Rachel's News #987

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. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Rachel's Democracy & Health News #987 "Environment, health, jobs and justice--Who gets to decide?" Thursday, November 27, 2008.............Printer-friendly version www.rachel.org

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Featured stories in this issue... NASA Scientist Cites 'Global-Warming Emergency' "We've reached a point where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don't know that," said NASA scientist James Hansen. "There's a big gap between what's understood about global warming by the scientific community and what is known by the public and policymakers." The single most important thing to do immediately, he said, is to impose a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. Unexpected Rise in Carbon-fuelled Ocean Acidity Threatens Shellfish Water samples collected in the eastern Pacific over the past eight years showed seawater had acidified more than 20 times faster than scientists expected. The effect could be devastating for shellfish and other crustaceans. Marine Dead Zones Set To Expand Rapidly "Carbon dioxide fertilizes biological production," says Andreas Oschlies. "It's really like junk food for plants. When the carbon- fattened excess biomass sinks it gets decomposed by bacteria which first consume the oxygen, and then the nutrients." The (Tuna) Tragedy of the Commons Tuna fishing on the U.S. side of the Atlantic ocean is in tatters. The big runs of autumn, the "tuna fever," the great herds of fish thundering across the blue prairies as they rounded Montauk, that's all gone. This was by far the worst year ever. But then, that's true every year. What was different this year was that in addition to bluefin, yellowfins and albacore were nearly absent, too. Environmentalists Win Big EPA Ruling Thursday's decision means that any new air pollution permits for coal plants will require that Best Available Control Technology (BACT) be used to reduce CO2 emissions, the same criteria currently used for other pollutants, like sulfur dioxide or soot. Right now, however, there is no definition of BACT for CO2, and environmentalists estimate it will take six months to a year to figure that out. In the meantime, all other coal plants in the permitting process, or stuck in the courts, will be frozen. Climate Protests Escalate Worldwide The rise in activism worldwide reflects growing frustration against the continued, and expanding, use of coal as a source of energy. The fuel, while affordable, is directly linked to climate change and air pollution. Report To Congress: Gulf War Syndrome Is Real A new scientific report vindicates hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, who have been reporting a variety of neurological problems -- even as the government maintained that their symptoms were largely due to stress or other unknown causes. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From: Palo Alto (Calif.) Online News, Nov. 22, 2008 [Printer-friendly version] NASA SCIENTIST CITES 'GLOBAL-WARMING EMERGENCY' NASA physicist says public awareness lags about the 'hundreds of millions' of people worldwide will sufffer from lack of water, rising seas By Chris Kenrick Time is running out to prevent catastrophic consequences from global warming, a leading climate scientist warned a packed audience Thursday at Stanford University. Physicist James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said hundreds of millions of people will lose fresh water sources and hundreds of millions of others will be displaced by rising sea levels if fossil fuel emissions remain on their current course. "We've reached a point where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don't know that," Hansen told a packed Stanford audience Thursday night. "There's a big gap between what's understood about global warming by the scientific community and what is known by the public and policymakers." Hansen, who first warned about climate change in testimony to Congress in the late 198s, said a path out of the crisis is, "barely, still possible." Introduced as an "iconic leader" in the science of climate change by biology professor Stephen Schneider, he spoke in a free public lecture sponsored by Stanford's Center for Ethics in Society in a series called "The Ethics of Food and the Environment." China has surpassed the United States as the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Hansen said. However because of the long lifetime of the compound, the U.S. is over three times more responsible than any other country for the carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere, and will remain so for decades to come. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is already at 385 parts per million, well over the 350 parts per million, or less, that is considered "safe," Hansen said. And more warming is already in the pipeline because of inertia in the climate system. "To preserve creation, the planet on which civilization developed, we must draw down carbon dioxide to less than 350 parts per million," he said. Hansen advocates a "carbon tax with a 100 percent dividend," with funds returned to households based on how much they reduce their carbon footprints. Fossil fuels should be taxed at their source -- the wellhead or port of entry -- to create incentives for the most efficient behavior. For example, he said, "we import food from New Zealand because there's no tax on aviation fuel, even though it makes no sense from a planetary standpoint. "If you had a 100 percent dividend, there would be a big incentive to reduce carbon emissions and a motivation to develop technologies that reduce carbon emissions. The person who does better than average in reducing their carbon footprint will actually make money." Aside from the carbon tax and strict efficiency standards for vehicles, construction and appliances, he called for development of renewable energy and an improved electric grid to get the energy to where it's needed. He also advocated possible use of the next generation of nuclear power, which creates smaller and shorter-lived volumes of waste. "Most environmentalists are beginning to realize that they probably need to soften their attitude toward nuclear power if they're going to solve the greenhouse problem." The single most important thing to do immediately, he said, is to impose a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. "Because coal is available and relatively cheap, China and India have relied mainly on that," he said. "They're getting a big public reaction to local air pollution. There have been a lot of riots there, which the government tries to keep quiet." Flashing photos of his grandchildren, Hansen said there's a basic conflict between fossil fuel special interests and the interests of young people, nature and animals. "Fossil fuel interests have influence in capitals worldwide; young people and nature don't have much voice. Animals don't vote and don't talk. It's a challenge." He said he is hopeful that young people involved in the recent election will be aggressive in pushing for government policies to address global warming. He said he is also encouraged that seven of the 12 members of Congress identified as the "Dirty Dozen" by the League of Conservation Voters were voted out of office this month. ============== Writer Chris Kenrick, a former editor at the Weekly, can be e-mailed at christin...@yahoo.com. Return to Table of Contents :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From: The Guardian (Manchester, U.K.), Nov. 25, 2008 [Printer-friendly version] UNEXPECTED RISE IN CARBON-FUELLED OCEAN ACIDITY THREATENS SHELLFISH By Ian Sample, science correspondent [See coverage of this same story in National Geographic.] The world's oceans are becoming acidic more quickly than climate change models predict, according to scientists who claim it will have a dramatic impact on marine ecosystems. Water samples collected around an island in the eastern Pacific over the past eight years showed seawater had acidified more than 20 times faster than scientists expected. The effect could be devastating for shellfish and other crustaceans, because acidic waters dissolve calcium carbonate used by the organisms to make their protective shells. Oceans absorb about a third of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activities. When the gas dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid, which alters the ocean's delicate chemical balance. The increasing acidification of the oceans is likely to have impacts that run throughout the marine ecosystem, because the organisms most affected are at the bottom of the foodchain. Timothy Wootton, a biologist at the University of Chicago, led a team of researchers who analysed the acidity, salinity and temperature of water around Tatoosh Island off the northwestern coast of Washington state. Over eight years, the pH level of the water fell by 0.36 to about 8.1, more than 23 times more than the predicted fall of just 0.015 points. Water is neutral if its pH is seven, and becomes more acidic as the pH falls below that. Writing in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists raise concerns at how rapidly the process is happening and the impact it could have. "Acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously predicted, at least in some areas of the ocean," the authors write. According to computer models of the local marine life, the rise in acidity is likely to cause substantial falls in the numbers of mussels and large goose barnacles, while algae and populations of smaller barnacles may increase. In turn, the changing distribution of these organisms will have effects on marine life that feed on them. Last month, researchers warned that a new global deal on climate change would come too late to save many of the world's corals. A report from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California found that carbon dioxide emissions are likely to acidify seawater enough to cause widespread damage to major reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Even stringent cuts designed to stabilise greenhouse gas levels still put more than 90% of the world's reefs in jeopardy. "Declines in seawater pH were expected to happen very slowly, so we've been lax in dealing with the problem, but our study shows ocean acidification may be happening much quicker," said Wootton. Return to Table of Contents :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From: Nature, Nov. 13, 2008 [Printer-friendly version] MARINE DEAD ZONES SET TO EXPAND RAPIDLY Rising carbon dioxide levels will make oceans more hostile to life. By Quirin Schiermeier Rising levels of carbon dioxide could increase the volume of oxygen- depleted 'dead zones' in tropical oceans by as much as 50% before the end of the century -- with dire consequences for the health of ecosystems in