The future of Minnesota’s largest-ever industrial development is in the hands of three state Appeals Court judges.
Environmental groups want the judges to order the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to take a closer look at how Essar Steel Minnesota’s planned $1.65 billion direct taconite-to-steel plant would affect global warming.
The project near Nashwauk is due to begin producing steel slabs by 2014. It will employ 500 people. Up to 2,000 workers will be needed to construct the facilities and state officials have compared its economic impact to the Mall of America.
The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, supported by Fresh Energy, contend the DNR did not adequately consider the amount of greenhouse gases the plant would produce. The DNR said it did all that it could to consider the global warming impact produced by the gases before approving an Environmental Impact Statement that opened the door to state and federal construction permits.
“The agency always could have done something more,” Tom Overton, an assistant attorney general representing DNR, told the appeals judges during a Thursday hearing. But, he added, there could be no end to such a study.
Scott Strand, representing the environmentalists, told the judges that they should order DNR to look into global warming.
“A large environmental impact was ignored altogether,” he said.
Thaddeus Lightfoot, Essar’s attorney, told the judges that they do not have legal authority to revoke state and federal permits already issued.
In an interview, he said the court case has not slowed construction work. However, if the Appeals Court overturns permits, construction may slow or stop.
Thursday’s hearing followed an Oct. 15, 2008, Itasca County court ruling that held the DNR followed the law when it drew up the Environmental Impact Statement. The environmental center appealed the ruling.
The environmental group claimed the DNR’s Environmental Impact Statement did not take into account the added electricity that would be needed to run the mining and steelmaking operation. Strand said that electricity most likely would come from power plants fueled by coal, which many scientists say leads to global warming.
Overton said “DNR took a hard look at the issues” and did the best it could to include global warming impacts in its 1,000-page report. “They did use the best information that they had.”
India-based Essar plans to reopen the Butler taconite mine near Nashwauk, which is estimated to have enough iron to keep the nearby steel-making plant running for at least 100 years. Essar bought 8,000 acres of land in the area and plans to buy or obtain easements on more until it controls about 20,000 acres.
Contractors are preparing the site for construction. An iron ore pellet plant could be in production by 2011, with steel being produced three years later. It would be the first American facility where mining and steel-making are at the same site.
Overton said that the project “offers distinct advantages” over other steel mills and mines. For instance, he said, the mill will use natural gas, a cleaner alternative to coal. And it could buy electricity from Canadian hydroelectric generators, he added.
While judges asked how the DNR was supposed to figure the global warming impact, Strand said the agency needs “to do their best projection of what science will allow
Friday, July 17, 2009
The Search for Environmental Justice in Perry County, Alabama
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the nation's largest public utility, has recently gained approval from the EPA to ship three millions of tons coal ash waste, from the December 2008 Kingston Fossil Fuel Plant ash spill disaster in Kingston TN to Perry County, Alabama. The TVA is now shipping ash coal waste that contains significant levels of 14 toxic substances including arsenic, lead, mercury selenium and radioactive elements to a private waste site owned by Perry County Associates. This move has generated considerable controversy. Why? For reasons I will explain later, largely because it appears to be a blatant case of environmental injustice.
First, you need to know more about Perry County. Situated in the heart of our nation's "Black Belt" it is the second poorest county in Alabama. Unemployment is around 17 percent. The median income of its residents is around $24,000 and approximately a third of the county lives below the poverty level. Added to that is the fact that 70% of the county is black.
Now, here is the rub, the majority of the county's politicians are black including the county commissioners who endorsed the idea. The politicians claim that they have backed the idea because it will bring more employment to the county. They claim the waste will bring $4 million dollars in fees to the county and create as many as 50 jobs to a county whose population is 10,6000 people. In an Associated Press story (AP) (7/02/09) Michael Churchman, executive director of the Alabama Environmental Council stated:"We still feel that there are elements that seem like an injustice to the people of Perry County," said "The benefits of the new jobs and increased income to families in that county is not as significant as it's being portrayed to be."
Even if you accept the county commissioners' rationale it clearly underscores the asymmetrical economic power relations of this nation and demonstrates just how desperate a poor, southern minority county is in today's America. The more affluent State of Pennsylvania has refused a request a TVA request to ship the waste to their state because they deemed the waste hazardous. The Tuscaloosa News has published an editorial objecting to the "toxic dumping" and among other things stating that, "the money is fleeting and the job-lasting about a year. The waste and its impact are on the environment forever"
In a recent meeting last month in Roane County TN, Anda Ray, TVA Senior Vice President of the Office of the Environment, justified the decision in part by saying the county residents endorsed the idea. She then, somewhat adroitly, amended the statement-"mid-stream"- with the caveat that the locally elected officials were the ones that did so and not the county's residents leaving the impression with many in the audience that the citizens of Perry County endorsed the idea.
It would seem from the reports in the press and discussions with Perry County residents that the decision is highly unpopular among some, if not many. A number of people have argued that the risks greatly exceed any potential benefit. For instance, an AP story recently reported that the district attorney for the county, Michael Jackson, is "vehemently" opposed to the idea and has stated that the decision by local politicians was: tragic and shortsighted." Congressman, Arthur Davis, who represents the county, and who intends to run for governor of Alabama, is also strongly opposed to the ash fill landfill.
Which brings us back to why this appears to be a prima facie case of environmental justice. Let's be very clear about this, according to Presidential Executive Order 12898 (1994) and the EPA's website:
Environmental justice is for the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people should bear a disproportionate risk share of negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental, or commercial operations or policies. Meaningful involvement means (1) that people have an opportunity to participate in decisions and activities that may affect their environment and/or health; (2) the public's contribution can influence the regulatory agency's decision; (3) their concerns will be considered in the decision making process; (4) the decision makers seek out and facilitate the involvement of those potentially effected (emphasis theirs).
