The Stimulus Package and Green Jobs

If it’s a U.S. industry that has the potential to be cleaner and greener, chances are the Obama administration has already set aside some stimulus money for it. In February 2009, the new president signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Besides creating jobs, the bill promises to spur American companies to greener heights through investments totaling over $75 billion. According to Environment America, a federation of state-based environmental advocacy groups, the stimulus package includes $32.8 billion for clean energy projects, $26.86 billion for energy efficiency initiatives and $18.95 billion for green transportation. Some of the key green features of the bill include accelerating the deployment of “smart grid” technology (systems of routing power in ways that optimize energy-efficiency), providing energy efficiency funds for schools, offering support for governors and mayors to beef up energy efficiency in private homes and public buildings, and establishing a new loan guarantee program to help renewable energy producers survive in down economic times. With the private capital and credit so tight due to the recession, this influx of federal support is vital to help the still fledgling green energy and transportation sectors stay afloat. And most economists agree that it makes good sense to steer away from finite foreign oil toward homegrown renewable energy. Obama has promised the creation of some 500,000 jobs in the nation’s burgeoning clean energy sector alone. “The central facts here are irrefutable: Spending the same amount of money on building a clean energy economy will create three times more jobs within the U.S. than would spending on our existing fossil fuel infrastructure,” writes University of Massachusetts economist Robert Pollin in The Nation. “The transformation to a clean energy economy can therefore serve as a major long-term engine of job creation.” Wind turbine engineers, insulation installers, recycling sorters and photovoltaic cell salespeople—along with the businesspersons behind them—can all look forward to bright and potentially lucrative futures. This view is shared by the Solar Energy Industries Association, which predicts that the stimulus will help create some 119,000 jobs in the American solar sector alone before the end of 2010. Employers from solar cell manufacturers to green building materials retailers to wind farm maintenance firms to recycling haulers to energy auditors will likewise be looking to swell their ranks of employees with relevant skills. The federal government itself is also in on the recovery effort beyond doling out the money. According to the official Recovery Act website, the General Services Administration’s Public Building Service will invest $5.55 billion in federal building projects, “including $4.5 billion to transform federal facilities into exemplary high-performance green buildings, $750 million to renovate and construct new federal offices and courthouses, and $300 million to construct and renovate border stations.” About $1 billion worth of projects will be undertaken—a boon for everyone in the building industry, including construction workers, electricians, plumbers, air conditioning mechanics, carpenters, architects and engineers.

A green car nation

'Cash for Clunkers" won't single-handedly save the environment, rescue the beleaguered auto industry, or spare consumers from financial distress.
But the new $1 billion federal program promises a little help in all three areas, a bit of political symbiosis that explains why the plan motored through Congress three weeks ago on the back of an Iraq war-funding bill.
Once it gets rolling later this month, the program will offer incentives of $3,500 or $4,500 to those who buy or lease a more energy-efficient new vehicle. The goal is to get people to trade in a qualifying gas-guzzler - car, SUV, or light truck - for a comparable vehicle that gets substantially more miles per gallon.
The program's narrow focus has drawn criticism. Still, lawmakers are hopeful that it will make a small dent in energy use and pollution, as well as jump-start depressed auto sales. Without it, automakers are on pace to sell just 10 million new vehicles in the United States this year - down dramatically from 16 million in 2007 and 13 million in 2008, according to Edmunds.com, which compiles data on the industry.
One limitation is the window of opportunity. Although the rebates theoretically became available Wednesday, they are unlikely to spur sales until final procedures are announced, probably around July 24. Until then, car dealers could be on the hook if they credit buyers with incentives and are unable to collect from the government.
At the other end, the program expires Nov. 1 - or whenever the money runs out. Given that its backers initially proposed spending $4 billion to promote the purchase of a million vehicles, and that a similar program boosted Germany's car sales 40 percent in May, the spigot could run dry before November.
Of course, Congress might relent and extend the program. And meanwhile, the funding cap may help by pushing fence-sitters to act. Area dealers say Cash for Clunkers already has captured buyers' attention and may even be dampening sales as vehicle-shoppers await the help.
"We're having customers come in and ask about it every day, or say that they're waiting for it every day," said Ross Choate, managing partner for the John Kennedy Ford, Mazda, and Subaru dealerships in Philadelphia's suburbs.
After a relatively good May and early June, Choate said, sales slowed as Cash for Clunkers drew headlines.
"I do think it's holding people up," he said.
Here are answers to some key questions about the program, formally called the Car Allowance Rebate System:
Which cars qualify? To be eligible for the incentive, a buyer must bring in an operable car that is less than 25 years old and that gets a combined EPA city-highway average of 18 m.p.g. or less. The buyer must have owned and insured the car for the last year - you cannot buy a clunker just to make the trade.
Economically speaking, the car also must be suitable for scrapping - if it is valued at more than $4,500, it may be worth more as an ordinary trade-in, since any car turned in under the program must be junked.
Kelley Blue Book has a online calculator at http://www.kbb.com/kbb/cash-for-clunkers/default.aspx.
What do I do next? To get any incentive, you must buy a new vehicle that averages at least 22 m.p.g., and also at least 4 m.p.g. more than the "clunker." To get the larger $4,500 incentive, the new car must beat the old one by 10 m.p.g.
One other requirement: The new vehicle's manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) cannot exceed $45,000.
Some new cars obviously qualify - think Toyota Prius, Mini Cooper, or Pontiac Vibe. So do most smaller cars.
But, depending on your current vehicle, so may some midsize or larger sedans, and plenty of non-hybrids, such as Toyota Camrys, Hyundai Sonatas, and four-cylinder versions of the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan. To check models' mileage, go to www.fueleconomy.gov.
Can I junk an SUV or minivan? Yes, and you may be able to use the incentive for a new one, too, which is one of the law's provisions that angers some critics. New SUVs and other vehicles classified as "light-duty trucks" under the law are eligible if they get at least 18 m.p.g.
For the $3,500 incentive, the new light truck must get at least 2 m.p.g. more than the old one. For $4,500, it must get at least 5 m.p.g. more.
Certain larger trucks weighing up to five tons also may qualify. For more information on eligibility and answers to other questions, go to www.cars.gov.
Will this truly help the environment? Yes, but only at the margin.
House backers estimate average savings per vehicle of 250 gallons a year - plausible if you consider that a car averaging 15 m.p.g. needs 1,000 gallons of gas to travel 15,000 miles a year, compared with 600 gallons for a car that gets 25 m.p.g.
At that rate, replacing 250,000 gas-guzzlers should yield an annual savings of 62 million gallons, assuming drivers will not drive more in more efficient vehicles, a premise some critics contest.
But if it is a step in the right direction, it is a small one. According to the Energy Information Administration, U.S. motorists consume 390 million gallons of gasoline each day.

The Next Generation of Fireworks May All Be Green

Despite being a centerpiece of celebrations the world over, fireworks displays often release toxic chemicals into the environment, from heavy metals to perchlorate.tweetmeme_url = 'here’; digg_url = here’; An article published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology in 2009 found that, following a fireworks display, the amount of perchlorate in nearby bodies of water could increase by anywhere from 24 to 1,068 times the amount present before the fireworks, and that it takes 20 to 80 days for the chemical levels to subside. Fireworks: More dangerous than they look. Photo CC-licensed by mugley. In an article published in the Earth Island Journal in 2000, author Gar Smith writes:
In addition to the charges of blackpowder (containing carcinogenic sulfur-coal compounds) that send skyrockets airborne and blast them into patterns of glowing sparks, fireworks contain a number of toxic metals that produce a range of dazzling colors. Strontium produces blazing reds, copper compounds burn blue, magnesium, titanium and aluminum create brilliant white sparks. Sodium chloride produces orange-yellow fire, boric acid burns green, potassium and rubidium compounds produce purples and burning lithium glows red. Glittering greens are produced by radioactive barium.During the Stockholm Water Festival in 1996, air pollutant levels were measured before and after the fireworks display. Levels of airborne arsenic were found to be twice normal, while levels of mercury, cadmium, lead, copper, zinc and chromium were as high as 500 times above normal. But researchers are developing a new generation of fireworks that can shine just as brightly without having the same impact on the environment or human health. In an article in Chemical & Engineering News, a publication of the American Chemical Society, Bethany Halford says these nitrogen-rich formulas also use fewer color-producing chemicals, dramatically cutting down on the amount of heavy metals used and lowering their potentially toxic effects.And new firework formulas can replace perchlorate -- which has been shown to pollute nearby bodies of water [PDF] -- with nitrocellulose or other nitrogen-rich materials, allowing them to produce less smoke and burn cleaner than perchlorate-based fireworks.Although some big events have put them to use, higher cost for lower impacts remains a barrier for wider adoption of these greener fireworks, according to the article.

