weaker than labels in France, Canada, Australia and Thailand.

"On moral grounds alone," the CHRG report concluded, "there is no justification for providing one group of consumers with one set of scientific information, while denying similar information... to others."

What You Can Do Write the US Surgeon General and Congress to demand that US tobacco firms be required to attach prominent warning labels to tobacco products sold anywhere in the world.

Xena's Genephobia

New Zealand (Aotearoa) - Last September, a crowd of 10,000 marched down the main street of Auckland to Aotea Square in a bitter cold downpour to protest genetic engineering (GE). Outfitted with banners, costumes and hundreds of colorful umbrellas, the marchers called for making New Zealand a GE-Free country. It was the largest protest march in 20 years.

"There was chanting and music ranging from drums, to bagpipes, to DJs with rock music," reports Meriel Watts, director of New Zealand's Soil and Health Association (SHA). "The mood was positive and happy - we will win this struggle for our rights, our food, our environment."

While most activists insisted on no commercial releases of GE products and no field trials, indigenous Maori activists held to an even firmer line, arguing for an end to GE experiments in the labs, since GE research constitutes "tampering with life" and is spiritually and culturally unacceptable.

With an election approaching and the government's coalition partner, the Alliance Party, openly opposed to commercial releases of GE crops, Prime Minister Helen Clarke will find it hard to do anything but place a moratorium on such releases.

Meanwhile, people have registered their farms and homes as "GE Free" and are campaigning to have entire towns and regions declared GE-Free. Film and TV stars such as Sam Neill and Lucy ("Xena the Warrior Princess") Lawless have taken strong public stands against GE. There has been a dramatic increase in support for organic farming and thousands of citizens have joined SHA's call for Aotearoa to be "totally organic" by 2020.

NORTH AMERICA

Bush to Restart Nuke Testing?

US - The Bush administration has ordered nuclear engineers at California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to devise a process for restarting nuclear tests in as little as three months. Livermore Lab Director Bruce Tarter told the press this analysis was "a non-provocative activity." "So is selling matches, but not to a pyromaniac," replied Citizen's Watch, the newsletter of a Livermore-based watchdog group [www.igc.org/tvc].

Enlightened Education

US - Sunshine is a good study aid, according to a study by the Heschong Mahone Group (HMG), an energy consulting firm. HMG compared the performance of students in three US school districts and discovered that students in schools filled with natural sunlight scored 9 to 13 percent higher on math and reading tests than students in classes that were artificially lit. HMG also found that stores with skylights averaged sales that were 40 percent higher than their less-enlightened competitors.

Hush Kits Don't Work

US - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) now requires fitting new commercial aircraft weighing 75,000 pounds or more with "hush-kits" - the common name for sound-deadening equipment - to reduce engine noise during takeoff and landing. The Airports Council International-North America (ACI) [1775 K Street, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 293-8500] reports that these retrofitted jetliners are not significantly quieter. ACI found that people living around airports couldn't tell the new planes from the old. Because aircraft have operating lives of 20 or more years, it can take decades for airline fleets to catch up to the latest and quietest technology.

The Wall Sheet Urinal

US - Call it a new low in advertising. The Phillips Beverage Co. has placed ads for Revelstoke, their new rye whiskey, directly on the rubber mats that adorn the bottoms of urinals in local pubs. Revelstoke is just one of the intrusive ads targeted on the BadAds website [www.badads.org]. Other BadAds have been found lurking at the bottom of golf holes and inserted as digital advertising in video games. Even taxi drivers have been recruited to don hats with advertisers' logos while delivering promotional speeches to trapped passengers. If you think that "ad creep" has gone too far, BadAds provides links to advertisers' online feedback forms. BadAds co-founder W. Eric Martin explains that he created the website to "fight intrusive advertising at its source."

A Scavenger Hunt for Terrorists!

US - A Mark-15 hydrogen bomb, 100 times more powerful than the weapon dropped on Hiroshima, lies buried in the mud six miles off the Georgia coast. Jettisoned by a damaged B-47 on February 5, 1958, the bomb's exact whereabouts remains unknown. The Air Force claims that the bomb poses no danger, but when a salvage company offered to recover the weapon for $23 million, the Air Force replied that it was too dangerous to be touched. Another hydrogen bomb was lost near Florence, South Carolina in April 1958.

Ban the Bomber

US - At the same time the Bush White House was threatening to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to build a costly and unproven Missile Defense Shield (MDS) to defend the US from foreign rocket attacks, it was working on a new weapon that would be impervious to the MDS. The Pentagon's "Space Bomber" (based on a concept that Austrian rocket scientist Eugen Sanger first proposed to Adolf Hitler in the 1930s) would travel 15 times the speed of sound and drop bombs from an elevation of 60 miles. At that altitude, the Los Angeles Times observed, the bombs wouldn't even need explosives since they would "crash through concrete bunkers and into underground missile silos like meteorites through speed and weight alone." The sub-orbital bomber would fly too fast and too low to be intercepted by an MDS system and would be able to take off and bomb targets on the other side of the planet within 45 minutes. Deployment of the Space Bomber would permit the US to abandon foreign military bases that are facing growing risks of terrorist attack. The ability to bomb a target anywhere on Earth within minutes could tempt a president to take action without taking time to ponder the long-term consequences. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stated that the Space Bomber "would be valuable for conducting rapid global strikes." Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) has called the proposal "the single dumbest thing I've heard from this administration."

Banquet or Banditry?

US - Free-trade policies, with their focus on shareholder profits, are promoting the spread of poverty-wage jobs, increasing the rich-poor gap and destroying the ability of developing nations to feed themselves. The Global Banquet, a two-part documentary produced by Maryknoll World Productions [www.maryknoll.org] drives this message home by showing how "a handful of multinational corporations have come to dominate our food system, driving small family farmers... out of existence." In 1996, the UN World Food Summit proclaimed that it was "intolerable that more than 800 million people... do not have enough food to meet their basic nutritional needs." The summit announced plans to cut the number of hungry in half by 2015 by promoting "trade liberalization." By January 2001, the UN's World Food Program reported, the number of people plagued by hunger had grown to 830 million. "Markets are not the first nor the last word in human development," Food First Co-director Anuradha Mittal explains in the film. "Many essentials for human development are provided outside the market, but these are being destroyed and squeezed by the pressures of global competition. When the market dominates social and political outcomes, the rewards of globalization spread unequally." [Food First, 390 60th St., Oakland, CA 94618, (510) 654-4400, www.foodfirst.org]

San Onofre's Motto: "Whoops!"

US - The pipes at California's aging San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station suffer from embrittlement and rust. The electrical wiring is suspect and has failed explosively twice in 2001. On February 6, 2001, an explosion and fire caused one plant's turbine to lose all lubrication and spin to a stop, causing a four-month outage. On June 1, an 80,000-pound crane fell 40 feet from a gantry. On June 6, plant workers spilled 20 gallons of carcinogenic hydrazine. On June 24, a transformer explosion in the switchyard threw glass shards onto a nearby street, railway and highway. As one former San Onofre worker described it, these transformer explosions are like a "tornado in a razor blade factory."

- Russell D. Hoffman

Why We Need the ABM Treaty

US - The US and Russia have more than 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads (with the explosive force of 100,000 Hiroshima bombs) on hair-trigger release. For the Bush administration's proposed Missile Defense Shield to work, the system must be automatically launched by computers. Could an automated system launch an attack by mistake? "There are always false warnings," says the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation [www.wagingpeace.org]. Three times in the past 20 years, the US and the former Soviet Union came within minutes of launching their nuclear missiles. In 1979, a US soldier accidentally activated a training tape that indicated a massive Soviet attack was underway. In 1983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly reported the launch of a US missile. In 1995, Russia almost authorized a missile strike after Norway launched a research rocket to study the northern lights. In each case, there was enough time for human intervention to identify the errors. Under "Star Wars II," the planet's future would be entrusted to a battery of silicon chips. Queen Noor al Hussein of Jordan summed it up well when she remarked: "The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought."

DOE's $32 Billion Boondoggle

US - The Department of Energy (DOE) is wasting billions of desperately needed federal dollars building the ill-fated National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California. The NIF mega-laser was promoted as a means to keep nuclear weapons engineers employed by toying with "virtual" nuclear testing. NIF's initial cost of $1.1 billion has risen to $3.5 billion and a study by the watchdog group Tri-Valley CARES (TVC) has uncovered another "$1.5 billion in hidden costs." TVC's report, Soaring Cost, Shrinking Performance, was written by Robert Civiak, who served 10 years as the DOE's nuclear programs examiner for the US Office of Management and Budget. Civiak's analysis concludes that the NIF, if completed, will cost $32 billion - six times DOE's original estimate. Even then, TVC notes, the NIF might not work, owing to "several serious technical problems, which DOE has yet to resolve despite years of effort." [The complete report is available from TVC, 2582 Old First St., Livermore, CA 94550, (925) 443-7148, www.igc.org/tvc.]

Kill a Car: Go to Jail

US - Jeffrey "Free" Luers was so concerned about the visible death throes of planet Earth that he decided to do something radical. One dark night in 2000, he slipped into the lot at Romania Chevrolet in Eugene, Oregon, and set fire to a fleet of sport utility vehicles. Luers freely admitted to torching the gas guzzlers, but told the court that he had taken care to ensure that no one would be injured in his SUV-roast. "Forty-thousand species go extinct each year, yet we continue to pollute and exploit the natural world," Luers told the judge. "All I ask is that you believe that my actions... stem from the love I have in my heart." Luers was sentenced to a prison term of 22 years. As the Czech-based CarBusters magazine notes [http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz], "22 years is longer than many murderers and rapists receive." The sentence is being appealed. Meanwhile, "Free" has been placed in solitary confinement after being attacked by other inmates. [Legal Defense Committee, FCLDC, PO Box 50263, Eugene, OR 97404, www.efn.org/~eugpeace/freecritter].

Big Eartha

US - It took the map publisher DeLorme two years of work, but the company has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records by building "Eartha," the world's largest rotating globe. The 41-foot-tall miniature Earth (assembled from 792 map sections supported by 6,000 pieces of aluminum) tilts at 23.5 degrees and completes one full rotation every minute. Eartha is housed in a large showcase building at DeLorme's headquarters in Yarmouth, Maine. [Eartha Education Alliance, (207) 846-7000, ext. 2388. www.delorme.com]

DEA Outlaws Hemp Foods

US - On October 9, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published a notice in the Federal Register that would make it illegal to produce or consume "any food or beverage... or dietary supplement" containing hemp grain. The DEA published the notice as an "interpretive rule" to avoid the requirement for public comment. The DEA argues that hemp grain has always been illegal and poses a threat to "public health and safety." "For the first time in US history, the federal government is outlawing a whole class of food products," says Boulder Hemp Company co-founder Kathleen Chippi. Consumers and hemp food firms have been ordered to destroy all hemp food products by February 6, 2002. The Colorado Hemp Initiative Project [PO Box 729, Nederland, CO 80466, (303) 448-5640, www.levellers.org/cohip] notes that health food experts have hailed hemp as "the most nutritionally complete seed on the planet for human consumption." In addition, "hemp food has been produced and safely consumed in the US since the founding of the country and has been used worldwide for over 10,000 years without any adverse health effects." Hemp paper, fiber and rope is exempt from the ban, but the DEA reportedly hopes to extend the ban to hemp lotions, soaps, shampoos and lip balms.

Run, Henry, Run

Former secretary of state and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger is a wanted man. Courts in Argentina, France and Chile want Kissinger to testify about his role in human rights violations around the world. On May 31, 2001, a French court tried to obtain Kissinger's testimony on Operation Condor (a joint campaign by several military dictatorships to murder dissidents across Latin America). When Kissinger fled France, the story was front page news in Europe but received almost no mention in the US. Kissinger initiated the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos; supported fascist military coups in Chile, Argentina and Greece; and allegedly gave the "green light" for the Indonesian Army's invasion of East Timor. "As the mountain of irrefutable evidence against him grows, Kissinger should not be able to go anywhere without being confronted by demands that he be brought to justice," claims Tahnee Stair of the International Action Center [39 W. 14th St., No. 206, New York, NY 10011, www.iacenter.org]. Kissinger's alleged crimes were the subject of a scathing investigation by 60 Minutes and a two-part series by Christopher Hitchens in Harper's magazine - now available as a book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso 2001). When Kissinger addressed the National Press Club (NPC) to promote his book, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, every written question from the audience asking for comments on these issues was ignored. NPC moderator Richard Koonce later admitted: "There was a definite sensitivity to that. He... preferred to avoid that." Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter [www.essential.org/monitor] asks: "How can it be ethical to agree secretly with an author beforehand not to ask a certain set of questions?" Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR, (212) 633-6700, www.fair.org] puts it more bitingly: "If a former secretary of state receiving a summons about his knowledge of murder, torture and disappearances is not news, then what is?" PBS' Charlie Rose, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Fox News' Paula Zahn also failed to ask Kissinger about his apparent flight from justice.

Spring 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 1

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=7&journalID=63

Ebb & Flow

Go with the Flow

US - President John F. Kennedy believed that tapping the ocean's tidal energy at Passamaquoddy Bay near the US-Canadian border would prove "one of the most astonishing and beneficial enterprises undertaken by the people of the US." Kennedy envisioned the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project transforming the bay's daily tidal surge of 70 billion cubic feet of water into 550,000 kilowatts of electric power. The dream that died with JFK now is being reborn around the globe. In May 2001, the British Parliament declared that "the world can no longer afford to neglect the massive potential of wave and tidal energy." In June, Washington state passed a bill requiring local utilities to start providing "tidal power" and other renewable energy options as early as January 1, 2002.