First of all, according to reports in the press and statements made by numerous individuals in the community, a meaningful process involving the community members, and not just a select group of elected officials, has not taken place. Moreover, the statutes that the EPA implements require the agency to consider a host of factors including public health, cumulative impacts; social costs, and welfare impacts. And then there is the fact that, under the Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA) it explicitly directs EPA to target low-income and minority populations for assistance and to consider such vulnerable populations in setting standards.
Finally, there is no evidence to the contrary that any of the above stated procedures listed on the EPA website have been implemented let alone taken into consideration. The fact that the county commissioners are also a minority population does not absolve them, or the EPA, from insuring that the county's residents have an opportunity to participate in the decisions that may disproportionately affect them. As Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice has argued, regardless of race, the decision to allow the dumping of TVA waste in Perry County adversely affects all low-income residents in the county: an outcome that pertains directly to federal environmental justice policy concerns.
In responding to criticisms of institutional racism, TVA, Peyton T. Hairston, TVA's Vice-President for Corporate Responsibility and Diversity, spokesperson, according to the publication, Facing South, stated that TVA made the decision to ship the waste to Perry County for reasons other than the racial composition of the community. Another TVA spokesperson has repeatedly stated to the press that the primary reason the Perry County waste site was chosen is because it is accessible by railroad. While this may be true, a basic precept of environmental justice rightly contends that regardless of intent, the impact is the same: a poor minority suffers a disproportionate risk regardless of the rationale for such a decision.
In 2006, during the Bush Administration, the US EPA's Office of Inspector General conducted an evaluation report and found "that EPA senior management has not sufficiently directed program and regional offices to conduct justice reviews in accordance with Executive Order 12898. (Report No. 2006-P-00034, September 18, 2006). More recently, earlier this month, a coalition of environmental justice leaders led by Robert Bullard, log-time environmental justice advocate, have urged the Obama administration to enforce stricter standards in regard to environmental waste.
So here is the question: what has the EPA done to improve this situation under the new Obama administration? Specifically, has the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice taken appropriate action in the case of Perry County? What exactly have they done? How transparent has their decision making process been? If they have reviewed and approved the sitting of this waste what is their rationale for such a decision?
As one elderly, back resident of Perry County, stated, "If we can't get environmental justice enforced under the administration of a black president than we ain't never going to get any justice!"
President Obama might want to consider that halting the dumping of toxic waste in Perry County might well be one of those "defining moments" he spoke so eloquently of during his campaign for President.
First, you need to know more about Perry County. Situated in the heart of our nation's "Black Belt" it is the second poorest county in Alabama. Unemployment is around 17 percent. The median income of its residents is around $24,000 and approximately a third of the county lives below the poverty level. Added to that is the fact that 70% of the county is black.
Now, here is the rub, the majority of the county's politicians are black including the county commissioners who endorsed the idea. The politicians claim that they have backed the idea because it will bring more employment to the county. They claim the waste will bring $4 million dollars in fees to the county and create as many as 50 jobs to a county whose population is 10,6000 people. In an Associated Press story (AP) (7/02/09) Michael Churchman, executive director of the Alabama Environmental Council stated:"We still feel that there are elements that seem like an injustice to the people of Perry County," said "The benefits of the new jobs and increased income to families in that county is not as significant as it's being portrayed to be."
Even if you accept the county commissioners' rationale it clearly underscores the asymmetrical economic power relations of this nation and demonstrates just how desperate a poor, southern minority county is in today's America. The more affluent State of Pennsylvania has refused a request a TVA request to ship the waste to their state because they deemed the waste hazardous. The Tuscaloosa News has published an editorial objecting to the "toxic dumping" and among other things stating that, "the money is fleeting and the job-lasting about a year. The waste and its impact are on the environment forever"
In a recent meeting last month in Roane County TN, Anda Ray, TVA Senior Vice President of the Office of the Environment, justified the decision in part by saying the county residents endorsed the idea. She then, somewhat adroitly, amended the statement-"mid-stream"- with the caveat that the locally elected officials were the ones that did so and not the county's residents leaving the impression with many in the audience that the citizens of Perry County endorsed the idea.
It would seem from the reports in the press and discussions with Perry County residents that the decision is highly unpopular among some, if not many. A number of people have argued that the risks greatly exceed any potential benefit. For instance, an AP story recently reported that the district attorney for the county, Michael Jackson, is "vehemently" opposed to the idea and has stated that the decision by local politicians was: tragic and shortsighted." Congressman, Arthur Davis, who represents the county, and who intends to run for governor of Alabama, is also strongly opposed to the ash fill landfill.
Which brings us back to why this appears to be a prima facie case of environmental justice. Let's be very clear about this, according to Presidential Executive Order 12898 (1994) and the EPA's website:
Environmental justice is for the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people should bear a disproportionate risk share of negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental, or commercial operations or policies. Meaningful involvement means (1) that people have an opportunity to participate in decisions and activities that may affect their environment and/or health; (2) the public's contribution can influence the regulatory agency's decision; (3) their concerns will be considered in the decision making process; (4) the decision makers seek out and facilitate the involvement of those potentially effected (emphasis theirs).
First of all, according to reports in the press and statements made by numerous individuals in the community, a meaningful process involving the community members, and not just a select group of elected officials, has not taken place. Moreover, the statutes that the EPA implements require the agency to consider a host of factors including public health, cumulative impacts; social costs, and welfare impacts. And then there is the fact that, under the Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA) it explicitly directs EPA to target low-income and minority populations for assistance and to consider such vulnerable populations in setting standards.
