Tuesdays with Turtles – Hiatus Edition

Byoliveridley

Turtles were relaxing on Memorial day weekend, back next week…

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How NAFTA infringes on local environmental regulations

Byoliveridley

Dow AgroSciences is considering using the controversial investor-protection provisions of the North American free-trade agreement to seek compensation from the federal government over Quebec's ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides.

The company, a maker of the weed-killer 2,4-D, filed a notice of intent to submit a claim to arbitration under NAFTA in late August. The 27-page legal action was posted yesterday on the Foreign Affairs website, where it is listed as a dispute to which Canada is a party.

via globeandmail.com: Ban on pesticides may face NAFTA test

Here is Sierra Club’s assessment of 2,4-D. It is not as bad as, say, DDT, but not something an average householder would ever need to use. Limiting use and exposure is in everyone’s best interest except Dow’s, which is why they have filed this lawsuit.

I would say it infringes on a province’s right to set strict health and safety standards for its people, but if we accept that corporations have more rights than people, we would expect this kind of lawsuit to happen with more frequency.

Note that a much more egregious actor, lindane, which was deregistered by even the Bush EPA is subject of a similar challenge in Canada, and Bisphenol A is probably next.

Can’t blame the companies for exploiting loopholes (that they no doubt inserted, of course), but it seems that countries should always have the right to enforce stricter standards if they so desire.

Global warming gets local and cloudy in Seattle

Byoliveridley

seattle.jpgI’ve noticed that a lot of global warming stories, and books use abstraction and remote examples to illustrate their point. Elizabeth Kolbert’s excellent and readable Field Notes from a Catastrophe calls up the Arctic, the Antarctic, Polar Bears and rising sea levels. The publicity for Al Gore’s (Gore/Obama 2008!) Inconvenient Truth which I have not seen, talks about the Snows of Kilimanjaro extensively.

This kind of imagery is useful, but in the end, Leigh Person in Gary, IN (my favorite name and average city, resp.) will not be moved by shrinking Arctic ice. How will global climate change affect Leigh’s commute? Will Leigh’s vacation home on the beach be below water in 30 years? Will Leigh’s house be invaded by cockroaches? What will happen to Leigh’s 401K? What about Leigh’s kids?

It is difficult enough, given the false balance on climate change reporting, to make long term predictions that will not be “disputed” by “sceptics”, so to make local predictions that are more uncertain is difficult, which is why reporting like the example below must be lauded.

Climate change is a difficult problem, because the countries responsible for the bulk of past, present and future emissions are not the ones that will face the most serious consequences. I want to go into this in greater depth as I read and learn more, but any change in the availability of fresh water in, say, India will result in utter chaos, decelerated growth and death. But the countries most significantly affected (the tropics) are helpless to deal with climate change….

Hopefully, local focused stories will spur people to action.

The Seattle Times: Local News: An even grayer Seattle from global warming?

For those harboring the guilty hope that global warming will transform Seattle into a sun lovers’ paradise on par with the Côte d’Azur, meteorologist Cliff Mass has some bad news: It might actually get cloudier.

Mass and his colleagues at the University of Washington recently completed the most detailed computer simulation ever conducted of the region’s future weather. Among the surprises was a big boost in cloud cover in March, April and May.

“The spring is going to be gunkier — if you believe this — under global warming,” he said.

The model also predicts that the number of summer days when temperatures soar into the 90s will more than triple before the end of the century, if greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and industry continue unabated.

And the hopes of some water managers appear to be dashed by the finding that catastrophic losses of winter snowpack will not be offset by more summer thunderstorms.

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Black Lung – Miners pay so you can get more coal

Byoliveridley

The Pump Handle alerts us to a special report on coal miners and their lungs, not for the faint of heart, but something to keep in mind when you hear the phrases “Cheap Energy” and “coal” in one sentence, it’s not so cheap for these people.