E.P.A. Grants California the Right to Enforce Emissions

The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that it had granted California the right to enforce its first-in-the-nation standards controlling greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and light trucks. The move reverses a 2008 ruling by the Bush administration and effectively ends a seesaw political battle between automakers and environmental regulators that began in Sacramento eight years ago when the California Legislature first took up the issue.
Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said in an interview that she had reversed the ruling by her predecessor, Stephen L. Johnson, because the traditional presumption had been that California, with its history of air pollution, had grounds to establish rules that exceed federal requirements.
“The burden is on those that object,” Ms. Jackson said.
The immediate impact of the decision, which had been widely anticipated, is more symbolic than practical. The 2009 fleet of new vehicles is already in compliance with the California rules and the 2010 fleet is also expected to meet the requirements, said Tom Cackette, deputy director of California’s Air Resources Board.
“Auto manufacturers have been making changes to vehicles both because they anticipated they might have to meet California standards and because there was a general interest in public in buying more efficient cars,” Mr. Cackette said.
Nationally, about one-third of the greenhouse-gas emissions contributing to climate change come from the transportation sector, most of it from cars and light trucks.
The rules in California will cut emissions from new vehicles by 14 percent from 2008 levels in 2011. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have also adopted the California rules in an effort to combat climate change.
California’s emissions rules are also expected to be congruent with new federal fuel economy standards announced in May by the Obama administration. Both standards envision that emissions will be cut by 30 percent in 2016.
The aligning of California’s rules and the federal mileage standards is intended to ensure that automakers comply with a single standard. This “moves us toward a policy that ensures that consumers in all 50 states have access to highly fuel-efficient vehicles at an affordable price,” said Dave McCurdy, president and chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Carmakers have accepted the fuel economy and emission standards that they long opposed, at a time when their industry is in crisis and accepting billions of dollars in federal money.
In the interview, Ms. Jackson of the E.P.A. praised Fran Pavley, the state senator from California who originally crafted the early blueprint for the state standards in 2001.
Ms. Pavley was jubilant Tuesday.
“It took eight years, multiple federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court, two presidents, two governors and a partridge in a pear tree,” she said in an interview. “What a difference that last presidential election made.”

Judge Tosses Bush-Era Forest Management Regulations

A federal judge sided with environmentalists yesterday and threw out Bush-era Forest Service regulations that govern management plaJudge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the service failed to analyze the effects from removing requirements guaranteeing viable wildlife populations. The planning rule determines how 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands develop individual forest plans, governing activities from timber harvests to recreation and protecting endangered plants and animals.
Wilken's decision (pdf) marks the third time a court has rejected revisions of the regulations over the past decade.
"We hope it's the last gasp of the Forest Service under the Bush administration and that we can now move forward with the Obama administration and try to come up with rules that will actually protect the forests," said Marc Fink, attorney for Center for Biological Diversity and one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case.
Conservation groups hope the Forest Service will reinstate the 1982 rule while coming up with new regulations, Fink said. Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said the decision is under review. "The review will help them decide what direction to go in," he added.
Wilken said the 2008 rule violated both the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act. The environmental impact statement prepared by the Forest Service for the 2008 rule, she wrote, "does not actually analyze the environmental effects of implementing the Rule."
Although the environmental impact statement "repetitively insists" that the rule will have no effect on the environment because it merely sets out the process for developing land resource management plans, Wilken noted that argument was rejected twice before by courts and that she rejects it, too.
For example, she wrote, the 2008 rule does not require that plans "insure" the viability of vertebrate species, as the 1982 rule did, or even provide a "high likelihood" of viability, as a 2000 revision did. Instead, the 2008 rule states a goal of providing a framework to contribute to sustaining ecological systems.
"Although the [environmental impact statement] discusses the differences between the various standards, it fails to acknowledge the effect of eliminating the viability requirement," Wilken wrote. "Because the [statement] does not evaluate the environmental impacts of the 2008 Rule, it does not comply with NEPA's requirements."
The Forest Service had cited the Supreme Court's recent Summers v. Earth Island Institute decision that advocacy groups cannot challenge federal regulations on public lands unless they can prove they are themselves directly threatened by the proposed rules. But Wilken said that decision does not bear on yesterday's case. The overarching nature of the planning rule makes it impossible to link the procedural arguments of this case to any particular site-specific project, she said.
"The present case involves a challenge, not to the substance of any particular regulation, but to the Forest Service's failure to follow proper procedures when promulgating the 2008 Rule," the judge wrote.
In 2007, a federal judge in San Francisco stopped the Forest Service from using a planning rule put in place in 2005, siding with 19 environmental groups and the state of California, which argued that the Bush administration removed environmental protections without providing for proper public comment or considering the effect on endangered species.
Several environmental groups also challenged an attempt in 2000 by the Clinton administration to revise the planning rule, even though the Clinton rule was endorsed by many environmentalists and opposed by the timber industry. That rule was suspended by the Bush administration in early 2001 and never implemented, but the court case continued in part. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the environmental groups and remanded the case for further proceedings.
The groups in yesterday's case are Citizens for Better Forestry, Environmental Protection Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity, Wild West Institute, Gifford Pinchot Task Force, Idaho Sporting Congress, Friends of the Clearwater, Utah Environmental Congress, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Wild South, the Lands Council, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, Oregon Wild and WildEarth Guardians. A separate lawsuit by Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and Vermont Natural Resources Council challenging the same rule was consolidated with the case.
An official with industry group American Forest Resource Council said they are reviewing the decision and could not yet comment.ns for national forests.

Researchers find possible environmental causes for Alzheimer's, diabetes

A new study by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital have found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates in our environment and food with increased deaths from diseases, including Alzheimer's, diabetes mellitus and Parkinson's. The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (Volume 17:3 July 2009).
Led by Suzanne de la Monte, MD, MPH, of Rhode Island Hospital, researchers studied the trends in mortality rates due to diseases that are associated with aging, such as diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes and cerebrovascular disease, as well as HIV. They found strong parallels between age adjusted increases in death rate from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes and the progressive increases in human exposure to nitrates, nitrites and nitrosamines through processed and preserved foods as well as fertilizers. Other diseases including HIV-AIDS, cerebrovascular disease, and leukemia did not exhibit those trends. De la Monte and the authors propose that the increase in exposure plays a critical role in the cause, development and effects of the pandemic of these insulin-resistant diseases.
De la Monte, who is also a professor of pathology and lab medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, says, "We have become a 'nitrosamine generation.' In essence, we have moved to a diet that is rich in amines and nitrates, which lead to increased nitrosamine production. We receive increased exposure through the abundant use of nitrate-containing fertilizers for agriculture." She continues, "Not only do we consume them in processed foods, but they get into our food supply by leeching from the soil and contaminating water supplies used for crop irrigation, food processing and drinking."
Nitrites and nitrates belong to a class of chemical compounds that have been found to be harmful to humans and animals. More than 90 percent of these compounds that have been tested have been determined to be carcinogenic in various organs. They are found in many food products, including fried bacon, cured meats and cheese products as well as beer and water. Exposure also occurs through manufacturing and processing of rubber and latex products, as well as fertilizers, pesticides and cosmetics.
Nitrosamines are formed by a chemical reaction between nitrites or other proteins. Sodium nitrite is deliberately added to meat and fish to prevent toxin production; it is also used to preserve, color and flavor meats. Ground beef, cured meats and bacon in particular contain abundant amounts of amines due to their high protein content. Because of the significant levels of added nitrates and nitrites, nitrosamines are nearly always detectable in these foods. Nitrosamines are also easily generated under strong acid conditions, such as in the stomach, or at high temperatures associated with frying or flame broiling. Reducing sodium nitrite content reduces nitrosamine formation in foods.
Nitrosamines basically become highly reactive at the cellular level, which then alters gene expression and causes DNA damage. The researchers note that the role of nitrosamines has been well-studied, and their role as a carcinogen has been fully documented. The investigators propose that the cellular alterations that occur as a result of nitrosamine exposure are fundamentally similar to those that occur with aging, as well as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Type 2 diabetes mellitus.
De la Monte comments, "All of these diseases are associated with increased insulin resistance and DNA damage. Their prevalence rates have all increased radically over the past several decades and show no sign of plateau. Because there has been a relatively short time interval associated with the dramatic shift in disease incidence and prevalence rates, we believe this is due to exposure-related rather than genetic etiologies."
The researchers recognize that an increase in death rates is anticipated in higher age groups. Yet when the researchers compared mortality from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease among 75 to 84 year olds from 1968 to 2005, the death rates increased much more dramatically than for cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease, which are also aging-associated. For example, in Alzheimer's patients, the death rate increased 150-fold, from 0 deaths to more than 150 deaths per 100,000. Parkinson's disease death rates also increased across all age groups. However, mortality rates from cerebrovascular disease in the same age group declined, even though this is a disease associated with aging as well.
De la Monte notes, "Because of the similar trending in nearly all age groups within each disease category, this indicates that these overall trends are not due to an aging population. This relatively short time interval for such dramatic increases in death rates associated with these diseases is more consistent with exposure-related causes rather than genetic changes." She also comments, "Moreover, the strikingly higher and climbing mortality rates in older age brackets suggest that aging and/or longer durations of exposure have greater impacts on progression and severity of these diseases."
The researchers graphed and analyzed mortality rates, and compared them with increasing age for each disease. They then studied United States population growth, annual use and consumption of nitrite-containing fertilizers, annual sales at popular fast food chains, and sales for a major meat processing company, as well as consumption of grain and consumption of watermelon and cantaloupe (the melons were used as a control since they are not typically associated with nitrate or nitrite exposure).
The findings indicate that while nitrogen-containing fertilizer consumption increased by 230 percent between 1955 and 2005, its usage doubled between 1960 and 1980, which just precedes the insulin-resistant epidemics the researchers found. They also found that sales from the fast food chain and the meat processing company increased more than 8-fold from 1970 to 2005, and grain consumption increased 5-fold.
The authors state that the time course of the increased prevalence rates of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes cannot be explained on the basis of gene mutations. They instead mirror the classical trends of exposure-related disease. Because nitrosamines produce biochemical changes within cells and tissues, it is conceivable that chronic exposure to low levels of nitrites and nitrosamines through processed foods, water and fertilizers is responsible for the current epidemics of these diseases and the increasing mortality rates associated with them.
De la Monte states, "If this hypothesis is correct, potential solutions include eliminating the use of nitrites and nitrates in food processing, preservation and agriculture; taking steps to prevent the formation of nitrosamines and employing safe and effective measures to detoxify food and water before human consumption."
###
Other researchers involved in the study with de la Monte include Alexander Neusner, Jennifer Chu and Margot Lawton, from the departments of pathology, neurology and medicine at Rhode Island Hospital and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
The study was funded through grants from the National Institutes of Health. Two subsequent papers have been accepted for publication in the near future that demonstrate experimentally that low levels of nitrosamine exposure cause neurodegeneration, NASH and diabetes.
De la Monte, Suzanne M., Alexander Neusner, Jennifer Chu and Margot Lawton. "Epidemilogical Trends Strongly Suggest Exposures as Etiologic Agents in the Pathogenesis of Sporadic Alzheimer's Disease, Diabetes Mellitus, and Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis." Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 17:3 (July 2009) pp 519-529.
The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (http://www.j-alz.com) is an international multidisciplinary journal to facilitate progress in understanding the etiology, pathogenesis, epidemiology, genetics, behavior, treatment and psychology of Alzheimer's disease. The journal publishes research reports, reviews, short communications, book reviews, and letters-to-the-editor. Groundbreaking research that has appeared in the journal includes novel therapeutic targets, mechanisms of disease and clinical trial outcomes. The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease has an Impact Factor of 5.101 according to Thomson Reuters' 2008 Journal Citation Reports. The Journal is published by IOS Press (http://www.iospress.nl).
Founded in 1863, Rhode Island Hospital (www.rhodeislandhospital.org) in Providence, RI, is a private, not-for-profit hospital and is the largest teaching hospital of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. A major trauma center for southeastern New England, the hospital is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of medicine and research. Many of its physicians are recognized as leaders in their respective fields of cancer, cardiology, diabetes, emergency medicine and trauma, neuroscience, orthopedics, pediatrics, radiation oncology and surgery. Rhode Island Hospital receives nearly $50 million each year in external research funding. It is home to Hasbro Children's Hospital, the state's only facility dedicated to pediatric care, which is ranked among the top 30 children's hospitals in the country by Parents magazine. Rhode Island Hospital is a founding member of the Lifespan health system