Finally, there is no evidence to the contrary that any of the above stated procedures listed on the EPA website have been implemented let alone taken into consideration. The fact that the county commissioners are also a minority population does not absolve them, or the EPA, from insuring that the county's residents have an opportunity to participate in the decisions that may disproportionately affect them. As Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice has argued, regardless of race, the decision to allow the dumping of TVA waste in Perry County adversely affects all low-income residents in the county: an outcome that pertains directly to federal environmental justice policy concerns.
In responding to criticisms of institutional racism, TVA, Peyton T. Hairston, TVA's Vice-President for Corporate Responsibility and Diversity, spokesperson, according to the publication, Facing South, stated that TVA made the decision to ship the waste to Perry County for reasons other than the racial composition of the community. Another TVA spokesperson has repeatedly stated to the press that the primary reason the Perry County waste site was chosen is because it is accessible by railroad. While this may be true, a basic precept of environmental justice rightly contends that regardless of intent, the impact is the same: a poor minority suffers a disproportionate risk regardless of the rationale for such a decision.
In 2006, during the Bush Administration, the US EPA's Office of Inspector General conducted an evaluation report and found "that EPA senior management has not sufficiently directed program and regional offices to conduct justice reviews in accordance with Executive Order 12898. (Report No. 2006-P-00034, September 18, 2006). More recently, earlier this month, a coalition of environmental justice leaders led by Robert Bullard, log-time environmental justice advocate, have urged the Obama administration to enforce stricter standards in regard to environmental waste.
So here is the question: what has the EPA done to improve this situation under the new Obama administration? Specifically, has the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice taken appropriate action in the case of Perry County? What exactly have they done? How transparent has their decision making process been? If they have reviewed and approved the sitting of this waste what is their rationale for such a decision?
As one elderly, back resident of Perry County, stated, "If we can't get environmental justice enforced under the administration of a black president than we ain't never going to get any justice!"
President Obama might want to consider that halting the dumping of toxic waste in Perry County might well be one of those "defining moments" he spoke so eloquently of during his campaign for President.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Climate Roadmap Missing from G8 Agreement
International leaders at the G8 summit in Italy pledged last week to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees -- the limit set by scientists before irreversible damage is done -- but failed to outline actions to achieve this goal, warns an environmental protection group.
What's the Story?
To ensure that global temperatures don't warm more than 2 degrees, G8 countries -- the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom -- plan to reduce their emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050.
The conservation organization WWF "welcomes the leaders' initiative, but the lack of an agreement on ambitious midterm emissions reduction targets, clear financial commitments, and a date for global peak and decline of emissions could turn the 2 degree commitment into an empty statement," says a release on the group's Web site.
"Without setting the path to reduce emissions, the actual obligations of countries will be watered down, and staying below 2 degrees will be impossible," noted Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF's global climate campaign.
To ensure they are on track to meet the long-term goal, continued WWF, industrialized nations should take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent in the next 10 years. In addition, said the organization, the G8 should also provide funds to help developing countries adapt to climate change and cut their own emissions. (See the WWF's full statement below.)
G8 Fails on Midterm Emissions Goal
In addition to reducing their own emissions 80 percent by midcentury, the G8 also agreed that total global emissions should be cut in half by 2050. But in the absence of a firm timeline for the next 40 years, advocacy groups are cautioning that a strong foundation has not yet been laid for an effective global climate change treaty, to be concluded at an upcoming meeting in Copenhagen, now just five months away.
"The failure to reach agreement on emissions reductions targets in Italy this week was a timely reminder that in the half-year since President Barack Obama took office, world leaders have made little progress in bridging the key issues that must be resolved in order to achieve an effective climate agreement in Copenhagen," wrote Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based environmental think tank.
The poverty alleviation organization ActionAid also chastised G8 countries for not making a firmer commitment, calling the twin goals of reducing emissions from the world's wealthiest countries by 80 percent and halving global emissions by 2050 "too little, too late."
"The global target the G8 agreed to...is too far away," said Angela Wauye, ActionAid's food rights coordinator. "Ask the 230 million hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa, who are already suffering the impact of climate change, if they can wait until 2050."
Changing weather patterns are contributing to hunger and food shortages in developing countries around the world. In Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, and Zambia climate change has adversely affected agriculture, causing local food prices to rise, reports ActionAid.
G8 Commits to Food Aid
The G8's announcement last Friday to invest $20 billion over three years in agriculture development was "the only bright spot of the summit," remarked Oxfam's Gawain Kripke.
"There is an urgent need for decisive action to free humankind from hunger and poverty," said the G8 leaders in a joint statement. "Food security is closely connected with economic growth and social progress as well as with political stability and peace."
The UN food and agriculture agency greeted the pledge as an "encouraging policy shift to help the poor and hungry." Some organizations, however, view it as an "old fashioned" way of tackling food issues, reports the development and technology news outlet SciDev.net.
Meanwhile, Action Against Hunger (AAH) is urging the Obama administration not to overlook the immediate crisis of acute malnutrition. Applauding the Obama administration for taking a leadership role on hunger, AAH is calling for funding to scale up existing programs serving people already suffering from food shortages.
"Acute malnutrition is predictable, cost-effective to treat, and simple to prevent; it's a tragedy that should not exist in the 21st century," said the aid group.
'A Long Way to Go'
Some humanitarian organizations remain extremely skeptical that the agreements made by the G8 will have a lasting effect.
According to the anti-poverty agency Mercy Corps, a 2005 G8 pledge to increase yearly international aid by $50 billion by 2010 is well behind schedule.
Similarly, Joanne Green, head of policy for the Catholic relief group CAFOD, lamented:"The G8 has reaffirmed its aid promises to the world's poorest, but let's not forget that that's just saying 'we'll actually do what we said we'd do four years ago'... When the language of the communiqué is so heavily infused with enthusiasm rather than solid action, we have to be skeptical."
