Survey: Latin American and Asian cities lead way in planning for global warming

Quito, Ecuador, is not considered a global leader by most measures. But there is one way in which Quito is at the forefront of metropolises worldwide: in planning for climate change. For more than a decade, officials in Ecuador's mountainous capital have been studying the effects of global warming on nearby melting glaciers, developing ways of dealing with potential water shortages and even organizing conferences on climate change for leaders of other Latin American cities.

In so doing, Quito officials represent a global trend: The cities that are most active in preparing for climate change are not necessarily the biggest or wealthiest. Instead, they are often places buffeted by natural disasters and increasing changes in temperature or rainfall. In places where the climate seems to be a growing threat to human lives, resources and urban infrastructure, local officials have been working with scientists, conducting assessments and examining which new measures may best prepare them for the future.

Indeed, as an MIT survey released today shows, 95 percent of major cities in Latin America are planning for climate change, compared to only 59 percent of such cities in the United States.

Read More:

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-survey-latin-american-asian-cities.html

BP is an Enemy of Academic Freedom: Scientists

Oceanographers Richard Camilli and Christopher Reddy, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have accused oil giant BP of stifling academic freedom and attempting to skew scientific research from the Gulf of Mexico after the massive BP oil spill in 2010.

  This week, the two expressed concern after BP successfully subpoenaed thousands of confidential emails between the two regarding their research on the effects of the spill.

"BP claimed that it needed to better understand our findings because billions of dollars in fines are potentially at stake. So we produced more than 50,000 pages of documents, raw data, reports, and algorithms used in our research — everything BP would need to analyze and confirm our findings. But BP still demanded access to our private communications. Our concern is not simply invasion of privacy, but the erosion of the scientific deliberative process," the two wrote in an article for the Boston Globe.

They fear that the email exchanges, written during the process of research, could be used for deliberate misinterpretation in reports released by BP, the Guardian reports.

"Incomplete thoughts and half-finished documents attached to emails can be taken out of context and impugned by people who have a motive for discrediting the findings. In addition to obscuring true scientific findings, this situation casts a chill over the scientific process. In future crises, scientists may censor or avoid deliberations, and more importantly, be reluctant to volunteer valuable expertise and technology that emergency responders don't possess," the scientists stated.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/05-4

Tom Philpott - Are Our Oceans on a Collision Course?

Back in 2006, a team of scientists from Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Panama published a landmark report [1]in the prestigious journal Science on the state of the oceans. The researchers highlighted what they called an "ongoing erosion of diversity" in sea-life that, if left unchecked, would lead to the "collapse of all taxa currently being fished by the mid-21st century."

Stripped of scientese, what the report described was the real possibility of the ocean as a vast, fetid grey zone, not quite dead but no longer able to provide a significant amount of food to humanity. And not in some unimaginably distant future, but rather in just four short decades, around the time when your aughts-era infant will reach middle age.

When the report dropped, it grabbed attention in the eco-foodie world like a great white shark sunning its dorsal fin in the shallows of a crowded beach. I was just beginning to write about food politics at the time, and the Science study jolted me from my land-locked fixations and opened the ocean as a rich and urgent topic.

Not only do the oceans cover more than two-thirds of the planet, but they're also home to 90 percent of the planet's living biomass. [2] Snuffing out their astonishing biodiversity would have unpredictable consequences for we creatures who dwell on the earth's relatively rare swaths of dry land. Surely, I thought at the time, the Science paper would spark a global push to heal what ails that murky, saline region that surrounds us.

Read More:

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/06/oceans-still-headed-disaster

Anthony Gucciardi - 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

Launching a lawsuit against the very company that is responsible for a farmer suicide every 30 minutes, 5 million farmers are now suing Monsanto for as much as 6.2 billion euros (around 7.7 billion US dollars). The reason? As with many other cases, such as the ones that led certain farming regions to be known as the ‘suicide belt’, Monsanto has been reportedly taxing the farmers to financial shambles with ridiculous royalty charges. The farmers state that Monsanto has been unfairly gathering exorbitant profits each year on a global scale from “renewal” seed harvests, which are crops planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest.

