Author
Alex Smith
Environment News - Canadian blood has 60 chemicals, FAO world forest report - still losing forest cover, California fish change sex, Greenpeace protester beaten in coal plant protest, Philippines. 10 minutes. 10 MB
This is news from Ecoshock, all environment radio.
Lab tests in Canada found 60 toxic chemicals in the blood of average people. ENS, the environmental news service reports, November 15th, that stain repellants, flame retardants, mercury and lead, DDT, and PCBs are among the 60 contaminants detected by blood tests.
A non-profit called Environmental Defense ordered the blood tests on 11 citizens from across the country. The testing demonstrates that toxic chemicals contaminate Canadians no matter where they live in the country, how old they are or what they do for a living, concludes the report, "Toxic Nation: A Report on Pollution in Canadians."
This mirrors similar tests done recently in Europe. No matter where you live, your blood is accumulating toxic chemicals, in a completely unregulated and unprecedented world-wide chemical experiment. Consumer products from carpets to toys are loaded with carcinogens. Even the air transports chemicals from distant countries, as far as the Arctic Circle. Tight chemical regulations based on the precautionary principle are required. We need natural products.
Doctor Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defense said: ""If you can walk, talk and breathe, you're contaminated. Canadians are exposed everyday and in incredibly insidious ways to harmful toxic chemicals. We are guinea pigs in a massive, uncontrolled, chemical experiment, the disastrous outcome of which is measured in disease and death."
For more details, go to ens-newswire.com or environmentaldefense.ca.
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Friends of Earth UK announces November 14th that a Federal High Court in Nigeria has ordered energy companies to stop gas flaring in the Niger Delta.
The press release says:
"In a case brought against the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (Shell), Justice C. V. Nwokorie ruled in Benin City that the damaging and wasteful practice of flaring by all the major companies, including ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, TotalFinaElf and Agip, as well as Shell, in joint ventures with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, cannot lawfully continue and must stop.
Nigeria has been the world's biggest gas flarer, and the practice has contributed more greenhouse gas emissions than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa combined, as well as poisoning localities with their toxic cocktail. The practice costs Nigeria about US$2.5 billion annually, while about 66% of its population live on less than US$1 a day."
This is a historic decision in Nigeria, where the major oil companies have been accused of widespread pollution and corruption. The Court found that gas flaring violated basic human rights guaranteed in the country's Constitution.
Details at www.foe.co.uk
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On November 16th, ENS environmental wire service reports that grizzly bears will not be protected by the Endangered Species Act. Although grizzly bears are almost extinct in the lower 48 states, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, a Bush Republican appointee, announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife is planning to remove the Yellowstone grizzlies from protection.
ENS writes:
Once at least 50,000 grizzly bears, Ursus arctos horribilis, roamed the West, but they were driven nearly to extinction 30 years ago, and, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, just 136 individuals were still alive when the species was listed in 1975.
For details go to ens-newsire.com
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Alertnet.org runs a handy environmental news service. They are running a November 14th Reuters story saying chemicals in California sewage have changed the sex of fish.
Reuters says:
"Researchers have found male fish with eggs in their testes and female sex traits off the coast of Southern California and believe that chemicals in sewage may be the cause, an author of two studies said on Monday.
The two reports found the changes in fish such as English sole and California halibut, both of which are bottom dwellers, in water near where sewage is released, said Dan Schlenk, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Riverside."
The scientists are not sure if high levels of estrogen, or some other unknown chemicals, have damaged the fish. It is even possible that lingering DDT, banned since 1972, is still impacting water species. Doctor Schlenk says the sewage outfall for Los Angeles Country "has probably one of
the most contaminated DDT sites in North America, and these responses are fairly consistent with that kind of exposure."
More chemical soup.
The full story at www.reuters.com
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Again, ENS reports from Rome, November 15, 2005:
"The most comprehensive assessment of the world's forests and forestry to date finds that every year about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) are lost due to deforestation. The latest report of the UN agency responsible for monitoring forest lands finds that at the same time, the rate of net
forest loss is slowing down due to new planting and natural expansion of existing forests.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said Monday that forests now cover nearly four billion hectares or 30 percent of the world's land area, but 10 countries - Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, Peru, Russia, and the United States - account for two-thirds of all forest area.
Eighty-four percent of the world's forests are publicly owned, but private ownership is on the rise. And more than 300 million hectares of forests are designated for soil and water conservation.
These are some of the key findings of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005, covering forested lands, their uses and value in 229 countries and territories between 1990 and 2005.
The FAO has been coordinating global forest assessments every five years since 1946.
The annual net loss of forest area between 2000 and 2005 was 7.3 million hectares per year - an area about the size of Sierra Leone or Panama.
South America suffered the largest net loss of forests between 2000 and 2005 - around 4.3 million hectares per year - followed by Africa, which lost 4.0 million hectares annually, according to FAO."
Asia and Europe have gained some forest cover.
You can find the November 14th FAO press release at:
www.fao.org/newsroom
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Finally, Greenpeace International reports that an activist has been severely beaten in a protest against the construction of more coal-fired power plants in the Philippines.
German volunteer Jens Loewe, 36, was taken to hospital after being beaten with a metal pipe by plant security guards. The violence against peaceful protestors came as Greenpeace warned that more coal burning leads to serious climate change.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia Energy Campaigner Red Constantino said:
"We're outraged that the Filipino plant personnel prefers to protect the interests of a power plant that brings more harm than good to people. Coal is the culprit here, not peaceful protest."
Greenpeace activists were at the plant to draw attention to Australian and Japanese backing of the expansion of climate changing coal dependency in Asia.
Burning coal is one of the primary causes of global warming. Australia and Japan are underwriting global warming at a time when the Philippines and Asia are facing the likelihood of devastating social and economic instability from climate change precisely when the country and the rest of Asia are least able to deal with its impacts.
Here is a clip of a phone call between Australian activist Shannon, and Derek Ou, on board the Rainbow Warrior:
For the full story and video, go to www.greenpeace.org
This has been news from RAdio Ecoshock at www.ecoshock.org
All environment radio, all the time.