fanta-sy

Remember a few years back, those awful commericals for Fanta sodas; the ones with the five women and that tune that seemed to stick in your head all the live long day.

Well, I hope you didn’t get sucked into drinking the soda, which is made my Coca-Cola. Here is a great fun fact for you about that drink:

Fizzy drinks sold by Coca-Cola have been found to contain pesticides at up to 300 times the level allowed in tap or bottled water.

A worldwide study found pesticide levels in orange and lemon drinks sold under the Fanta brand, which is popular with children, were the highest.

The chemicals detected included carbendazim, thiabendazole, imazalil, prochloraz, malathion and iprodione. They are mainly applied to fruit after harvest to stop it developing fungal infections and rotting.

A total of 19 products were tested, all made by Coca-Cola. Of course, their spokesperson says the product is safe.

note to the world: it’s over

 

I just read an article about the climate change summit that happened in Poland a few weeks back. I have heard disheartening things, like the United States was useless there. But, THIS, takes the cake.

 

IMAGINE that some huge rocky projectile, big enough to destroy most forms of life, was hurtling towards the earth, and it seemed that deep international co-operation offered the only hope of deflecting the lethal object. Presumably, the nations of the world would set aside all jealousies and ideological hangups, knowing that failure to act together meant doom for all.

At least in theory, most of the world’s governments now accept that climate change, if left unchecked, could become the equivalent of a deadly asteroid. But to judge by the latest, tortuous moves in climate-change diplomacy—at a two-week gathering in western Poland, which ended on December 13th—there is little sign of any mind-concentrating effect.

 

To be fair to the 10,000-odd people (diplomats, UN bureaucrats, NGO types) who assembled in Poznan, a semicolon was removed. At a similar meeting in Bali a year earlier, governments had vowed to consider ways of cutting emissions from “deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation [and forest management]”. After much haggling, delegates in Poland decided to upgrade conservation by replacing the offending punctuation mark with a comma.

The article is from the Economist and is quite good.

first 100 days

Yale e360 is a fantastic site, for those who have never visited it. This week they have gathered some of the best minds to address what Obama should do in his first 100 days.

Although the respondents — including entrepreneur Paul Hawken, Rajendra Pachauri of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, activist Van Jones, and green investing leader Mindy Lubber — represent a broad range of interests, they were largely in agreement on how best to solve the current economic and environmental challenges. Basically, they agree that weaning the country off fossil fuels and onto renewable sources of energy is the single best way to rebuild the U.S. economy; that Obama must use all the tools at his disposal — from invoking the Clean Air Act for regulating greenhouse gas emissions to persuading the new Congress to put a price on carbon — to tackle climate change and spur the move to alternative energy; that under an Obama administration the United States must lead in forging a new global climate change treaty; and that, given the rapidity of global warming, Obama must be made fully aware of the “scary” scientific facts — as environmentalist Bill McKibben puts it — and move with a sense of urgency.

You can go HERE for the full article. It will be interesting to see if he follows any of the advice.

clean coal, part 2

The folks at www.thisisreality.org did it again!

remember: in reality, there is no such thing as clean coal

do you like clean water? then, you better pay attention…

The Colorado River is the water (and power) source for millions of people; it provides power to 3 million homes, waters 15% of our agriculture in the West, and gives one in 12 people something to drink. That is why many are concerned about its sustainability and longevity as a provider. In fact, many do not know this, but one environmental group has called listed it as the “most endangered” waterway.

The reason: the region could contain more oil than Alaska’s Arctic Wildlife Refuge and people want to get at it. And, now.

Rulings under the Bush Administration have not helped, either.

In the eight years George W. Bush has been in office, the Colorado River watershed has seen more oil and gas drilling than at any time in the past 25 years. Uranium claims have reached a 10-year high. Last week the departing administration auctioned off an additional 359,000 acres of federal land for gas drilling projects outside Moab, Utah.

As still more land is leased for drilling and a last-minute change in federal rules has paved the way for water-intensive oil shale mining, politicians and water managers are now being forced to ask which is more valuable: energy or water.

 

“The decisions we are making today will be dictating how we will be living the rest of our lives,” said Jim Pokrandt, a spokesman with the Colorado River Conservation District, a state-run policy agency. “We may have reached mutually exclusive demands on our water supply.”

