Environment News
U.S. National Parks Over-crowded and Underfunded
Summer is just around the bend, and with it, people all over the country will begin their annual pilgrimages to U.S national parks. Unfortunately, the parks aren't ready for them: They are underfunded, over-crowded, and in disrepair. The National Park Service budget has declined almost 20 percent in the last 25 years, while the park system itself has grown in size, number of parks, and number of visitors. Ken Mabery, president of the Association of National Park Rangers, says, "We're running from crisis to crisis."
And the evidence is on his side: Wyoming's Yellowstone has had to turn away 60 percent of school tours because of lack of staff; the visitor center at Death Valley in California is in such bad shape that part of its roof fell in, injuring a visitor; and the roads in Montana's Glacier National Park need more money than exists in the
entire national park budget for road repairs. Meanwhile, Arizona's Grand Canyon is facing such a budget crunch that it has no geologist on staff, no way to solve its terrible traffic problem, and, most alarmingly, not enough employees to adequately protect the famed ecosystem.
Source: Grist Magazine/Arizona Republic
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Some Companies Exploiting the Term "Organic."
With eco-friendly marketing all the rage, companies are increasingly exploiting the term "organic" to sell their products -- regardless of how good those products are for consumers or for the environment. That's especially true when it comes to soaps, shampoos, conditioners, scrubs, lotions and the like, whose labeling practices (unlike those of food products) aren't regulated by any government or independent agency. Some of the products hawked as organic contain petroleum derivatives and other synthetic or chemical compounds;
these substances, which are prohibited in organic foods and frowned upon by environmental and health advocates, can be absorbed into your system via scalp, skin, or hair. That doesn't stop Avalon, Jason Natural Cosmetics, Kiss My Face, Nature's Gate, and other companies from continuing to tout the virtues of their "organic" wares. So caveat emptor: A shampoo billing itself as "80 percent organic" could contain 80 percent water -- and 20 percent synthetic detergents and preservatives.
Source: Grist Magazine/New York Times
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Pennsylvania State University's New Recycling Program
Pennsylvania State University has undertaken a massive new recycling program -- not for paper or plastics or food waste, but for the mammoth piles of stuff that students leave behind at the end of every school year, from sneakers to TVs to sofas. The end-of-term junk problem grew into a major headache on U.S. campuses during the 1990s, as students brought more and more stuff with them to school. Many colleges and universities just toss the left-behind items into dumpsters, but Albert Matyasovsky of Penn State couldn't bear to see
all those useful goods sent to landfills, so last year he funneled the detritus to the campus stadium for a massive flea market. This "trash-to-treasure" sale raised $15,000 for United Way and is now set to become an annual event. Other colleges are partnering with a Massachusetts nonprofit called Dump and Run that helps them set up a system for collecting student castoffs, selling them, and channeling the proceeds toward nonprofits.
Source: Grist Magazine/Christian Science Monitor
Check out the Dump and Run Website
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UPS and FedEx Convert to More Environmentally-friendly Trucks
United Parcel Service, the world's largest package-delivery company, announced yesterday that it will put a DaimlerChrysler fuel-cell car into service later this year in Ann Arbor, Mich., making UPS the first U.S. company to integrate fuel-cell technology into its commercial fleet. One or more fuel-cell vans will start delivering UPS packages in 2004.
Not to be outdone, FedEx today unveiled plans to incorporate 20 diesel-electric hybrid trucks into its delivery
fleet, part of a pilot project developed in cooperation with Environmental Defense. If the project goes well, FedEx may convert all 30,000 of its delivery trucks to hybrids over the next 10 years. Compared to the trucks the company currently uses, the hybrid models increase fuel economy by 50 percent, reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 75 percent, and cut particulate emissions by 90 percent, FedEx officials said.
Source: Grist Magazine/Memphis Commercial Appeal/Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Outgoing EPA chief sees fault in key Bush policies
President ‘hurt’ by the way some decisions weren’t explained ‘well enough,’ Whitman tells NBC
May 22 — A day after announcing she was resigning, Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman told NBC News on Thursday that while she didn’t disagree with controversial environmental reversals by President Bush she did disagree with “the way we did it.” The White House has not indicated who the president might nominate for the job, but initial speculation focused on two people: a brother-in-law of White House chief-of-staff Andrew Card, and a former aide to Vice President Cheney.