Black Lung: Dust Hasn’t Settled on Deadly Disease « The Pump Handle

Louisville-Courier Journal reporters Laura Unger and Ralph Dunlop offer us the voices and faces of miners who are suffering from coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. Their special report, Black Lung: Dust Hasn’t Settled on Deadly Disease, includes an on-line version which features five compelling videos featuring 40- and 50-year old coal miners who are now suffering with the disabling lung disease. Mr. Danny Hall, 56, for example, who is still severely impaired despite receiving a lung transplant says “if I had to do over, I wouldn’t ever go into coal mining.”

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Indian Parliament Discusses Climate Change

Byoliveridley

India stresses on Kyoto standards-India-The Times of India

The discussion on global warming in Parliament will end with the statement of environment minister A Raja, possibly on Monday. He is bound to restate the country’s position on climate change in the international arena — that countries must bear “a common but differentiated responsibility” for climate change, a phrase that is the central pin of the Kyoto Protocol.

De-jargonised, it means, while every country is adding to the problem, there are some that are more responsible than others, and should, therefore, bear the burden and costs of cleaning up more than the smaller culprits

More highlights…

The US, between 1950-2003, emitted 10 times more carbon dioxide than India did. Europe emitted 8.5 times more. Yet US and Australia, two of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (which asks developed countries to reduce their emissions) on the pretext that developing countries like India and China are not undertaking emission cuts.

Worse still, if one looks at per capita emissions from different countries, which is a more equitable way of calculating emissions if one was to go by the principle that each person has as much right to the atmosphere as another, then India ranks a mere 120 compared to US which ranks 6 and Australia 10 on the culprits’ list. This is taking the emission levels of 2003.

Well, they are right, and they are wrong too. The developed world has a lot to more to cut back on and should make the bulk of the cuts. But India and China also need to grow using current state of the art knowledge, not using the 1950s coal intensive, energy inefficient model of increasing supply without paying attention to demand. We have also come to realize that IPCC reports, due to their consensual nature, are conservative. So, they will tend to understate the effects of climate change and overstate the costs. It may not be as expensive in India and China as long as attention is being paid to hw the infrastructure is being developed.

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Small California Study Finds Correlational Link Between Organochlorine Pesticides and Autism

Byoliveridley

That would have been my headline! It was a study of 29 women, and the results show a six-fold increase in the incidence of autism in children whose mothers were close to fields being sprayed with organochlorine pesticides. A factor of 6 is a big number, which is why they found statistical significance at such a low sample size.

Most organochlorine pesticides (the most famous being DDT) are already banned in the first world. The ones suspected here, endosulfan and dicofol are banned in quite a few countries including Belize, Singapore. Cambodia and Germany. The Stockholm convention (international treaty to identify and restrict the use of persistent organic pollutants) has identified endosulfan as a possible addition to its list of POPs.

Of course, the US has not even ratified the Stockholm convention thanks to the pesticide lobbies. So, nothing the Stockholm convention decides about endosulfan will  carry any legal weight. In this country, pesticides and most other chemicals in current use are “innocent until proven guilty”, meaning harm must be conclusively proven in a manner that will withstand court challenge. With industry sponsored research and lobbying, such a burden of proof is often insurmountable and therefore, hazardous pollutants are used in the US well beyond their sell-by dates.

Pesticide link to autism suspected – Los Angeles Times

Women who live near California farm fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides may be more likely to give birth to children with autism, according to a study by state health officials to be published today. The rate of autism among the children of 29 women who lived near the fields was extremely high, suggesting that exposure to the insecticides in the womb might have played a role. The study is the first to report a link between pesticides and the neurological disorder, which affects one in every 150 children. But the state scientists cautioned that their finding is highly preliminary because of the small number of women and children involved and lack of evidence from other studies.

Clearly, the increase in autism incidence has many more factors linked to it than environmental chemical exposure, but this is interesting and good work. This study will doubtless be severely criticized by the pesticide lobby. After all, it’s only a correlation, no mechanism has been proposed, and the sample size is very small. But, as I mentioned before, you don’t normally see six-fold increases in disease incidences with ambient environmental exposure, so there is definitely something going on here.

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