"This summit has been a shambles, it did nothing for Africa, and the world is still being cooked," concluded Jeremy Hobbs
What's the Story?
To ensure that global temperatures don't warm more than 2 degrees, G8 countries -- the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom -- plan to reduce their emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050.
The conservation organization WWF "welcomes the leaders' initiative, but the lack of an agreement on ambitious midterm emissions reduction targets, clear financial commitments, and a date for global peak and decline of emissions could turn the 2 degree commitment into an empty statement," says a release on the group's Web site.
"Without setting the path to reduce emissions, the actual obligations of countries will be watered down, and staying below 2 degrees will be impossible," noted Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF's global climate campaign.
To ensure they are on track to meet the long-term goal, continued WWF, industrialized nations should take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent in the next 10 years. In addition, said the organization, the G8 should also provide funds to help developing countries adapt to climate change and cut their own emissions. (See the WWF's full statement below.)
G8 Fails on Midterm Emissions Goal
In addition to reducing their own emissions 80 percent by midcentury, the G8 also agreed that total global emissions should be cut in half by 2050. But in the absence of a firm timeline for the next 40 years, advocacy groups are cautioning that a strong foundation has not yet been laid for an effective global climate change treaty, to be concluded at an upcoming meeting in Copenhagen, now just five months away.
"The failure to reach agreement on emissions reductions targets in Italy this week was a timely reminder that in the half-year since President Barack Obama took office, world leaders have made little progress in bridging the key issues that must be resolved in order to achieve an effective climate agreement in Copenhagen," wrote Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based environmental think tank.
The poverty alleviation organization ActionAid also chastised G8 countries for not making a firmer commitment, calling the twin goals of reducing emissions from the world's wealthiest countries by 80 percent and halving global emissions by 2050 "too little, too late."
"The global target the G8 agreed to...is too far away," said Angela Wauye, ActionAid's food rights coordinator. "Ask the 230 million hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa, who are already suffering the impact of climate change, if they can wait until 2050."
Changing weather patterns are contributing to hunger and food shortages in developing countries around the world. In Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, and Zambia climate change has adversely affected agriculture, causing local food prices to rise, reports ActionAid.
G8 Commits to Food Aid
The G8's announcement last Friday to invest $20 billion over three years in agriculture development was "the only bright spot of the summit," remarked Oxfam's Gawain Kripke.
"There is an urgent need for decisive action to free humankind from hunger and poverty," said the G8 leaders in a joint statement. "Food security is closely connected with economic growth and social progress as well as with political stability and peace."
The UN food and agriculture agency greeted the pledge as an "encouraging policy shift to help the poor and hungry." Some organizations, however, view it as an "old fashioned" way of tackling food issues, reports the development and technology news outlet SciDev.net.
Meanwhile, Action Against Hunger (AAH) is urging the Obama administration not to overlook the immediate crisis of acute malnutrition. Applauding the Obama administration for taking a leadership role on hunger, AAH is calling for funding to scale up existing programs serving people already suffering from food shortages.
"Acute malnutrition is predictable, cost-effective to treat, and simple to prevent; it's a tragedy that should not exist in the 21st century," said the aid group.
'A Long Way to Go'
Some humanitarian organizations remain extremely skeptical that the agreements made by the G8 will have a lasting effect.
According to the anti-poverty agency Mercy Corps, a 2005 G8 pledge to increase yearly international aid by $50 billion by 2010 is well behind schedule.
Similarly, Joanne Green, head of policy for the Catholic relief group CAFOD, lamented:"The G8 has reaffirmed its aid promises to the world's poorest, but let's not forget that that's just saying 'we'll actually do what we said we'd do four years ago'... When the language of the communiqué is so heavily infused with enthusiasm rather than solid action, we have to be skeptical."
"This summit has been a shambles, it did nothing for Africa, and the world is still being cooked," concluded Jeremy Hobbs
Cars may soon be powered by urine
Could it be possible to run your car
on urine? Well, it may be, if Ohio University scientists are to be believed.
And their confidence stems from the fact that they have found a novel way to produce hydrogen energy from urine. According to Discovery News, the scientists used a nickel-based electrode to make cheap hydrogen from urine. When the research team led by professor Gerardine Botte stuck the electrode into a pool of urine, and applied an electrical current, hydrogen gas was released, which was used in fuel cells. The prototype is about three inches by three inches, and is capable of generating 500 milliwatts of power. The scientists hope to create commercial versions of the technology. Botte expects that the fuel-cell urine-powered car could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon. "One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses. Soldiers in the field could carry their own fuel," the New York Daily News quoted him as saying. The researchers focussed their study on urea, a urine by-product. "Urea is a by-product of a lot of cities and farms, but even if you take all the people and all the animals, there's not enough to run the world," said University of Georgia professor John Stickney. He added that though applications using urine won't be available to consumers for quite some time, it's definitely worth developing. "We are going to have to put together a lot of greener ways to collect energy that don't produce greenhouse gases and don't require us to go to war," he added.
on urine? Well, it may be, if Ohio University scientists are to be believed.
And their confidence stems from the fact that they have found a novel way to produce hydrogen energy from urine. According to Discovery News, the scientists used a nickel-based electrode to make cheap hydrogen from urine. When the research team led by professor Gerardine Botte stuck the electrode into a pool of urine, and applied an electrical current, hydrogen gas was released, which was used in fuel cells. The prototype is about three inches by three inches, and is capable of generating 500 milliwatts of power. The scientists hope to create commercial versions of the technology. Botte expects that the fuel-cell urine-powered car could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon. "One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses. Soldiers in the field could carry their own fuel," the New York Daily News quoted him as saying. The researchers focussed their study on urea, a urine by-product. "Urea is a by-product of a lot of cities and farms, but even if you take all the people and all the animals, there's not enough to run the world," said University of Georgia professor John Stickney. He added that though applications using urine won't be available to consumers for quite some time, it's definitely worth developing. "We are going to have to put together a lot of greener ways to collect energy that don't produce greenhouse gases and don't require us to go to war," he added.