WHITMAN TOLD NBC’s “Today” show that she was leaving simply because she wanted to spend more time with her husband and that she had no real philosophical differences with the president.
Instead, she said, “It was things like ... when we got out of Kyoto” — the U.N.-backed climate change treaty — soon after Bush took office in 2001. “I didn’t disagree with the president, it was the way we did it.”
“We should have laid out the fact that we weren’t walking away from a commitment to addressing climate change,” she added. “Instead we just sort of said, ‘We’re not doing Kyoto,’” angering European allies.
“That was always the issue that we were fighting back” in Europe, she said.
Whitman, who became EPA chief after two terms as New Jersey’s governor, said she was also caught off guard by the president’s decision to reverse a campaign pledge for mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide. Many scientists fear that manmade emissions of the gas are significantly contributing to a warming of the Earth.
“It caught me by surprise, that one,” she said, emphasizing however that she understood the president had to look at the bigger energy picture and how mandatory cuts would have hurt coal production, thereby forcing the country to import more oil.
There too, she said, “we didn’t lay out well enough what the thinking was.”
“You need to say, ‘This is why I have changed my mind. It’s not just because I woke up one day and said carbon is not a good idea’.”
“The two (policies) combined,” she added, “have hurt him unfairly... there’s a very good case to be made for both.”
ENVIRONMENTALISTS REACT
In her resignation letter, Whitman says she’ll step down on June 27 and highlights what she considers the administration’s chief accomplishments in protecting the environment. “Our work has been guided by the strong belief that environmental protection and economic prosperity can and must go hand-in-hand,” she wrote.
However, many of those policies have been attacked by environmentalists as rollbacks in protecting the nation’s air, water and land.
Environmentalists took advantage of Whitman’s resignation to take another stab at the Bush administration.
“No EPA administrator has ever been so consistently and publicly humiliated by the White House,” Phil Clapp, head of the National Environmental Trust, said in a statement.
“Even though Gov. Whitman achieved two important victories — cleaning up the PCBs in the Hudson River and starting a process to reduce diesel emissions — the White House listened more often to industry lobbyists than to its EPA administrator,” Clapp said.
WHO NEXT?
Speculation about who Whitman’s replacement might be began almost immediately.
A nominee seen as hostile by environmental groups could alienate swing voters when the president runs for re-election in 2004. Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, could become bitter if they feel a nominee is soft.
Two names floated so far as possible successors are:
David Struhs, head of Florida’s environmental protection department and a brother-in-law Andrew Card. Struhs’ philosophy — “more environmental protection with less process” — reflects the president’s thinking.
“Government can increase protection of Florida’s air, water and land, while reducing the time, cost and paperwork of environmental management and regulation,” Struhs says on the Florida agency’s Web site.
Struhs was head of Massachusetts’ environmental agency from 1995 to 1999.
Josephine Cooper, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney when he was a Wyoming congressman.
The trade group has long been at odds with environmentalists and Democrats who want tighter mileage requirements on cars as a way to reduce smog as well as dependence on foreign oil.
The alliance says consumers have already voted by choosing to buy large, less fuel-efficient cars even when smaller, higher-mileage cars are available.
From 1992 to 1999, Cooper was a vice president with the American Forest & Paper Association. She earlier worked at the EPA in external affairs and as a liaison with Congress.
Whitman’s resignation follows that of White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who said Monday that he would step down in July.
Fleischer noted that, with the president gearing up for a re-election campaign, now is the time to either recommit or step down.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: MSNBC News
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Birth Control Pills Reduce the Fertility of Male Rainbow Trout
Birth control pills aren't just having an effect on human reproduction: They're dramatically reducing the fertility of male rainbow trout as well, according to a study by scientists in Washington state. In the study, adult captive trout were exposed to synthetic estrogen for two months, then spawned with a healthy female. Synthetic estrogen, which is commonly found in oral contraceptives, has been found in waterways across the country; the study found that exposure to it cut male trout fertility in half. Even the lowest exposure level -- 80 times lower than concentrations found in the wild -- had an adverse effect on fertility. The findings add to an ongoing debate about the effect of hormone-mimicking pharmaceuticals and pesticides that seep into sewage and wastewater. Currently, there are no regulations governing the release of such substances.