ENVIRONMENT: Shades of green —Mark Hertsgaard

America’s environmentalists were torn about whether to support the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which passed the House on June 26 — and for good reason. On the one hand, passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act was a historic achievement. After twenty years of denial, deception and delay, Washington had at last ordered reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming. On the other hand, the bill’s specifics fell far short of what science says is necessary to (perhaps) prevent catastrophic climate change.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that global emissions must fall by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. The cap-and-trade provisions of Waxman-Markey will cut US emissions by only 1 percent by 2020, a shortcoming backers disguise with creative accounting. They claim the bill will cut emissions by 17 percent — which it might, if one measures against the higher baseline of 2005 — and includes credits for halting deforestation overseas, though of course the earth’s atmosphere would not be tricked by such manoeuvres.Adding insult to injury, most of the bill’s pollution permits will be given away rather than sold, thus subsidising today’s polluters and delaying the transition to low-carbon energy sources. Finally, the bill cancels the president’s current authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse emissions, a clear step backward.Supporters argued that such dilutions were necessary to gain enough votes to pass the bill (the vote was still close — 219 to 212) and that Congressional backing of emissions cuts is essential to establish US credibility at the crucial global climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December. Doubtless these same arguments will be repeated when Waxman-Markey goes to the Senate, where the legislation is likely to be weakened further, if it passes at all.But why assume that US credibility in Copenhagen rests on Congress passing a climate bill, no matter how weak? The United States has other ways to send the world a message — and Barack Obama began exploring them even before he became president.In July 2008, shortly after securing his party’s presidential nomination, Obama sent representatives to Beijing for two days of high-level, off-the-record talks on climate change, held in a luxury hotel overlooking the Great Wall. Leading the Chinese side was Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate negotiator. The US delegation included Republicans (though John McCain’s campaign declined to participate) and Democrats, notably John Holdren, now President Obama’s science adviser.The talks went so well that a second back-channel meeting was held in October, where unofficial agreement was reached on three points. Chief among them: China and the United States would “work together for a successful outcome” to the climate negotiations in Copenhagen, according to William Chandler of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who helped organise the discussions.If that pledge becomes policy, it could rank as the most important breakthrough in the history of climate change diplomacy. Together, the United States and China produce 40 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. That gives them veto power over the rest of the world’s progress; no matter how much the European Union, which has pledged 20 percent reductions by 2020, and other governments might do, they cannot reverse global warming if the two carbon superpowers don’t do their part.Conversely, if China and the United States were to announce credible, ambitious plans to limit emissions, it would build momentum for reaching a strong agreement among all nations in Copenhagen, a meeting widely seen as humanity’s last chance to avoid catastrophic climate change.The turning point in the back-channel discussions came on their very first day, said Chandler. For more than ten years, Washington had refused to cut emissions unless China did too. But Beijing resisted, pointing out that it was US and other rich countries’ emissions during the past 200 years of industrialization that had caused global warming, and besides, China’s per capita emissions were one-fifth of America’s. The familiar impasse surfaced at the Great Wall gathering when one American asked what the Chinese were prepared to do if the next president promised to cut US emissions.“Xie started answering,” recalled Chandler, “and it was like he pushed the button on a tape recorder. Out came the same boilerplate we’d heard so many times before: the US bore historical responsibility for the problem, China was still a developing nation and had the right to use more energy and so forth. But after forty-five seconds, Xie stopped talking. It was as if he turned off the tape. And then he said, ‘But we have to move beyond all that now.’ That’s when we knew things had changed and a real breakthrough was possible.”No doubt China anticipated a shift in US policy with Bush’s exit, but having recently returned from two weeks of reporting in China, I suspect another reason for the new flexibility: The Chinese leaders have at last recognised how hard climate change will hit their country. One government study has warned that higher temperatures and volatile rainfall could cause production of rice, wheat and corn — the staples of the Chinese diet — to fall 37 percent by 2040 unless effective adaptation measures are taken. Such a decline would gravely endanger China’s ability to feed itself and thus the Communist Party’s hold on power.Obstacles to a formal US-China climate agreement remain. Publicly China is demanding that we cut US emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and provide tens of billions of dollars to developing nations to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Obama administration rebuffs these demands as “not serious” while continuing to insist that China accept reduction targets too. Beijing still rejects this.But the back-channel talks suggest a way around the impasse. Recall that there was agreement during the talks. In addition to a successful outcome in Copenhagen, the US and Chinese delegations agreed, according to Chandler, “to rapidly deploy existing technologies to boost energy efficiency” — the quickest path to large emissions cuts. A leading Chinese think tank has concluded that better efficiency could reduce China’s emissions by one-third by 2050; the United States could cut its energy use 30 percent if all states emulated California’s efficiency. Such reductions could buy time for a second back-channel agreement to bear fruit: a joint US-China programme to develop low-carbon technologies for vehicles and coal plants, which would enable China to continue burning coal, the source of three-quarters of its energy consumption.President Obama could sign such an agreement regardless of what Congress does (besides, there is considerable support on Capitol Hill for energy efficiency and green-tech R&D), and in the short to medium term the results could match the IPCC’s recommendations. To be sure, binding emissions targets are important. But if Washington and Beijing can’t agree on them yet, at least the two carbon superpowers could launch a green efficiency revolution that can achieve many of the same ends. In that case, Copenhagen might have “a successful outcome” after all.