some of the world's most productive fishing grounds. At depths between several tens and hundreds of metres, large parts of the tropical oceans are poorly supplied with dissolved oxygen, and are therefore hostile to most marine life. Scientists suspect that these zones are sensitive to climate change, but previous studies have arrived at conflicting conclusions regarding exactly how and why a more CO2-rich world affects oceanic oxygen content. A team led by Andreas Oschlies of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, has now used a global model of climate, ocean circulation and biogeochemical cycling to extrapolate existing experimental results of the effects of altered carbon and nutrient chemistry on dissolved oxygen to the global ocean1. They found that a CO2-rich world will only have a small impact on waters at middle and high latitudes. But in all tropical oceans the volume of 'oxygen- minimum' zones will substantially increase as ocean bacteria feed on the algae that will flourish as a result of the elevated CO2 levels. "Carbon dioxide fertilizes biological production," says Oschlies. "It's really like junk food for plants. When the carbon-fattened excess biomass sinks it gets decomposed by bacteria which first consume the oxygen, and then the nutrients." Dramatic result Sporadic measurements in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific suggest oxygen-depleted zones have been slowly expanding over the past 50 years2. But none of the previously assumed physical causes, such as ocean warming and reduced circulation, completely accounts for the effect. This prompted Oschlies and his colleagues to examine how the ocean's biology would be affected by rising CO2 levels. Their results are published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles. "Nobody really has ever modelled the feedback of rising CO2 on oceanic oxygen concentrations in such a credible way," says Gian-Kaspar Plattner, a carbon-cycle modeller at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH). "A 50% volume increase of oxygen-poor zones is much more than I would have expected. But further studies, with different climate parameters, are needed to add robustness to these results and reduce uncertainty." Meanwhile, researchers aboard two German research vessels, the Meteor and the Maria S. Merian, are investigating the matter further. In the waters off western Africa and Peru, which are rich in marine life, teams from the University of Kiel and the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, also in Kiel, will study the physical and biological processes that are thought to drive oxygen loss in tropical oceans. The coastal economies in these regions rely heavily on fishing. For now, says Oschlies, local fisheries may not feel any downturn because fish stocks can probably evade the dead zones by moving further up in the water column. But if oxygen and nutrient levels continue to drop, that could hit the region hard within a few decades. Oceanic oxygen levels have varied considerably throughout Earth's past. During the end of the Permian period, around 250 million years ago, catastrophic oxygen losses triggered mass extinction of terrestrial and marine life. References 1. Oschlies, A., Schulz, K., Riebesell, U. & Schmittner, A. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles doi:10.1029/2007GB003147 (2008) 2. Stramma, L., Johnson, G., Sprintall, J. & Mohrholz, V. Science 320, 655-658 (2008). Return to Table of Contents :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From: Dot.Earth (N.Y. Times Blog), Nov. 26, 2008 [Printer-friendly version] THE (TUNA) TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS By Andrew C. Revkin There was new evidence early this week that the world has not yet absorbed just how deeply humans have depleted our "exhausted oceans." At the latest meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, created under a treaty 42 years ago to manage shared fisheries in that ocean, European governments ignored a strong recommendation from the group's own scientific advisers for deep cuts in some harvests of the Atlantic bluefin tuna. On its face, that would seem to be a strange development considering that the organization's Web site says flatly: "Science underpins the management decisions made by I.C.C.A.T." But such moves seem unremarkable, for now, in a world seeking to manage limited, shared natural resources while also spurring economic growth -- whether the resource is the global atmosphere or an extraordinary half-ton, ocean-roaming predator. The European stance -- insisting on a harvest in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean 50 percent above the limit recommended by scientists -- was sharply criticized by environmental campaigners, marine biologists and United States fisheries officials. Some biologists criticized the United States, as well, for playing down the role of American fishers, both recreational and commercial, in destroying the once-bountiful fishery. But the biggest focus was on Europe. Biologists and American fisheries officials blamed European governments for failing to shrink the huge fleets of boats from France (771), Italy (619), Spain (441), England (331) and elsewhere that are acknowledged, even by Europe, to be too large for the fishery. Environmental campaigners have repeatedly reported on rampant, enormous illegal catches in European and international waters, as well. Given that tagging studies have shown that