A grapefruit pill to fight obesity
Tart and tangy with an underlying sweetness, grapefruit has a juiciness which rivals that of the ever popular orange and sparkles with many of the same health promoting benefits.
And, now researchers are on track to develop a pill from a chemical compound in grapefruit, which they claim would help obese people shed the flab and diabetics control their blood sugar levels. Researchers at University of Western Ontario have found that naringenin, the chemical compound that gives grapefruit its bitter taste, has revolutionary effect on the liver making it burn fat instead of storing it after a meal. According to them, this means that without having to change diets or cut out particular foods, a dose of naringenin could prevent weight gain and even help to lose it as well as help those having diabetes to control blood sugar levels. Lead researcher Murray Huff said: "The study shows naringenin, through its insulin-like properties, corrects many of the metabolic disturbances linked to insulin resistance and represents a promising approach for metabolic syndrome." They have based their findings on an analysis of tests which were carried out on mice -- two groups of rodents were both fed the equivalent of a Western diet to speed up their "metabolic syndrome", the process leading to Type 2 diabetes.
And, now researchers are on track to develop a pill from a chemical compound in grapefruit, which they claim would help obese people shed the flab and diabetics control their blood sugar levels. Researchers at University of Western Ontario have found that naringenin, the chemical compound that gives grapefruit its bitter taste, has revolutionary effect on the liver making it burn fat instead of storing it after a meal. According to them, this means that without having to change diets or cut out particular foods, a dose of naringenin could prevent weight gain and even help to lose it as well as help those having diabetes to control blood sugar levels. Lead researcher Murray Huff said: "The study shows naringenin, through its insulin-like properties, corrects many of the metabolic disturbances linked to insulin resistance and represents a promising approach for metabolic syndrome." They have based their findings on an analysis of tests which were carried out on mice -- two groups of rodents were both fed the equivalent of a Western diet to speed up their "metabolic syndrome", the process leading to Type 2 diabetes.
Taiwan creates a Napa Valley of teas
Taiwan, which has earned an international reputation as a tech design center, is quietly reinventing an ancient industry — tea.
The island of just 23 million supplies the world with semiconductors to power cell phones and computers, and oversees the production of iPhones, laptops and GPS systems. But tea-loving Taiwanese have also applied their industrious minds to the refinement of the centuries-old drink, blending tradition with newly developed methods of cultivation.
In doing so, Taiwan has created its own equivalent of Napa Valley for specific varieties of tea. While its overall share of the world's tea production is small — in 2004, it produced just 21 tons of tea,
compared with 835,000 tons grown in mainland China — its quality has few rivals.
"They take their tea-making seriously,"' said Joe Simrany, president of the Tea Association of the U.S.A. "Their oolongs are rated among the best in the world. It's one of the finest-tasting teas out there."
One reason Taiwan's tea expertise has not drawn more international attention is because producers here have more than enough business from local tea connoisseurs eager to pay hundreds of dollars for small batches of the local produce. Local yearly consumption has soared — from just under a pound in 1980 to 31/2 pounds in 2007.
"Every day you get up and drink tea," said Mark Lee, chairman of Taiwan's largest tea company,
Advertisement
yld_mgr.place_ad_here("adPosBox");
var flashAd_config = {ad_config: {ad_type: 'apt_ad',target: '_blank',div: "ad_51288051",flashver: '9',swf: 'http://l.yieldmanager.net/apex/mediastore/0886ea67-4840-48e3-b300-b1b7943b76d0',altURL: 'http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=165dpg2mb/M=600217707.600221478.403493004.403493004/D=ncsprtcl/S=2022776002:LREC/Y=PARTNER_US/L=9eca1236-726a-11de-b73b-470d32fc34bf/B=ZNdgAmKIVMg-/J=1247791312389680/K=Dgc42EF3uJGOOlnLEDxdJg/EXP=1247798512/A=1732989256744987966/R=0/X=2/id=altimg/SIG=116ju9ske/*http://www.kqed.org/quest/television',altimg: 'http://l.yieldmanager.net/apex/mediastore/c3ccf348-a92b-4973-9ee5-4a0f1c7800ca',width: 300,height: 250,flash_vars: ['clickTAG', 'http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=165dpg2mb/M=600217707.600221478.403493004.403493004/D=ncsprtcl/S=2022776002:LREC/Y=PARTNER_US/L=9eca1236-726a-11de-b73b-470d32fc34bf/B=ZNdgAmKIVMg-/J=1247791312389680/K=Dgc42EF3uJGOOlnLEDxdJg/EXP=1247798512/A=1732989256744987966/R=1/X=2/id=flash/SIG=116ju9ske/*http://www.kqed.org/quest/television']}};
TenRen, founded 56 years ago. "At lunch, you drink tea. When friends visit, you drink the best-label tea. And before you sleep, you drink tea."
Lee, who splits time between Taiwan and the United States, has spent decades promoting the tea culture in the United States. Family-owned TenRen is one of the few Taiwan tea companies selling high-end brew in the United States. It has dozens of stores in North America, including in Cupertino, Fremont, San Francisco and New York City.
TenRen's growth in the United States reflects the fact that Americans are drinking more tea from Asia. Some believe it has health benefits; others simply like the flavors and more soothing caffeine experience compared to coffee's jolt. In the past two decades, tea has grown from a $2 billion industry in the United States to about $7 billion today, according to Simrany. Sales of specialty teas, including those from Asia, have jumped from about $250 million a year to more than $1 billion.