Wind power has its own environmental problems

Wind power generation is expected to be a clean and environmentally friendly natural energy source, but a new kind of environmental problem has surfaced as infrasonic waves caused by windmills are suspected of causing health problems for some people.
Shinjuro Kondo, 76, who moved into his Japanese neighborhood 17 years ago, said, "Stiff shoulders, headaches, insomnia, hand tremors...Since February last year, soon after the test operation of windmills started, I developed various kinds of symptoms."
Kondo's neighborhood is about 350 meters away from a group of windmills.
More than 20 percent of about 100 neighbors also complain of similar physical disorders. They said their symptoms become less severe when the windmills stop due to mechanical troubles and other reasons.
Currently, the relationship between such physical disorders and the windmills is not clear. But infrasonic waves generated by the windmills' rotors is suspected to be the cause.
The sound waves oscillate once to 20 times a second, a frequency too low to be heard by human ears.
Similar complaints also have been reported in other parts of Japan, but it is not known whether these are connected to naturally occurring noise.
Operators of such windmills are very concerned about what measures should be taken. One of them said, "Even if we measure sounds from the windmills, no numerical differences are found from those in the natural environment."
Extrapolating the causal relationship is difficult for a number of reasons:
- Sensitivity to infrasonic noise differs among individuals.
- Effects are changed by psychological factors. For example, unpleasant sounds make people more uncomfortable than pleasant sounds, even at the same volume.
- The causal relationship between the physical disorders and the sounds has not been clarified.
In 2004, Japan's Environment Ministry set guidelines for local governments on dealing with problems caused by infrasonic noise.
The guidelines were issued mainly because of reports of damage at factories and construction sites caused by infrasonic noise at the frequency of 20 hertz to 200 hertz.
The infrasonic noise from windmills is not covered by the guideline as the frequency is lower.
Windmills are not covered by the country's Noise Regulation Law, which regulates noise levels at factories and construction sites, or by the Law for Assessment of Environmental Impacts, which stipulates that effects to surrounding areas should be assessed prior to the start of a large development project.
There have been no research papers published, either at home or abroad, which analyzed the relationship between infrasonic noise and human health.
Fumitaka Shiomi, 85, a doctor in Wakayama, Japan, who has studied infrasonic noise problems for 30 years, said, "There is health damage caused by infrasonic noise. Unless measures are taken immediately, a serious problem will occur."
But Tomohiro Shishime, chief of the Environment Ministry's Air Environment Division, said, "First, we'll examine the real situation." The ministry is at the stage of asking local governments to collect complaints.
Izumi Ushiyama, dean of Ashikaga Institute of Technology, which is promoting the use of windmills, said, "While listening to opinions of both business operators and residents, we'll search for a solution."
Wind power generation also poses a danger to birds, which are often struck and killed by the spinning vanes of the windmills. The Japanese Environment Ministry confirmed 13 such bird strikes in which white-tailed eagles, a rare species, were killed since fiscal 2003.
More white-tailed eagles have been killed in bird strikes by windmills than by running trains. A golden eagle was found dead near wind power facility in Iwate Prefecture last year - the first death of a rare species confirmed near the facility.
Yukihiro Kominami, deputy chief of the nature conservation office at the Wild Bird Society of Japan, said those cases are just the tip of the iceberg. "We have to find out the problem of the locations as soon as possible, or we will see the damage to the bird population continuing," he said.
Some people argue a windmill twirling around on a column dozens of meters high spoils the scenery in the area.
Residents in Nagano, Japan, organized to oppose the building of wind farm there. The prefectural government then made a map showing the effects on nature and scenery of the proposed windmills. An official in charge said "We want the businesses to assess environmental issues and to explain them well to local residents, using this map."
There is a growing consensus among experts that wind-power generation projects should be subject to the environment impact assessment law. The ministry plans to consider the idea, including the possibility of amending the law, at the Central Environmental Council.
"Wind-power generation has been a business success, costing less than solar power generation," said Tetsuya Iida, head of Japan's Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, a nonprofit environmental organization. "There must be a path for residents and nature to coexist. The central government must consider establishing a framework to support finding that way."

Environment Groups Find Less Support on Court

The Supreme Court heard five environmental law cases in the term that ended Monday, and environmental groups lost every time. It was, said Richard J. Lazarus, a director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, “the worst term ever” for environmental interests.The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants.
Business groups expressed measured satisfaction with the decisions.
“The court does seem to be bringing more common sense back to environmental law,” Robin S. Conrad, a lawyer with the United States Chamber of Commerce, said at a recent news briefing.
In the past 40 years or so, ever since environmental law emerged as a separate field based on major statutes enacted in the 1970s, the Supreme Court has been reasonably receptive to cases brought by environmental groups.
That seems to have changed under the court of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
“It has taken a little while, but we are finally seeing how much the changes in 2005 and 2006 moved the court in important areas, including in environmental law,” said Douglas Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal research organization and law firm. Chief Justice Roberts joined the court in 2005, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in 2006.
Last term’s environmental decisions are consistent with larger trends at the court, which has leaned to the right recently and seems poised to make significant moves in a conservative direction in important areas of the law.
Justice Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who often voted for environmental interests. Justice O’Connor’s background may have helped shape her thinking: she has written fondly of growing up on the Lazy B ranch in the high desert wilderness in Arizona and New Mexico.
“We experienced nature in an intimate way,” she wrote in a 2005 foreword to her memoir, “Lazy B.” “We learned to respect the environment.”
Justice O’Connor’s departure had a powerful impact and played a part in last term’s 5-to-0 rout, said Amy Sinden, who teaches environmental law at Temple’s law school. “These could all have come out very differently if we still had O’Connor on the court,” she said.
At the same time, the principles announced in some of the court’s environmental rulings, which generally favored presidential power, may aid the Obama administration as it moves away from the previous administration’s policies.
“It’s become a cliché to say the Roberts court is about the expansion of executive power,” Professor Sinden said, “and I think it’s true of these environmental cases as well. The court gave the Bush administration discretion. That certainly leaves the Obama administration with discretion to act as well.”
While the court’s environmental rulings may help the administration as it issues regulations to carry out existing laws, the harder questions will arise as Congress enacts new laws.
“The real test will come when the Obama administration tries to implement new legislation, like the climate change legislation, assuming it passes” the Senate, said Professor Lazarus, who represented the losing side in one of the recent environmental cases.
The climate change law, he said, will “raise a huge number of legal issues when implemented and will face of barrage of legal challenges from industry, some of which will find their way to the high court.”
The Bush administration was largely but not entirely aligned with business interests in the five environmental cases the court decided. That meant it was easy to tell who was losing — the environmentalists — but hard to tell who was winning.
Should the Obama administration take a more adversarial stance toward business, plainer fault lines may emerge.
“You might be able to tell whether the court is pro-business or pro-government,” said Jonathan Z. Cannon, who teaches environmental law at the University of Virginia.
The four members of the court’s conservative wing — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is often the swing vote, were in the majority in all five decisions. (Justice Kennedy, Professor Lazarus said, has been in the majority in all but one of the more than 50 environmental cases he has heard since joining the court in 1988.)
In years past, Justice Kennedy has been sporadically receptive to arguments made by environmentalists, particularly when they were sensitive to states’ rights and did not call for upending rules on which businesses had come to rely. Not this year.
The five more conservative justices were sometimes joined by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is something of a moderate on environmental issues, having written on regulation, risk management and administrative law as a professor before joining the court.
One case, Burlington Northern v. United States, about who may be held liable under the federal Superfund law for toxic spills, was decided 8 to 1, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in dissent.
Several scholars said that businesses had become more sophisticated in recent years in hiring Supreme Court specialists to tailor their cases to appeal to Justices Kennedy and Breyer.
As surprising as the results in last term’s five cases were, scholars added, what may have been even more surprising was that the court chose to hear some of them at all. In two, the government did not file an appeal, even though the Environmental Protection Agency had been on the losing side in lower courts.
Environmental interests had won in the appeals court in all five of last term’s cases, and the Supreme Court reversed each one. Four cases came from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, which has a liberal reputation. The fifth came from the Second Circuit, in New York, and was written by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court.
Should Judge Sotomayor be confirmed by the Senate, she will replace Justice David H. Souter, an avid outdoorsman who loves hiking in New Hampshire and tended to vote in favor of environmental interests.
There is little reason to think Judge Sotomayor’s approach would be very different. Indeed, the court reversed one of her decisions in Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, the case that involved the use of cost-benefit analysis by the environmental agency. Justice Souter was in dissent.
Patrick A. Parenteau, who teaches environmental law at Vermont Law School, said he was disturbed not only by the substance of the court’s recent decisions but also by what they failed to address. None, he said, involved extended discussions of the environmental consequences, whether for the future of a lake in Alaska or the practice of forestry.
“The lesson from this,” Professor Parenteau said, “is to do everything you can to keep environmental cases out of this court.”

Villagers from power-starved Vidharbha meet political leaders in Delhi; Demand 'quick and safe renewable energy solutions for electrifying their villa

Two weeks after calling on political parties to provide reliable energy to the power starved region of Jalka (Yavatmal district, Maharashtra), the representatives from Kalavati’s village made a trip to Delhi to raise issue of energy poverty directly with political leaders across party lines. They came to personally request political parties to electrify rural villages of India. They had witnessed an example of solar power providing them quality energy set up merely in 3 days, and they demanded access to this against the promised nuclear power that was to come decades later.
Energy poverty is one of the most serious problems that the country faces today. Over 78 million households in India still living without any basic access to electricity and for the many millions rural households the share of electricity they get is only in principle after the power demands of the cities and industrial centres have been met.The villagers met the following politicians during their visit and their reactions are as presented below:
Mr. D. Raja, CPI (M): Avoiding any CPI (M) party stand on decentralized renewable energy, he agreed that there must be thrust on Renewable Energy, because India has solar and wind potential to meet the demand. ‘Now we cannot only depend on thermal and hydel projects to meet our energy demands’, he concluded.
Swami Agnivesh, Rajya Sabha MP: He said that, “These whole general elections are caught in non issues; the real issues of the poor like rural electrification are being avoided and not discussed or debated upon. This is the most unfortunate part of this democracy which is leading to cynicism".
Sandeep Dixit (Congress): Refusing to be drawn into making a statement, he showed interest in discussing a de-centralized energy model based on Renewable Energy which is scalable and can be endorsed at the Central Government level.
Kapil Sibal (Congress): In a very brief meeting, Mr Sibal, breezily offered “120% support to renewable energy”, but failed to have a discussion on the details.
Dr. Arun Shourie (BJP): He said that, ‘Decentralised renewable energy is the way forward for India’.