the half-ton tuna can roam the full span of the Atlantic in seeking breeding and feeding grounds, the European position is widely seen by fisheries specialists as sending the fabled species spiraling further toward outright collapse. At the center of the fight, spurred largely by the worldwide sushi trade, is one of nature's most magnificent, and endangered, experiments -- a transatlantic torpedo that can sprint at highway speed while warming its brain with energy from its muscles. The European Commission said it was "pleased with the consensus" at the meeting. I sought a reality check from Carl Safina, the noted marine biologist, founder of the Blue Ocean Institute, and prize-winning author of books on tuna, albatross and sea turtles. He noted that the situation for the bluefins that frequent the American side of the Atlantic was in many ways worse than for those on the European side. Here's how he described the continuing devastation of one of the world's great, if underappreciated, predators (bold-face highlighting by me): "This Western stock is in much worse shape than the east, even though all the finger-pointing has gone to the problems of eastern excess, which are indeed major. But the Western stock is going extinct while everyone complains about the east. The problem is overfishing in both places. "The fact is that for years the quota in the West has also been much too high, due to commercial and recreational fishing industry lobbying. And we continue fishing in the spawning area. (Earlier this month I lost a long-running lawsuit against N.O.A.A. to close the Gulf to gear capable of catching bluefins during the spawning season.) It's all subject to limits but the limits are too high. If they weren't too high, we would not have the problems. So we have a collapsed western stock and a rapidly declining eastern stock because of greed all around. "U.S. boats have been catching a small fraction of their quota (about 10 to 15 percent of what they're allowed) in recent years. That percent of the quota will increase as the quota comes down, making things look better. But the quota remains higher than the catch, so the quota is not a limit. It's like limiting your pasta intake by reducing your limit from 10 pounds of spaghetti per meal to five pounds per meal. Nobody is eating five pounds, so it's not a limit. "I.C.C.A.T. has always been broken, and the tradition of ignoring the science and insisting on higher quotas was set 25 years ago by Western fishing interests. That tradition remains alive on BOTH sides of the ocean, and the indignant rhetoric by the Western fishing interests masks their own hypocrisy. No country has ever done the right thing toward maintaining these fish, though the U.S. comes closer. But still, the quota will be reduced to a level higher than the catch, so it's all still meaningless.... "The fishing on this side of the ocean is in tatters. The big runs of autumn, the "tuna fever," the great herds of fish thundering across the blue prairies as they rounded Montauk, that's all gone. This was by far the worst year ever. But then, that's true every year. What was different this year was that in addition to bluefin, yellowfins and albacore were nearly absent, too. "What's really needed is a moratorium for bluefin, and I first said that in 1991. That's the bluefin situation. I must say that based on their whole history I would have been astounded if I.C.C.A.T. had set an eastern quota that complied with the science. I'm ashamed of what they do, but no longer surprised." We had a separate discussion about sharks, and one move by the commission that could help one species. But Dr. Safina pointed out how inconsequential that initiative is given the continuing devastation of shark populations in the Atlantic and worldwide. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company Return to Table of Contents :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From: Time Magazine, Nov. 13, 2008 [Printer-friendly version] ENVIRONMENTALISTS WIN BIG EPA RULING By Bryan Walsh Environmentalists have long known that when it comes to climate change, coal will be a dealbreaker. The carbon-intensive fossil fuel provides nearly half of the United States' electricity, and is responsible for some 30% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. That's just due to the coal plants already operating -- as the U.S. looks to expand its energy supply to meet rising demand in the future, over 100 coal plants are in various stages of development around the country. If those plants are built without the means to capture and sequester underground the carbon they emit -- and it's far from clear that such technology will be commercially viable in the near-term -- our ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert climate change will be meaningless. That's why a decision issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Appeals Board is so important. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over a new coal plant being build on American Indian reservation land in Utah, the board ruled that the EPA has no valid reason to refuse to regulate the CO2 emissions that come from new coal-powered plants. The decision pointed to a May 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court that recognized CO2, the main cause of climate change, is indeed a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act and therefore needs to be regulated by the EPA. In the months since that landmark decision, the EPA -- with the support of the Bush Administration -- has doggedly refuse to regulate CO2, much to the dismay of environmentalists. The board's decision will force the EPA to consider CO2 when issuing permits for new power plants, potentially making it -- at least in the short-term -- all but impossible to certify new coal power plants. That's because the EPA will need to reconfigure its rules on dealing with CO2, which is found in greater concentrations in coal than any other fossil fuel, that force plants in the permitting process to be reevaluated, delaying them for months or longer. "In a nutshell it sends [new plants ]back to the drawing board to address their CO2 emissions," says Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's National Clean Coal campaign. "In the short term it freezes the coal industry in its tracks." (See TIME's special report on the environment.) The Sierra Club had originally sued to stop the construction of Deseret Power's Bonanza Generating Station in Vernal, Utah, part of their nationwide campaign to stop new coal. The 110-megawatt plant, which received its EPA permit in July 2007, would have emitted 3.37 million tons of CO2 a year -- the equivalent to putting another 660,000 cars on the road. In detail, Thursday's decision means that any new air pollution permits for coal plants will require that Best Available Control Technology (BACT) be used to reduce CO2 emissions, the same criteria currently used for other pollutants, like sulfur dioxide or soot. BACT requires companies involved in power plants to use the best available technology to control pollutants -- it's a tool to keep pollution controls up to date as both safety technology and our understanding of pollution impoves. In the past, CO2 wasn't affected by BACT because the EPA didn't recognize it as a pollutant. This decision changes that. Right now, however, there is no definition of BACT for CO2, and environmentalists estimate it will take six months to a year to figure that out. In the meantime, all other coal plants in the permitting process, or stuck in the courts, will be frozen. Over the longer term, it's possible that new coal plants may be impossible to certify at all until a technology exists to greatly reduce or sequester carbon emissions from coal plants -- and currently none has been proven. "The decision says the EPA can't ignore CO2," says Nilles. That effectively punts the future of coal in America to President- elect Barack Obama's incoming Administration. It's not yet clear how he'll act, but his renewable energy advisor Jason Grumet has said that Obama would be willing to use the EPA to directly regulate CO2 -- something President George W. Bush has refused to do. "This lays the groundwork for Obama to move quickly to put in place a regulatory system and begin to achieve CO2 reduction and build that clean, 21st century economy he talks about," says Nilles. Obama's position on coal isn't exactly clear, though he has said that he will work to develop "clean coal" plans that can capture and sequester carbon. What's certain is that the future of coal just got a lot cloudier -- and the future of the climate might be a bit brighter. Copyright 2008 Time Inc. Return to Table of Contents :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From: WorldWatch, Nov. 19, 2008 [Printer-friendly version] CLIMATE PROTESTS ESCALATE WORLDWIDE By Ben Block Members of Everglades Earth First!, a Florida-based environmental group, block the construction site of a natural gas-fired power plant in February. Lynne Purvis and seven other members face charges next month for trespassing onto the site. Lynne Purvis stood apart at a Ritz Carlton cocktail party Thursday night. Surrounded by coal, oil, and natural gas executives at a Bank of America energy conference in Key Biscayne, Florida, Purvis and her six friends had not been invited. Armed with banners and signs, they still made their presence known. "Bank of America forgot to put alternative energy into the agenda," Purvis, a member of the activist group Everglades Earth First!, said into her megaphone. "So as the clean energy transition team, we were asked to speak to you all tonight." The party guests were less than impressed with Purvis's sense-of- humor. One guest allegedly wrestled the activists' banner out of their hands. During the melee, Purvis said, two of her associates were doused with beer. "We did commit trespassing," Purvis said. "But is trespassing truly a crime as opposed to putting the entire planet in turmoil?" Climate activists worldwide are raising the stakes, with many turning to civil disobedience to make their voices heard. Actions in recent months have ranged from chaining themselves to coal conveyor belts in Sydney, to forming port blockades in the Netherlands, to scaling smokestacks in the United Kingdom. The rise in activism reflects growing frustration against the continued, and expanding, use of coal as a source of energy. The fuel, while affordable, is directly linked to climate change and air pollution. "What I see is -- in the last year -- it just exploded and went from being a sizable amount of people, several thousands of very active youth all around the country, to just hundreds of thousands of young people," said Brianna Cayo Cotter, communications director for Energy Action Coalition, a network of North American youth climate activists. "I feel like the floodgates are about to open. We have the numbers. We have the