It is hard to believe that toxic chemicals were found in children's bath products. The products found were not a few, but numerous. It is obviously unacceptable. Children, with weak immune system, are highly vulnerable to toxic chemicals. It is even more surprising how the extensive research studies are not responding "properly." The fact that the amount of the chemicals are extremely small and probably incalculable doesn't mean that it is not harmful at all. Moreover, the chemicals found are known to be hazardous only when is inhaled or ingested, which convinces the studies that the bath products are not to harm the children. However, children are called children because they do unexpected things such as eating shampoo and bubbles from bubble bath. I strongly believe that the Federal Government, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration should react promptly and properly.
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Toxic chemicals in children's bath products? Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reports finding traces of 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde in shampoos, bath gels and wipes. But federal experts say any health hazard is vanishingly small. Washington Post
March 14, 2009
Washington — Extensive studies of two toxic chemicals found in children's bath and personal care products suggest that if they pose a health hazard, it is likely to be extremely small and probably incalculable, a review of scientific research shows.
The two chemical compounds -- 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde -- were found in trace quantities in children's shampoos, bath gels, lotions and wipes in a study conducted by the consumer group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
The group's results, released this week, showed that of the 48 products studied, two-thirds contained 1,4-dioxane. A subgroup of 28 products was tested for formaldehyde, and about 80% contained that compound. Numerous compounds contained both.
Neither compound is listed as an ingredient in the products. Formaldehyde is a breakdown product of preservatives in the liquids, and 1,4-dioxane is a trace contaminant left from the manufacturing process.
But federal experts on Friday urged caution in assessing the results of the study.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which evaluates the toxicity of chemical compounds, released a statement Friday saying that it "is currently doing new human health risk assessments on both dioxane and formaldehyde."
It noted that previous studies had shown dioxane may cause cancer when inhaled, and formaldehyde may cause cancer when ingested, but that the agency has "not yet reached a determination pertaining to skin exposure."
Because the products are washed off, the body's ability to absorb them is limited. The low-dose, short-lived and intermittent nature of exposure is one of the reasons the Food and Drug Administration does not require that the chemicals be removed. The human health effects of formaldehyde have been studied extensively; those of 1,4-dioxane, less so.
At the Society of Toxicology's annual meeting, in Baltimore next week, a Centers for Disease Control scientist is scheduled to present a study in which blood levels of 1,4-dioxane were measured in about 2,000 Americans 12 and older. No detectable amounts were found, suggesting that actual exposure to the compound is virtually nil.
2. Biofueled planes and Korea's deal in Madagascar
3. Although alternative energies for cars have been disputed for several years I have never heard of or thought about biofuels for planes. So I was surprised about finding lots of articles about this topic. There are already announcements of lots of airlines to have biofuel-only flights within the next 5 years. While the numbers of flights will ongoingly increase in the next decades, biofuels can reduce the negative effects. I also found another article about Korea's big company Daewoo that signed a deal with Madagascar to lease about 1.3 million hectares for farming mainly corn and palm oil. Since this area is said to amount to more than half of its arable land and might be almost free, this deal seems rather unfair.