After the string of political meetings, Sarpanch Anusuabai Kumbhre said, “we the rural poor of India are tired of paper promises that the political parties make every time during elections. The ‘Electricity for all 2009’ promise made by the ruling government yet remains unfulfilled; do not expect the rural citizens of the country to keep voting for politicians who make empty promises, we want solutions that empower us and make us self reliant. Energy and electricity access are the basic needs that will help us do so’.Greenpeace has analyzed the manifestos of Congress (INC), CPI(M) and the BJP on the issue of climate and energy. Here are the results.Climate change finds mention in all 3 of these manifestos for the first time. Each of them refer to the threat of climate change and while the BJP and Congress detail the manner in which they will address this critical issue, the left fails to articulate any details. Below is an analysis of the three manifestos on their promises on the issue of climate change and energy.

All 3 parties acknowledge that climate change is an issue of serious concern.
The INC refers to the National Action Plan on Climate Change as representing its position on the issue however. The NAPCC which was meant to be made into 8 mission plans by the end of 2008, remained nothing but a vision document the mission statements never materialised. Further, the NAPCC itself does not have any clear targets or timelines and is merely an expression of intent and not a clear plan of action.
The INC also frames the NAPCC as being a plan that “is an acknowledgment of our responsibility to take credible actions within the overall framework of meeting the development aspirations of our people for higher economic growth and a higher standard of living.” This fails to acknowledge the fact that addressing climate change today is the biggest opportunity and failing to do so will cost our economy very dearly in the future.
The BJP on the other hand does frame the debate in the context of opportunity rather than just see action to mitigate climate change as a threat to the economic aspirations of the country. “We recognise that containing global warming is essential to protecting life and security of people and environment. Mitigating the threat by building a low carbon economy is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century.” Greenpeace feels that this is a positive framework in which to place climate action, versus a “burden sharing” approach that the INC takes.
While it is encouraging to see that the BJP has targets for renewable energy expansion as a percentage of electricity and it is an ambitious 20% in 5 years, it fails to articulate what the portfolio of renewable energies will be. For example it is unclear if large hydro is included in this mix and to what extent it is.
The banking of electricity in the grid is very encouraging in the BJP manifesto. This would provide the incentives for individuals and firms to become energy producers, and not remain merely passive consumers. The details however are missing.

Change in fertilizer subsidy policy can help India save crores, ensure food security - Greenpeace India Report

Moving away from current Government subsidies on synthetic fertiliser that lead to poor soils and less food, and investing in ecological farming will have triple benefits: save public money, ensure food security under less rain and a changing climate, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, says ‘Subsidising Food Crisis’ – a scientific report released by Greenpeace today.
The report, a joint effort by scientists from Greenpeace and Institute of Agriculture Visva Bharathy University, West Bengal, offers a scientific analysis linking the increasing fertiliser subsidies to yield stagnation in agriculture. In 2008/09 the Government of India had set aside an amount of 119,772 crore Rupees for synthetic fertiliser subsidies. Releasing the report, Greenpeace India’s Sustainable Agriculture campaigner Gopikrishna said, “The irrational subsidy doled out by the government provokes the excessive usage of synthetic fertilisers leading to soil degradation, a major cause for yield stagnation”. He further opined that “The potential for a shift from synthetic to organic nitrogen fertilisers is real: India can save a substantial amount of taxpayers’ money along the way”. The report points out that in Punjab, the state with highest use of synthetic fertilisers in India, data on the relationship between food grain production and fertiliser consumption from 1960 to 2003 show that in spite of consistent increment in N-P-K fertiliser consumption, grain yield has not only stagnated but also showed a declining trend with fertiliser application during the later period, 1992 to 2003. The average crop response to fertiliser use was around 25 kg of grain per kg of fertiliser during 1960s, the said value has reduced drastically to 8 kg/kg only during late 1990s. High use of chemical fertilisers is mostly also associated with high level of water consumption and micro-nutrient deficiency in soil leading to decline in water table and further deterioration of the soil. ’Subsidising Food Crisis’ for the first time calculates the greenhouse gas emissions from the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, both by its manufacture and use. Synthetic nitrogen fertilisers contribute 6 percent of the India’s total greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the road transport sector. A shift from synthetic nitrogen fertilisers to efficient and ecological fertilisers will reduce this contribution from 6 to 2 percent. “At a time when it is extremely urgent that the whole world fights climate change, the Government of India could save significant emissions by shifting subsidies to ecological farming. The good news is that this is also a proven way to make agriculture more resilient to upcoming climate change conditions, like less water and more unpredictable rains’, said Reyes Tirado, one of the authors and senior research scientist at the Greenpeace Research Laboratories in the University of Exeter in the UK. Based on the report released 5 days prior to the first full budget by the new UPA government on July 6th Greenpeace India demands that the Government needs to:
1. Look into an alternate subsidy system that promotes ecological farming and use of organic soil amendments. 2. Shift the irrational subsidy policy for synthetic fertilisers to sustainable ecological practices in agriculture. 3. Re-focus scientific research on ecological alternatives, to identify agro-ecological practices that ensure future food security under a changing climate.

The report is authored by Dr B.C Roy and Dr G N Chattopadhyay of Visva Bharathy University and Dr Reyes Tirado, from Greenpeace Research laboratories at the University of Exeter. While Dr Roy, an agricultural economist, has years of experience in agricultural growth and poverty and water-food security, Dr Chattopadhyay is a Soil Science specialist with extensive experience in vermicomposting. Dr. Tirado, an agricultural ecologist, currently leads projects on how ecological farming and biodiversity can help mitigate and adapt food systems to upcoming climate change conditions.

We're gonna need a bigger boat!

Our famous fleet of ships is about to get an extraordinary addition - The Rainbow Warrior III. It will be purpose built from the keel up to fight the greatest threat to the oceans and our world: climate change.
After a long and thorough planning and design process we are excited to finally see our dream ship coming to life. The Rainbow Warrior III will continue our sailing tradition and begin a new chapter in the history of our fleet: a custom-built high seas sailing ship, highly fuel efficient with the best green-marine technology.At 52 years of age and after 20 years of successful environmental campaigning around the world, the Rainbow Warrior II is approaching its recommended decommissioning date and needs to be replaced. The new ship has been designed by Gerard Dijkstra and Partners in Amsterdam, Netherlands and will be built by Fassmer, a shipbuilding company in Bremen, Germany. Although the first piece of steel won't be cut until early 2010 - preparations for the build will start immediately and the ship will be launched in 2011, our 40th anniversary year.

This organisation was founded on the ocean, when the first Greenpeace crew set out in an old fishing boat to stop a nuclear weapons test in the Aleutian Islands. Throughout the last 38 years we have used ships at the forefront of our campaigns. They allow us to play a vital role in creating positive change, protecting the environment and promoting essential solutions for a more green and peaceful world.

Currently our main fleet consists of three ships, Rainbow Warrior II, Arctic Sunrise, and Esperanza. Each of them are unique: The Esperanza is the youngest of our fleet, ideal for fast and long range missions. It is currently touring the Pacific to document and raise awareness about the effects of climate change in the region. The Arctic Sunrise is perfectly suitable for icy conditions in the polar regions and is currently in northern Greenland investigating the impacts of climate change. The Rainbow Warrior II is our flagship, the longest serving member of our current fleet - currently supporting a campaign to save Mediterranean bluefin tuna.
You can't sink a rainbowIn October 1978, the first Rainbow Warrior defended the grey seals of the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland, when the British government announced a six year culling because "the seals were eating too many fish". When the sealers arrived activists from the Rainbow Warrior chased the seals into the water before the hunters could kill them. As scenes from this event hit the national media - the UK Prime Minister's office received more than 17,000 letters of protest and the cull was ended.

In 1985, the Rainbow Warrior embarked on a Pacific peace voyage to the Marshall Islands. The inhabitants of Rongelap, an island severely contaminated by fallout from US nuclear testing in the 1950s, asked for assistance in moving to a safer island. The Rainbow Warrior evacuated 308 Rongelap Islanders and their belongings to Mejato, 200 kilometres away. The Rainbow Warrior was bombed in 1985 by French Secret Service Agents in Auckland New Zealand as she was preparing for a campaign against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. The two bombs killed one crew member, photographer Fernando Pereira and destroyed the ship beyond repair. She was scuttled and sunk in the clear deep waters of Matauri Bay in New Zealand and is now a popular dive site.

Listen to the audio documentary about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior Exactly four years after, to the day, the Rainbow Warrior II was launched. Today, the Rainbow Warrior inspires people everywhere as she continues to campaign against environmentally destructive practices. Since 1989, she has sailed all over the world, from the the high Arctic to Cape Horn. In 1995, just before the tenth anniversary of the bombing of the Warrior, and just ahead of the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, French President Jacques Chirac announced a resumption of nuclear testing at Moruroa. The Rainbow Warrior, accompanied by a huge flotilla, headed to the test site in protest, amidst a worldwide outcry against France. On 9 July, French commandos boarded the ship, smashed equipment, threw tear gas into the bridge and seized the vessel. Greenpeace activists were arrested, interrogated and deported, but the flotilla continued the protest. The French returned the boat to Greenpeace some months later. The resulting worldwide outrage forced France to finally stop nuclear testing in January 1996.