Coffee from a Test Tube

UK - Because coffee beans ripen at different times, they must be carefully selected and hand-picked. Now, Integrated Coffee Technologies Inc. (ITCI) is genetically engineering coffee plants that will all ripen at the same time when they are sprayed with a potent chemical "trigger." Plantation owners will be able to expand the size of their operations while cutting their workforce. Many of the 7 million small landholders who now pick 70 percent of the world's coffee beans would be driven from the land and forced to search for work in crowded cities. There is still time for consumers to pull the plug on "Franken-Java" by contacting supermarkets, coffee retailers and ICTI [PO Box 1070, Waialua, Hawai'i 96791-1070, www.integratedcoffee.com].

World's Greenest Hotel?

Germany - The Victoria Hotel in Freiburg has become "the world's first zero-emission hotel." Each room is equipped with energy-saving lamps, mini-refrigerators and insulated windows. Roof-top solar-electric panels light the hotel's 63 rooms. Two basement co-generators provide 30 percent of the building's power and heating, thereby eliminating 20 tons of CO2. A nearby windfarm provides another 64 percent of the hotel's power.

The Final Auto Pile-Up

UK - "Bury Your Car!" That rallying cry from the '70s is making a comeback. The University of Warwick's Manufacturing Group has incorporated elephant grass as a main ingredient in biodegradable plastic auto parts. Tomorrow's cars may no longer be hauled to a junkyard. They can simply be towed to a compost heap.

A Brief History of Humanity

Germany - In an interview with Focus magazine, scientist and author Stephen Hawking warned that because "computers double their performance every month... the danger is real that [computer] intelligence will develop and take over the world." Instead of trying to control the technology, Hawking believes that the best way to insure that "biological systems... remain superior to electronic ones" is to employ the "well-aimed manipulation" of human genes to create a smarter batch of humans. If genetic engineering isn't sufficient, Hawking proposes "a direct connection between brain and computer." Sue Mayer, director of the group GeneWatch counters: "It is naive to think that genetic engineering will help us stay ahead of computers."

Monks and Toads Beat Navy

US - The majestic stretch of California coast known as Big Sur is famed for its sweep and serenity. It is the last place you would expect the US Navy would want to bomb. In fact, Navy jets were poised to start dive-bombing the Santa Lucia Mountains with dummy bombs - for six hours a day - until the plan came to the attention of the 30 Benedictine monks at the New Camaldoli Hermitage. Although the monks have taken a vow of silence, the Navy plan prompted Father Raniero Hoffman to raise a cry of protest. Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) intervened and, in late November, the Navy backed off. Another winner: the endangered arroyo toad, whose habitat would have been subjected to overflights and bombings. Father Hoffman credited the victory to public protests. "People spoke out for their values, their appreciation of silence, beauty and Mother Earth." The monks' next goal is to have Big Sur declared a national sanctuary.

Yachts a Good Idea

US - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a new idea for gleaning information on the state of the Earth's oceans. They have joined forces with the International SeaKeepers Society [www.seakeepers.com], an exclusive group of wealthy yacht-owners, to outfit their boats with $50,000 devices that will transmit data on water temperature and chemistry to the NOAA via satellite. This is a good deal, says SeaKeeper Chair Albert Gersten, since millionaire mariners "travel to virtually every nook and cranny in the world, way beyond the reach of existing ships." Not to be outdone, Carnival and Royal Caribbean also have equipped their cruise ships with NOAA's research modules.

Down-to-Earth Energy

US -The nation's appetite for energy is expected to swell by 32 percent over the next 20 years. During this period, 27 percent of the country's aging, polluting powerplants will be facing retirement. Since more than 30 percent of energy is used to heat and cool buildings, a shift to small, on-site geothermal exchange technologies could cut energy use by 66 percent. According to the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium [701 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004, www.geoexchange.org], "If less than 1 percent of the 102,830,000 occupied housing units across the country with central air conditioning were to install geo-exchange systems," the US could save "7 to 10 billion kwh of electricity and avoid building 8 to 12 new 300 MW powerplants." This would also avoid the production of 5.84 billion pounds of CO2 which, the Consortium points out, is "the equivalent of planting 796,400 acres of trees."

STEP in the Right Direction

US - New York state is building the country's first "clean-energy" business park. The 21,000 square-foot Saratoga Technology Energy Park (STEP) building will be constructed on a 280-acre site near Albany. New York Governor George Pataki proudly predicts that the new facility will "create new job opportunities, increase our access to clean energy sources and promote a cleaner, healthier environment." The US market for clean energy is projected to grow by nearly 1,200 percent to become an $82 billion industry by 2010.

The Prophet Motive

Pakistan - Both the Bible and the Koran condemn the practice of usury. Putting the Prophet over profit, Pakistan's highest court has ruled that charging interest on money is a violation of Islamic law. Pakistan has now adopted an interest-free lending system. As a result, reports David Boyle, author of Funny Money: In Search of Alternative Cash, "Islamic banking... is actually one of the fastest-growing new sectors in the City of London."

Loggers Lose: A Rainforest Lives

Peru - A vast expanse of old-growth rainforest that was to have fallen under the logger's ax has been preserved forever as Peru's newest national park, Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul. Scientists who surveyed the new sanctuary have discovered at least 28 previously unknown plants and animals in the 5,225-square-mile park, which covers a territory larger than the state of Connecticut.

Spring 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 1

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=4&journalID=63

Eco-Mole

Reactors Kill In a little-noted "correction" published in the July 30, 2001 Federal Register, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) confirmed that relicensing aging US reactors to operate for another 20 years would release 14,800 person-rems of radiation per plant. The NRC calculated this exposure could cause 12 cancer deaths per reactor. With as many as 100 reactors seeking operating extensions, that means 1,200 cancer deaths. The estimate does not include deaths from the storage, transport and disposal of radioactive materials. The Nuclear Information and Research Service [1424 16th St. NW, No. 404, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 328-0002, www.nirs.org] suggests that "instead of relicensing atomic reactors, we should be closing them and accelerating... [the shift to] renewable energy technologies."

Barricked Alive? In November 2000, the London Observer reported that Kahama Mining, a subsidiary of the Canadian multinational Barrick Gold Corp., was involved in the 1996 deaths of 52 mine workers in Bulyanhulu, Tanzania. In July 2001, Barrick sued the Observer, reporter Greg Palast and Tanzanian human rights lawyer Tundu Lissu. Palast had quoted a 1997 report by Amnesty International stating that the men were "buried alive" during the bulldozing of their small-scale mines as Barrick prepared to build a larger mining operation backed by a World Bank loan. Barrick insists that "no one was killed in the course of the peaceful removal of artisanal miners." Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation.

Bush Pooh-poohs the Poor The Group of Eight meeting in Genoa, Italy last July floated a plan to help 1 billion of the world's poorest people obtain clean electricity from solar, wind and tidal energy. The proposal was the work of a multinational G-8 task force of business leaders and environmentalists headed by Mark Moody Stuart, chair of Royal Dutch Shell. The Bush administration torpedoed the call for clean energy alternatives and protested plans to end subsidies for fossil fuels. The World Bank and the US Export-Import Bank continue to be the main backers of new coal- and gas-burning plants being built in poverty-wracked nations.

Rifkin Has a Beef Author Jeremy Rifkin's invitation to address the College of Southern Idaho on the topic of genetic engineering was brusquely withdrawn when cattle and dairy interests realized that Rifkin was the author of Beyond Beef, a book critical of cattle ranching. "We are an agriculture community. I think us bringing him in would be a violation of that, based on what I've read," explained college President Jerry Meyerhoeffer. Rifkin bristled that this was the first time in 30 years of lecturing around the world that he has ever been denied the right to speak. "It sends a chilling message to students and faculty that the free sharing of ideas is not welcome," Rifkin declared.

Bush & Bin Laden, Inc.? Oil and power make for strange bedfellows. In June 1977, George W. Bush started his first drilling company, Arbusto Energy, with a $50,000 investment from Houston businessman James R. Bath. Bath, along with Bush, had been suspended from the Texas Air National Guard for "failure to accomplish [the] annual medical examination" (in Bush's case he refused to be tested for illegal drug use). In their award-winning 1993 exposé The Outlaw Bank, Time magazine writers Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne reported that Bath "made his fortune by investing money for [Sheikh Kalid bin] Mahfouz and... Sheikh bin Laden." Since Bath had "no substantial money of his own at the time," Beaty and Gwynne suggest that Arbusto Energy was financed by Bath's Saudi Arabian clients. And who was bin Laden? The billionaire father of ex-CIA "freedom fighter" Osama bin Laden. Thus, observes Online Journal [www.onlinejournal.com], the money for GWB's first oil company "may have been derived at least in part from the family fortune of Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden." Meanwhile, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that Bush's father, former President George Bush, now serves as a paid consultant for The Carlyle Group, which handles investments for the bin Laden family.

Rent-an-Army Squall magazine [www.squall.co.uk] reports that Britain's Ministry of Defense has hired a private firm to supply "corporately employed soldiers" to serve beside regular UK troops. "The soldiers," Squall notes, "will owe allegiance only to their employer," a consortium lead by the US multinational Halliburton. Prior to the disputed US presidential election, Dick Cheney served as chair and CEO of Halliburton. The Texas-based firm builds oil pipelines and roads around the world and services Britain's nuclear submarines. A US "crusade against evil-doers" would mean windfall profits for Halliburton, which also supplies security to 150 US embassies and provides "everything from catering to laundry" to the US Army on overseas missions.

Rent-an-Army II The day after a plane carrying Baptist missionaries was shot down by Peruvian jets on a drug interdiction mission directed by the CIA, ABC News reported that the US pilots directing the Peruvian fighters had been "hired by the CIA from DynCorp." Within two days, all references to DynCorp were stripped from ABC's website. The US State Department refuses to discuss DynCorp, the largest US technology and outsourcing contractor working in Latin America. DynCorp's office at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida shares space with the State Department and defense contractor Raytheon. This cozy arrangement prompted Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) to ask, "Are we outsourcing [military operations] in order to avoid public scrutiny, controversy or embarrassment?" The watchdog group CorpWatch [www.corpwatch.org] observes that "private firms, working in concert with various intelligence agencies, constitute a vast foreign policy apparatus that is largely invisible, rarely covered by the corporate press and not currently subject to congressional oversight." These companies typically are staffed by former high-ranking military officers. DynCorp and its rival MPRI currently run operations in Bosnia, Macedonia, Croatia, Colombia, Bolivia, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Peru. Ed Soyster, the head of MPRI (and the former director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency) confirms that his firm is active in seven African nations and plans to set up shop in Poland, Argentina and Bahrain.

Mole Nip To the Smithsonian Institution for inking a 10-year deal to place a McDonald's in the Air and Space Museum. Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small has already named the transportation exhibit hall after General Motors (in exchange for $10 million), an insect exhibit after the founder of the Orkin Pest Control ($500,000) and plastered ads for K-mart over a mobile exhibit for Black History Month. Commercial Alert [3719 SE Hawthorne Blvd., No. 281, Portland, OR 97214, www.commercialalert.org] warns that the Smithsonian is "drifting from education to becoming a corporate PR arm."

Mole Kiss To Peter Werbe [www.peterwerbe.com], one of the broadcast media's rarest species - a progressive radio talk show host. Werbe has been pushing the radical message for 30 years. His award-winning "Nightcall" program broadcasts to 14 US cities in the same time slot dominated by right-wing ranter Rush Limbaugh. Werbe turns a sensitive ear to issues of the environment, women's rights and social justice. Nightcall is also accessible on the Internet at http://www.radiopower.org/talkradio/.

Mole Kiss To Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), for raising a lone, brave voice for peace, conscience and the US Constitution.

Spring 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 1

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=9&journalID=63

Making Waves: EII in the News

The Tomales Bay Institute, one of three new Earth Island projects adopted last October, has a mission to resurrect the idea of the "commons" in American public life so that it becomes equal to the market in terms of media reporting and public protection and support. The commons - our shared environmental and social heritage - is the unspoken link between many environmental and other problems that beset Americans today, from the decline of neighborhoods and communities to the commercial enclosure of the gene pool, knowledge and artistic creation.

The World Sustainability Hearings project [see advertisement on page 39 of the EIJ] is organizing a parallel event to the United Nations' Rio+10 Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in South Africa, September 2002, in collaboration with major global and regional NGOs. Ordinary people from around the world will testify as to what has happened in their communities in the 10 years since the 1992 Rio conference when the UN committed itself to address critical environmental and social-justice problems.

City Talk organizes debates on topical issues in sustainable development through meetings, print and broadcast media, and the Internet [see article "Africans Talk about Sustainability," in this issue of the EIJ]. Debates are both local and international, introducing voices from the outside to question what has been taken for granted and consider the impacts on the outside world. City Talk has begun its work in Entebbe, Uganda, and will facilitate joint debates with a US sister city during 2002.

Global Service Corps is a founding member of Bay Area International Development Organizations (BAIDO), a network of 45 member organizations involving thousands of people in northern California and touching the lives of millions in developing countries. BAIDO members represent a wealth of in-depth knowledge and personal experience about the developing world. Together they promote an understanding of the challenges faced by people globally and the solutions people are finding. For more information see www.baido.org. (site may not be still there>)

Climate Solutions co-hosted a press conference on November 16 with Washington Governor Gary Locke to publicize their report, "Poised for Profit: How Clean Energy Can Power the Next High-Tech Job Surge in the Northwest." The report, and comments from Oregon's governor, Portland's mayor and other prominent elected officials, can be downloaded at www.climatesolutions.org.