-------------------------------------------- The Top 10 Biofuels Stories of 2008: #10, Airlines test biofuels Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand completed 747 biofuel tests this year, with Virgin testing a B20 blend using babassu palm oil and coconut oil in February while Air New Zealand used a B50 blend from jatropha in its December test. Continental and Japan Airlines announced early 2009 tests as well. British Airways announced future tests, but avoided the term “biofuels” in the announcement due to the controversy over indirect land-use changes. Not only are the airlines facing steep fuel charges, but airlines will now enter the European Trading Scheme for carbon emissions in 2012, and the industry is facing up to $10.5 billion in carbon charges unless it reduces its carbon footprint. --- Daewoo to pay nothing for vast land acquisition By Song Jung-a and Christian Oliver in Seoul and Tom,Burgis in Johannesburg Published: November 20 2008 02:00 | Last updated: November 20 2008 02:00 Daewoo Logistics of South Korea said it expected to pay nothing to farm maize and palm oil in an area of Madagascar half the size of Belgium, increasing concerns about the largest farmland investment of this kind. The Indian Ocean island will simply gain employment opportunities from Daewoo's 99-year lease of 1.3m hectares, officials at the company said. They emphasised that the aim of the investment was to boost Seoul's food security. "We want to plant corn there to ensure our food security. Food can be a weapon in this world," said Hong Jong-wan, a manager at Daewoo. "We can either export the harvests to other countries or ship them back to Korea in case of a food crisis." Daewoo said it had agreed with Madagascar's government that it could cultivate 1.3m hectares of farmland for free when it signed a memorandum of understanding in May. When the company signed the contract in July, it agreed to discuss costs with Madagascar. But Daewoo now believes it will have to pay nothing. "It is totally undeveloped land which has been left untouched. And we will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar," said Mr Hong. The 1.3m hectares of leased land is more than half the African country's current arable land of 2.5m hectares. But Madagascar could also benefit from Daewoo's in-vest-ment in roads, irrigation and grain storage facilities. However, a European diplomat in southern Africa said: "We suspect there will be very limited direct benefits [for Madagascar]. Extractive projects have very little spill-over to a broader industrialisation." Asian nations havebeen looking more often in the past five years or so to Africa to meet their resource needs. China has been particularly aggressive in building up stakes in oilfields and mines on the continent, sometimes facing accusations of neocolonialism. But now the countries are moving from minerals and oil into food. Roelof Horne, who manages Investec Asset Management's Africa fund, said he expected to see more farmland investments on the continent. "Africa has most of the underutilised fertile land in the world," he said, though he cautioned that "land is always an emotive thing". Apart from Daewoo, an increasing number of South Korean companies are venturing into Madagascar, investing in projects from nickel mines to power plants. State-run Korea Resources recently signed a preliminary agreement with Madagascar to expand collaboration on resources development including mining projects for other metals. Daewoo plans to start maize production on 2,000 hectares from next year and gradually expand it to other parts of the leased land. The company plans to plant maize on 1m hectares in the western part of Madagascar and oil palm trees on 300,000 hectares in the east. The company plans to ship the bulk of the harvests back to South Korea and export some supplies to other countries. It is unclear if any of the production will remain in Madagascar, an impoverished nation where the World Food Programme provides food relief to about 600,000 people - about 3.5 per cent of the population. The WFP, the UN agency in charge of emergency food relief, said more than 70 per cent of Madagascar's population lives below the poverty line. "Some 50 per cent of children under three years of age suffer retarded growth due to a chronically inadequate diet," it said. The pursuit of foreign farm investments follows this year's food crisis, which saw record prices for commodities such as wheat and rice, and food riots in countries from Egypt to Haiti. Prices for agricultural commodities have tumbled by about half from such levels but nations are concerned about long-term supplies. Daewoo said it chose Madagascar because it is relatively untouched by western companies. "The country could provide bigger opportunities for us as not many western companies are there," said Mr Hong. Daewoo plans to develop the arable land in Madagascar over 15 years and intends to provide about half South Korea's maize imports. Heavily populated South Korea is the fourth largest importer of maize. -------
3. In Quillagua, Chile, "the driest place on earth," water rights are privately owned. Therefore, water is not a public commodity, and the government has little say in its distribution. Mining companies have polluted the water supply and created such a monopoly that the resources are drying out. Residents are fleeing rapidly, crops are dying out, and livelihood is flailing. There is a tremendous question of sustainability options and the future of this city. I found this article interesting because it poses political, ethical, and environmental issues. -----------------------------------
Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO Published: March 14, 2009 QUILLAGUA, Chile — During the past four decades here in Quillagua, a town in the record books as the driest place on earth, residents have sometimes seen glimpses of raindrops above the foothills in the distance. They never reach the ground, evaporating like a mirage while still in the air.
Multimedia
Slide Show The Driest Place on Earth Enlarge This Image
Tomas Munita for The New York Times Water for Quillagua’s residents is trucked in. They say mining companies have polluted their river and bought up water rights. More Photos »
The New York Times Quillagua has a record as the driest place on earth. More Photos > What the town did have was a river, feeding an oasis in the Atacama desert. But mining companies have polluted and bought up so much of the water, residents say, that for months each year the river is little more than a trickle — and an unusable one at that.
Quillagua is among many small towns that are being swallowed up in the country’s intensifying water wars. Nowhere is the system for buying and selling water more permissive than here in Chile, experts say, where water rights are private property, not a public resource, and can be traded like commodities with little government oversight or safeguards for the environment.
Private ownership is so concentrated in some areas that a single electricity company from Spain, Endesa, has bought up 80 percent of the water rights in a huge region in the south, causing an uproar. In the north, agricultural producers are competing with mining companies to siphon off rivers and tap scarce water supplies, leaving towns like this one bone dry and withering.