The Rainbow Warrior II went on to play a key role supporting many of our campaigns such as; documenting the impacts of rapid glacial retreat in Norway in conjunction with the Norwegian Polar Institute, obtaining evidence to prove the destructive impacts of bottom trawling in New Zealand, defending ocean life in the Mediterranean and more recently - encouraging countries around the world to Quit Coal and save the climate.

As green as it getsThe Rainbow Warrior II steel hull is of vintage riveted construction which is becoming increasingly expensive to maintain to the highest classification standards. We will need a new Rainbow Warrior in order to meet our future global campaign challenges. Upgrading the existing ship is not technically or financially feasible and converting a second hand ship would compromise our campaigning and energy conservation needs. After careful consideration - we have decided that building a vessel from scratch is by far the best option.
The Rainbow Warrior III will be a state-of-the-art vessel built specifically for our needs and made to the highest environmental standards. She will carry a complete range of essential safety gear and action tools, including four inflatable boats and the facilities for a helicopter, while providing accommodation and a cutting-edge communication platform.

The ship will be built primarily to sail (using wind energy instead of fossil fuels), with the option in unsuitable weather conditions to switch over to engine-powered, diesel-electric propulsion. It will also have the following green features:• Hull shape designed specifically for superior energy efficiency• A-frame mast and sails - optimised for highly effective sailing• Electric drive system (10 knots on only 300kW)• Green ship class notation with Green Passport• Biological treatment of sewage and grey water• Central filling and venting system for fuel and oils to prevent spills• Environmentally friendly paint system• Re-use of engine heat to make hot water
Virtual launchIn early 2010, we will be launching a virtual version of the Rainbow Warrior III in cooperation with VSTEP, makers of the "Ship Simulator" series of games for the PC. Drawn from the actual 3-D CAD drawings and specs to which the ship will be built, game players will be able to sail the virtual Rainbow Warrior through realistic sea and weather conditions and re-enact Greenpeace voyages to stop nuclear weapons testing, save the whales, and protect Antarctica -- on their own PC or in multi-player mode online. The game will also feature our ship the Esperanza and the jet boat the 'Billy G" will also be included in the game

Darkness Washes Around The Globe As Earth Hour Descends

35 countries, 26 major cities, 370 towns and literally tens of millions of people… What do they all have in common?
They're all switching off their lights for one hour at 8:00 pm local time in a now staggering global event known as Earth Hour. From around the world, Universe Today readers made a huge impact.
For all of you who took the time to sign up for Earth Hour, I not only thank you for your participation, but have deeply enjoyed watching our effort expand over the last week. We literally melted down the server on our personal UT Earth Hour site with our responses! What a tremendous effort on all our parts.
In a matter of hours, and quite probably by the time you read this, the lights will begin to go down as Earth Hour descends. As darkness falls in Australia, city landmarks from Parliament House in Canberra to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Melbourne's Federation Square and the WACA ground in Perth will power down for an hour. Landmarks, cities and communities around the world will go dark - one by one - as Earth Hour reaches each time zone.
Says Earth Hour's executive director Andy Ridley:
"Earth Hour is about everyone and every organisation, from individuals to global companies, joining together to own a shared problem - climate change. Governments and businesses are joining individuals, religious groups, schools and communities in this terrific movement that's all about making a change for the better. It's staggering to see so much support from across the globe."
Can you picture yourself high above the Earth as city after city and home after home turn off the lights not long after the terminator of night has passed? As darkness washes around the globe, our voices will be heard - as well as seen - for anyone who cares to look.
If you won't participate in Earth Hour simply because you don't think it will make a change, then do so for astronomers who are celebrating the beginning of National Dark-Sky Week. How will it reduce light pollution, given that it only lasts a week and not everyone will participate? The main goal of NDSW is to raise awareness about the harmful effects of light pollution. It just isn't possible for all of the light pollution in the world to disappear, but together we can. make difference, just like Earth Hour, and inspire us all to preserve the beauty of the night sky.
One thing is for certain, Earth Hour is huge news. And all of us here at Universe Today can be very proud that we are part of it.

Polar bears deliver environmental petition to Premier of British Columbia

On Thursday in Canada, the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC) and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee delivered petitions with over 10,000 signatorys to the Premier of British Columbia's office. The petitions ask that the government cancel the Gateway Program's highway expansions components and invest more in transit instead.

The Gateway Program is a transportation infrastructure project that includes over 260 km of new highway lanes.
Over a dozen activists rallied outside the office in downtown Vancouver including two dressed as polar bears. The premier's office initially declined to accept the invitations. After the activists attempted to enter the nearby convention centre where the premier was speaking, staff working with the Premier agreed to accept the petitions.
"Translink is currently exhausting its capital reserves just to keep existing service going," said Karen Wristen, Executive Director of SPEC. "At this rate, they will be broke in two years. We simply can't afford both freeway expansion and transit development: we have to solve the transit crisis first."
"It will be virtually impossible to reach BC's commitments to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) if Gateway is allowed to proceed. Gateway is not just an irresponsible plan, it's immoral," said Ben West, the Wilderness Committee's Healthy Communities Campaigner.


The government calculates that greenhouse gas emissions will increase by over 170,000 tonnes per year from the Gateway program.
Premier Gordon Campbell has not yet responded directly to the petition. In recent interviews he has defended the Gateway Program.
"I understand that some people will disagree with it," Premier Campbell said of Gateway on April 6 to The Georgia Straight. "But it's many, many things that are happening at once to make the region more livable, to reduce our impact and our greenhouse-gas impact, and to invest in public transit. And I think that when you take all those things together—as we move to California tailpipe emissions and those other initiatives—I think you will see actually a reduction in greenhouse gases."

ENVIRONMENT: Around the Globe, Farmers Losing Ground

In 1938, Walter Lowdermilk, a senior official in the Soil Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, traveled abroad to look at lands that had been cultivated for thousands of years, seeking to learn how these older civilisations had coped with soil erosion.He found that some had managed their land well, maintaining its fertility over long stretches of history, and were thriving. Others had failed to do so and left only remnants of their illustrious pasts. In a section of his report entitled "The Hundred Dead Cities," he described a site in northern Syria, near Aleppo, where ancient buildings were still standing in stark isolated relief, but they were on bare rock. During the seventh century, the thriving region had been invaded, initially by a Persian army and later by nomads out of the Arabian Desert. In the process, soil and water conservation practices used for centuries were abandoned. Lowdermilk noted, "Here erosion had done its worst... if the soils had remained, even though the cities were destroyed and the populations dispersed, the area might be re-peopled again and the cities rebuilt, but now that the soils are gone, all is gone." Now fast forward to a trip in 2002 by a United Nations team to assess the food situation in Lesotho, a small country of 2 million people imbedded within South Africa. Their finding was straightforward: "Agriculture in Lesotho faces a catastrophic future; crop production is declining and could cease altogether over large tracts of the country if steps are not taken to reverse soil erosion, degradation, and the decline in soil fertility." Michael Grunwald reports in the Washington Post that nearly half of the children under five in Lesotho are stunted physically. "Many," he says, "are too weak to walk to school." Whether the land is in northern Syria, Lesotho, or elsewhere, the health of the people living on it cannot be separated from the health of the land itself. A large share of the world's 852 million hungry people live on land with soils worn thin by erosion. The thin layer of topsoil that covers the planet's land surface is the foundation of civilisation. This soil, measured in inches over much of the earth, was formed over long stretches of geological time as new soil formation exceeded the natural rate of erosion. As soil accumulated over the eons, it provided a medium in which plants could grow. In turn, plants protect the soil from erosion. Human activity is disrupting this relationship. Sometime within the last century, soil erosion began to exceed new soil formation in large areas. Perhaps a third or more of all cropland is losing topsoil faster than new soil is forming, thereby reducing the land's inherent productivity. Today the foundation of civilisation is crumbling. The seeds of collapse of some early civilisations, such as the Mayans, may have originated in soil erosion that undermined the food supply. The accelerating soil erosion over the last century can be seen in the dust bowls that form as vegetation is destroyed and wind erosion soars out of control. Among those that stand out are the Dust Bowl in the U.S. Great Plains during the 1930s, the dust bowls in the Soviet Virgin Lands in the 1960s, the huge one that is forming today in northwest China, and the one taking shape in the Sahelian region of Africa. Each of these is associated with a familiar pattern of overgrazing, deforestation, and agricultural expansion onto marginal land, followed by retrenchment as the soil begins to disappear. Twentieth-century population growth pushed agriculture onto highly vulnerable land in many countries. The overplowing of the U.S. Great Plains during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, led to the 1930s Dust Bowl. This was a tragic era in U.S. history, one that forced hundreds of thousands of farm families to leave the Great Plains. Many migrated to California in search of a new life, a move immortalised in John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath". Three decades later, history repeated itself in the Soviet Union. The Virgin Lands Project between 1954 and 1960 centred on plowing an area of grassland for wheat that was larger than the wheatland in Canada and Australia combined. Initially this resulted in an impressive expansion in Soviet grain production, but the success was short-lived as a dust bowl developed there as well. Kazakhstan, at the centre of this Virgin Lands Project, saw its grainland area peak at just over 25 million hectares (44 millions acres) around 1980, then shrink to 14 million hectares today. Even on the remaining land, however, the average wheat yield is scarcely one tonne per hectare, a far cry from the nearly eight tonnes per hectare that farmers get in France, Western Europe's leading wheat producer. A similar situation exists in Mongolia, where over the last 20 years half the wheatland has been abandoned and wheat yields have also fallen by half, shrinking the harvest by three fourths. Mongolia - a country almost three times the size of France with a population of 2.6 million - is now forced to import nearly 60 percent of its wheat. Dust storms originating in the new dust bowls are now faithfully recorded in satellite images. In early January 2005, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released images of a vast dust storm moving westward out of central Africa. This vast cloud of tan-coloured dust stretched over some 5,300 kilometres. NASA noted that if the storm were relocated to the United States, it would cover the country and extend into the oceans on both coasts. Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University, reports that Saharan dust storms - once rare - are now commonplace. He estimates they have increased 10-fold during the last half-century. Among the countries in the region most affected by topsoil loss from wind erosion are Niger, Chad, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, and Burkino Faso. In Mauritania, in Africa's far west, the number of dust storms jumped from two a year in the early 1960s to 80 a year today. The Bodélé Depression in Chad is the source of an estimated 1.3 billion tons of wind-borne soil a year, up 10-fold from 1947 when measurements began. The 2 to 3 billion tons of fine soil particles that leave Africa each year in dust storms are slowly draining the continent of its fertility and, hence, its biological productivity. In addition, dust storms leaving Africa travel westward across the Atlantic, depositing so much dust in the Caribbean that they cloud the water and damage coral reefs there. In China, plowing excesses became common in several provinces as agriculture pushed northward and westward into the pastoral zone between 1987 and 1996. In Inner Mongolia (Nei Monggol), for example, the cultivated area increased by 1.1 million hectares, or 22 percent, during this period. Other provinces that expanded their cultivated area by 3 percent or more during this nine-year span include Heilongjiang, Hunan, Tibet (Xizang), Qinghai, and Xinjiang. Severe wind erosion of soil on this newly plowed land made it clear that its only sustainable use was controlled grazing. As a result, Chinese agriculture is now engaged in a strategic withdrawal in these provinces, pulling back to land that can sustain crop production. Water erosion also takes a toll on soils. This can be seen in the silting of reservoirs and in muddy, silt-laden rivers flowing into the sea. Pakistan's two large reservoirs, Mangla and Tarbela, which store Indus River water for the country's vast irrigation network, are losing roughly 1 percent of their storage capacity each year as they fill with silt from deforested watersheds. Ethiopia, a mountainous country with highly erodible soils on steeply sloping land, is losing an estimated 1 billion tons of topsoil a year, washed away by rain. This is one reason Ethiopia always seems to be on the verge of famine, never able to accumulate enough grain reserves to provide a meaningful measure of food security