Anne Brower, Dave Brower's wife, companion and collaborator, died at home after a long illness on November 14, at the age of 88. With Anne's passing, the EII community has lost another giant. Our prayers are with the Brower family who have lost both David and Anne in the space of just over a year. Anne was a devoted mother of four and grandmother of three, a sharp-witted editor and interviewer, a beloved member of the University of California Berkeley staff for many decades (including the Anthropology Department and UC Press, where she met Dave), an impossibly patient wife for more than 57 years, and the secret voice behind many of Dave's best one-liners. Rest in peace, Anne. You will be missed.

Mangrove Action Project's (MAP) 2001 International Children's Art and Poetry Calendar is now available. MAP has created this colorful work in celebration of its 10th anniversary. The calendar features the art and poetry of children from 14 mangrove nations. Your contributions help support MAP's ongoing work to protect mangrove forests. For samples of the calendar and ordering information, go to www.earthisland.org/map/calendar.htm.

Grassroots Globalization Network (GGN) held an open forum on California's North Coast in November 2001 to promote an independent business alliance. GGN also recently published the article "Renowned US Economists Denounce Corporate-led Globalization" on CommonDreams.org. The article and GGN's first working paper, "Economic Democracy in Practice: The Benefits of Cooperatives," can both be found at ~~www.earthisland.org/ggn~~.

WildFutures (formerly The Wildlife Network) has released a new film, On Nature's Terms: Predators and People Co-existing in Harmony. Produced by awardwinning filmmaker John de Graaf, the film documents the uplifting story of how ordinary citizens, biologists, conservationists, agency personnel, ranchers and homeowners are protecting, maintaining and restoring large predator habitats in the western US. The 25-minute video showcases scenes from Wyoming to California of the US Forest Service removing roads, ranchers using non-lethal methods of predator control and biologists studying urban wildlife. To order, send a check or purchase order for $20 (includes tax, shipping and handling) to WildFutures/EII [353 Wallace Way, NE, Suite 12, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110, snegri@igc.org, or call (206) 780-9718 with credit card number].

Earth Island Journal was nominated for the UTNE Reader's Alternative Press Award in the "Best Scientific and Environmental Reporting" category - an award it previously won two years in a row. In September, the Orlo Foundation conducted a survey of 49 environmental magazines and selected Earth Island Journal as "the number one environmental publication in the US."

David Brower has been honored with a memorial sculpture designed by internationally acclaimed Finnish-American sculptor Eino [www.eino.org]. Entitled "Spaceship Earth," the 15-foot-diameter, blue quartzite sphere will weigh approximately 350,000 pounds and will feature a life-size bronze figure of David near its apex. If you would like to suggest (or donate) an appropriate site for the sculpture, please contact Dave Phillips (415) 788-3666, ext. 145, davep@earthisland.org.

Seeking Inspiration? Have a glance at www.wildnesswithin.com, an elegant collection of enviromental essays, photos and news, compiled by Bob Brower in honor of his dad, Dave.

Spring 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 1

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=3&journalID=63

Positive Notes

Prairies Preserved

The first 360-acre tract of Minnesota's new Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge was purchased last August by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The reserve - intended to expand to 77,000 acres - will preserve some of the last remaining 1 percent of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem that formerly blanketed the upper Midwest. "This is a very important first step for the new refuge," said Ron Cole, the USFWS manager for the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge. "It's taken several years of hard work by refuge staff, [USFWS] realty folks, our local Friends of Prairie group, the Nature Conservancy and the Brandenburg Prairie Foundation to make this first acquisition for the refuge a reality."

Rah, RA! Sun-Stoked Ferries

Last spring, a new tourist attraction began plying the waters of the Broads wetlands in eastern England - the RA, a 30-foot-long solar-powered ferry named after the Egyptian sun god. "We felt it was a futuristic and fitting way of opening up Barton Broad to the public.... It is the fulfillment of a dream," commented Aitkin Clark, chief executive of the Broads Authority. Another ship, the 89-foot-long RA 82, the world's largest solar ferry, can carry 120 passengers at a top speed of 9.3 mph. These solar ferries were built by Kopf Solardesign of Sulz-Bergfelden, Germany.

Windmills in the Sea

British Energy Minister Peter Hain has announced a £1.6 billion ($2.4 billion) plan to construct 18 offshore wind farms with 540 3-MW turbines off the west coast of England and Wales. The British Wind Energy Association [www.bwea.com] expects the turbines to produce enough electricity to power 1 million households by 2005. The windmills should help the British government achieve its Kyoto Protocol-related target of obtaining 10 percent of the country's electricity from renewable sources. A spokesperson for Friends of the Earth/UK said that it was a tremendous boost for jobs in the energy and engineering sectors and that it signaled the "dawn of new era."

A Namibia-South Africa Park

The particularly biodiverse region between South Africa's Northern Cape province and the town of Hobas in Namibia has been designated a trans-border conservation park. The new 5,086-square-mile park will occupy an area slightly larger than the state of Delaware and provide safe habitat for thousands of rare animals, such as mountain zebras, baboons, ostriches, gemsboks, klipstringers and kudu. The park will be jointly administered by South Africa and Namibia.

Rabbis for Human Rights

Rabbi Arik Ascherman claims that his commitment to justice has carried him "from protest to resistance." Ascherman, the director of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) [www.rhr.israel.net] has placed his body in front of Israeli bulldozers to stop the destruction of Palestinian homes. In 2001, more than 2,000 Palestinian dwellings were slated for demolition. RHR has received the Speaker of the Knesset's Award for the Quality of Life for "enhancing the rule of law and democratic values, protecting human rights and encouraging tolerance and mutual respect." Founded in 1988, RHR has become recognized as "the rabbinic voice of conscience in Israel." As RHR explains, "Human rights abuses are not compatible with the age-old Jewish tradition of humaneness and moral responsibility," nor is Israel's treatment of the Palestinians respectful of the Biblical concern for "the stranger in your midst."

Iran Hails Green Action

Last June, Iranian President Seyed Mohammad Khatami offered the inaugural speech at the International Seminar on Environment, Religion and Culture, an event co-sponsored with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). President Khatami set the tone of the conference by stating that imbalances in the environment were detrimental to humanity and would provoke calamities for present and future generations. "We should be with nature, not against it," Khatami said. "Confrontation between man and nature is one of the real problems of the new world."

'Child-Safe' Chocolates

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) has called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to establish a voluntary labeling system to indicate which brands of chocolate were produced without the use of child labor (HR 2330). Since the price of cocoa fell in 1998, some of the Ivory Coast's 600,000 small cocoa farms have turned to child labor to cut costs. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates there are approximately 15,000 child slaves working in the Ivory Coast. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) has introduced an amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations Bill to suspend federal subsidies for the US chocolate industry unless child slavery practices are stopped.

Dolphins Freed from OK Corral

The Captive Dolphin Awareness Campaign (CDAC) has succeeded in closing the dolphin show at Oklahoma City Zoo. After months of protests, letter writing, Freedom of Information Act filings and monthly speeches before the zoo's governing trust, CDAC had cause to celebrate when the trust voted unanimously to return the remaining Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins and three sea lions to Marine Animal Productions of Gulfport, Mississippi. The zoo attributed its decision to its inability to prevent the transmission of a bacterial infection that has claimed the lives of four dolphins over two years. CDAC Director Nora Sinkankas stated that the campaign "was successful in large part due to the leadership and guidance of Mark Berman of Earth Island Institute."

Bare-Breasted Poet

In Albion, California, a topless poet known as "La Tigresa" has been defending the forests by clinging to the running boards of logging trucks while chanting poetry and dancing to the beat of tribal drumming [www.earthfilms.org]. La Tigresa has been cheered on by crowds of local residents and salmon supporters opposed to the logging. The startled loggers generally have been respectful as they listen to La Tigresa's Earth Mother poems, some of which are recited in Spanish for the benefit of the Latino workers. On arriving at the scene, one local sheriff said he "didn't have the heart" to bust up the proceedings.

Playing Footsie

London's Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE, pronounced "footsie") has launched a set of ethical stock indices known as "FTSE 4 Good." One hundred select companies will be listed on the exchange. According to FTSE's Helen Humphries, "A perfect company would be one that has very good environmental policies, has looked at human rights issues around the world and ensures that their company adheres to it." In Britain alone, socially responsible investing in ethical funds has increased by 27 percent in recent years and now totals close to £5 billion ($7.5 billion).

Spring 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 1

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=12&journalID=63

Solutions

Designing Products as if the Earth Really Mattered

By Edwin Datschefski

An individual product may look harmless enough, but the environmental damage it causes happens elsewhere, out of sight and mind, "hidden" from the consumer and often from the designer as well.

We have to create products that have "total beauty." These products, also known as "sustainable products," are those that are the best for people, profits and the planet.

* SAFE. All releases to air, water, land or space are food for other systems. A safe process or product cannot chemically or physically disrupt people or other life.

* EFFICIENT. The product in its manufacture and use requires 90 percent less energy, materials and water than products providing equivalent utility in 1990.

The book also includes a chapter on "How to Assess the Beauty of Products" and a guide to environmentally safe materials.

Building as if Forests Mattered.

From the introduction to Building with Vision.

By Sim Van der Ryn

Wood, in the form of dimensional lumber, is simply a wonderful material. Easy to work with, warm to the eyes and hand, natural, reasonably durable, wood is the material that defines the trade of carpentry and is the standard material for houses and light buildings in North America.

There are many economic and durable home shell construction systems that are preferable to wood. I was born in Holland: a country with almost no forests and lots of clay. There, as in most of Europe, masonry is the material of choice for light construction and is the building industry standard.

Ancient old-growth forests are the keystone species of unique and awe-inspiring ecosystems. Cutting and using old-growth woods - our forest relatives - is the moral equivalent of murdering our living grandparents.

Any building project carries with it an ethical as well as an aesthetic contract with society - as it requires resources first to be built, maintained, restored and eventually disposed of.

Of the approximately 1.5 million new homes built each year in the US, 9 percent are framed in wood. At a conservative estimate of 400 studs per house, upwards of half-a-billion studs are required annually for residential construction - not to mention sheathing, flooring, roofing, trim and cabinetry.

According to the Center for Resourceful Building Technology, enough studs are wasted on 20 typical job sites to frame an additional house. Green building activist David Eisenberg argues that wood use should be reconsidered altogether. After all, he notes, wood "rots, burns, and is susceptible to bacterial and fungal growth."

In North America, Europeans began burning and sawing their way through the continent's 850 million acres of ancient forests almost as soon as they arrived. Ben Franklin wrote that by 1774, "wood, our common fuel which within these 300 years might be had at any man's door, must now be fetched near [160 kilometers] to some towns, and makes a considerable article in the expense of some families."

In 1840, when a Shaker woman devised the circular saw blade, this innovation eventually launched a revolution in stud- and stick-frame construction, which today accounts for at least 90 percent of residential buildings in the US. The amount of primary forest worldwide is now reported to be just 16 percent of its pre-industrial amount and dwindling by the day.

An acre of forest - up to 44 trees - goes into the 12,500 board feet that make up the average 2,000-square-foot home in the US. With approximately 1.5 million homes being built every year in the US, this adds up to enormous pressure on the forests.

True to its calling, this book contains its own eco-audit, admitting to the consumption of 35,400 pounds of paper. But, since the paper was 100 percent recycled stock from New Leaf paper [888-989-LEAF], the production saved the equivalent of 62 trees, 5,598 pounds of solid waster, 6,159 gallons of water, 8,034 kilowatts of electricity, 10,178 pounds of greenhouse gases and 15 cubic yards of landfill.

Back to the Table of Contents

Earth Island Journal

Winter 2001-2002 / Vol. 16, No. 4

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=8&journalID=49

Around the World

"We are no longer writing the rules of interaction among separate national economies. We are writing the constitution of a single global economy."

- Roberto Ruggiero, Former Director of the World Trade Organization

AFRICA

Cellphones or Gorillas?

Democratic Republic of Congo - The 100 to 130 surviving Grauer's gorillas (Gorilla berebgei graueri) in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, are facing extinction because of growing demand for cellphones. The critical cellphone capacitors are made from the mineral colombo tantalite (coltan) and one of two known deposits of the mineral lies inside the park. The demand for 500 million new cellphones in 2001 has driven up the cost of coltan to the point that smugglers are now building illegal airstrips in the forests to spirit the coltan to foreign buyers. The Kahuzi-Biega Park, a United Nations World Heritage Site, is occupied by the invading armies of Rwanda and Uganda. Uganda has acted to protect the park; Rwanda has allowed thousands of miners to pillage the park, slaughtering wild monkeys and antelope for food.

Planet of the Apes No More?

Kenya - The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced a major global campaign to save the world's great apes from imminent extinction. The Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP) hopes to stem the tide of habitat destruction that threatens gorillas, orangutans, chimps and other great apes in 23 countries, including Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Indonesia. "Too few people... are aware of the role gorillas play in regenerating woodlands by dispensing seeds and pruning trees," notes Heather Eves of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force. "Along with elephants, they are the gardeners of the African and Southeast Asian forests." "The clock is standing at one minute to midnight for the great apes," says UNEP's Klaus Toepfer. "Local extinctions are happening rapidly and each one is a loss to humanity... and a hole torn in the ecology of our planet. We can no longer stand by and watch these wondrous creatures, some of whom share over 98 percent of the DNA found in humans, die out."