skills. We have the passion." In Europe, where some 50 new coal plants are being planned, Greenpeace is leading a continent-wide campaign [PDF] to halt eight upcoming projects in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom, plans are under way to build the country's first coal plant in 34 years. Activists have escalated their opposition to the proposed construction this year. In the United States, a nationwide fight against 150 proposed new coal-fired power plants that began four years ago has put a serious dent in the coal industry's plans. Through the courts, government lobbying, and acts of civil disobedience, activists have helped cut in half the number of new coal power stations. The movement achieved a major victory last week. In response to a Sierra Club lawsuit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled that a proposed coal plant in Utah would need a plan for controlling its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions before being granted a federal operating permit. The ruling essentially delays all such permits for the time being. "In the immediate future, no new coal plant will be moving forward," said Virginia Crame, a Sierra Club associate press secretary. Meanwhile, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has staged campaigns targeting two of the largest funders of such coal projects: Bank of America and Citibank. Last weekend, RAN and Greenpeace organized more than 50 events across the country to protest the banks' financial support of the fossil fuel industry. "A lot of people are jazzed up about it because global warming was such an important issue in the election on the state and federal level," said Mary Nicol, the Greenpeace student network coordinator. "The cleanest coal plant is the one that isn't built. The youth generation really understands that." Environmental author Bill McKibben organized 1,400 simultaneous call- to-action events, known as Step It Up, in 2007. He has since founded 350, an organization that raises awareness of the 350 parts per million of CO2 equivalent that many climate scientists consider the maximum level necessary for a stable climate. Following a rally at the U.S. Capitol yesterday, McKibben said that plans for a fall 2008 global day of action would be announced at the climate conference in Poland next month. "Hopefully there will be rallies on every corner of the planet. We have organizers working on every continent except Antarctica," he said. "We need people to realize that coal is the dirtiest fuel on our planet." McKibben also said he expects more acts of civil disobedience in the next year. "It'll happen. Keep your eyes open in D.C.," he said. The Energy Action Coalition is expecting 10,000 participants at its second annual Powershift, a conference of climate workshops, lobbying, and protests in Washington in February. Similar "climate camps" have been held this past year in London, Hamburg, and Newcastle (Australia). The large-scale campaigns rekindle memories of effective grassroots campaigns from the 1960s and '70s. But a saturation of information has made it more difficult now for organizers to attract attention, said Paul Wapner, director of the Global Environmental Politics Program at American University. "There is a changing landscape in which activism in general, not just environmental, finds its expression," Wapner said. "With the Internet and all sorts of media, it's hard to figure out how one makes a difference and not just have their message get lost in the virtual world." Regardless of whether the world is watching, more activists are risking arrest for the cause, and more support is coming their way. In the U.K., six Greenpeace activists faced criminal charges this past summer for damaging a coal-fired power station on the Kent coast. With the support of NASA climatologist James Hansen, an Inuit leader, and other environmentalists, the defendants argued that they were acting on behalf of the world -- specifically the Pacific island state of Tuvalu, the Arctic ice cap, and China's Yellow River, they said. The jury ruled that their actions were indeed protecting property in England and across the globe. The activists were cleared of all charges. In the United States, 11 protestors who formed a human barrier to a power plant construction site in Virginia in September faced 10 criminal charges and a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison, until a plea bargain was reached last month. Hansen again offered his support. "If this case had gone to trial, I would have requested permission to testify on behalf of these young people, who, for the sake of nature and humanity, had the courage to stand up against powerful 'authority,'" Hansen said in a prepared statement [PDF]. Next month, Lynne Purvis will appear in court as well. She faces charges of trespassing, unlawful assembly, and resisting arrest following a protest earlier this year against the construction of a natural gas-fired power plant in the Everglades. She, too, requested that Hansen testify on her behalf, but he has yet to respond. Stories of climate activists who have avoided punishment did not, however, influence Purvis, she said. "I honestly don't pay too much attention to that kind of stuff. My personal motivation is that whatever the consequence, it's better than the massive consequence that will be felt by the entire community and the entire planet." Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bbl...