Environmental News

Err, I need filler here.

UC Berkeley Estimates Cost of Ecocide
A study at UC Berkeley attempts to document the extent of yet another way that rich countries bone poorer ones.

UC Berkeley researchers report that environmental damage caused by rich nations affects poor nations so much, it costs them more than their combined foreign debt.

The study examined the impacts of the expansion of agriculture, deforestation, overfishing, loss of swamps and ozone completion from 1961 to 2000.

When all these impacts are added up, the portion of the footprint of high-income nations falling on low-income countries is greater than their entire financial debt, or about $1.8 trillion, according to lead researcher Thara Srinivasan.

Well, this is no big surprise. We raise the seas, they drown in them.

Source: NBC 11

Alaskans and Energy
Well, despite having enormous energy reserves and giving the Big Oil lobby everything they've ever asked for, Alaska is running out of natural gas.

Well, not actually. They still have tons. They just planned so poorly that they can't access it... and have no other way to heat their homes.

Kenai, Alaska - On the shore of Cook Inlet, site of Alaska's oldest oil- and gas-producing basin, the Agrium Inc. fertilizer plant for four decades produced a steady supply of urea and ammonia for international agricultural and industrial clients. Agrium's exports supported a prosperous petrochemical business, employing hundreds and bolstering local tax rolls.

But operations ceased in December. The reason? Lack of natural gas, the feedstock for Agrium's products. Despite its perch atop a petroleum basin, Agrium couldn't secure enough natural gas to stay in business.

Agrium's woes symbolize a larger energy dilemma: Raw resources are in the ground, but lack of infrastructure and poor economies of scale hinder access to them, putting Alaska in an energy crunch.

Of course, this lack of planning is being used as an excuse to give even more land to Big Oil... so they can misuse even MORE resources.

Natural gas at the North Slope – America's largest known but untapped conventional natural-gas supply – is 700 miles away and unavailable. There's no pipeline to convey North Slope natural gas to consumers, in or out of Alaska.

Boy, I'm glad the good citizens of Alaska have been so responsible with all that oil revenue their state has gotten over the years, building up a robust energy infrastructure and diversified economy for when the fossil fuels run out... oh wait.

Not so much.

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Nuclear Water Woes
Speaking of poor planning, remember how Republicans like to talk about nuclear power being green and eco-friendly, renewable power? A long-term solution?

Not so much. At least not the way America runs the show.

Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

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An Associated Press analysis of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors found that 24 are in areas experiencing the most severe levels of drought. All but two are built on the shores of lakes and rivers and rely on submerged intake pipes to draw billions of gallons of water for use in cooling and condensing steam after it has turned the plants' turbines.

Because of the yearlong dry spell gripping the region, the water levels on those lakes and rivers are getting close to the minimums set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Over the next several months, the water could drop below the intake pipes altogether. Or the shallow water could become too hot under the sun to use as coolant.

Oops. Naturally many of these are in the South, of course.

An estimated 3 million customers of the four commercial utilities with reactors in the drought zone get their power from nuclear energy. Also, the quasi-governmental Tennessee Valley Authority, which sells electricity to 8.7 million people in seven states through a network of distributors, generates 30 percent of its power at nuclear plants.

While rain and some snow fell recently, water levels across the region are still well below normal. Most of the severely affected area would need more than a foot of rain in the next three months — an unusually large amount — to ease the drought and relieve pressure on the nuclear plants. And the long-term forecast calls for more dry weather.

Once again... oops.

Source: Raw Story

Gharials, or Indian Crocodiles
So it seems like the one clean river in India is still wiping out the local wildlife... as it's too close to one of the many, err, less clean ones.

LUCKNOW, India (AP) -- Conservationists and scientists scrambled Tuesday to determine what has killed at least 50 critically endangered crocodile-like reptiles in recent weeks in a river sanctuary in central India.

Conservationists believe there are only about 1,500 gharials left in the wild.

Everything from parasites to pollution has been blamed for the deaths of the gharials -- massive reptiles that look like their crocodile relatives, but with long slender snouts.

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Others believe the gharials may have died after eating contaminated fish from the polluted Yamuna river, which joins the Chambal in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Pathological tests confirmed lead and cadmium in the bodies of the dead gharials, said Suman, the wildlife official.

So much for the theory that you can save one tiny piece of the environment, I suppose.

Source: CNN.com

Biofuels Toast the Environment
Already raising the cost of silly things like, you know, food, in the United States, biofuels are beginning to have a devastating toll on the developing world as well.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

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Foremost among the concerns is increased competition for agricultural land, which Suzuki warned has already caused a rise in corn prices in the United States and Mexico and could lead to food shortages in developing countries.

She also said China and India could face worsening water shortages because biofuels require large amounts of water, while forests in Indonesia and Malaysia could face threats from the expansion of palm oil plantations.

"Particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, land availability is a critical issue," Suzuki said. "There are clear comparative advantages for tropical and subtropical countries in growing biofuel feed stocks but it is often these same countries in which resource and land rights of vulnerable groups and protected forests are weakest."

Initially, biofuels were held up as a panacea for countries struggling to cope with the rising cost of oil or those looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union, for example, plans to replace 10 percent of transport fuel with biofuels made from energy crops such as sugar cane and rapeseed oil by 2020.

But in recent months, scientists, private agencies and even the British government have said biofuels could do more harm than good. Rather than protecting the environment, they say energy crops destroy natural forests that actually store carbon and thus are a key tool in the fight to reduce global warming.

Well, there you go. Water depletion, deforestation, pricier food.

This is of course due to the poro management as much as anything else. There are promising biofuel technologies, like cellulose-ethanol, but for the most part they're still some time off.

Source: CNN.com

Ecology and Trade
The United States is running into a bit of hassle advancing its agribusiness agenda in the EU, where they have their own ideas about things like GM food and climate-change.

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab warned Europe on Monday against using environmental issues as an excuse for protectionism amid disputes ranging from biotechnology to greenhouse gas emissions.

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Washington and Brussels have frequently clashed over environmentally related issues ranging from hormones in US beef to proposed EU quotas on air transport emissions.

Adding fuel to the fire, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called in October for a European levy on imports from countries outside the Kyoto Protocol, which include the United States.

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Among the recent environmental thorns in their trade relations, the EU and the United states are struggling to overcome differences over genetically modified organisms.

While the United States has suspended its World Trade Organisation right to retaliate in a WTO case against the EU over GMOs, Schwab attacked European resistance to such products as being scientifically unfounded.

Because god knows the Bush administration always uses sound science.

Source: Raw Story http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_warns_EU_against_using_environme_01212008.html

Pot Calling Kettle

The Scottish Government is considering asking the United States to rethink its ban on haggis imports.

Imports of Scotland's iconic dish were banned by the US in 1989 in the wake of the BSE scare because it contains offal ingredients such as sheep lungs.

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A spokesman for the US Department of Agriculture said: "We do not allow importation because of the UK's BSE status."

Nevermind that the US has its own serious mad-cow problem.

Source: BBC News

Miami Ecosystem
So Miami seems to be having a bit of an issue with a literal mountain of trash.

COCONUT CREEK - City leaders are protesting Waste Management's request to make an unsavory tower of refuse even higher.

The company wants to extend the landfill commonly dubbed Mount Trashmore from 225 feet to 280 feet. Its application is pending before Broward County officials, but if politicians in nearby cities have their way, Waste Management's plan will go nowhere.

Complaining about bad smells and eyesores in MIAMI?

Man, you'd think they'd be used to it by now.

Source: Sun Sentinel