Shrinking of Scottish sheep tied to warming

The shrinking sheep on Scotland's Hirta Island have proven that climate can trump natural selection, researchers say. The average body size has shrunk by 5 percent since 1985.
Two years after scientists concluded that a breed of wild sheep on a remote Scottish island was shrinking over time, a study released Thursday revealed why: milder winters tied to global warming.
Due to milder winters, lambs on the island of Hirta do not need to put on as much as weight in the first months of life to survive to their first year, according to the study in the peer-reviewed journal Science. As a result, even the slower-growing ones now have a chance of surviving.
"In the past, only the big, healthy sheep and large lambs that had piled on weight in their first summer could survive the harsh winters on Hirta," lead author Tim Coulson, a researcher at Imperial College London, said in a statement

But now, due to climate change, grass for food is available for more months of the year, and survival conditions are not so challenging — even the slower growing sheep have a chance of making it, and this means smaller individuals are becoming increasingly prevalent in the population."
Evolutionary theory upendedThe study upends the belief that natural selection is a dominant feature of evolution, noting that climate can trump that card.
"According to classic evolutionary theory," Coulson added, the sheep "should have been getting bigger, because larger sheep tend to be more likely to survive and reproduce than smaller ones, and offspring tend to resemble their parents."
The sheep on Hirta have been examined closely since 1985 and experts concluded in 2007 that average body size was shrinking. By this year, it had decreased by 5 percent since 1985.
Coulson's team analyzed body-weight measurements and key life milestones for a selected group of female sheep. They then plugged the data into a computer model that predicts how body size will change over time due to natural selection and other factors.
The results suggest that the decrease in average size is primarily an ecological response to warming, the authors said, and that natural selection has contributed relatively little.
'Young mum effect'Coulson's team also found what they call a "young mum effect": younger females are physically unable to produce offspring that are as big as they were at birth. Why is still unclear, the authors report, but the effect counters the effect of natural selection.
"The young mum effect explains why Soay sheep have not been getting bigger, as we expected them to," Coulson said. "But it is not enough to explain why they're shrinking. We believe that this is down to climate change. These two factors are combining to override what we would expect through natural selection."
"Our findings have solved a paradox that has tormented biologists for years — why predictions did not match observation," he added. "Biologists have realized that ecological and evolutionary processes are intricately intertwined, and they now have a way of dissecting out the contribution of each. Unfortunately it is too early to tell whether a warming world will lead to pocket-sized sheep."

What’s Lean, Mean and (now) Green?

Here’s something you may not know: the IT sector has a huge climate impact. At present, between 3 and 4 percent of all electricity (and the associated carbon emissions) used in the world goes to running data centers. If you’re one of the four and a half million registered users of Second Life, consider this: the average Second Life avatar consumes 1,752 kWh of electricity per year, or about two thirds that of an actual person (globally averaged). One server alone has roughly the same climate impact as a 15mpg SUV!

Climate change is real, it’s happening now, and we as a planet desperately need to reduce our IT emissions. And if we wait for the government to solve the problem, we’ll be waiting for a long, long, LONG time.
We’re thrilled to announce that HostGator has joined the ranks of many progressive companies including: Starbucks, IBM, and UPS to take action on addressing climate change right now.
HostGator has gone green, and it’s gone green in a BIG way.We at Integrated Ecosystem Market Services are very proud to have worked with HostGator to develop a sector-leading program.
What makes HostGator’s program so special? If you’re thinking about switching to green hosting, good for you! Green hosting is an important step in dealing with climate change. But be aware- once you start asking some questions you’ll find that not all of the .green. hosting options out there are nearly as green as they claim to be. HostGator’s program stands out from the pack for a number of reasons . . .
One, HostGator is using renewable energy to both power and cool their servers, whereas a number of green hosts only offset the electricity used to power their servers. That represents a big difference, because servers generate a lot of heat. For every watt of electricity that a server uses, 1-2 watts of electricity are typically required to cool it. What that means is that HostGator is investing in about twice as much renewable energy, on a per server basis, as those green hosts only using renewable energy to power their servers.
Two, HostGator has invested in Green -e certified Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). That means that all of HostGator’s RECs are verified, tracked and monitored. Sure, there are cheaper carbon credits out there, but HostGator wanted to go green the right way. HostGator can’t very well build a windfarm in downtown Houston, so it’s doing the next best thing and greening its energy at the source with rock solid RECs.

What the heck’s a REC?Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) are tradeable credits representing all the environmental benefits of 1 megawatt hour of renewable energy. So when HostGator purchases 4,009 Texas wind RECs, it’s basically paying a Texas windfarm to generate renewable energy on HostGator’s behalf. HostGator doesn’t own the windfarm, but for every REC purchased by HostGator, that windfarm generates 1 megawatt of Texas wind power and puts it into the grid. When HostGator draws power from the grid, it can then claim credit for that wind power generated on its behalf.
Three, HostGator has purchased RECs for 130% of the electricity used to power and cool its shared and reseller servers. Good luck finding another green host that has gone this far. Believe me- if they had, they’d let you know it.
Four, HostGator has invested entirely in wind RECs generated in their home state of Texas. Even those green hosts that have opted for certified RECs are generally sourcing them from wherever is cheapest.
HostGator, on the other hand, is thinking globally and acting locally. By insisting on 100% Texas wind RECs HostGator had to pay more for their credits, but they (and you) can rest easy knowing that they’re doing their part for the environment and the local green economy

So how did we develop and implement the greening program?First, we calculated the total amount of electricity used by HostGator’s shared and reseller servers. Based on the total number of servers and the average amount of electricity used in a year to power and cool them, we estimated that HostGator would need 4,009 MWh of electricity to offset 130% of the electricity used to power and cool all of HostGator’s shared and reseller servers
Second, we looked at HostGator’s carbon offsetting options. We considered RECs, Certified Emission Reductions and Verified Emission reductions, as well as a number of offset providers. Ultimately, HostGator chose to go with RECs, and to purchase them from one of the best REC providers around: 3Degrees.