Source: Grist Magazine / Seattle Post-Intelligencer (June 4, 2003)
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McDonald's Tells Meat Suppliers Worldwide to Phase Out Routine Use of Antibiotics in Animals
CHICAGO June 19 - McDonald's Corp. said Thursday it is directing its meat suppliers worldwide to phase out the routine use of antibiotics in animals, responding to concerns that they lessen the drugs' effectiveness for humans.
The new policy was announced jointly with a coalition of environmental and other groups that have been consulting with the fast-food giant on the changes for nearly a year.
McDonald's, one of the nation's largest meat purchasers, is prohibiting its direct suppliers from using medically important antibiotics as growth promoters in food animals after 2004.
Direct suppliers, which supply 70 percent of its poultry, will be asked to submit an annual self-certification, testifying that they are complying with the policy.
McDonald's said the new policy also will be encouraged for indirect suppliers, which provide its beef and pork.
The company said incentives will be offered for compliance with the policy and other actions that might reduce the potential for antibiotic resistance. Indirect suppliers seeking preferred status by the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company will have to certify compliance and maintain records of their antibiotic use.
The new policy does not prohibit the use of antibiotics to treat sick animals.
"As a company committed to social responsibility, we take seriously our obligation to understand the emerging science of antibiotic resistance and to work with our suppliers to foster real, tangible changes in our own supply community and hopefully beyond," said Frank Muschetto, a McDonald's senior vice president.
"McDonald's is asking producers that supply over 2.5 billion pounds of chicken, beef and pork annually to take actions that will ultimately help protect public health," Muschetto said.
Environmental Defense, one of the main groups involved in the coalition, and other organizations said they hope the policy will mark a turning point in the way U.S. farmers raise animals.
"McDonald's new policy demonstrates that reducing antibiotic use is both feasible and affordable," said Gwen Ruta, the advocacy group's program director. "Now Environmental Defense calls on other purchasers of pork, beef and poultry to adopt similar policies and send a strong message to meat producers that the use of antibiotics must be curbed."
Consumer and public health advocates and activist groups have been targeting fast-food chains to try to reduce what they say is the overuse of antibiotics in meat production. The concern is that feeding antibiotics to cows, pigs and chickens so they'll grow bigger and more rapidly weakens the effect of antibiotics used in human medicine.
The Coalition for Animal Health, comprised of trade groups representing the animal production, animal feed and animal health products industries, said McDonald's policy is not based on science and that the products it is asking suppliers not to use have all been proven safe.
It said that in Europe, where the use of antibiotics as growth promoters has been curbed, incidences of disease have risen and antibiotics are being used increasingly to treat those ailments.
"We caution about actions not grounded in science," said spokesman Ron Phillips of the Animal Health Institute, a trade group for the makers of animal drugs. "As Europe is discovering, non-science based policies often have unintended consequences."
Source: ABC News
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Polluted River Covers Brazilian Town with Foam
July 4, 2003
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A river polluted with waste from Brazil's biggest city of Sao Paulo covered the streets of a small colonial town with a thick layer of snow-like foam that emits harmful acidic gas on Friday.
A Town Hall official contacted by Reuters said the foam had been affecting Pirapora do Bom Jesus for about a month, but a clogged clear-water channel made the foam levels rise especially high, blocking bridges across the river Tiete which runs through the town and nearby streets.
"It is all a dreadful consequence of Sao Paulo city's pollution," said Mare Brasilio, a Town Hall spokeswoman. "The sulphydric gas caused by the foam provokes respiratory problems among children and elderly people."
Globo Television showed footage of cars being unable to cross the bridges early in the morning, and a bus forcing its way through the white foam that practically covered its body.