The practice of using renewal seeds dates back to ancient times, but Monsanto seeks to collect massive royalties and put an end to the practice. Why? Because Monsanto owns the very patent to the genetically modified seed, and is charging the farmers not only for the original crops, but the later harvests as well. Eventually, the royalties compound and many farmers begin to struggle with even keeping their farm afloat. It is for this reason that India slammed Monsanto with groundbreaking ‘biopiracy’ charges in an effort to stop Monsanto from ‘patenting life’

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/5-million-farmers-sue-monsanto-77-billion-1338912068

Anne Gordon - A New Allergy, Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity

Imagine if you lived inside your microwave and could see the ubiquitous frequencies bombarding you several times per minute 24/7. You might be horrified. Some people are now claiming that they are getting sick from it. A condition referred to as  'electromagnetic hypersensitivity,’ is a new form of 'environmental allergy.’ This sort of multi-frequency barrage of radiation to living beings, is unprecedented ....and rapidly increasing. Welcome, 'smart’ grid.

The clever marketing word, 'smart’ (meaning digital) may not be smart for health… although it’s making companies very rich.  Cell towers, smart phones, smart appliances, smart cars, may soon be linked to the 'smart’ grid. And, the smart grids, will be linked to mesh networks in neighborhoods.

Smart Grids sound 'green’ promising to save energy, creating new power line corridors that run on wind and solar, etc.  But, before the glory of smart grids can be realized there are unintended health consequences. These complaints are just beginning to manifest world wide.

Read More:

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/new-allergy-electromagnetic-hypersensitivity-info

Stephen Leahy - 24 Policies to End the Earth Emergency

Ecologically ignorant policies are largely responsible for the interlinked crises that are unraveling the planet's life support system.

World Future Council will present an emergency policy agenda consisting of 24 tipping-point policies that need to be implemented globally to preserve a habitable planet. The unintended consequences of such policies are climate change, desertification, biodiversity decline, ocean pollution and the destruction of forests, according to the policy advocacy organisation World Future Council.

The solution is to eliminate "bad" policies and implement policies that ensure a healthy planet for future generations. On World Environment Day, Jun. 5, the World Future Council will present an emergency policy agenda consisting of 24 tipping-point policies that need to be implemented globally to preserve a habitable planet.

"We are in an Earth Emergency. It's an unbelievable crisis. Policies are the most important tool we have to change this," Jakob von Uexkull, founder and chair of the World Future Council (WFC)."We are in an Earth Emergency. It's an unbelievable crisis. Policies are the most important tool we have to change this." --Jakob von Uexkull, founder and chair of the World Future Council (WFC).

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/05?print

Karl Grossman - An 80-Year License to Kill? The NRC's Latest Crazy Idea

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be holding a meeting this week to consider having nuclear power plants run 80 years—although they were never seen as running for more than 40 years because of radioactivity embrittling metal parts and otherwise causing safety problems.

“The idea of keeping these reactors going for 80 years is crazy!” declares Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and former senior policy advisor at the U.S, Department of Energy and a U.S. Senate senior investigator. He is also an author of the book Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation. “To double the design life of these plants—which operate under high-pressure, high heat conditions and are subject to radiation fatigue—is an example of out-of-control hubris, of believing your own lies.”

“In a post-Fukushima world, the NRC has no case to renew life-spans of old, danger-prone nuke plants. Rather, they must be shut down,” says Priscilla Star, director of the Coalition Against Nukes.

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/04/an-80-year-license-to-kill/

John Raymond - Indian Point: Still America’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Plant?