Educating tea drinkers
That growth is due in part to the nearly missionary zeal of merchants like Lee. During the early 1980s, he would travel to different Bay Area supermarkets, set up a table with two chairs and brew tea for shoppers. He would patiently explain to Westerners unaccustomed to Asian tea that their brew, full of complex flavors, does not need milk and sugar.
"We emphasize the aroma, the taste," said Chen Hsuan, deputy director of Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station in Yangmei, while sipping high-mountain oolong, the signature Taiwan tea.
The government facility, which employs some 60 researchers, contains tasting rooms, labs and small patches of land lined with neat rows of knee-high tea plants. In addition to providing the latest research on tea cultivation, government scientists are continually developing new strains of the crop.
More than 16,000 Taiwan family farms grow tea, and the average plot size is no more than 21/2 acres. Tea farms in other countries typically are at least 10 times larger, Chen said.
Taiwanese were not always so high-minded about commercial tea production, which dates back hundreds of years to the early Qing Dynasty's rule over the island. During the 1970s and '80s, Taiwan transformed itself from an agricultural society to an industrial one.
Despite the shift to a high-tech economy, the government began promoting competitions to boost interest in the local produce and spur farmers to create quality tea. The tea industry, which struggled to compete with cheap teas from countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, invested in costly cultivation processes to grow crops that catered to the newly affluent citizens. Today, the more expensive oolong and paochong teas are picked and processed by hand.
"There was a tea renaissance," said Steven Jones, a Californian who relocated to Taipei years ago and is now a tea arts instructor at the LuYu Tea Culture Institute, which offers a certificate in master tea brewing that is honored around the globe.
Taiwanese drink tea much like Californians sip wine. They sniff for aroma, slurp for taste and carefully eye the color.
"Tea is the spirit of Taiwan," said Gina Chen, a 30-something professional who was buying $200 worth of tea gifts for friends one recent weekday at a chichi East Taipei tea store.
An upscale experience
Cha Cha The, which Taiwanese fashion designer Shiatzy Chen recently opened, resembles a lounge bar. Customers show up for pricey afternoon tea meals and buy designer tea ware and other expensively packaged gifts. "We see this as a huge market," said store manager Jack Wang, who plans to open similar shops in Beverly Hills, New York City and London.
In China, meanwhile, the Cultural Revolution quashed high-end tea development and interest. "China has very good tea, but it doesn't yet have the technique and experience," Wang said. "The Cultural Revolution slowed down everything, including knowledge in how to make tea."
Just as Taiwanese have invested in China's technology industry, they are now looking too improve its tea production. TenRen, which now operates in China, has set up a tea institute in Fujian Province.
The invasion of coffeehouses on the island in recent years — led by Starbucks — has stirred worries that Taiwan's rich tea heritage could be diluted by the gulp-and-go coffee culture. The new cafes offer Wi-Fi, pop music and cakes — the perfect place for students and young professionals to park their laptops.
"It's foreign. It's trendy," said Jones, who has a tea blog, teaarts.blogspot.com. "In Taiwan, they like to follow the West."
It appears unlikely, though, that residents of the densely packed island will fall out of love with tea. Taiwanese teens line up at colorful tea bars on virtually every corner. Workers use cocktail shakers to make zhen zhu nai-cha — known as pearl milk tea in California — a tea concoction with dollops of tapioca. The ever-expanding menu for adventurous tea fans includes green jelly tea, tea-infused pudding and ice cream drinks. There's even wheat germ milk tea. They all sell for about $1 each.
Convenience stores
The ubiquitous 7-Elevens and other convenience stores offer an array of chilled tea drinks, from oolong in a bottle to cartons of sugared green and black teas. Young Taiwanese drink them on trains heading to and from school every day. Restaurants serve fried tea leave snacks, beef noodle tea dishes and cakes made with tea. There are tea arts shows on television.
On any Sunday, when Taiwanese hit the streets with friends and families, tea stores are full of young people sitting on stools and sampling teas — with no pressure to buy. "When people come here, they are not like customers. They are friends," said Sheng-Ru Wang, whose family operates the venerable Wang's Tea, which processes its own tea in its shop.
Jack Wang at Taipei's Cha Cha The says those new to tea should not be confused by the array of choices — that good tea is easy to identify.
"It's what you feel is good," he said. "You have to decide what is the best tea for you. It's like life."
Contact John Boudreau at 408-278-3496.
Brewing a Taiwanese cup of tea
Amount of tea: About a teaspoon of oolong, green or black tea. For puffy teas, use about three teaspoonfuls.Process: Drop tea into a mug. Then add about eight ounces of fresh filtered boiling water.For green tea: First pour hot water into another mug before pouring it into drinking mug so as to cool it slightly and ease the tea"s bitterness.Brewing: Allow about five minutes for the tea to brew. Then pour it through a strainer into another mug.
The island of just 23 million supplies the world with semiconductors to power cell phones and computers, and oversees the production of iPhones, laptops and GPS systems. But tea-loving Taiwanese have also applied their industrious minds to the refinement of the centuries-old drink, blending tradition with newly developed methods of cultivation.
In doing so, Taiwan has created its own equivalent of Napa Valley for specific varieties of tea. While its overall share of the world's tea production is small — in 2004, it produced just 21 tons of tea,
compared with 835,000 tons grown in mainland China — its quality has few rivals.
"They take their tea-making seriously,"' said Joe Simrany, president of the Tea Association of the U.S.A. "Their oolongs are rated among the best in the world. It's one of the finest-tasting teas out there."
One reason Taiwan's tea expertise has not drawn more international attention is because producers here have more than enough business from local tea connoisseurs eager to pay hundreds of dollars for small batches of the local produce. Local yearly consumption has soared — from just under a pound in 1980 to 31/2 pounds in 2007.