The foam lay in private courtyards and was blowing in the wind like snow, sticking to the roofs and television antennas.
The Sao Paulo state governor traveled to the city to discuss how to solve the problem, which apparently derived from interaction between Tiete water, polluted with human and industrial waste, and the water from the local reservoir.
Source: Yahoo News
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Three Companies Oppose Forest Proposal
August 25, 2003
BOSTON - Building companies KB Home and Hayward Lumber, as well as office supply chain Staples Inc. — all major consumers of wood products — have lined up with environmental groups trying to protect Alaskan forests.
The three companies have sent letters to the U.S. Forest Service opposing a proposal that would exempt Alaska's Tongass and Chugach National Forests from a nationwide prohibition against road building in national forests.
Environmental groups have targeted a number of companies that are major consumers or wood products as pressure points as they campaign for stronger forest protections. All three of the companies have worked with environmental groups to establish policies that reduce their consumption of so-called virgin forests such as the Tongass, America's largest national forest.
According to the Forest Service, the proposal would allow some development on 300,000 acres, or slightly more than 3 percent of the 9.3 million roadless acres in Tongass. The parcel would amount to 0.5 percent of total roadless acres nationwide.
"The homebuilding industry and similar industries do not need wood from Tongass," Andrew Henderson, director of public and government relations for Los Angeles-based KB, wrote in a letter dated Aug. 5. "It is one of the last few remaining wild places in our nation."
The Forest Service extended the comment period on the proposal until Aug. 14. Spokesman Joe Walsh said he could not discuss individual comments but said "it's part of the process. We encourage people to use the comment process."
The logging and road-building ban was proposed under former President Clinton but the Bush administration wants to exempt portions of the Tongass and Chugach.
"It's the largest temperate rain forest left," said Craig Noble, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has worked with the companies. "It has a lot of old growth, it's habitat for grizzles, bald eagles, a wide variety of wildlife. It's really one of the wildest, most diverse forest ecosystems left in North America."
Monterey, Calif.-based Hayward, which identifies itself as one of the 75 largest building supply companies in the country with $120 million in sales, said its location in California makes it "acutely aware of the ongoing costs of poor decision making in forestry issues," according to the Aug. 8 letter from Steven Brauneis, the company's director of sustainability.
Source: Yahoo News
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Largest ever study finds GM crops 'harm wildlife'
By John Mason and Clive Cookson in London
The world's biggest scientific experiment into the environmental impact of genetically-modified crops, conducted on British farms, has shown that GM rapeseed and sugar beet are more harmful to wildlife than conventionally grown plants.
The results, published on Thursday by the Royal Society, are vital for helping ministers in Britain and other European countries in deciding whether to lift their ban on the crops and approve the commercialisation of GM technology despite consumer opposition.
However, the trials yielded a mixed message, with some groups of wildlife faring better in fields sown with genetically modified, herbicide-tolerant maize.
Scientists unveiling the results at the Science Centre in London said some insect groups, such as bees in beet crops and butterflies in beet and spring rape, were recorded more frequently in and around conventional crops because there were more weeds to provide food and cover.
In contrast, there were more weeds in and around the GM herbicide-tolerant maize crops, more butterflies and bees around at certain times of the year, and more weed seeds - an important source of food for birds.
Researchers stressed that the differences they found were not a direct result of the way in which the crops had been genetically modified. They arose because the GM crops gave farmers taking part in the trials new options for weed control.
Responding to the results, Margaret Beckett, environment secretary, said the government would reflect carefully on both the scientific information and a public debate held around the country in the summer.
"I have said consistently that the Government is neither pro-nor anti-GM crops - our over-riding concern is to protect human health and the environment, and to ensure genuine consumer choice," she added.
Former environment secretary Michael Meacher, who originally launched the trials but has since become a leading critic of GM crops, said the results made a "decisive" case for banning genetically modified sugar beet and rapeseed.
"In the case of the other, clearly fresh trials now need to be undertaken. Until that is done there is no environmental case for allowing GM maize," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
The scientific value of the UK trials has been widely recognised by the biotech industry and GM sceptics, although both sides remain locked in disagreement over their interpretation.