Africa: Sea Turtle Heaven

Gabon - A comprehensive study of sea turtles has revealed that the largest concentration of Leatherback turtles is to be found on the southern beaches of Gabon. The Convention on Migratory Species reports that the Atlantic coast of Africa hosts some of the planet's most critical turtle feeding and nesting sites. Other findings: Mauritania is the most important feeding ground for Green turtles; the largest congregation of Loggerhead turtles in the Atlantic is found on Boa Vista in the Cape Verde Islands; Olive Ridley turtles nest from Guinea-Bissau south to Angola.

Villagers Out on a Limb

Uganda - The Norwegian forestry company Tree Farms has started planting a 5,000-hectare pine and eucalyptus plantation through a local subsidiary, Busoga Forestry Company Ltd. But the project, in the Bukaleba Reserve on the shores of Lake Victoria, has drawn the attention of NorWatch, a Norwegian non-governmental organization (NGO). NorWatch estimates that as many as 8,000 people could be evicted from 13 villages to make way for the plantation. They will be allowed to return and cultivate food among the trees, but they will have to pay rent. Under the "clean development mechanism" (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the Norwegian government will gain emissions credits for the carbon dioxide (CO2) stored by the plantation. This future carbon credit will permit Norway to build a controversial gas power plant. In exchange, the Panos Institute reports, Uganda will receive "a modest annual rent which, at its present rate, will amount to around $300,000 over 25 years."

Bujagali Dam Imperils Nile

Uganda - The International Finance Corp. (IFC) has given the go-ahead for construction of the Bujagali Dam on the White Nile. The US-based AES Corp., the world's largest independent power broker, is in line to build the $530 million river-breaker. According to the International Rivers Network [1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94703, www.irn.org], the dam will drown Bujagali Falls, a national treasure. Ugandan and international NGOs have appealed to the World Bank to halt the project calling it "too flawed to go forward." The NGOs fear the construction of the Bujagali could "set off a wave of dam building on the White Nile whose cumulative impacts could be catastrophic." The World Bank is set to give AES $70 million from the International Development Agency (which is supposed to channel low-cost loans to the world's poorest nations). AES openly boasts that it is "the biggest private [user] of World Bank money through the IFC."

Mowing Down Forests and People, Too

Liberia - The Danish timber company, DLH Group [www.dlh-group.com], has been accused of doing business with two Liberian logging companies alleged to be involved in arms trafficking. A UN investigation has charged Oriental Timber Co. (OTC) and the Royal Timber Corp. of providing Charles Taylor's Liberian government with "unrecorded extra-budgetary income" (read: "bribes"). The UN report also claimed that logging tucks were used to ship arms and provisions to rebel units of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Global Witness Director Patrick Alley claims the RUF is "responsible for the murders of hundreds of innocent people in Sierra Leone." The UN report specifically named Gus Van Kouwenhoven, the Dutch national who heads OTC, as the man "responsible for the logistical aspect of many of the arms deals." Arms trafficking and murder aside, these two companies are also responsible for destroying the Upper Guinean Forest, one of the planet's most threatened biological treasures and home to the world's last surviving populations of Pygmy hippopotamus and West African forest elephants.

ASIA

ExxonMobil Sued For Atrocities

Indonesia - A June 20 lawsuit filed in Washington D.C. names the oil giant ExxonMobil as responsible for murder, torture and kidnapping in Aceh, a region on the northern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia. [A copy of the filing is available at www.laborrights.org.] The suit, filed on behalf of 11 Aceh residents, claims that Indonesian military troops hired by ExxonMobil to provide security for the corporation's liquefied natural gas facilities, committed numerous human rights offenses. According to the filing by the International Labor Rights Fund, villagers were kidnapped and tortured in buildings on ExxonMobil property. "While oil companies and the Indonesian government reap enormous profits, the people are suffering at the hands of the very security forces employed by ExxonMobil to protect its assets," said Kurt Biddle, Washington Coordinator for the Indonesia Human Rights Network. Since January 2000, Kontras-Aceh, a local human rights organization, has reported more than 670 killings and 161 disappearances in Aceh. The Indonesian military and police act with impunity in the resource-rich region. Prominent civic leaders and humanitarian workers have been executed. The Indonesian military's complicity in the brutal attacks that followed the August 30, 1999 independence vote in East Timor prompted the US Congress to place a ban on US military assistance to the Indonesian military. The Bush administration recently restored military aid to Indonesia.

Trade Rep Pushes Deadly Drug

South Korea - US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick [600 17th St., NW, Washington, DC 20508] has pressured the South Korean government to reduce tariffs on US cigarettes from 40 percent to a mere 10 percent. This marks a departure from the Clinton administration's policy not to use US trade and foreign policy to support the spread of deadly tobacco products. As the watchdog group CorpWatch [PO Box 29344, San Francisco, CA 94129, www.corpwatch.org] notes, the Bush administration "appears to be returning to the bad old days of the Reagan and Bush [Senior] administrations, when the US actively pushed Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand to open their markets to US cigarettes."

Odd Allies: Tigers & Guerrillas

India - Officially, there are 4,500 tigers in India, but former Indian Environment Minister Maneka Gandhi fears the actual number of surviving tigers now is less than 800. While the Indian government is loath to admit it, one of the tigers' greatest human allies is the Naxalites, a Marxist-oriented rebel army that has plagued the central government for decades. According to the Deccan Chronicle there have been no reports of poaching in the jungles controlled by the Naxalites. "The people who kill tigers for their skin and bones are afraid to venture into sanctuaries and other areas populated by the big cat," the Chronicle explains, because "they fear that the Naxalites would attack them for their weapons." In the past, Naxalites have been known to attack and kill hunters for their weapons.

Traveling Circuses Told to Fold

Singapore - The Singapore government has issued a ban on circus performances, effective January 1, 2002. As Singapore's Straits Times put it: "[circuses with] or elephants coming to Singapore with travelling circuses have been told to pack their trunks as they will no longer be welcome here. Nor will lions, tigers and other animals." Sweden, India and Israel have banned traveling animal circuses and Great Britain is considering similar legislation. Animal performances at the Singapore Zoo and Jurong Bird Park won't be covered. The last travelling wild-animal show to visit Singapore was The Great Moscow Circus, which set up tent in 1998.

Who'll Stop the Rain?

India - With drought raging across India, a group of resourceful villagers in Rajasthan State banded together to create a community-owned rainwater harvesting system. After much preparation and volunteer labor the Lava Ka Baas Recharge Structure was constructed. Ordinarily that kind of self-reliance would be commended. Instead, the Rajasthan Irrigation Minister stepped in and declared such rainwater harvesting schemes illegal. According to the Centre for Science and Environment [41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi, 110 062, www.cseindia.org], the minister "has declared that every drop of rain that falls belongs to the government and that [anyone] who captures the rain can be arrested."

Reva Set to Rev

India - A September deadline required New Delhi's commercial vehicle owners to exchange their polluting gas and diesel buses and cars for compressed natural gas vehicles. Electric vehicles are also showing up on India's roads. The country now has six electric car manufacturers and the Bangalore-based Maini Group [www.revaindia.com] has produced a spiffy compact called the Reva that can travel 50 miles per charge.

Sweetening the Pot

India - For years, Indian activists have been trying without success to convince the government to remove the cancer-causing oxygenate MTBE from gasoline and diesel fuel. MTBE, which was introduced into India's gasoline 10 years ago, threatens to contaminate the country's drinking water supplies. According to Anil Agarwal, chair of the Center for Science and Environment, the main reason the petroleum-based compound continues to be used is that it enjoys "the blessings of the petroleum ministry babus." Suddenly, in June, Petroleum Minister Ram Naik announced that ethanol would not only be an "environment-friendly" alternative to MTBE, it would help farmers and avoid costly imports of foreign MTBE. Indian environmentalists had been arguing for ethanol for years. So what happened? "The answer is simple," Agawal reports. "The sugar lobby... has been breathing down the necks of the petroleum ministry. Naik and his babus have basically caved in to this lobby."

China Outperforms US in CO2 Cuts

China - Within the next five years, reports a joint World Energy Council/UN Environment Programme [www.unep.org] study, renewable, clean energy systems can "save the equivalent of 1 billion tons of CO2 annually." A survey of 91 countries disclosed that clean energy projects already underway and planned "could raise the global CO2 savings to as high as 2 billion tons" by 2005 - a 6 percent reduction in current global CO2 emissions. China, despite an economic growth spurt of 36 percent, has cut its CO2 emissions by 17 percent. China accomplished this by promoting energy conservation, ending coal subsidies and supporting more efficient power generation technologies. China's emissions are now as much as 900 million tons below anticipated levels and on par with Germany and Canada. In the US, CO2 emissions have increased from 4.8 billion tons in 1990 to more than 5.4 billion tons in 1998.

Frankenfood Battles Abroad

Thailand - In May, Thailand became the first country in Asia to ban the release of genetically engineered (GE) crops into the environment. Within days, the government of Sri Lanka banned the sale of all genetically modified foods. The US immediately condemned Sri Lanka's decisions and vowed to have the country's safe-food laws challenged before the World Trade Organization (WTO). India, meanwhile, continues to promote genetically engineered cotton and "Vitamin A" rice. Indian activists [www.makingindiagreen.org] report that field trials of gentically engineered crops in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka "are being conducted in a completely haphazard and undemocratic manner." Greenpeace India has drafted a petition calling for a ban on imports of GE crops.

EUROPE

Waste into Power

UK - The town of Holsworthy (infamously in the news as the site of the mass-incineration of cattle exposed to foot-and-mouth disease) now has a new claim to fame, reports Green Futures [Unit 55, 50-56 Wharf Road, London N1 7SF, http://www.greenfutures.org.uk]. Since October, slurry from Holsworthy's farms (400 tons a day) has been trucked to a biogas plant which extracts the methane to produce 1.6 MW. The processed slurry is then returned to the farmers as free, clean "biofertilizer." Meanwhile, 20 miles away, the town of North Tawton hopes to use farm wastes and leftovers from the local cheese factory to supply 5.25 MW - enough electricity to power the entire town.

Flavored, Fizzy Milk with BGH?

UK - Not satisfied with attempts to market bottled water, the Coca-Cola Company now wants to muscle its way into the milk market. According to The Ecologist, the Atlanta-based multinational "wants to develop a new line of milk drinks aimed at the under-12s." Coca-Cola has already begun test-marketing "milka-cola" in Europe and Latin America under the corporate code name "Project Mother." The Ecologist warns that the "Cola-nization of the dairy industry" could speed the destruction of small dairy farms in favor of corporate-owned factory farms. Today's corporate dairy cow produces 100 times more milk that a traditional dairy cow. Fifty years ago, a dairy cow lived 25 years; today's corporate cow only lives five years. The implications of "Project Mother" are disturbing, The Ecologist notes: "it could lead to the domination of the global milk industry by the world's most powerful drinks company."

Taxing Tourists

Spain - The Belearic Islands - Mallorca, Ibiza, Minorca and Formentera - are a Mediterranean Mecca for the rave-age tourist crowd. But with the tourist trade now bringing 9 million visitors a year to these sun-washed islands, Spain's Constitutional Tribunal is mulling the idea of imposing a "tourist tax" on visitors to raise funds to help the local roads and beaches recover from the onslaught.

Britain Says 'No' to GM Java

UK - Integrated Coffee Technologies, Inc. (ICTI), a US-based company, is hard at work on a scheme to genetically re-jigger coffee beans so that they all ripen at the same time when sprayed with a chemical "activator." This would mean that coffee could be mass-harvested by machine, instead of slowly gathered by hand. Mechanized coffee-plucking would enrich large corporate-owned plantations. It would also destroy the lives of millions of small farmers who currently provide 70 percent of the world's coffee. The trade watchdog group ActionAid [Freepost BS4868, Chard, Somerset, TA20 1BR, www.actionaid.org] warns that "up to seven million poor farmers won't be able to afford the chemical or compete with the big companies." ActionAid, fearing that some 60 million people could be driven from their farms and plunged into poverty, has called on British markets to refuse to stock GM java. [You can send a letter to ICTI through www.purefood.org]

Having Your Cake and Kyoto Too

Belgium - According to a report from the European Climate Change Program (ECCP), the European Union could cut annual emissions of CO2 by 715 metric tons - twice the 8 percent cut needed to comply with the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas reductions. Existing technologies, if implemented, could exceed 70 percent of the Kyoto goals. And meeting these goals is affordable. The ECCP estimates the cost of complying with Kyoto would be less than 20 euros per ton or less than 0.1 percent of the EU's Gross Domestic Product. EU Environment Minister Margot Willström says "It is now a matter of political will."

No Money for a Security 'Milestone'

Russia - When Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton were leaders of their respective countries, they agreed that it would be a good idea to build a shared nuclear "early warning center" to guard against the accidental launch of a nuclear weapon. In the years since, the collapse of the Russian economy and the crumbling military infrastructure has only increased the need for such a security measure. When Clinton met with Putin in September 1998, the Russian President called the project "a milestone in enhancing strategic security." So where does the joint command center stand today? As the Washington Post reported in June, "this 'milestone' remains nothing more than an abandoned kindergarten building surrounded by overgrown shrubbery on the outskirts of Moscow." On January 25, 1995, Russia came within eight minutes of launching a nuclear attack on the US when a ground radar sent a false alarm. The Center for Defense Information suggests a simple arrangement to reduce the danger: taking US and Russian strategic nuclear missiles off "high alert" status would provide added time to verify potentially bogus computer warnings.

Olive Oil on Troubled Waters

Spain - European Union subsidies that prop up olive farms are responsible for the loss of 80 million tons of topsoil in the Andalucia region every year. The expansion of olive farms has destroyed natural habitat in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece. Olive farms consume vast amounts of increasingly scarce water. Meanwhile, the erosion from the farms has filled reservoirs with silt. "Intensive olive farming is a major cause of one of the biggest environmental problems facing Europe today," charges World Wildlife Fund spokesperson Elizabeth Guttenstein. "EU subsidies for olive farming are driving the Mediterranean environment to ruin."