“Everything, it seems, is against us,” said Bartolomé Vicentelo, 79, who once grew crops and fished for shrimp in the Loa River that fed Quillagua.
The population is about a fifth what it was less than two decades ago; so many people have left that he is one of only 120 people still here.
Some economists have hailed Chile’s water rights trading system, which was established in 1981 during the military dictatorship, as a model of free-market efficiency that allocates water to its highest economic use.
But other academics and environmentalists argue that Chile’s system is unsustainable because it promotes speculation, endangers the environment and allows smaller interests to be muscled out by powerful forces, like Chile’s mining industry.
“The Chilean model has gone too far in the direction of unfettered regulation,” said Carl J. Bauer, an expert on Chile’s water markets at the University of Arizona. “It hasn’t thought through the public interest.”
Australia and the western United States have somewhat comparable systems, but they contain stronger environmental regulation and conflict resolution than Chile’s, Dr. Bauer said.
Chile is a stark example of the debate over water crises across the globe. Concerns about shortages plague Chile’s economic expansion through natural resources like copper, fruits and fish — all of which require loads of water in a country with limited supplies of it.
“The dilemma we are facing is whether we can permit ourselves to continue to develop with the same amount of water we have now,” said Rodrigo Weisner, Chile’s water director in the Public Works Ministry.
“There is no political consensus about how to deal with the challenge of producing the resources we have — including the biggest reserves of copper in the world — in a country that has the most arid desert in the world,” Mr. Weisner said.
Fernando Dougnac, an environmental lawyer in Santiago, said that balance was particularly difficult because the “market can regulate for more economic efficiency, but not for more social-economic efficiency.”
Lately, the country’s approach to water has been showing some cracks. In the Atacama desert city of Copiapó, unbridled water trading and a two-year drought mean that “there are many more water rights for the river than water that arrives from the river,” Mr. Dougnac said.
Quillagua is in Guinness World Records as the “driest place” for 37 years, yet it prospered off the Loa River, reaching a population of 800 by the 1940s. A long-haul train stopped here — today the station is abandoned — and the town’s school was near its 120-student capacity. (Today there are 16 students.)
That prosperity first began to ebb in 1987, when the military government reduced the water to the town by more than two-thirds, said Raul Molina, a geographer at the University of Chile. But the big blows came in 1997 and 2000, when two episodes of contamination ruined the river for crop irrigation or livestock during the critical summer months.
An initial study by a professor concluded that the 1997 contamination had probably come from a copper mine run by Codelco, the state mining giant. The Chilean government then hired German experts, who said the contamination had a natural origin.
Chile’s regional Agriculture and Livestock Service, part of the Ministry of Agriculture, refuted those findings in 2000, saying in a report that people, not nature, were responsible. Heavy metals and other substances associated with mineral processing were found that killed off the river’s shrimp and made the water undrinkable for livestock. (Drinking water for residents had been transported in for decades.)
Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner, rejects any responsibility. Pablo Orozco, a company spokesman, said that the river water had been bad for years, and that heavy rains around the time of the contamination episodes had briefly swelled it, sweeping sediments and other substances into the water.
But the debate is largely academic, because without suitable water to raise crops, many residents saw no reason to continue resisting outside offers to buy the water rights in their town. One mining company, Soquimich, or S.Q.M., ended up buying about 75 percent of the rights in Quillagua. Most residents moved away; those who remain average around 50 years old.
“Quillagua cannot resist much longer,” said Alejandro Sanchez, 77, pointing a cane at a parched, grassless field where he once grew corn and alfalfa.
In 2007, the national water agency started investigating claims that Soquimich was extracting even more water from the Loa River than it was due. The inquiry is still pending, officials said, though the company says it has never taken more water than it owns rights to.
But early last year, the regional water authority started satellite monitoring along the Loa. After recording no water at all in the summer of 2007, Quillagua suddenly received small amounts last year, and again this January.
That has made water authorities suspicious that companies had been draining more water than permitted, according to Claudio Lam, a regional director for the Chilean water agency.
Even so, the water arriving in the summer is still not enough to produce crops, said Victor Palape, the chief of the Aymara Indians in Quillagua.
In a cruel twist, the town survives only because of daily water trucks that are partly financed by Codelco and Soquimich, the two companies that residents blame most for their troubles.