@worldwatch.org. Return to Table of Contents :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From: Los Angeles Times, Nov. 18, 2008 [Printer-friendly version] REPORT TO CONGRESS: GULF WAR SYNDROME IS REAL A scientific panel chartered by Congress cites nerve gas drug and pesticides used during the conflict as being associated with veterans' neurological problems. By Thomas H. Maugh II and Mary Engel Contradicting nearly two decades of government denials, a congressionally mandated scientific panel has concluded that Gulf War syndrome is real and still afflicts nearly a quarter of the 700,000 U.S. troops who served in the 1991 conflict. The report [7 Mbytes PDF]cited two chemical exposures consistently associated with the disorder: the drug pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect against nerve gas, and pesticides that were widely used -- and often overused -- to protect against sand flies and other pests. "The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that Gulf War illness is real, that it is a result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time," according to the report presented today to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake. The report vindicates hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied veterans who have been reporting a variety of neurological problems - even as the government maintained that their symptoms were largely due to stress or other unknown causes. "Recognition of the full extent of the illnesses suffered by these veterans of the conflict and the obligation owed them is long overdue," said Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord David Craig, chief of the British defense staff during the war. "They are victims of the war as much as anyone struck by a bullet or shell." The panel, made up of scientists and veterans, called on Congress to appropriate $60 million per year to conduct research into finding a cure for the disorder. "The tragedy here is that there are currently no treatments," said the panel's chair, James H. Binns, a former principal deputy assistant secretary of defense and a Vietnam veteran. The reports of a Gulf War syndrome have percolated ever since the end of the war. Many veterans reported memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue and widespread pain. Some also reported chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes. The new report is the product of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, which was chartered by Congress in 1998 because many members felt that veterans were not receiving adequate care. Its 15 members, about two-thirds scientists and the rest veterans, were not appointed until January 2002. Critics charged that the VA was reluctant to spend the research and treatment funds that such a committee might recommend. Several reports had already been issued by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, concluding that there was little evidence to support existence of the syndrome. Today's report, however, concludes that those studies were inappropriately constrained by the VA. The bulk of the evidence about the neurotoxic effects of the chemicals to which the soldiers were exposed comes from animal research, but the VA ordered the institute to consider only the much more limited human studies, skewing the results, the panel said. "Everyone quotes the Institute of Medicine documents as meaning nothing's going on here," said Roberta F. White, associate dean of research at the Boston University School of Health and the panel's scientific director. "Some people feel that the IOM reports have been permission to ignore these guys... . Veterans repeatedly find that their complaints are met with cynicism and a 'blame the victim' mentality that attributes their health problems to mental illness or non- physical factors." The panel urged VA to instruct the Institute of Medicine to redo its reports and take into consideration all the available animal research. The new report says that scientific evidence "leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition," and it cites dozens of research studies that have identified "objective biological measures" that distinguish veterans with the illness from healthy controls. The major causes of the disorder appear to be self-inflicted. Pyridostigmine bromide was given to hundreds of thousands of troops in the fear that the Iraqis would unleash chemical warfare against them. The pesticides cited in the report were sprayed not only around living and dining areas, but also on tents and uniforms, White said. Another, although probably lesser cause, was the U.S. demolition of Iraqi munitions near Khamisiyah, which may have exposed about 100,000 troops to nerve gases stored at the facility, according to the panel. It cited a 2007 study by White that showed that the exposure could have caused lasting brain changes in troops and that the extent of the changes correlated with the degree of exposure. The panel also noted that veterans have significantly higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than other veterans and that troops who were downwind from Khamisiyah have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other veterans. Binns emphasized that the report was not written to yield recriminations about past actions. "The importance... lies in what is done with it in the future," he said. "It's a blueprint for the new administration." 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