Putin Puttin' Russia on Road to Ruin

Russia - Despite massive popular opposition, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has dictated that his country will become the world's nuclear wastebasket. In exchange for $21 billion, Putin would open the doors to 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Spain and Germany. "The import of radioactive waste will pose a threat to Russians for hundreds of thousands of years," warned Vladimir Chuprov of Greenpeace Russia. A Greenpeace survey found nearly 80 percent of the public opposed to the nuclear waste imports. Even Germany, which Russia had hoped to court as a nuclear disposal client, has denounced the plan. Germany's environment minister has called Putin's plan "an irresponsible gamble with the health and safety of the Russian people."

Unfiltered Benefits

Czech Republic - On July 26, Philip Morris officials apologized for hiring Arthur D. Little International to compile a study to convince the Czech Republic that encouraging cigarette smoking would have "positive effects" on the Czech economy. The reasoning: the costs of lost work days, hospitalization, healthcare and cigarette-caused fires would be offset by revenues from sales taxes. One of the biggest savings, the report claimed, would come from old-age pensions, retirement benefits and social security benefits that the government would never have to pay since so many citizens would be dying at a younger age.

Tithe to Fly

UK - Air travelers leaving London's Luton Airport are being asked to cough up as much as £3 ($4.24) to a "carbon offset fund" to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of their flights. Luton's Environment Director Mark McClennan explained that the money would go to plant trees that would suck up some of the CO2 generated by the jet engines. "We are raising awareness how aviation contributes to the greenhouse effect and climate change," McClennan told BBC Radio. "It doesn't quite work like that," countered Jeff Gazzard of the Aviation Environment Federation. "The odd tree does not soak up your CO2. The problem is that CO2 is just one of the emissions that comes out of the back of an aircraft and it is only 30 percent of the problem."

Will Ford Have a Better Idea?

The Netherlands - Greenpeace International has challenged the CEOs of the Fortune 100 companies to state their position on the Kyoto Treaty to control CO2 pollution. Many companies claim to have "no position" but remain active members of the anti-Kyoto US Council for International Business. The campaign is targeting the Big Five oil companies (ExxonMobil, Texaco, Chevron, Conoco and Phillips) that backed George W. Bush and the GOP with nearly $30 million in campaign donations. Greenpeace's efforts have inspired tens of thousands of citizens to write letters asking the Ford Motor Company to publicly support the Kyoto Treaty.

You Deserve a Bed Today

Ireland - Government cutbacks are bad news for social services but great opportunities for private industry. In Ireland, the public was recently polled to determine their feelings about corporate sponsorship of healthcare facilities. Only one-third of those surveyed liked the idea. Nearly one-quarter thought it was a terrible idea. Undeterred, one Belfast hospital has signed a deal to have McDonalds' sponsor the beds in its healthcare unit. Perhaps hospital administrators have forgotten the judge's verdict in Britain's long-running McLibel Trial [Winter '94-95 EIJ]: If you eat at McDonald's everyday, it will put you in the hospital.

SOUTH AMERICA

Amazon Gone in 20 Years?

Brazil - Pennsylvania State University Professor of Environmental Sciences James Alcock has used a sophisticated mathematical model to project the Amazon forest's future. That future is bleak, indeed. "The destruction of the Amazon rainforest could be irreversible within a decade," BBC News reports. In an article in Science, Alcock suggests that rates of deforestation caused by logging, mining and agricultural clearing could reach 42 percent by 2020. Previous estimates had concluded the Amazon would reach total ecological collapse in 75 to 100 years. Alcock's figures suggest that the death of the Amazon could come as early as 2040 with the point-of-no-return occurring within 10 to 15 years. A quarter of the Amazon river basin has already vanished, Alcock notes, which means a serious loss of evapotranspiration that will lead to a drier future climate in the region. Alcock, whose research was presented before the Geology Societies of America and London conference in Scotland in June, believes his model could also serve as a prophesy for the fate of the tropical forests of southeast Asia and the Congo River Basin.

World Bank to Cuba: 'Great Job!'

Cuba - "Cuba has done a great job on education and health," World Bank President James Wolfensohn exclaims, "and it does not embarrass me to admit it." Wolfensohn's burst of praise followed the publication of the bank's annual edition of World Development Indicators, which showed that Cuba has reduced infant mortality to seven per 1,000 births and the mortality rate for children under five to eight per 1,000 births - ranking sixth in the world. World Bank Vice President Jo Ritzen called this achievement "just unbelievable." Latin America's illiteracy rate stands at seven percent. In Cuba, the rate is zero. Net primary school enrollment in Cuba is 100 percent, higher than in the US. Cuba spends about 6.7 percent of its gross national income on education and 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product on health care. Cuba's ratio of 5.3 doctors to every 1,000 citizens is the highest in the world. And in Cuba, healthcare and education are free to everyone. As Wayne Smith, former head of the US Interests Section in Havana told InterPress Service, "One would hope that political barriers would not prevent the use of the Cuban experience in other countries."

A Park is Born

Chile - The forests of towering alerce trees have been compared to California's ancient redwoods. In July, Chile created its own Yosemite - Pumalin Park, a 700,000-acre tapestry of land that sweeps from coastal fjords to snow-topped Andean peaks. Pumalin Park is the dream of US mountaineer and entrepreneur Doug Tompkins, who has spent more than 10 years and $30 million buying parcels of land that now form Pumalin Park. The home of the Andean condor and the pudu (the world's smallest deer) is now safe from the timber companies that had hoped to log the alerce. Pumalin's crystalline fjords will no longer face the prospect of being sullied by commercial salmon farms. Doug Tompkins operates organic farms and ecotours in Pumalin. To experience this amazing park for yourself, contact: Alsur Tours [www.puertovaras.com/alsur]. For more information, contact the Foundation for Deep Ecology [Bldg. 1062 Ft. Cronkhite, Sausalito, CA 94965, (415) 229-9339, http://www.deepecology.org].

NORTH AMERICA

Rocky Mountain Front Saved

US - A grassroots campaign to save Montana's Rocky Mountain Front (RMF) from mining was successful. All national forest lands along the RMF have been placed off-limits to hardrock mining for 20 years. More good news: On May 7, 2001, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 1997 US Forest Service decision to ban new oil and gas leasing on national forest lands along the RMF for 10 to 15 years. The decision had been appealed by the Rocky Mountain Oil & Gas Association and the International Petroleum Association of America. The industry's appeal was denied but the debate over oil drilling in the RMF continues. The oil industry still holds leases in certain parts of the RMF, including the Badger-Two Medicine, Native American sacred site. Montana Senator Max Baucus and Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth have urged the Bush administration to leave the Front wild. The Rocky Mountain Front is an integral part of the Bob Marshall Wilderness/Glacier National Park - the "crown of the continent" ecosystem and the largest, most intact undeveloped landscape in the 48 contiguous states. As one crusty Montana native says, "Some places on earth should be left alone even if solid gold lies under them. The Rocky Mountain Front is such a place." [Friends of the RMF, PO Box 763, Choteau, MT 59422, (406) 466-2750, friends@3rivers.net]

Can't See the Forest for the Bombs

US - For the past 50 years, the US Navy has been dropping bombs into the 150,000 hectare Ocala National Forest in Florida. The US Forest Service's (USFS) permit gave the Navy the right to bombard the forest's scrub oak, sand pine scrub and giant palms until December 31, 1999. The USFS extended the permit to July 31, 2001. Now the USFS wants to let the Navy keep on bombing until 2021. At least two federally protected species - the Florida scrub jay and the sand skink - have been forced to share the Ocala under an onslaught of as many as 8,000 bombs a year despite the endangered Species Act prohibition against the "take" (i.e., killing) of a listed species. The Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice [www.fcpj.org] has demanded that the USFS test the Ocala's water and soil for unexploded bombs and chemical and heavy metal pollution before even considering an extension of the Navy's lease.

Free the 'Star Wars 17'!

US - On July 14, 2001, anti-nuclear protestors gathered at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast to challenge a test of the Pentagon's trouble-plagued anti-missile system. The protests only delayed the test for two minutes but 17 protestors (from Britain, India, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Spain and the US) wound up facing six years in prison and $250,000 fines. Fifteen Greenpeace activists and two journalists who floated into Vandenberg waters on a rubber boat were arrested, placed in leg shackles and thrown into a maximum security prison. In past demonstrations, nonviolent protestors were cited for trespassing, a misdemeanor. In this latest case, the activists were charged with conspiracy counts that carry long prison sentences. "These charges are politically motivated," reports Duncan Campbell of The Guardian (London), the harsh new "policy on felony charges has come from Washington." According to Greenpeace's William Peden, "It should be Star Wars on trial, not Greenpeace." [Greenpeace, 965 Mission St., No. 625, San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 512-7713]

The Teddy Bear Prisoner

Canada - During the height of the anti-globalization protests in Quebec City last April, a group of protesters mounted an aerial assault on police lines outside the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas conference perimeter. Using a medieval catapult, the activists pelted the police with... stuffed teddy bears. The police were not amused. Undercover police in an unmarked van arrested an activist named Jaggi Singh and charged him with possession of a deadly weapons (the catapult, not the teddy bears). "They hit me three times in the chest with a telescopic baton," Singh reported from his jail cell. "It still hurts when I sneeze." Of the 463 protesters arrested, Singh was the only one still in custody as of May. And international "Free Jaggi Singh" campaign lead to "teddy bear" actions in New Zealand, Australia, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and the US. Thousands of activists have protested Singh's lengthy detention by mailing teddy bears to Canadian officials.

Goose Hunt

US - Seattle's Great Canadian Goose Hunt was called off on July 13, when government goose eradicators gave up the chase in the face of massive citizen resistance - including several noisy "Honk-Ins" outside the Seattle Parks Department. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) dispatched agents to trap the geese which were molting and unable to fly. But plans to gas the geese were torpedoed by the appearance of The Goose People, teams of activists who stalked the hunters with binoculars and digital cameras, sent out action calls via cellphones, paddled kayaks between the birds and the hunters and chased the geese away from "authorized kill zones" and onto private property. Public sympathy turned massively against the USDA when a Goose People videotape of a government goose execution was aired on local TV stations. Even the local police turned sympathetic. "Despite being stopped by police more than a dozen times," Goose Person Bob Chorush reports, "activists were never charged."

Clean Investing

US - According to "Clean Tech: Profits and Potential," an investment study prepared by Clean Edge, the $7 billion clean energy market for solar and windpower, fuel cells, geothermal and microturbines is expected to expand 28 percent annually. By 2010, clean energy companies will constitute a $82 billion market. "A real, sustainable new economy is emerging around clean technologies," says Clean Edge co-founder Ron Pernick. "Today's emerging clean-tech companies will be the Microsofts of the future." Among the clean-tech firms cited in the report: Active Power, AstroPower, Ballard Power, Capstone Turbine, Evergreen Solar, FuelCell Energy and Plug Power. The report is available online at www.cleanedge.com.

Vieques, Si! Padre Island, No!

US - The US Navy plans to vacate its bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in 2003 and needs to find a new stretch of coastal land to pummel. The San Antonio Express News reports that a leading candidate is a remote section of Texas coast directly across from the Padre Island National Seashore, a refuge for thousands of migrating birds and home to the endangered Kemp's ridley turtle. A spokesperson for the Sierra Club in Austin calls the plan "environmentally disastrous." A consultant for the Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce, however, foresees "some very positive environmental impacts." He did not elaborate.

The Face of the Enemy?

Canada - Student organizer Allison North criticized Prime Minister Jean Chretien for cutting funding for education. Next thing she knew, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were demanding to know if she planned to stage a violent demonstration against Chretien. "Suggesting that I am a threat to the Prime Minister is absurd," North told the Times Colonist. Recently the Mounties and Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents have taken an interest in the words of union members, students, church groups and social activists who simply "want to exercise their rights to free speech and assembly," the Times Colonist notes. "The tactic of police or spies arriving unannounced on the doorsteps of demonstration organizers... represents a hardening of the security establishment's dealings with those who openly voice their opinions." In Quebec, intelligence agents grilled Lethbridge University Professor Tony Hall about his articles criticizing "free trade agreements and their effects on indigenous peoples." Hall was asked to provide the names of other people who shared his views. The Canadian Association of University Teachers has condemned these tactics as a threat to academic freedom and open debate.

Defending Florida's Panthers

US - Earth Island's Bluewater Network and a coalition of eco-groups are threatening legal action against the National Park Service over the use of off-road vehicles (ORVs) in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve. The coalition maintains that allowing ORVs in Big Cypress would violate the Endangered Species Act since the preserve is a refuge for the endangered Florida panther. Speeding ORVs could flush the animals out of their protected habitat toward roads and highways. Since January 2000, 15 panthers have been killed by cars.

Shahtoosh Seller Censured

US - Maxfield Enterprises, Inc, a high-toned fashion store in Beverly Hills, has been ordered to pay a $175,000 fine for importing and selling shahtoosh shawls. Shahtoosh scarves are made from the fine fur of the Tibetan chiru, whose population has been decimated by poachers feeding the shahtoosh trade. Justin Lowe of Earth Island's Tibetan Plateau Project called the fine, the largest such penalty to date, "encouraging news, because it demonstrates that shahtoosh dealers are becoming aware of the potential liability that they face." Maxfield Enterprises has also agreed to pay for a series of public service ads in Vanity Fair and/or Harper's Bazaar, describing the threat the shahtoosh trade poses to the chiru.