Quillagua’s residents remain determined. Mr. Palape, who owns the town’s main restaurant, still dreams of attracting tourists to the 108 meteor crater sites in and around Quillagua.
His sister Gloria is equally proud of Quillagua’s place in history.
“To be able to live in the driest place in the world, with everything that has happened, the people have to be resilient, to be stubborn,” she said. “We are not giving up.”
Pascale Bonnefoy contributed reporting from Santiago, Chile.
3. The prospect of an anti-biotics resistant virus formulated by the long term human practice of overuse of anti-biotics in livestocks made me realize the depth of human manipulation of nature. What is even more problemetic is that, unlike what we used to believe, we are no longer in total control of the outcome of our manipulation, and we are even at the stage of grave danger because of our own shortsighted actions. Pollution and environment degredation is rather blunt in image and more visible, but such issues of environment distortion that 'inevitably' occur during our economic activities are harder to detect, since it is in a more private realm. It is more secretive, less alarming but equally traumatic. Then how do we make such agendas become more popular, and mobilize people to apply pressure onto the concerned industries, the government and so on? It is always surprising in the end, that the seemingly evident and 'personal' threat to our health by the industry is at often times justified as a necessary evil, or simply disregarded. How do we move on from the stage of 'genuine surprise' to mobilized action? I am curious as to whether that is a part of what environment sociology is interested in.
4. Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: March 11, 2009 ----------------------------------- The late Tom Anderson, the family doctor in this little farm town in northwestern Indiana, at first was puzzled, then frightened.
He began seeing strange rashes on his patients, starting more than a year ago. They began as innocuous bumps — “pimples from hell,” he called them — and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and agonizing to touch.
They could be anywhere, but were most common on the face, armpits, knees and buttocks. Dr. Anderson took cultures and sent them off to a lab, which reported that they were MRSA, or staph infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) sometimes arouses terrifying headlines as a “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria.” The best-known strain is found in hospitals, where it has been seen regularly since the 1990s, but more recently different strains also have been passed among high school and college athletes. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.
Dr. Anderson at first couldn’t figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?
“Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,” recalls his widow, Cindi Anderson. “Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.”
By last fall, Dr. Anderson was ready to be a whistle-blower, and he agreed to welcome me on a reporting visit and go on the record with his suspicions. That was a bold move, for any insinuation that the hog industry harms public health was sure to outrage many neighbors.
So I made plans to come here and visit Dr. Anderson in his practice. And then, very abruptly, Dr. Anderson died at the age of 54.
There was no autopsy, but a blood test suggested a heart attack or aneurysm. Dr. Anderson had himself suffered at least three bouts of MRSA, and a Dutch journal has linked swine-carried MRSA to dangerous human heart inflammation.
The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.
A few caveats: The uncertainties are huge, partly because our surveillance system is wretched (the cases here in Camden were never reported to the health authorities). The vast majority of pork is safe, and there is no proven case of transmission of MRSA from eating pork. I’ll still offer my kids B.L.T.’s — but I’ll scrub my hands carefully after handling raw pork.
Let me also be very clear that I’m not against hog farmers. I grew up on a farm outside Yamhill, Ore., and was a state officer of the Future Farmers of America; we raised pigs for a time, including a sow named Brunhilda with such a strong personality that I remember her better than some of my high school dates.
One of the first clues that pigs could infect people with MRSA came in the Netherlands in 2004, when a young woman tested positive for a new strain of MRSA, called ST398. The family lived on a farm, so public health authorities swept in — and found that three family members, three co-workers and 8 of 10 pigs tested all carried MRSA.
Since then, that strain of MRSA has spread rapidly through the Netherlands — especially in swine-producing areas. A small Dutch study found pig farmers there were 760 times more likely than the general population to carry MRSA (without necessarily showing symptoms), and Scientific American reports that this strain of MRSA has turned up in 12 percent of Dutch retail pork samples.
Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States. A new study by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist, found that 45 percent of pig farmers she sampled carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of the hogs tested.
The study was small, and much more investigation is necessary. Yet it might shed light on the surge in rashes in the now vacant doctor’s office here in Camden. Linda Barnard, who was Dr. Anderson’s assistant, thinks that perhaps 50 people came in to be treated for MRSA, in a town with a population of a bit more than 500. Indeed, during my visit, Dr. Anderson’s 13-year-old daughter, Lily, showed me a MRSA rash inflaming her knee.
