2nd lead poisoning case hits China, 1,300 sick

China detained two factory officials after 1,300 children were poisoned by pollution from a manganese processing plant, state media said Thursday, days after emissions from a lead smelter in another province sickened hundreds.
Both cases have sparked unrest and come amid growing anger in China over public safety scandals in which children have been the main victims. Tainted infant formula milk and the mass collapse of schools in a huge earthquake last year have also provoked widespread dissent.
The latest incident involves the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Wenping township, central Hunan province. It opened in May 2008 without the approval of the local environmental protection bureau, within 500 yards (meters) of a primary school, a middle school and a kindergarten.
Fears of poisoning began to spread among villagers in early July when many children became susceptible to colds and suffered fevers and other ailments, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Some 1,354 children who live near the plant — or nearly 70 percent of those tested — were found to have excessive lead in their blood, Xinhua said. Lead poisoning can damage the nervous and reproductive systems and cause high blood pressure and memory loss.
Local authorities shut down the smelter last week and detained two of its executives on suspicion of "causing severe environmental pollution," Xinhua said. General manager Liu Zhongwu was still at large, it said.
Li Liangmei, a 36-year-old mother of two affected children, said hundreds of villagers rioted Aug. 8 after news broke about the lead poisoning. She said a crowd of about 600 to 700 people overturned four police cars and smashed a local government sign.
"People were angry about the test results," Li said. Her 13-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son were among the hundreds found to have lead in their blood above safe levels.
Earlier this week, villagers in Shaanxi, another rural province in central China, clashed with police as they protested the operations of the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co. in the town of Changqing. They also stoned trucks trying to deliver coal to the plant.
That unrest came after at least 615 out of 731 children in two villages near that smelter tested positive for lead poisoning. Children from six other villages there are now being tested.
Children's health can be a particularly volatile issue in China, where most families are restricted to having just one child.
A string of recent safety scandals has put parents on high alert, including a national problem with tainted infant formula that killed at least six babies, and the mass collapse of schools in last year's Sichuan earthquake that left thousands of students dead. Critics blamed poor government oversight for the milk, and local corruption and profit-skimming for the allegedly shoddy school buildings.
Seeking to restore public trust, the Communist Party leadership has vowed in each case to deal harshly with those responsible for endangering children. But heavy-handed efforts to silence angry parents, including threats and house arrest, have further damaged the party's image and undermined its pledge to "put people first."
Zhao Lianhai, the father of a child who was sickened by tainted milk, blamed local government greed for the new lead poisoning cases and expressed sympathy for the families affected.
"It is said that children are the flower of the motherland and I am sad to see these flowers devastated," he said in a telephone interview. "The government should value the children more than this, care for them and do more to protect their food and living conditions."
Since his son became ill, Zhao has turned to activism, seeking punishment for those implicated in the milk scandal and free medical care for victims. Some 294,000 infants suffered urinary problems from drinking the infant formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine.
On the case of the manganese smelter in Hunan, a Wenping township government official who declined to give his name said the numbers of children with lead poisoning are expected to rise as more children are tested.
Xinhua said preliminary tests found that children from four villages near the plant were affected but that many are being tested again in the provincial capital, Changsha, to see how serious their cases are.
Li, the mother of two affected children, said villagers are also angry over discrepancies in test results, with levels reported in their home county allegedly lower than those conducted in Changsha.
"People suspect that the factory owner and the government bribed the hospital to forge the results," she said

Australian Parliament sets renewable energy target

Australia's Parliament passed a law Thursday to require that 20 percent of the country's electricity come from renewable sources such as the sun and wind by 2020, matching European standards and up from about 8 percent now.
The law would quadruple the renewable energy target set by the previous government in 2001 and provide enough clean electricity to power the households of all 21 million Australians.
The target matches one set in 2007 by the European Union, which leads the world in green power technology.
But some officials warn that more aggressive cuts in carbon gas emissions are needed as well.
The bill was passed by the Senate and House of representatives on Thursday after the government reached a deal with the main opposition party to increase government assistance to industries that are heavy users of electricity and create safeguards for existing investment in the coal mining industry.
Sen. Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens minor opposition party, said the target should be 30 percent and that big polluters were offered too much government assistance.
Sen. Bob Fielding, an independent, said the bill will make power too expensive.
"It's moms and dads that will be subsidizing wind-powered electricity, solar — these are very expensive," he said.
Currently, 8 percent of Australia's electricity comes from renewable sources, including hydroelectric generators built late last century, according to the private Clean Energy Council.
Critics argue the target will make electricity more expensive in coal-rich Australia without curbing the amount of climate-warming carbon gases that the nation emits, as overall electricity consumption rises.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the Senate on Wednesday that even with one-fifth of Australia's electricity coming from renewable sources by 2020, the nation's carbon gas emissions are projected to be 20 percent higher than 2000 levels.
"The only way we're going to be able to turn around the growth in our carbon pollution ... is to put a firm legislated limit on the amount of carbon that we produce and make those who create the pollution pay for it," Wong said.
Last week the Senate rejected a government-proposed bill that would have taxed industries' carbon emissions starting in 2011 and slashed the country's emissions by up to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020

What Can You Do to Protect and Preserve the Environment?