RECs and CERs and VERs, Oh My! RECs aren’t the only offsetting option out there, there are also Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and Voluntary/Verified Emission Reductions (VERs). The main difference between the three is this: each REC represents 1 additional megawatt of North American wind power, whereas each CER or VER represents one metric ton of reduced or avoided carbon dioxide emissions. CERs and VERs can be generated from a whole range of projects (fuel switching, forestry, changes in industrial processes, etc.), but RECs can only be created by the production of renewable energy.
So why do RECs make the most sense for HostGator? RECs enable HostGator to green its energy right at the source and support the development of clean power, rather than simply paying another company to not pollute.
Finally, I should emphasize that the purchase of Renewable Energy Credits only represents HostGator’s most recent step toward sustainability. Prior to the REC purchase, HostGator had already begun the process of reducing their environmental impact at the office (recycling, minimizing paper use, etc.), and recently switched to higher efficiency servers.
What can you do to minimize your impact on the climate?Well, for one thing you can switch your hosting company to HostGator, if you’re not already a customer of theirs! You can choose from one of their great shared or reseller plans.
Beyond that, there are myriad ways to go green in your personal life. Most of them are totally painless, for example turning off your computer at night, rather than leaving it in sleep mode. Many of them will save you money in the long run, for example using compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescents.
For a quick start, check out CarbonTracker.com’s list of 11 simple steps you can take to minimize your impact on the climate. For even more information, the Environmental Protection Agency has a ton of info on the subject:

Green Cuba

Although suffering from both the 33-year-old U.S. trade embargo and the collapse of favorable trade relations, Cuba has bucked the global trend of poor countries eviscerating their environmental protections. With the country mired in its deepest economic crisis since Castro took power, Cuban legislators wrote environmental protection into the nation's constitution this year, and the government has enacted a series of measures designed to protect the island's ecology. Nevertheless, the clash between a long-term interest in preserving the environment and the temptation to ensure economic survival in the short term by exploiting island resources presents Cuba with some very difficult choices.
Forest protection
One of Cuba's earliest environmental protection efforts was a move toward reversing the deforestation which had reduced woodlands to 14 percent of the island's total land area by 1959. Using mature reforestation methods, Cuba has increased its forested area by more than 4 percent. It has ended its old practice of clear-cutting and diminished its reliance on monoculture crops. Fifty-five percent of new tree planting is for protected areas and 45 percent for commercial purposes, including logging and the production of oils used in pharmaceuticals and paints. Inter-planting with fruit trees is becoming a common practice, with mango trees frequently sharing space with fast- growing Caribbean pines, for example. Cuba's people have actively engaged in community tree-planting schemes around schools and other institutions and along the highways. Over one-half of the population has been involved in these planting projects.
The Zapata wetland on the south coast and the Sierra Maestra National Park are among Cuba's protected regions, and national parks now cover 100,000 hectares of land. Forest protection varies in degree and enforcement, and is strongest in the country's bioreserves. The bioreserves comprise about 15 percent of the forest area and are used primarily for scientific study. Other areas are less protected and more heavily used for logging or recreation.
But the economic crisis is placing new pressures on the forests and Cuba's forest protection and reforestation policies may soon fall by the wayside. For example, the oil shortage has spurred the Institute of Transportation into studying methods of using wood to run the railroads. On the other hand, Helenio Ferrer, vice president of COMARNO, the National Commission for the Protection of the Environment and Natural Resources, says that Cuba is cultivating other plant types for energy use which grow rapidly, burn well and are not as irreplaceable as trees.
Alternatives to oil
The cutoff of Soviet oil has forced Cuba to enact an emergency conservation program as the nation's annual oil imports have plunged from 13,000 tons to 6,000 tons in the last few years since the severe reduction of trade with the formerly socialist countries. The government has contingency plans to keep the country running on as little as 4,000 tons annually. Government officials view conservation, biomass, mini-hydro and solar project not solely as emergency measures, but as permanent alterations in the country's energy production mix.
The most visible sign of conservation is the ubiquitous bicycle. There are now 800,000 bicycles in Havana alone, most purchased from China. Cuba will soon produce bicycles domestically, and they are expected to be a principal form of local transportation well into the future.
Almost 30 percent of Cuba's energy supply now originates from biomass. Of Cuba's 160 sugar mills, 104 are totally powered by their own bagasse, a by- product of sugar production. In addition, waste fiber is used to make paper and other products. The process, however, deprives fields of the harvest detritus that has traditionally played an important fertilizing function. Farmers have partially solved this problem by reconstituting the plants' waste water and returning it to the fields. The agricultural sector is also making heavy use of animal manure.
Hydrological sources of energy are limited, but small hydro projects, built with assistance from a German church-based organization, provide electricity for some isolated mountain communities.
Although Cuba harnesses little solar energy, the abundant sunshine it receives makes the island a good candidate to develop a vibrant solar industry. Now, prompted by the oil shortage, the government has established a Solar Institute in Santiago de Cuba. The Institute has primarily been engaged in small-scale projects such as water heating.
Unfortunately, Cuba is also continuing to develop non-renewable energy projects. It is constructing a nuclear power plant and undertaking a joint project with a European consortium to explore for offshore oil. Cuba's illusions about the safety of nuclear energy were shattered by the disaster at Chernobyl, particularly since children affected by that accident were brought to Cuba for medical treatment, but the desperation caused by the oil crunch is so severe that the government is going ahead with its nuclear power plant plans anyway. Juan Antonio Blanco, professor of international relations at the University of Havana, describes Cuba's resort to nuclear energy as being "like chemotherapy for a cancer patient. When it is a matter of survival, one takes the risk."
The price of pesticides
As the examples of forest and energy policy illustrate, the pervasive economic crisis intersects with environmental issues in a wide variety of ways. In some areas, it has actually led to a strengthening of environmental policies.
The economic crunch put an end to revolutionary Cuba's large-scale, centralized agricultural system's intensive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. The lack of funds to purchase chemical pesticides and fertilizers on the world market made the move to organic farming more urgent. Farmers are replacing pesticides with biological controls, and reductions in chemical fertilizer are slated to continue, according to Ferrer, "to an ultimate goal of phasing chemicals out entirely."
Farmers are returning to more traditional and sustainable practices. A previous drive to replace farm animals with tractors has been reversed. Dairy herds are being built up as part of the effort to make Cuba self-sufficient in food. Farmers are also experimenting with newer methods such as using manure in the production of biogas and to help breed a worm that in turn is used for animal feed.
The Cuban recycling experience contrasts dramatically with U.S. practices, where local government recycling usually comes only in direct response to the loss of landfill sites, reinforced by a growing public awareness, and is marred by lack of industry use of what has been collected. Recycling is far better organized and more nearly complete in Cuba, where the population now mines the waste stream for any useful material. From banana peels to toothpaste caps, everything possible is reused.
But in many other cases, the economic crisis is limiting the ability of the government to enact environmental programs, or leading it to pursue environmentally risky economic policies.
Cuba's efforts to build up its tourism industry as a means to generate foreign currency pose a number of environmental threats, but after some unpleasant lessons, the government is now working carefully to mitigate them. A causeway built as part of the tourist development of the Key islands off the country's north coast interfered with the circulation of the water in the Straits of Florida which in turn depleted the fish habitat and caused mangrove trees to die. Once the case against the causeway was made, however, the government responded quickly: it removed a major span and replaced it with a bridge. Now interdisciplinary teams are doing baseline studies to determine the amount of development the Keys can sustain without losing their environmental integrity. These studies will determine the type and extent of hotel building and construction of other tourist facilities that will be permitted.
The government is working to clean up the polluted Havana Bay, and is cracking down on industrial managers responsible for its contamination. For example, the government ordered managers of a fertilizer plant which was dumping waste into the harbor to change their operating practices. After failing to comply, they were charged with negligence, tried and are now in prison. But the government's clean-up efforts are hampered by lack of funds for a major overhaul of the city's sewer system, built in 1902. The problem is less severe in newer sections of the city that were constructed with their own systems. The most advanced system is a housing project called Las Arboledas, which is currently being built. The end- products of sewage treatment will be water, usable for irrigation of the individual and community gardens which are now a feature of the Cuban urban landscape, and sludge, which is safe for fertilizing the gardens. Architect Gabriela Gonzalez acknowledges that there is a cultural barrier to the use of the sludge, which he hopes will be overcome by education and experience.
Environmental consciousness
The future of Cuba's environmental initiatives is uncertain. In some ways, it is hard to see new governmental environmental programs and sensitivities surviving the enormous economic pressure which the country will be under for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, the emerging environmental consciousness of Cuba's well-educated population and Cubans' identification with the country's land, waters and mountains - Cubans speak of "the island" as often as they call it by name - should buttress the government's new emphasis on environmental sustainability.n
Sidebar
Global WarmingCUBANS ARE DEEPLY CONCERNED about the prospect of global warming and the failure of the Rio Earth Summit to seriously address the greenhouse effect. The country is particularly vulnerable to a rise in the level of the seas, since a very small rise in sea level would swamp the Zapata wetland, reducing Cuban land area by 15 to 25 percent.
Scientists at the Institute of Geography point out that most research on global warming has been done in temperate areas of industrialized countries. They point out the need for international monitoring stations for the natural environment stretching through the Caribbean, Central America and northern South America. With its existing 68-station meteorological monitoring network and environmental science stations, Cuba is well positioned to participate in this globally significant scientific work, but more international support is needed.