It is estimated that if all the oil and natural gas drilling that has been requested to be done, were in fact, done, the annual demand would be the equivalent of shutting off the water to all of Southern California for five days. Oil shale drilling is the equivalent of 79 days.

And then there is a question of contamination. The major mining companies claim that they adhere to the EPA guidelines, but those guidelines are getting less strict every day. Add on top of that, Uranium mining, and there is the potential of radioactive material infecting our water supply.

Scientists say some degree of pollution is inevitable, because mining sometimes uses toxic chemicals like cyanide. It also exposes naturally toxic metals that would otherwise remain deep underground.

Drilling for uranium creates pathways where raw, radioactive material can migrate into underground aquifers that drain into the river. Surface water can seep into the drill holes and mine shafts, picking up traces of uranium and then percolating into underground water sources. The milling process itself creates six pounds of radioactive and toxic waste — including ammonia, arsenic, lead and mercury — for every ounce of uranium production.

So, this has become a question of competition: food and water for the citizenry or lack of dependency on foreign oil. Not to put too much pressure on the Obama Adminsistration, but many are looking to them to undo the leniency allowed by his predecessor and to come up with a happy medium between the two.

The full article can be found at ProPublica.

weekend roundup

A listing of interesting articles, then I did not give expanded coverage.

GMO, article 1:
GMO Job: Will the Obama administration be the first to seriously regulate genetically modified food?, via Grist.org

On the heels of a report out of Germany, emphatically concludes that awidely used strain of GM corn appears to decrease both birthrates and the size of offspring in mice — and the problems seem to grow with each generation, Grist investigates if Obama will stop the GMO legacy. Given whom he just appointed to Secretary of Agriculture, and the fact that he has the hands of some Monsanto executives in his pockets, I am going to say: probably not.

GMO article #2:
Seeds of doubt: Rules for bioengineered crops need close monitoring

To create genetically modified crops, scientists swap the genes from one microorganism or plant to another plant, in combinations that could never occur naturally. The result might be corn immune to weedkillers; cotton that automatically fends off pests; even “pharma-plants” that are tiny, green laboratories for cultivating powerful medicines.

It’s easy to see how genetically modified crops might solve a range of ancient problems.

 

The problem is not that genetically modified crops are in some way “unnatural” — few plants are as unnatural as domesticated corn or wheat, which require intensive human effort to grow at all.

GMO article #3:
Monsanto Funds Groups to Improve Mississippi River Water

With a $5 million contribution from the St. Louis-based Monsanto corporation, The Nature Conservancy, the Iowa Soybean Association and Delta Wildlife will work with farmers to remove nutrients and sediment from agricultural runoff in the Mississippi River Basin.

“Our goal is to use science – research and data – to systematically develop and implement a suite of management techniques that help production agriculture measurably improve stewardship while maintaining or increasing profitability,” Wolf said.

another food one:
Multitasking canola: A California miracle crop?

Farmers, water managers and agriculture researchers are closely watching an experiment using canola plants to absorb the salt from soil and water. The seeds are then crushed to extract oil for blending into environmentally friendly biodiesel.

“It’s all part of what we have to try to do here to turn a profit,” said Diener, who also grows almonds, tomatoes, grapes and corn on 5,000 acres.

santa’s foreclosure

The arctic is melting faster than anyone expected. And, while scientists agree that summer ice will disappear, they cannot agree on when that will happen.

US researchers claim to have found evidence that accelerated melting has crossed a “tipping point” from which there is no going back.

The amount of summer ice at the North Pole has steadily declined since 1979, according to satellite images. Computer models predict that this trend will continue, leaving the Arctic completely ice-free during the summers as early as 2030.

Of the many issues that will arise with arctic melting, the one with the most concern is the subsequent release of methane gas. The problem at hand: methane has 21 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. And, while it has a half life that is shorter than CO2, the damage may well be greater. Because of its ability to trap heat, it has a greater impact for a small amount of time, compared to CO2′s lesser impact over a large amount of time.