The Agricultural Biotechnology Council, the industry lobbying group, said environmental fears that GM crops would wipe out wildlife were scaremongering. None of the findings supported a ban on GM crops.
Paul Rylott, ABC chairman, said the farm scale evaluations were not "GM on trial" but confirmed that the technology was a tool that could be used in different ways, with different outcomes.
"These results confirm what industry has long argued. The flexibility of GM crops allows them to be grown in a way that benefits the environment...It is now time to move forward with responsible, case by case introduction of GM crops to the UK. British farmers and consumers should enjoy the economic benefits and wider choice that these crops will bring," he said.
Monsanto, the US agrochemicals group, said it remained "absolutely committed" to introducing GM crops in the UK, despite a decision on Wednesday to close much of its European seed breeding headquarters in Cambridge.
"Monsanto's announcement [to close its seed business] doesn't affect GM in any way. They are all conventional crops. Monsanto's GM research is all done in the [United] States," the company said.
The UK trials were carried out over a three-year period using only herbicide-tolerant GM crops, not those bred to be insect-resistant. The conclusions over GM maize may be affected by the proposed European ban on atrazine, the weedkiller, which was used extensively in the experiment.
There are currently no GM crops being grown in the UK and none have been cleared for commercial cultivation. Mrs Beckett said the necessary regulatory approvals could not be granted until next spring at the earliest and would depend on advice from the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment - a statutory advisory body.
Source: Yahoo News, October 16, 2003
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Fish on Prozac? How depressing!
Antidepressant ingredient detected in Texas lake water
DALLAS, Oct. 23 — What could be more peaceful, more restful or more relaxing than dropping a line into a quiet Texas lake and trying to hook a fish that is on Prozac? According to a study by a Baylor University toxicologist, fluoxetine — the active ingredient in the antidepressant Prozac — is making its way to a lake in the Dallas area and into the tissue of the freshwater blue gill fish.
BRYAN BROOKS, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Baylor said the fluoxetine most likely made its way through a waste water treatment plant and into a river that feeds into Lake Lewisville, northwest of Dallas.
Brooks will present his findings next month at a conference of the Geological Society of America in Seattle.
While he has been asked several times about whether fish on Prozac find pleasure in floating aimlessly and no pain when hooked by a fisherman, Brooks said the most important part of his findings are that some pharmaceuticals can make their way through water treatment plants and back into waterways.
Brooks said the fluoxetine, and a metabolized compound similar to it, most likely made their way into the water systems from the urine of users or through people flushing Prozac down the toilet. The waste water facility was not equipped to remove the compounds, which then made their way into the blue gills, and perhaps other aquatic life.
“If we release something in the environment, we need to understand what will happen to it,” Brooks said.
Brooks said his findings lead to a bevy of other questions: How many pharmaceuticals can escape water treatment? Can these chemicals harm the water supply? How widespread is the problem? What long-term health effects might these pharmaceuticals have on aquatic life and humans?
But, unfortunately, the nonscientific community seems to be more interested in the idea of fish on Prozac.
Brooks said the exposure of the fish to fluoxetine is below therapeutic levels. He is studying how current exposure might affect the ability of the fish to find food, fight off predators and find a mate.
And if the blue gills were exposed to enough of the antidepressant, the drug would likely have similar effects in the fish that it does in humans.
“They would be happy fish,” Brooks said.
Source: MSNBC News
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NASA: Arctic ice cap melting at worrying rate
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The polar ice cap is melting at an alarming rate due to global warming (news - web sites), according to NASA (news - web sites) scientists, with satellite images showing the ice cap has been shrinking by 10 percent per decade over the past quarter century.
"It is happening now. We cannot afford to wait a long period of time for technological solutions," said David Rind of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
"Change is in the air -- literally," he told a press conference here Thursday.
By means of a special satellite launched last year to measure the thickness of the polar ice cap, NASA has confirmed that part of the Arctic Ocean that remains frozen all year round shrank at a rate of 10 percent per decade since 1980, NASA researcher Josefino Comiso said.