Bluewater Bites McDonald's

US - In August, Bluewater Network (BWN) and 25 other green groups challenged McDonald's to halt its "Monopoly Sweepstakes," which offered snowmobiles, jet skis and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) as prizes. As Bluewater points out, in 2000, snowmobile accidents seriously injured 14,000 people while ATVS sent 95,000 people to emergency rooms. Jet skis comprise only 10 percent of the US boating craft, but they account for more than 40 percent of watercraft accidents. McDonald's was asked to substitute "safe, nonpolluting" alternative prizes.

Greens Go National

US - Green Party leaders from several states have voted unanimously to form the country's newest (and third largest) national political party. The Green Party has grown an estimated 35 percent since the historic Ralph Nader/Winona LaDuke presidential campaign," says Jo Chamberlain of the Green Party Steering Committee. In 2001, she noted, "more than half of our Green candidates for office have been elected." Green politicians now hold 91 elective offices in 21 states. The announcement was made in Santa Monica, California, where Green Mayor Mike Feinstein has signed the first private sector living wage ordinance, more than doubling the US minimum wage from $5.15 to $10.50. Feinstein vowed that Green candidates would challenge "Democrats and Republicans at every level of government" and would work "to change our undemocratic winner-take-all electoral system to a fair and inclusive system of proportional representation. [www.greenparty.org]

Dams Undone

US - During the 2001 "river restoration season," nearly 40 aging dams were removed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Washington. "Since the nation declared its independence in 1776, it has built more than one dam per day," according to American Rivers [www.americanrivers.org/damremoval]. "By 2020, 85 percent of US dams will be more than 50 years old" and ready for retirement. A Stanford University study reported more than 1,000 dam failures in one recent two-year span.

A Global Oil Grab?

US - The Bush/Cheney Energy Plan expects to see oil consumption rise to 25.8 million barrels per day by 2020 with US dependence on foreign imports rising 61 percent. Deep in the massive report, Michael Klare (the author of Resource Wars) discovered a plan to use US energy firms to dominate foreign energy sectors, especially in Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. To co-opt what's left of the world's vanishing oil reserves, the Bush/ Cheney plan would promote the ascension of US oil companies in Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the Persian Gulf.

US Enters the Killer-Seed Biz

US - In August, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it would be joining forces with its private industry partner, Delta & Pine Land (DPL) to produce and promote genetically engineered "Terminator" seeds. Terminator seeds, designed to produce sterile seeds, make it impossible for farmers to save seeds for future use. Hope Shand with the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) noted that "Terminator technology has been universally condemned by civil society, banned by international agricultural research institutes, censured by United Nations bodies, even shunned by Monsanto." The licensing was even opposed by the USDA's own Biotech Advisory Committee. RAFI's Silvia Ribeiro called the USDA's decision to license the technology to DPL, the world's ninth largest seed company, "a disgraceful example of corporate welfare involving a technology that is bad for farmers, dangerous for the environment and disastrous for world food security." Terminator technology, which will be used to control the production of three major food crops - soybeans, rice and wheat - is set to be commercialized in December 2002. An attempt to ban Terminator technology will be mounted at the World Food Summit in Rome. There is little question where the US will stand. As RAFI observes: "In keeping with its image as a rogue, isolationist state in international treaty negotiations on global warming and biological weapons, the US also appears to stand alone on Terminator.

Stage Your Own Armageddon

US - The US has 10,000 nuclear warheads and the Pentagon insists that it would be irresponsible to cut our atomic arsenal to less than 2,500 bombs. But when members of Congress sought to justify this number by reviewing the Pentagon's nuclear war plan, they were told that the Single Integrated Operation Plan (SIOP) was classified.

Now, after an amazing two-year effort, researchers with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have pulled the veils from "the last secret" and put the Pentagon's war plan on the Internet. Using sophisticated computer programs, satellite imagery and hundreds of documents compiled from public sources, the NRDC website now allows anyone to "fire" US missiles at any one of 6,795 Russian targets and assess the damage. The revelations are stunning.

While an attack on the Kola Peninsula would destroy Russia's nuclear submarine base, the fallout would kill 250,000 civilians living downwind in Murmansk. An attack on Russian cities with the 192 warheads from a single Trident submarine would cause 49 million deaths. Launching just 51 high-yield W88 warheads could kill 25 percent of the Russian population and destroy half of the country's industrial capacity (the Cold War level of damage known as "Mutually Assured Destruction" or MAD). Using less than 3 percent of our atomic arsenal could cause more than 50 million casualties.

When Gen. George Lee Butler took charge of the Strategic Air Command in 1991, he was appalled by the redundancy of targeting. One above-ground radar station on the perimeter of Moscow was set to be hit by no fewer than 69 nuclear bombs!

"Why do we have to take out the Russian Army when it can't win a war in Chechnya?" asks NRDC Project Director Tom Cochran. "Bush tells us that Russia is no longer our enemy," adds the NRDC's Robert S. Norris. "If he means it, he'll need to do some things differently." [www.nrdc.org]

Boise Cascade's "Dirty Tricks"

US - On July 25, Julia Butterfly Hill, Bonnie Raitt and 18 others were arrested following a peaceful sit-in at the headquarters of Boise Cascade near Chicago. The Rainforest Action Network [RAN, (415) 398-4404, www.ran.org] has called Boise Cascade "America's Worst Logging Company." Boise and the anti-environmentalist Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, has tried to covertly smear RAN as a "terrorist" organization in order to destroy its funding sources and its federal nonprofit status. "Boise Cascade has launched a covert campaign designed to limit free speech and muzzle critics of its old-growth logging operations," said Greenpeace Executive Director John Passacantando. This corporate attack on a nonviolent activist group, is an attack on our most fundamental democratic freedoms."

Who's Doing the Talking?

US - A Focus on the Corporation study by Justin Elga and George Farah has discovered that one of the least-discussed topics on TV political talk shows is... corporate power.

A review of 18 months of broadcast transcripts for Meet the Press, Face the Nation and The Mclaughlin Group revealed who got on these programs: "Presidential candidates, high administration officials, Congressional leaders [and]... former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed." Who didn't get invited? "Guests from the ranks of labor, environmental, consumer, anti-corporate globalization or other public interest groups." Ironically, while the guests represented the corporate elite their discussions rarely touched on corporate control.

During the period from June 1995 to June 1996, Colin Powell was the main topic 47 times, O.J. Simpson 16 times and the Christian Right nine times. Not one show was devoted to the environment, consumer issues or corporate crime. The shows never analyzed the impacts of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund or foreign aid.

Instead of investigating environmental degradation or social inequity, the shows covered such burning issues as Jerry Springer's possible senatorial campaign, Tina Brown's Talk Magazine kickoff party, mail order brides and football player Reggie White's religious views.

Elga and Farah conclude with a rhetorical question: "Is The Mclaughlin Group really likely to talk critically about GE's... controversial effort to block cleanup of the Hudson River of toxic PCBs - given General Electric's sponsorship?" [http://www.corporatepredators.org]

Earth Island Journal

Winter 2001-2002 / Vol. 16, No. 4

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=7&journalID=49

Ebb & Flow

Calling Jimmy Carter

Mother's Alert [www.mothersalert.org] is circulating the following notarized statement by Jane Rickover, daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the "father" of the US nuclear navy.

"In May 1983, my father-in-law... told me that, at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident, a full report was commissioned by President Jimmy Carter. [Rickover] said that the report, if published in its entirety, would have destroyed the civilian nuclear power industry because the accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public. He told me that he had used his enormous personal influence... to persuade [Carter] to publish the report only in a highly 'diluted' form. The President himself had originally wished the full report to be made public. In November 1985, my father-in-law told me that he had come to deeply regret his action... to suppress the most alarming aspects of that report."

To request the release of the full TMI report contact Jimmy Carter [The Carter Center, 4453 Freedom Parkway, Atlanta, GA 30307, (404) 331-3900, carterweb@emory.edu].

And a Pack of Cough Drops

When public relations whiz Sarah Datz was asked to explain why the Rite Aid drugstore chain sells cigarettes, she responded: "We're in a retail business and our job is giving our customers a choice... It's important for customers to make their own lifestyle and product choices." The EcoMole is looking forward to Rite Aid's new "lifestyle aisles" stocked with absinthe, ecstasy, crystal meth and medical marijuana.

Welcome to the Big Leagues

Co-opting the press begins early. The William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program (the "Pulitzers of College Journalism") not only offers $400,000 in prize money, it also offers young reporters a corrupting taste of the good life. As EcoMole Matt Palmquist revealed in the SF Weekly, the winners were booked into $520-a-night rooms at the Palace Hotel and fêted with exotic cuisine. As one invitee confided, the experience "strips away your idealism and replaces it with a sense of superiority."

US Planned to Nuke the USSR

In the darkest days of the Cold War, a group of US generals plotted a sneak nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The plot, uncovered by British intelligence in 1951, is revealed in Nottingham University Professor Richard J. Aldrich's book The Hidden Hand. A confidential memo from Vice-Admiral Eric Longley-Cook warned that the US had "fixed" the date for the attack "for mid or late 1952." The London Telegraph reports that "a succession of British officers... returned from visits to America expressing alarm over the apparent conviction among their US counterparts that they should attack Russia." Longley-Cook reported that, while the Russians were too cautious to start a war themselves, one US general insisted that "we can afford... to create a wilderness in Russian without serious repercussion on Western civilization." Longley-Cook warned: "It is doubtful whether, in a year's time, the US will be able to control the Frankenstein monster which they are creating. There is a definite risk of the USA becoming involved in a preventative war against Russia, however firmly their NATO allies object." Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.

What a Jolt

Engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory came up with a marvelous solution to California's energy woes: Reduce utility voltage by 2.5 percent and save the equivalent of 500 megawatts. The two major southern California utilities immediately agreed to the plan but northern California's Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) complained that reducing power would damage appliances. When this was shown not to be the case, PG&E sheepishly revealed the real reason it couldn't comply: the utility had already been secretly supplying power to customers at reduced voltage all along! Consumers may wish to demand a refund.

The National Park Avenue Hilton?

When San Francisco's Presidio Army Base became the country's largest urban national park, there was a catch: the park had to become "self-financing" or it would be sold to private developers. The Presidio Trust, which administers the park, has been criticized for seeking to finance the Presidio's survival by commercializing the park. In a letter dated June 2000, developers at Western Pacific Properties were caught secretly salivating: "The prospect of being able to develop a world-class lodge at the Presidio comparable to the Inn at Spanish Bay is certainly compelling." The letter was addressed to the Presidio Trust's deputy director for planning.

Meet the Whale Flacks

The head of Japan's fisheries has justified the killing of minke whales by referring to them as "cockroaches." He could have taken some coaching from Alan Macnow, president of Tele-Press Associates (TPA), the New York firm that handles publicity for the Japanese Whaling Association and the Japan Fisheries Association according to the O'Dwyer's Directory. Macnow's signature graced an infamous 1997 "environmental manifesto" that called for less federal regulation and the defense of property rights. The manifesto was authored by Consumer Alert, which PR Watch identifies as "a front group that has been funded by Monsanto, Philip Morris and Exxon."

The Starbucks Stops

Here After the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) pointed out that Starbucks was serving its clientele genetically engineered foods and non-organic coffee beans, the giant java chain fired back with a New York Times ad proclaiming that it was "proud to partner with TransFair USA," a supplier of "fair trade" coffee. OCA Director Ronnie Cummins was unimpressed. "Your so-called 'enormous commitment' to... buying Fair Trade coffee," he wrote to Starbucks CEO Orin Smith, "amounts to a grand total of one-tenth of one percent of your company's total coffee purchase."

Mr. Pentag(Enr)on

Secretary of the Army Thomas White wants to hire for-profit companies to provide gas and electricity to US military bases. Locally owned utilities would likely be pushed aside in favor of large energy brokers like Texas-based Enron, which already has a $25 million contract to power the Fort Hamilton army base in New York. Enron also hopes to supply power to a naval base, seven Air Force bases and Fort Bliss, Texas. What makes this move a bit unseemly is that White is a former brigadier general and was (prior to his appointment) a vice chairman of Enron and the proud owner of $25 million in company stock. As former Army Major Jeffrey Whitman told the AP, "It certainly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest."

Mole Kiss:

To Franciscan nuns (and sisters) Dorothy and Gwen Hennessey (age 88 and 68 respectively), Catholic nuns Elizabeth Anne McKenzie (71) and Miriam Spencer (75), Quakers Bill Houston (72) and Hazel Tulecke (77) and 20 other nonviolent protestors who were handed jail sentences for walking onto the grounds of the US Army's notorious Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia. WHISC (better known as the "School of the Assassins") trained such luminaries as Manuel Norriega (Panamanian strongman, CIA asset and drug-runner) and Roberto D'Aubisson (the Salvadoran politician who masterminded the assasination of Archbishop Oscar Romero). For peacefully protesting the training of such murderers, these prisoners of conscience were sentenced to serve six months in prison.

Mole Nip:

To US Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth, the judge who sentenced them.

Earth Island Journal

Winter 2001-2002 / Vol. 16, No. 4

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=4&journalID=49

Making Waves: EII in the News

The Borneo Project was instrumental in a High Court victory in Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. The court ruled that the Iban villagers of Rumah Nor had customary rights to the rivers, streams and communal forest around their village, and not just the cultivated land. The court also ruled that the Borneo Paper and Pulp company had no right to log Ruman Nor's rainforest. The ruling, if upheld, may have broad implications for the native land rights struggle in the developing world because case law established in one British Commonwealth country, such as Malaysia, may be applicable in others. The Borneo Project can claim credit for training the mapmaker who drew the map used in the case.