"Every day you get up and drink tea," said Mark Lee, chairman of Taiwan's largest tea company,
Advertisement
yld_mgr.place_ad_here("adPosBox");
var flashAd_config = {ad_config: {ad_type: 'apt_ad',target: '_blank',div: "ad_51288051",flashver: '9',swf: 'http://l.yieldmanager.net/apex/mediastore/0886ea67-4840-48e3-b300-b1b7943b76d0',altURL: 'http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=165dpg2mb/M=600217707.600221478.403493004.403493004/D=ncsprtcl/S=2022776002:LREC/Y=PARTNER_US/L=9eca1236-726a-11de-b73b-470d32fc34bf/B=ZNdgAmKIVMg-/J=1247791312389680/K=Dgc42EF3uJGOOlnLEDxdJg/EXP=1247798512/A=1732989256744987966/R=0/X=2/id=altimg/SIG=116ju9ske/*http://www.kqed.org/quest/television',altimg: 'http://l.yieldmanager.net/apex/mediastore/c3ccf348-a92b-4973-9ee5-4a0f1c7800ca',width: 300,height: 250,flash_vars: ['clickTAG', 'http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=165dpg2mb/M=600217707.600221478.403493004.403493004/D=ncsprtcl/S=2022776002:LREC/Y=PARTNER_US/L=9eca1236-726a-11de-b73b-470d32fc34bf/B=ZNdgAmKIVMg-/J=1247791312389680/K=Dgc42EF3uJGOOlnLEDxdJg/EXP=1247798512/A=1732989256744987966/R=1/X=2/id=flash/SIG=116ju9ske/*http://www.kqed.org/quest/television']}};
TenRen, founded 56 years ago. "At lunch, you drink tea. When friends visit, you drink the best-label tea. And before you sleep, you drink tea."
Lee, who splits time between Taiwan and the United States, has spent decades promoting the tea culture in the United States. Family-owned TenRen is one of the few Taiwan tea companies selling high-end brew in the United States. It has dozens of stores in North America, including in Cupertino, Fremont, San Francisco and New York City.
TenRen's growth in the United States reflects the fact that Americans are drinking more tea from Asia. Some believe it has health benefits; others simply like the flavors and more soothing caffeine experience compared to coffee's jolt. In the past two decades, tea has grown from a $2 billion industry in the United States to about $7 billion today, according to Simrany. Sales of specialty teas, including those from Asia, have jumped from about $250 million a year to more than $1 billion.
Educating tea drinkers
That growth is due in part to the nearly missionary zeal of merchants like Lee. During the early 1980s, he would travel to different Bay Area supermarkets, set up a table with two chairs and brew tea for shoppers. He would patiently explain to Westerners unaccustomed to Asian tea that their brew, full of complex flavors, does not need milk and sugar.
"We emphasize the aroma, the taste," said Chen Hsuan, deputy director of Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station in Yangmei, while sipping high-mountain oolong, the signature Taiwan tea.
The government facility, which employs some 60 researchers, contains tasting rooms, labs and small patches of land lined with neat rows of knee-high tea plants. In addition to providing the latest research on tea cultivation, government scientists are continually developing new strains of the crop.
More than 16,000 Taiwan family farms grow tea, and the average plot size is no more than 21/2 acres. Tea farms in other countries typically are at least 10 times larger, Chen said.
Taiwanese were not always so high-minded about commercial tea production, which dates back hundreds of years to the early Qing Dynasty's rule over the island. During the 1970s and '80s, Taiwan transformed itself from an agricultural society to an industrial one.
Despite the shift to a high-tech economy, the government began promoting competitions to boost interest in the local produce and spur farmers to create quality tea. The tea industry, which struggled to compete with cheap teas from countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, invested in costly cultivation processes to grow crops that catered to the newly affluent citizens. Today, the more expensive oolong and paochong teas are picked and processed by hand.
"There was a tea renaissance," said Steven Jones, a Californian who relocated to Taipei years ago and is now a tea arts instructor at the LuYu Tea Culture Institute, which offers a certificate in master tea brewing that is honored around the globe.
Taiwanese drink tea much like Californians sip wine. They sniff for aroma, slurp for taste and carefully eye the color.
"Tea is the spirit of Taiwan," said Gina Chen, a 30-something professional who was buying $200 worth of tea gifts for friends one recent weekday at a chichi East Taipei tea store.
An upscale experience
Cha Cha The, which Taiwanese fashion designer Shiatzy Chen recently opened, resembles a lounge bar. Customers show up for pricey afternoon tea meals and buy designer tea ware and other expensively packaged gifts. "We see this as a huge market," said store manager Jack Wang, who plans to open similar shops in Beverly Hills, New York City and London.
In China, meanwhile, the Cultural Revolution quashed high-end tea development and interest. "China has very good tea, but it doesn't yet have the technique and experience," Wang said. "The Cultural Revolution slowed down everything, including knowledge in how to make tea."
Just as Taiwanese have invested in China's technology industry, they are now looking too improve its tea production. TenRen, which now operates in China, has set up a tea institute in Fujian Province.
The invasion of coffeehouses on the island in recent years — led by Starbucks — has stirred worries that Taiwan's rich tea heritage could be diluted by the gulp-and-go coffee culture. The new cafes offer Wi-Fi, pop music and cakes — the perfect place for students and young professionals to park their laptops.
"It's foreign. It's trendy," said Jones, who has a tea blog, teaarts.blogspot.com. "In Taiwan, they like to follow the West."