"The extent of Arctic sea ice that remains frozen all year reached record lows in 2002 and 2003," he added.
The polar ice cap expands in winter and contracts in spring and summer. The part of the ice cap that never melts, even in the warmest summers, is called the "perennial sea ice."
The oceans and land masses surrounding the Arctic Ocean have warmed one degree Celsius (two degrees Fahrenheit) during the past decade, scientists said.
Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are worried because global warming speeds up as the ice cap melts, forming a vicious cycle.
"Snow and sea-ice are highly reflective because they are white," Comiso said.
"Most of the sun's energy is simply reflected back to space. With retraction of the ice cover, that means that less of surface is covered by this highly reflective snow and sea ice, and so more energy has been absorbed and the climate warms."
The warming trend has brought spectacular consequences. US and Canadian scientists reported in September that the largest ice shelf in the Arctic off Canada's coast has broken up due to climate change and could endanger shipping and drilling platforms in the Beaufort Sea.
The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf had been in place on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory for at least 3,000 years.
"Small changes in ice could mean big impacts on the water cycle and ultimately the global climate," warned NASA.
The changes could alter ocean currents, the distribution of fish populations and precipitation averages over a wide area.
"One activity in the north is hunting of marine animals using sea-ice as a platform. When sea-ice retreats, it affects the communities up there," said University of Washington oceanographer Michael Seteele.
"The Arctic is changing rapidly. We should be concerned in the sense we need to simply recognize the change is here, is occurring and we may have to adapt to it," University of Colorado researcher Mark Serreze told reporters.
"Why the increase in global temperature?" he asked.
"Part of this is probably simply due to natural variability in the climate system," he added. "But the general consensus of the climate community is that part these changes are due to human impact."
Source: Yahoo News
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Great Barrier Reef Faces Major Coral Destruction
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's Great Barrier Reef will lose most of its coral cover by 2050 and, at worst, the world's largest coral system could collapse by 2100 because of global warming, a study released on Saturday said.
The study by Queensland University's Center for Marine Studies, commissioned by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, said that the destruction of coral on the Great Barrier Reef was inevitable due to global warming, regardless of what actions were taken now.
"Under the worst-case scenario, coral populations will collapse by 2100 and the re-establishment of coral reefs will be highly unlikely over the following 200-500 years," said the report entitled "Implications of Climate Change for Australia's Great Barrier Reef."
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest living reef formation stretching 2,000 km (1,300 miles) north to south along Australia's northeast coast.
"Only if global average temperature change is kept to below two degrees Celsius can the Reef have any chance of recovering from the predicted damage," the report said.
Coral has a narrow comfort zone and is highly stressed by a temperature rise of less than one degree Celsius.
Water temperature rises of less than one degree coincided with the world's worst recorded coral bleaching episode in 1988. With bleaching, the warmer water forces out the algae that give coral its color and, if all are lost, the coral dies and the reef will crumble. In 1998, 16 percent of the world's coral died, with 46 percent of the Indian Ocean coral destroyed.
Scientists project water temperatures to rise this century by between two and six degrees Celsius.
"There is little to no evidence that corals can adapt fast enough to match even the lower projected temperature rise," said the Australian report.
It said that by 2050 the Great Barrier Reef would annually experience stress levels higher than those witnessed in 1998 and, by 2100, stress levels globally for coral would be several times higher than 1998.
"Coral cover will decrease to less than five percent on most reefs (in the Great Barrier Reef) by the middle of the century under even the most favorable assumptions," said the report.
"Reefs will not disappear but they will be devoid of coral and dominated by other less appealing species, such as seaweed."
The report said that over-fishing and pollution from coastal farms were also contributing to the destruction of coral on the Great Barrier Reef.
It estimated that destruction of the Reef's coral could end up costing the Australian economy A$8 billion ($6.2 billion) and more than 12,000 jobs by 2020.
The Great Barrier Reef supports huge fishing and tourism industries. Even under favorable conditions tourists would only be able to experience real corals in reef "theme parks," it said.
Source: Yahoo News
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