The Circle of Life Foundation's Julia Butterfly Hill helped launch a new 2002 California state ballot initiative to save California's last remaining ancient and old-growth trees. "These trees are part of our heritage, not only as a state, but also as a nation and a planet," said Julia. "Our government should be the ones protecting this international heritage but because they've failed, we, the people, have decided to protect the last of this living legacy." A coalition of social, religious, civic, business and conservation organizations is leading the ballot initiative that calls for the preservation of every remaining tree that existed at the time California gained statehood in 1850. [http://www.ancienttrees.org]

Global Service Corps (GSC) is completing its first season in Tanzania with a new HIV/AIDS training program. More than 80 teachers from six Tanzanian secondary schools and 30 student peer counselors were taught counseling skills and attended seminars on integrating HIV/AIDS concepts into their curricula. Although AIDS has affected most people in Tanzania, young, low-income women are particularly at risk. GSC reached out to this group through an existing course called "homecraft" that teaches domestic skills and basic reading and writing skills to young people too poor to attend secondary school.

The West Africa Rainforest Network-US [WARN-US, warn@earthisland.org], one of Earth Island's newest projects, is dedicated to protecting the 10 percent remaining West African rainforests from the actions of unscrupulous individuals and corporations. Initially focused on Nigeria, it hopes to prevent the last frontier forest from being turned entirely into wood chips. Working in partnership with local communities and environmentalists, WARN-US provides support to African activists while raising international awareness of the threats to one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth.

Earth Island Institute commemorated Saturday June 30, 2001, by staging the first annual Brower Day in downtown Berkeley, California, Dave's home town. A crowd of around 3,000 visited stalls from around 45 local non-profit groups, 15 green businesses, craft tables and food vendors. Youngsters celebrated Dave's legacy by participating in a "Restoration Decathlon" - 10 events ranging from solar cooking to paper-making. Young decathletes videotaped their own Public Service Announcements, wrote poems about the Earth and the braver ones climbed the "Brower Route" on a 30-foot-high climbing wall. That evening, Earth Island hosted the Party for the Planet, a fund raising feast at the University of California Berkeley's International House. The stylish throng enjoyed organic wines and a selection of organic appetizers while watching videos documenting Dave's life and work.

Climate Solution's new special 12-page report, "Rising to the Challenge: The Northwest's Clean Energy Leadership," salutes a number of clean-energy success stories including: Seattle City Light, the first US utility that aims to eliminate all greenhouse emissions; the Bonneville Power Administration, the power agency on track to become the nation's largest wind energy supplier; and Xantrex, the first 100 percent green-powered manufacturing plant in North America. The full report is available online at www.climatesolutions.org.

Restore Hetch Hetchy, an organization of which David Brower was a founding director, has been lobbying the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to remove O'Shaughnessy Dam and restore the valley. The water system is in urgent need of repair and earthquake retrofitting and the city is contemplating raising money for the work through an upcoming bond issue. For up-to-date news on the status of the ballot proposition, visit www.hetchhetchy.org.

International Marine Mammal Project's Mark Berman, in the company of Paul McCartney, Jane Goodall and Anita Roddick, is part of a new book called Speaking out for Animals [Lantern Books, One Union Square West, Suite 201, New York, NY 10003]. Mark's section details the story behind the return of the Keiko (the orca star of the Free Willy movie) to his native waters off Iceland. Visit www.animalsagenda.org to order a copy.

The Brower Center. Just two weeks before he died last November, EII founder David Brower learned of plans for a David Brower Center, a world-class facility to house environmental groups that also relates the story of environmental activism to the public. EII staff has been working closely with Brower Center founder Peter Buckley to make the dream a reality and the City of Berkeley has been extremely generous in offering a site close to both UC Berkeley and the Berkeley BART station. The Brower Center would be part of a new mixed-use building incorporating a theatre, an art gallery, retail space and affordable housing. In the near future, an architect and developer will be chosen for the building. The Brower Center will be a substantial undertaking, and EII welcomes all forms of involvement from the public. Please contact: John Knox, Executive Director at EII [johnknox@earthisland.org].

The Brower Legacy Site ("BrowerWeb") has been revamped with new photos, quotes and updates. Coming soon: streaming video and audio of the Archdruid in action, courtesy of our friends at Ecostream. If you have films or videos of Dave please contact Mikhail Davis [mdavis@earthisland.org]. Visit www.wildnesswithin.com for more Brower magic.

Green Goods. Check out EII'S online store featuring 100 percent organic cotton t-shirts, a wide array of classic and new environmental books, planet-friendly apparel, home and garden items, music, computer software, health and beauty goods, special gifts and more. A portion of each purchase is donated to the Institute. Log on to http://www.earthisland.org and click on "EII store."

Earth Island Journal

Winter 2001-2002

Vol. 16, No. 4

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=3&journalID=49

Positive Notes

Rodeos Ridden Out of Town

Pasadena Councilmember Paul Little stated: "Causing pain, injury, and death to animals is not entertaining. We won't profit from it and we won't allow it on city property." The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has criticized the ordinance by noting that there had been "only" 38 animal injuries at the 57 rodeos surveyed in 2000 - implying that animals were killed or crippled at two out of every three events. [Priscilla Gargalis, California Lobby for Animal Welfare (909) 244-8672]

Abdul Kareem's Green Eden

Indian Environmentalist Abdul Kareem has spent the last 24 years of his life assembling a lush 30-acre woodland expanse that is now a haven for nature lovers and those in search of peace. Starting with a rocky five-acre patch of wasteland in Puliamkulam, Kareem dug a well and began to plough his savings from a job as an airlines ticketing agent into his dream project. The forest is now home to 1,500 medicinal plants, 2,000 varieties of trees, rare birds, animals and insects. Kareem refuses to sell even the leaf litter for money and has declined several lucrative offers to turn the reserve into a resort.

[kareemforest@homenetmail.com]

Park Saved from Oil Drillers

Well-organized local opposition, legal action by Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) and Pakistani environmental groups, and a letter-writing campaign by Global Response [www.globalresponse.org/] have persuaded Shell Oil to abandon its plans to explore for gas and oil in Pakistan's Kirthar National Park. One of Pakistan's largest protected areas, Kirthar comprises more than 3,087 square kilometers (1,206 square miles) of rugged mountain desert in the southern province of Sindh. The Kirthar is home to threatened species such as the Sindh ibex (a mountain goat), the Urial sheep, desert wolf, striped hyena, golden jackal, the Chinkara (a gazelle) and eight species of eagle. As part of its legal action, FOEI submitted a 380-page dossier describing the appalling environmental and human rights abuses associated with the oil industry in Nigeria.

Healthy Schools Act

Thanks to State Assemblymember Kevin Shelley's Healthy Schools Act (HSA), California school districts are now required to notify parents whenever there are plans to apply a pesticide in their children's schools. The HSA promotes "Integrated Pest Management," which harnesses natural insect predators to eat pests, as well as a range of less toxic chemical alternatives. In August, California Healthy Schools Coalition (which was partly responsible for the HSA) released a "Pesticide Action Kit" to help parents reduce the use of pesticides on school grounds. [California Public Interest Research Group, 3435 Wilshire Blvd., No. 385, Los Angeles, CA 90010, www.calhealthyschools.org]

For the Love of Elephants

Khun Sangduen Chailert, a Thai activist who is better known as "Khun Lek," has been recognized as a "Hero for the Planet" by the National Geographic Society and Ford Motor Co. More than a decade ago, Khun Lek ("Little Madame") founded the Elephant Nature Park [29 Charoenpratet Road, Soi 6, Chiang Mai, 5011, Thailand], where more than 40 pachyderms now roam in safety as they recover from injuries sustained during work as beasts of burden in the logging industry. Sick elephants are brought from all over Thailand to the sanctuary by volunteers. Along with veterinarian Prasit Moleechat, Lek established the Jumbo Express, a mobile clinic that can rush to the aid of a stricken elephant at any hour of the day or night.

A Village Beyond Hate

The village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (the words mean "oasis of peace" in Hebrew and Arabic) is a co-operatively owned and governed village founded in 1979 by Jewish and Arab settlers. More than 40 families have built homes on land leased from a nearby monastery. The village's kindergarten and primary school offer Israel's only bilingual educational program. [Doar Na Shimshon, 99761 Israel, http://nswas.com; 121 Sixth Avenue, No. 507, New York, NY 10013, (212) 226-9246.]

First Green-energy College

Connecticut College has become the first US college to sign up for electricity produced entirely from renewable resources. Students were the main force behind the move, raising $1,500 through bake sales and a voluntary $25 fee (per student) to become members of the Connecticut Energy Cooperative. The Energy Co-op's electricity is certified "Green-E" by the Center for Resource Solutions, which promises that it comes from 100 percent renewable sources - solar, wind, biomass or small-scale hydropower. As a side benefit, Connecticut College staff are eligible for discounted membership rates, free home energy analyses and low long-distance telephone rates. [www.resource-solutions.org]

Kalishnikovs Till Africa's Soil

Last summer, Sierra Leone melted down around 450 weapons to make nearly 4,000 garden tools - hoes, sickles, cutlasses, shovels and axes. Some 10,000 weapons are being decommissioned in an attempt to disarm all independent fighters. The project, initiated by the aid organization, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit [GTZ, Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5 65760 Eschborn, Germany, http://www.gtz.de], is run in partnership with the UN mission in Sierra Leone.

Planting Trees by Drinking Java

Coffee production uses a lot of energy - to transport the beans, heat the roasters and run company computers. When Northern California's Thanksgiving Coffee asked the Maryland-based Trees for the Future to figure out how much CO2 their company produced, it came to 553 tons annually (plus an additional 1,000 tons if you count the energy used to brew the coffee). To offset this, Thanksgiving Coffee is paying Trees for the Future to plant around 69,000 trees in Ethiopia, the west African nation that grows some of the world's best coffee. Thanksgiving Coffee will foot the bill of $90 per acre for the work. In addition to soaking up the CO2, the trees will also provide fruit, medicines, wildlife habitat, erosion control, shade and wood for local residents. They will make up for some of the 70 percent of Ethiopia's forests that have been lost through clearing of land for wood fuel, livestock grazing and crops - including coffee.

Northcoast Environmental Center

For the past 30 years, the Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC) in Arcata, California [575 H Street, Arcata, CA 95521, www.necandeconews.to] has been in the forefront of every major regional anti-logging and environmental campaign. On July 24, a devastating fire devoured the center's computers, research archives, a collection of 9,500 books, 800 periodicals and $16,400 in undeposited donations. You can help NEC rise from the ashes by sending donations to the "NEC Rebuild It Fund" c/o The Humboldt Area Foundation [PO Box 99, Bayside, CA 95524, (707) 442-2993].

Earth Island Journal

Winter 2001-2002 / Vol. 16, No. 4

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/dept.cfm?departmentCatID=12&journalID=49

Solutions

Home-grown Solar Energy

AstroPower is the only solar electric company in the US that has not yet been taken over by a giant oil company. AstroPower's systems run everything from golf carts in New Mexico, gas stations in Britain and villages in Nepal, to the towering skyscraper that houses the Freiburg Train Station in Germany, the Los Angeles Convention Center and the 100 kW rooftop system atop the Powerlight Co. in Berkeley, California. Shea Homes, Inc., one of the country's largest homebuilders, is including AstroPower's SunChoice(tm) panels on 100 new houses being constructed in San Diego. While the "dot.com economy" was crashing in 2000, AstroPower saw its net earnings increase nearly 53 percent. The company has invested $500,000 of those profits in a private equity fund to help solar electric power companies in developing countries. Putting the recycling ethic to work, AstroPower harvests the silicon for its panels from discarded computer equipment. [Solar Park, Newark, Delaware, US 19716-2000, ~~www.astropower.com~~ news report 16 Jan 2005 said they filed for bankruptcy.]

A World Environmental Court

The idea began in 1968, at the World Court in Rome. It received a boost in 1986 with the creation of the International Court for the Environment Foundation, chaired by Italian Supreme Court Judge Amedeo Postiglione. On January 22, 2001, the Biopolitics International Organization issued a formal resolution calling for the creation of an International Court for the Environment. The resolution has been endorsed by Equipe Cousteau and other groups [BIO, 10 Tim. Vassou, Athens 11521, Greece; ICEF Secretariat, Corte Suprema di Cassazione, Piazza Cavour, 1, 00193 Rome, Italy, www.xcom.it/icef]

Save the Airwaves

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Michael Powell wants to increase the number of radio, TV and newspapers a corporation can own in a single town. Meanwhile there are plans afoot to "privatize" the public airways by allowing current holders of broadcast licenses to "sublease" broadcast windows to paying customers. Senator Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC) is proposing legislation to halt this march toward monopoly and theft of public resources. As Democratic leader of the Senate Commerce Committee, Hollings has introduced a bill to limit the number of broadcast outlets a company can own. Current laws allow a single corporation to control 35 percent of the national TV audience. Without this cap, says Alan Frank, CEO of the Washington Post-Newsweek Stations, Inc., "we would be left with four corporations dictating what everyone sees throughout the country."

Humor for Hard Times

The Funny Times [2176 Lee Road, Cleveland Hts, Ohio 44118, (888) FUNNYTIMES, www.funnytimes.com] has produced a plantable protest - seeds for growing your very own "Global Warming BUSH." Planting instructions call for "clearcutting all available public lands" in order to produce "a bumper crop of profits for billionaires." (The packet actually contains harmless Kochia trichophylla seeds.) The Funny Times has kindly offered to share these packets with the Journal's readers. These seed packs are available for a $3 donation to the "Green Pages Fund," which sponsors tree-planting around the world.