In any case, the arctic melting cannot be good. Due to current conditions in the world, we have had a 150% increase in methane in the last 200 years and accounts for 20% of the mixed greenhouse gases.

Article is HERE. You can find out more information about methane, HERE.

i think i beg to differ

In an exit interview with Fox News, President Bush said that he “didn’t compromise his soul” during his administration. I know that this is going to ruffle some feathers, but I ask, what kind of person has a soul that has no issues with destroying nature and the people he is supposed to ‘lead’?

In the next month we are going to see countless examples as midnight rulings take affect under this administration. Of the 50 or so rulings expected, 36 of them directly affect the well being of our citizenry, either in aiding the destruction of our planet or in the allowance of toxins into our environment, affecting our health.

In another move that solidifies the Bush policy into the American public, it seems the EPA is undergoing a reorganization.

According to an employee of the ORD (EPA’s, Office of Research and Development) — who asked to remain anonymous to avoid reprisals — a department-wide staff meeting on 18 December reiterated plans mooted in recent months, including abandoning many small projects led by a single principal investigator (PI) in favour of broad, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary projects. It is not yet clear when these changes will take place.

The move is seen by many scientists not as sensible streamlining, but rather as an attempt to push through Bush administration objectives before the keys to the White House are passed to Obama.

ORD labs are in 13 locations around the United States and employ 1,900 people, including support staff. Much of their research focuses on the environment, human health and risk of exposure to pollutants.

I will leave it to you to make your own opinions about the move. Maybe, we should trust the EPA when they say that this is just a standard re-organization. Maybe we should look at the type of people who will lose their jobs in January 20th when Obama takes over and wonder what their motives may be. I do think it is very interesting timing.

The whole article is HERE.

someone has been spreading rumors

 

There are some myths out there about climate change, global warming, and “green” stuff, in general. TreeHugger has a great article dispelling some of those myths. HERE is the article. Below I have some summaries.

 

Myth #1: Genetically Modified Crops Have Higher Crop Yields and Help Reduce Poverty

Don’t believe the hype.

“The majority of GM crops are not destined for hungry people in developing countries, but are used to feed animals, generate biofuels, and produce highly processed food products–-mainly for consumption in rich countries. GM crops have not increased food security for the world’s poor. None of the GM crops on the market are modified for increased yield potential and research continues to focus on new pesticide-promoting varieties that tolerate application of one or more herbicides.”

Myth #2: Clean Coal Technology Will Solve the Coal Pollution Problem

“Historically, coal combustion wastes rarely exhibit the characteristics of hazardous waste. However, if coal burning utilities and the so-called “clean coal plants” were required to meet air emissions standards protective of human health, fly ash produced by them could be regulated as hazardous waste due to the elevated levels of mercury that would result. We might suppose that any fly ash with hazardous characteristics due to heavy metal content would have to be sent to special and expensive waste fills or be treated at great cost.”

Myth #3: Developing Nations Need to Stop Having Babies

“…for those of us living in conditions of comparative material luxury, it’s all too easy to point the finger elsewhere and mutter something like ‘why can’t they just stop having babies.’ However, when you consider per capita natural resource consumption and environmental impact the problem is more complicated. Just consider this one statistic: Over the course of a lifetime, a baby born in the UK will produce 160 times the carbon emissions of an Ethiopian baby. Then this one: According to data gathered by Global Footprint Network the 972 million people living in high income countries have double the total ecological footprint of the 5.4 billion people living in middle and low income countries.”

Myth #4: Wind Turbines Are a Serious Threat to Birds

more birds are killed annually by colliding with moving vehicles, flying into windows or by cats kept as house pets than by modern wind turbines. There are genuine environmental, visual, and social issues regarding where wind farms get built but it is patently false that wind turbines are a serious threat to flying birds.

Myth #5: Small Green Steps Won’t Make a Big Difference

This is probably the most important one, because this is the one that you and I will do on a daily basis.

More than (the genuine) positive environmental changes they can bring, advocating small changes is about this: Getting people to start thinking more acutely about the ecological impact of their actions, their consumer purchases and what they put into their bodies. Once this increased awareness has been ingrained then people will more easily and naturally move on to greater changes in the way they live their lives–and have an even greater impact on creating an ecologically sustainable society.

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