“Shut it down! Shut it down! Shut it down!” rang through the cavernous grand ballroom of the Doubletree Hotel in Tarrytown, NY, last week when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staged an Orwellian charade promoted as an “open house” held to reassure the public that the Indian Point nuclear power plant was, as the New York Post headlined the following day, “Still Safe!”

The NRC’s annual “safety assessment” of the plant, which sits on the Hudson River 30 miles north of New York City, was based on 11,000 hours of ”inspection activities.”  It found that Indian Point performed “within expected regulatory bounds” and the 25 matters that do require attention but “no additional NRC oversight,” are ‘low risk’, or have “very low safety significance.”

“So,” the Post mused, “will this finally silence the ‘shut it down’ crowd? …Don’t hold your breath.”

But do keep your fingers crossed…if you’re one of the 17.5 million people living within 50 miles of the plant…

“The NRC’s annual assessment completely fails to address the public’s primary concerns about Indian Point — evacuation planning, earthquake risk and nuclear waste storage post-Fukushima,” said Phillip Musegaas, a lawyer with Riverkeeper, an environmental group based in Ossining, NY.

Those concerns were addressed in Riverkeeper’s briefing held in the rear of the ballroom prior to the NRC’s hearing that night. Some highlights:

Read More:

HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2012/06/01/INDIAN-POINT-STILL-AMERICAS-MOST-DANGEROUS-NUCLEAR-PLANT/

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho - Green Tea Compound for Radioprotection

Green tea polyphenol antioxidant protects against bystander effects of low dose ionizing radiation that damage cells and cause numerous diseases including cancer.

The recent discovery of bystander effects from low levels of ionizing radiation has thrown risk assessment and radioprotection into disarray [1] (Bystander Effects Multiply Dose and Harm from Ionizing Radiation, SiS 55). However, it has also led to the discovery of potential mitigating measures against exposure to radioactivity, especially from nuclear accidents like Chernobyl (and Fukushima), the devastation health impacts of which are still surfacing 25 years later [2] (Chernobyl Deaths Top a Million Based on Real Evidence. SiS 55).

Ionizing radiation has been known to produce free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS), predominantly by ionizing water, the most abundant molecules in tissues and cells (see [1] for an explanation of ROS). ROS are responsible for oxidative damage to DNA, proteins, and lipids, initiating cell death, genomic instability and other consequences of radiation, both in cells that have been directly targeted, and in bystander cells that have not been irradiated [1]. There is evidence that various antioxidants can protect cells against bystander radiation damages, and new findings published online in Mutation Research appear particularly promising.

Ashu Tiku and Benila Richi at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Roasaheb Kale at Central University of Gujarat in India may have found the ideal antioxidant for radioprotectopm [3].

Read More:

http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2012/05/30/green-tea-compound-for-radioprotection/

Tom Philpott - How California Could Force the Rest of the U.S. to Label GMO Foods

In November, California voters will decide on a ballot initiative that would require labeling of all foods containing ingredients from genetically modified crops. The initiative made it to the ballot after almost 1 million Californians signed a petition in favor of it—nearly double the 504,760 signatures needed under the state's proposition rules. The campaign that organized the push to get the measure on the ballot focused on possible health effects of GMO foods.

This news will not likely be applauded by my friends over at Crop life America, the main trade group of the GM seed/agrichemical industry. The big GMO crops—corn, soy, sugar beets, and cotton—are processed into sweeteners, fats, and additives used widely by the food industry. Everything from high fructose corn syrup-sweetened Coke to soybean oil-containing Hellman’s would have to bear a label reading something like "Contains GMO ingredients."

That would send a shockwave through the food industry—one that could ultimately be felt on the industrial-scale U.S. farms that have been devoting their land to GMO crops for years, and the companies that profit from selling them patented seeds and matching herbicides. The reason isn't just that California represents an imposing chunk of the U.S. food market. It's also that a food-labeling law that starts in California is unlikely to stay in California.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/how-california-could-force-rest-us-label-gmo-foods-1338536857