Concerned about the environment? Here are ways you can get involved and make a difference. You'll find tips to reduce waste, find eco-friendly products, and support community, government and corporate efforts to help the environment.
Live Green
Reduce Global Warming
Conserve Energy
Live Green
Want to put more “green” in your life by saving money and reducing waste? Here is practical information about environmentally friendly food, drink, fashions, cars and cleaning products, to name a few. Make eco-friendly lifestyle choices and buying decisions that will help sustain the environment rather than deplete it.
Why Stop Using Plastic Bags?
Living Alone is Bad for the Environment
Are Dishwashers Bad for the Environment?
How to Make Eco-Friendly Home Improvements
Eco-Friendly Drain Cleaners
Zero Waste Starts with Responsible Design
How to Stop Receiving Junk Mail
Why Online Bill Paying is Good for the Environment
Reduce Global Warming
Reducing global warming may seem like a daunting task, but if each of us makes a commitment to taking steps now, we can make a difference. For example, if every family in the United States replaced one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent, 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases would be eliminated. Look here for more steps, big and small, that will help to reduce global warming.
Top 10 Things You Can Do to Reduce Global Warming
Use Public Transportation
Energy Conservation: A Free Home Energy Audit Can Help You Save Power and Money
Conserve Energy
One way to do your part to protect the environment is to make choices every day that enable you to use less energy.
Why Should You Get a Free Home Energy Audit?
Slaying Energy Vampires Can Save You Money and Help the Environment
Heat Only the Space You Need
Reduce Your Personal Chill Factor
Stay Warm, Save Money, and Help the Environment
Change a Light Bulb and Change the World
Green Light: Are LED Light Bulbs Better Than CFLs?
How to Keep Cool Without Air Conditioning

Air Pollution May Reduce Rainfall and Cause Drought

As if there weren't already plenty of reasons to cut back on air pollution, now it looks as though cleaner air may reduce drought.
New research by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory makes a strong case that air pollution is contributing to drought conditions and potential crop failure in northern China by reducing the type of light rainfall that is essential for agriculture.
According to the study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, air pollution reduced the number of days of light rainfall in China by 23 percent between 1956 and 2005. Light rainfall is defined as anything up to 0.4 inches (10 millimeters) in a day.
The way this works is that air pollution causes tiny air particles called aerosols—some aerosols also occur naturally—which affect how rain clouds form. Although the number of water droplets in clouds is higher when more aerosols are present, the water droplets in polluted skies are up to 50 percent smaller than in clean air. Many are so small that they are unable to fall as rain.
The research study shows that most of the aerosols in China are caused by human activity, such as the use of fossil fuels. China’s population and fossil fuel consumption increased dramatically between 1960 and 2000, and so did the number of aerosols in China’s skies. The result was the significant decrease in light rainfall noted in the study, and more drought in northern China. Heavy rainfall, which actually increased in some parts of southern China during the same period, can cause flooding and wash away crops before they have a chance to ripen and be harvested.
The conclusion of the researchers is that reducing air pollution in China could help to relieve drought, as well as decreasing acid rain and health problems associated with air pollution. About 2.5 million hectares of crops in northern China and Inner Mongolia are currently threatened by drought, raising concerns that the autumn grain harvest (which accounts for more than 70 percent of China’s total grain crop) could be ruined.

Do the Benefits of Recycling Outweigh the Costs?