Pull the Plug on 'Star Wars'

"The time has come to ban the further weaponization of space," thundered Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). "We must work toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons." Kucinich has a plan to do just that. While George W. Bush seems heck-bent on violating the Anti-Ballistic Missile accord, Kucinich has introduced the Space Preservation Act of 2001 which would ban all research, testing, manufacturing and deployment of space-based weapons. Kucinich's campaign is supported by Canada's foreign Minister John Manley who has called Bush's space-war plans "dangerous" and maintains that "Canada is unalterably opposed to the weaponization of space."

Bring Back the OTA!

George W. Bush wanted to permit high arsenic levels in US drinking water because of a lack of "good science" on the dangers. Here's a remedy: Bring back the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. From 1972 until 1995, the OTA provided Congress with thorough and objective evaluations of the potential impacts of complex scientific and technical issues. The National Council for Science and the Environment [1725 K St., NW, Suite 212, Washington DC 20006, (202) 530-5810, www.ncseonline.org] has called for resurrecting the OTA as the best way of "improving the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking." Representative Rush Holt's (D-NJ) HR 2148 (which has acquired 50 co-sponsors), would revive the OTA with an annual budget of $20 million. [For more information: www.wws.princeton.edu/~ota/.]

Good Ol' Conservation

The figures are enough to give Dick Cheney a stroke. Instead of rolling blackouts, Californians spent the summer rolling in an excess of electrical power - in large part due to Cheney's anathema, conservation. Even during the sweltering days of August, one-third of northern Californians cut their power by 20 percent or more. The EPA estimates that if every US home and office followed California's example and switched to long-lasting, low-energy bulbs, it would save 70 billion kWh and prevent the release of 100 billion pounds of CO2 (equal to removing 10 million cars from US roads).

Follow the Money

Decisions made in Washington can affect water quality, auto pollution, wetlands survival, energy choices and have health impacts that affect the lives of billions of people. It helps to understand how these laws are made - and paid for. Opensecrets.org is the online guide to "money in American elections." Find out who pays the piper and who calls the tunes. See where your congressmember's campaign money comes from and watch how they vote on the issues. Learn who received ambassadorships in the Bush White House and why. Review the personal fortunes of members of the Bush cabinet. Opensecrets will keep you posted on the battle for campaign finance reform, bankruptcy reforms, electricity deregulation, gun control, prescription drugs and more. [www.opensecrets.org]

Fight Sprawl: Rebuild Communities

The National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices has spent a lot of time studying what does - and doesn't - make for a livable, sustainable community. The result is an action plan for New Community Design (NCD) that could undo the urban design mistakes of the past 50 years. "Combining two core elements of Smart Growth, density and quality design can go a long way toward creating the types of communities Americans want to call home," says NGA Chair and Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening.

Despite their alluring names ("Sunset Village," "Golden Acres") most suburban subdivisions fail to offer walkable streets, a sense of community, open spaces, preserved agricultural land and independence from automobiles. Creating sustainable communities will require dismantling obsolete zoning laws, building codes and development impact fees. Although the NCD movement threatens many vested interests, it is proving to be an alternative that offers new investment and economic opportunities.

The latest NCD is now under construction near Louisville, Kentucky. The 130-acre Park DuValle will incorporate 1,100 units of public housing within a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-income neighborhood of 1,200 homes, duplexes and small apartment buildings. The complete NCD report is available from the National Governors Association [Hall of States, 444 N. Capitol St., Washington, DC 20001-1512, (202) 624-5300, http://www.nga.org].

The Zero-Emission Shuttle

If you're gonna drive, you may as well drive as clean as possible and Professor Shimizu Hiroshi and a crew from Keio University have created a eco-carpoolers dream - a limo-van that runs on lithium batteries and eight wheels. Each wheel has its own motor to decrease transmission loss. Look Japan reports that the KAZ (Keio Advanced Zero-emission vehicle) "has 1.7 times the efficiency of conventional gasoline-powered cars, emits no toxic waste and runs quietly."

Municipal Power

Seattle City Light, one of 2,000 city-owned electric utilities in the US, has vowed to provide its customers with 100MW of 100 percent renewable power. Municipally-owned utilities generally offer better service and lower prices that private stockholder-owned utilities. The power crunch in California has unleashed municipalization campaigns across the western states. For more information, contact the American Local Power Project [www.local.org], the Renewable Energy Policy Project [www.repp.org] and the Green Power Network [www.eren.doe.gov/greenpower].

Relearn our History

We have been miseducated with a drumbeat of false parables and selective propaganda. American schools have failed to pass on the stories of the US labor movement. How many of us are familiar with the Knights of Labor? The "Labor Amendment" to the US Constitution (the 13th)? Everyone has heard of the Taft-Hartly law but few are familiar with Norris-LaGuardia (labor's "Magna Carta"), the worker-protection law that Taft-Hartly demolished.

The Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) has taken a step to remedy this conscious erasure of working-class struggle and victories by producing a bracing 37-page booklet called Building Unions: Past, Present and Future that revives an amazing hidden history.

The Knights of Labor was a labor union that believed society should be run by consumer and worker cooperatives, not by banks and for-profit corporations. It insisted on equal pay for equal work and its 1 million members were racially integrated - in 1886! The Knights had assembly halls across the country, 120 in Maine alone. The Knights had a name for people who grew wealthy through investments and stock options. They were disdained as the "non-producing class."

POCLAD also offers a rabble-rousing declaration in the form of a 500-word poster. Fifteen of those words are: "Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves." The booklet is available for $2 and the poster for $11 (prices include postage) from POCLAD [Box 246, S. Yarmouth, MA 02664, www.poclad.org].

Saving Family Farms

The mission of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives' Land Assistance Fund [2769 Church St., East Point, GA 30344, (404) 769-0991, (205) 652-9676] is a noble one: "Land retention and development, especially for African Americans, but essentially for all family farmers."

For more than 34 years the FSC has helped poor farmers by building rural housing and training centers and by establishing credit unions, enterprise communities, cooperative development centers and marketing opportunities. The FSC claims major credit for the passage of the Minority Farmers Right Act of 1990 and is one of 12 participants in the Mandingo Legacy Forestry Project - a five-year experiment in rural sustainable forestry.

The FSC, working with the Indian Land Working Group, the Intertribal Agricultural Council, the Center for Land Grant Studies, New Farms, the University of Wisconsin and New Mexico State University, is creating a Center for Minority Land and Community Security at Tuskegee University.

Fuel Cells Down Under

H-Power Pacific has produced a line of commercially available fuel cells ranging in size from a 13-watt educational kit to a 4.5-kilowatt cogeneration unit that can power the average energy-hogging American home. The smaller proton-exchange membrane fuel cells run on pure hydrogen while the larger house-sized power packs run on propane or natural gas. Portable fuel cell power units are available in 35-, 50-, 250- and 500-watt units. [http://www.hpowerpacific.com]

Don't Flush: Squat!

Back in the late 70s, Sym Van der Ryn (who served as State Architect under Governor Jerry Brown) sat down and penned what may be the definitive guide to modern toilets - and the folly of their design. As BBC Wildlife notes, this 124-page "history of easing thyself" became a cult classic replete with "more pictures of loos, lavs, toilets, garderones, closet stools and soakaways than seems reasonable to expect." The Toilet Papers: Recycling Waste and Conserving Water, which has been out of print for nearly 25 years, has now been unearthed and rolled out in a new paperback edition. The gist of Van der Ryn's critique, as summarized by BBC Wildlife, is that the whole concept of sitting in a bathroom and using drinking water to flush excrement is "an enormous waste of resources and a pretty dangerous and inefficient one at that."

Go Carbon-Neutral

Keep your eyes open for a new label - one that declares the product to be "climate-friendly" or "carbon-neutral." Companies subscribing to this labeling protocol have agreed to eliminate their carbon emissions by using only non-polluting green energy or purchasing carbon-offsets (investments in solar energy or tree planting). British residents can already purchase carbon-neutral (CN) cars and vacations. In the US, Earthbound Farm offers CN organic foods, Stoneyfield Farm sells CN yogurt, Shaklee sells CN healthcare products, Interface leases CN carpeting and Triplee.com boasts CN airline tickets. In the works: CN fuel-cars, flights, conferences and travel clubs. Contact the Climate Neutral Network [www.climateneutral.com] and Britain's Carbon Storage Trust/Climate Care [www.co2.org].

Keep An Eye on Congress

Do you want to know if anyone in Washington has proposed legislation to save the lesser big-eyed pond-swallow? Turn on the computer and fire up the Thomas register. Named after Thomas Jefferson and hosted by the Library of Congress, http://thomas.loc.gov will let you search for legislation by bill number or buzzword. Once you've found your bill, Thomas can check on its progress, tell you who is on the committee that will hear it and how every member of the committee has voted. Thomas also posts the daily Congressional Record, provides summaries of all congressional activities and links to other Library of Congress websites.

Natural Clothing is Best

One of the country's most dynamic clothing companies has gone green in a big way. George Zimmer's Men's Warehouse chain - which got its start catering to the needs of traveling businessfolk - has joined forces with Laury Ostrow, the creator of Chi Pants, to offer "a new genre in clothing that offers an alternative to all other currently available men's clothing." Using organic cotton and long-lasting hemp fibers and styled for comfort, the Chi Wear line of pants, shirts, shorts and pullovers initially will be sold over the Web. The Men's Warehouse hopes to have Chi Wear in its 500 US stores by spring. Chi Wear clothing is manufactured in plants in the southeastern US, providing work to areas "hard hit by the global economy."

"It makes me ill that cotton is the number-one sprayed crop per acre in the world, Zimmer explains. "We are in the business of clothing. Chi Wear and Men's Warehouse have the power to do something about it." [Chi Wear, 71 Mariner Green Dive., Corte Madera, CA 94925, (415) 927-1116, www.chi-wear.com]

A New Apollo Project

George Bush has spurned the Kyoto Protocol, falsely claiming that saving the world from a growing climate disaster would cost the US economy money and jobs. Britain, meanwhile, is on track to cut greenhouse gas emissions 21.5 percent from 1990 levels by 2010 and the Netherlands is aiming for an 80 percent reduction by 2050. In order to avoid a climatic apocalypse, the prestigious International Panel on Climate Change has warned, that the entire world must match the Dutch example.

In their book Stormy Weather authors Guy Dauncy and Patrick Mazza argue that the world needs to "become excited about moving into an age of ecological restoration powered by sunlight and hydrogen." This effort could be modeled after NASA's Apollo Project, which sent men to the moon. The goal of this New Apollo Project would aim to make clean energy "cheaper than fossil fuels by 2005 and to generate 80 percent of the world's energy by 2025."

Toxic Solvents Displaced by Water

Many pharmaceuticals, plastics and consumer goods are made from petrochemicals in manufacturing processes that use toxic solvents such as benzene, hydrocarbons and dioxane. Tulane Chemistry Professor Shao-June Li has discovered a method to use water in place of these toxic solvents. The process is cheaper and it doesn't produce toxic vapors. Professor Li was recently honored with the EPA's Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. [Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118, (504) 865-5000]

Biodiesel Buys On-line

Want to fuel your Honda Prius with biodiesel but don't know where to turn? Try the Alternative Energy Auction [~~www.gogobid.com~~], which offers biodiesel bids from producers around the world. This free, Canadian-based site also offers biodiesel information and discussion groups. GoGoBid Founder Paul Dickson explains, "I want to inspire others to use alternative fuels that benefit our environment. Perhaps alternative fuel would increase in popularity if it were more widely available."

Clean Air Plants

Modern homes are filled with chemical vapors from paint, carpets, furniture, dyes, adhesives, cosmetics, chemical detergents, cleansers and plastic packaging. Turns out there is a simple defense against these unwelcome aromas - house plants. Bill Wolverton became interested in using plants to cleanse the air when he worked at NASA trying to devise ways to keep the air fresh in space ships. Wolverton's research - finally published as a book, How to Grow Fresh Air (Penguin Books) - identifies house plants that can be used to combat molds, mildew, bacteria and chemicals. Bamboo palms remove benzene and trichloroethlene, Boston Ferns eliminate formaldehyde and chrysantemums help to flush ammonia from the air.

Compute your Emissions

Running a large refrigerator for a year creates as much pollution as taking a car trip from Las Vegas to Chicago. Travelling just one mile in an airplane produces 1.08 pounds of greenhouse gases per passenger. These are some of the disclosures available on the AirHead website. AirHead [http://www.airhead.org] invites visitors to plug in personal lifestyle information to calculate the CO2 impact. The AirHead site lists the pollution impacts of more than 70,000 products.

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Alternatives Reader #2, part 2

a free e-zine from Alternatives for Simple Living

Contents

What is this? (Introduction to this series)

Earth Island Journal

Earth Island Journal, Summer 2002

Ebb & Flow

Eco-Mole

Positive Notes

Around the World

AFRICA

ASIA

EUROPE

SOUTH AMERICA

OCEANIA

NORTH AMERICA

Solutions

Earth Island Journal

Spring 2002 / Vol. 17, No. 1

Around the World

EUROPE

ASIA

MIDDLE EAST

AFRICA

SOUTH AMERICA

NORTH AMERICA

Ebb & Flow

Eco-Mole

Making Waves: EII in the News

Positive Notes

Solutions

Earth Island Journal

Winter 2001-2002 / Vol. 16, No. 4

AFRICA

ASIA

EUROPE

SOUTH AMERICA

NORTH AMERICA

Ebb & Flow

Positive Notes

Solutions