It appears unlikely, though, that residents of the densely packed island will fall out of love with tea. Taiwanese teens line up at colorful tea bars on virtually every corner. Workers use cocktail shakers to make zhen zhu nai-cha — known as pearl milk tea in California — a tea concoction with dollops of tapioca. The ever-expanding menu for adventurous tea fans includes green jelly tea, tea-infused pudding and ice cream drinks. There's even wheat germ milk tea. They all sell for about $1 each.
Convenience stores
The ubiquitous 7-Elevens and other convenience stores offer an array of chilled tea drinks, from oolong in a bottle to cartons of sugared green and black teas. Young Taiwanese drink them on trains heading to and from school every day. Restaurants serve fried tea leave snacks, beef noodle tea dishes and cakes made with tea. There are tea arts shows on television.
On any Sunday, when Taiwanese hit the streets with friends and families, tea stores are full of young people sitting on stools and sampling teas — with no pressure to buy. "When people come here, they are not like customers. They are friends," said Sheng-Ru Wang, whose family operates the venerable Wang's Tea, which processes its own tea in its shop.
Jack Wang at Taipei's Cha Cha The says those new to tea should not be confused by the array of choices — that good tea is easy to identify.
"It's what you feel is good," he said. "You have to decide what is the best tea for you. It's like life."
Contact John Boudreau at 408-278-3496.
Brewing a Taiwanese cup of tea
Amount of tea: About a teaspoon of oolong, green or black tea. For puffy teas, use about three teaspoonfuls.Process: Drop tea into a mug. Then add about eight ounces of fresh filtered boiling water.For green tea: First pour hot water into another mug before pouring it into drinking mug so as to cool it slightly and ease the tea"s bitterness.Brewing: Allow about five minutes for the tea to brew. Then pour it through a strainer into another mug.
Past warming shows gaps in climate knowledge - study
dramatic warming of the planet 55 million years ago cannot be solely explained by a surge in carbon dioxide levels, a study shows, highlighting gaps in scientists' understanding of impacts from rapid climate change.
During an event called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, global temperatures rose between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius within several thousand years. The world at that time was already warmer than now with no surface ice.
"We now believe that the CO2 did not cause all the warming, that there were additional factors," said Richard Zeebe, an oceanographer with the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
"There may have been an initial trigger," he told Reuters on Wednesday from Hawaii. This could be a deep ocean warming that caused a catastrophic release of methane from hydrate deposits under the seabed.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas but much of it is oxidised into CO2 when it is released from hydrate deposits.
Zeebe and his colleagues estimated the amount of CO2 released during the Palaeocene-Eocene event by studying sediment cores from seabeds around the globe. Their study is published in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience.
They estimated about 3 trillion tonnes of carbon (11 trillion tonnes of CO2) was released over several thousand years from the methane deposits, leading to a 70 percent rise in atmospheric CO2 levels from pre-event levels.
But Zeebe said this could only explain a 1 to 3.5 degree Celsius rise in temperatures, adding that a commonly accepted scientific range for a doubling of CO2 is between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius.
This meant other factors must have been at work to drive up temperatures between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius.
"If this additional warming which we do not really understand, was caused as a response to the CO2 warming, then there is a chance that also a future warming could be more intense than people anticipate right now," Zeebe said.
He said the study suggested there could be atmospheric or ocean processes as yet unknown or poorly understood that might have accelerated the warming. Possibilities could be changes in ocean currents, a much larger release of methane or even greater impacts from higher CO2 levels than currently thought.
At present, CO2 levels have already risen from 280 parts per million to nearly 390 ppm since the Industrial Revolution and could exceed a 70 percent increase during this century, a rate much faster than the Palaeocene-Eocene event, Zeebe said.
While this would cause initial effects, much worse could follow in the coming decades and centuries as the oceans, land and atmosphere tried to deal with the higher CO2 levels, he said.
"The carbon that we put into the atmosphere right now is going to stay there for a very long time. Much of it will stay there for tens of thousands of years."
During an event called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, global temperatures rose between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius within several thousand years. The world at that time was already warmer than now with no surface ice.
"We now believe that the CO2 did not cause all the warming, that there were additional factors," said Richard Zeebe, an oceanographer with the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
"There may have been an initial trigger," he told Reuters on Wednesday from Hawaii. This could be a deep ocean warming that caused a catastrophic release of methane from hydrate deposits under the seabed.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas but much of it is oxidised into CO2 when it is released from hydrate deposits.
Zeebe and his colleagues estimated the amount of CO2 released during the Palaeocene-Eocene event by studying sediment cores from seabeds around the globe. Their study is published in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience.
They estimated about 3 trillion tonnes of carbon (11 trillion tonnes of CO2) was released over several thousand years from the methane deposits, leading to a 70 percent rise in atmospheric CO2 levels from pre-event levels.
But Zeebe said this could only explain a 1 to 3.5 degree Celsius rise in temperatures, adding that a commonly accepted scientific range for a doubling of CO2 is between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius.
This meant other factors must have been at work to drive up temperatures between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius.
"If this additional warming which we do not really understand, was caused as a response to the CO2 warming, then there is a chance that also a future warming could be more intense than people anticipate right now," Zeebe said.
He said the study suggested there could be atmospheric or ocean processes as yet unknown or poorly understood that might have accelerated the warming. Possibilities could be changes in ocean currents, a much larger release of methane or even greater impacts from higher CO2 levels than currently thought.
At present, CO2 levels have already risen from 280 parts per million to nearly 390 ppm since the Industrial Revolution and could exceed a 70 percent increase during this century, a rate much faster than the Palaeocene-Eocene event, Zeebe said.
While this would cause initial effects, much worse could follow in the coming decades and centuries as the oceans, land and atmosphere tried to deal with the higher CO2 levels, he said.
"The carbon that we put into the atmosphere right now is going to stay there for a very long time. Much of it will stay there for tens of thousands of years."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)