Controversy over the benefits of recycling bubbled up in 1996 when columnist John Tierney posited in a New York Times Magazine article that “recycling is garbage.”
“Mandatory recycling programs,” he wrote, “…offer mainly short-term benefits to a few groups -- politicians, public relations consultants, environmental organizations and waste handling corporations -- while diverting money from genuine social and environmental problems. Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America…”
Cost of Recycling vs. Trash CollectionEnvironmental groups were quick to dispute Tierney on the benefits of recycling, especially on assertions that recycling was doubling energy consumption and pollution while costing taxpayers more money than disposing of plain old garbage.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense, two of the nation’s most influential environmental organizations, each issued reports detailing the benefits of recycling and showing how municipal recycling programs reduce pollution and the use of virgin resources while decreasing the sheer amount of garbage and the need for landfill space -- all for less, not more, than the cost of regular garbage pick-up and disposal.
Michael Shapiro, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste, also weighed in on the benefits of recycling:
“A well-run curbside recycling program can cost anywhere from $50 to more than $150 per ton…trash collection and disposal programs, on the other hand, cost anywhere from $70 to more than $200 per ton. This demonstrates that, while there’s still room for improvements, recycling can be cost-effective.”
But in 2002, New York City, an early municipal recycling pioneer, found that its much-lauded recycling program was losing money, so it eliminated glass and plastic recycling. According to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the benefits of recycling plastic and glass were outweighed by the price -- recycling cost twice as much as disposal. Meanwhile, low demand for the materials meant that much of it was ending up in landfills anyway, despite best intentions.
Other major cities watched closely to see how New York was faring with its scaled back program (the city never discontinued paper recycling), ready to perhaps jump on the bandwagon.
But in the meantime, New York City closed its last landfill, and private out-of-state landfills raised prices due to the increased workload of hauling away and disposing of New York’s trash.
As a result, the benefits of recycling glass and plastic increased and glass and plastic recycling became economically viable for the city again. New York reinstated the recycling program accordingly, with a more efficient system and with more reputable service providers than it had used previously.
Benefits of Recycling Increase as Cities Gain ExperienceAccording to Chicago Reader columnist Cecil Adams, the lessons learned by New York are applicable everywhere.
“Some early curbside recycling programs…waste resources due to bureaucratic overhead and duplicate trash pickups (for garbage and then again for recyclables). But the situation has improved as cities have gained experience.”
Adams also says that, if managed correctly, recycling programs should cost cities (and taxpayers) less than garbage disposal for any given equivalent amount of material.
Even though the benefits of recycling over disposal are manifold, individuals should keep in mind that it better serves the environment to “reduce and reuse” before recycling even becomes an option.

Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India

Groundwater is a primary source of fresh water in many parts of the world. Some regions are becoming overly dependent on it, consuming groundwater faster than it is naturally replenished and causing water tables to decline unremittingly1. Indirect evidence suggests that this is the case in northwest India2, but there has been no regional assessment of the rate of groundwater depletion. Here we use terrestrial water storage-change observations from the NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites3 and simulated soil-water variations from a data-integrating hydrological modelling system4 to show that groundwater is being depleted at a mean rate of 4.0 1.0 cm yr-1 equivalent height of water (17.7 4.5 km3 yr-1) over the Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana (including Delhi). During our study period of August 2002 to October 2008, groundwater depletion was equivalent to a net loss of 109 km3 of water, which is double the capacity of India's largest surface-water reservoir. Annual rainfall was close to normal throughout the period and we demonstrate that the other terrestrial water storage components (soil moisture, surface waters, snow, glaciers and biomass) did not contribute significantly to the observed decline in total water levels. Although our observational record is brief, the available evidence suggests that unsustainable consumption of groundwater for irrigation and other anthropogenic uses is likely to be the cause. If measures are not taken soon to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, the consequences for the 114,000,000 residents of the region may include a reduction of agricultural output and shortages of potable water, leading to extensive socioeconomic stresses.

Singh: India must invest in green technology

Addressing environment ministers from all state governments, the Indian prime minister acknowledged the need for India to follow a sustainable growth strategy.
India,currently the world’s number four polluter, must invest in its own environmentally friendly technologies as a means to fight climate change, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday. According to Reuters, the prime minister’s comment can be seen as an attempt to undercut demands by rich nations for India to do more to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Indian government has resisted committing to emissions targets, saying it will take its own unilateral action to cut pollution. Singh’s statement also signaled that India was willing to invest money in the development of clean technologies in addition to what the country might get from rich countries. "Our growth strategy can be different. It must be different," the prime minister told a national conference on environment and forests in New Delhi, referring to decades of Western industrialization that is blamed for climate change. He said India's energy consumption will rise sharply in the coming decades as it tries to lift its population out of poverty, but stressed a different development path must be taken. "For this we need access to new technologies that are already available with developed countries. We must also make our own investments in new environment-friendly technologies," he said. Addressing environment ministers from all states, Singh acknowledged that the ''multiple environmental crises that confront our country have created an alarming situation'', and he asked state governments to curtail pollution, clean rivers and fight climate change. Describing climate change as a "major global challenge", he said India was conscious of its "responsibility to present and future generations" and would ensure the "ecological sustainabality of its development path