“I’ve had it many times,” she said.
So what’s going on here, and where do these antibiotic-resistant infections come from? Probably from the routine use — make that the insane overuse — of antibiotics in livestock feed. This is a system that may help breed virulent “superbugs” that pose a public health threat to us all. That’ll be the focus of my next column, on Sunday.
4 Main Rivers Restoration Policy: but is it really Green?
(sorry, unfortunately I couldn’t translate the article, so I’m writing a long paragraph to give the class a brief description of what it is about. For those who read Korean, check out the url link posted below. It will take you further into what government plans and how THEY explain this project.)
Late last December the Korean government launched the four rivers restoration project as part of the Green New Deal policy (see photo: ). This project is very interesting to look at, because there has been nothing like this before. The project is mainly focused on restoring the environmental and cultural surroundings of the 4 big rivers in Korea (Han River, Nakdong River, Geum River, Youngsan River). But the policy also promises some outcomes that will benefit the nation greatly: less floods, CO2 reduction due to expanding greenbelt area and new energy production plants next to rivers, promote tourism, bicycle pathways and 190 thousand new jobs. So this is actually a very big project, as it touches on many areas, it sort of gives us an impression that this may be other than simply more concrete and lining up of the river flow. In order to have balanced development throughout the nation, the 4 rivers project also includes the restoration of other selection of small rivers stretched out all over country connected to the larger streams.
So for the next 4 years, as part of the president's new deal policy, 36% of the 50 trillion won new deal budget is being invested to this river project while 54.8% is generously allotted to railroad constructions and less than 10% for new energy development plans. Not surprisingly, this budget plan is already arousing doubt amongst the people who have begun wondering what could really be behind the "greenness" of this project. The project has been promoted as a solution to ending flood problems when in fact the 4 big rivers seldom overflowed since the last three decades.
On Feb 5, the government set up an interesting committee of planners that are to establish the master plan for the river project by this May. The team consists of: 19 people from Ministry of Land Transport and Maritime Affairs; 2 from Ministry of Public Administration and Security; one person from each of the following: Ministry of knowledge economy; Ministry of food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries; ministry of environment; the cultural heritage administration; ministry of culture, sports and tourism, 11 from local self-government committees and 2 contract workers (No specific detail is provided in any of the government policy files about who these "workers" are).
I hope just hope this project doesn’t turn out to be another one of those giant canal projects… They are so yesterday. I jog around Han River sometimes and it’s not as pleasurable as it used to be. :(
Focus on KFEM, check it out. http://kfem.or.kr/kbbs/bbs/board.php?bo_table=eletter&wr_id=407
4 rivers project promotion film on youtube. (made by Ministry of Land Transport and Maritime Affairs, and parts of it were proven faux) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD7u4GdMRnM
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국정과제 "4대강 살리기 우선 추진해야" (서울=연합뉴스) 장재은 기자 = 박태주 한국환경정책평가연구원장은 10일 열린 제2회 국정과제 세미나에서 "4대강 살리기 사업을 둘러싸고 소모적 논쟁을 벌이기보다는 사업내용을 개선하고 효과를 높이는 데 역량을 집중해야 한다"고 주장했다.
박 원장은 `기후변화 적응 및 신성장 동력으로서 4대강 유역관리'라는 주제의 발표에서 "경기부양을 위한 사업들은 지연될수록 정책효과가 반감되고 비용만 늘어나게 된다"며 그 같이 말했다.
그는 일자리 창출의 속도와 산업연관 효과, 인력확보 및 투자조정 용이성 등을 기준으로 평가할 때 4대강 살리기는 경기가 회복할 때 투자를 조정할 수 있기 때문에 우선 추진하는 게 옳다는 논리를 폈다.
그는 "현실적으로 4대강 살리기 사업 이상으로 많은 지역에서 경기부양과 일자리 창출 효과가 큰 사업을 찾기는 쉽지 않다"며 "극복할 수 있는 부작용은 사업을 추진하면서 해결하는 방안을 찾아야 한다"고 말했다.
기후변화 대응책으로서의 4대강 살리기와 관련, 박 원장은 "하천의 본류를 주요 대상으로 하는 한계가 있다"며 "사업효과를 높이기 위해서는 본류를 포함한 유역차원의 접근이 병행돼야 한다"고 지적했다.
박 원장는 특히 "물은 발원지로부터 바다로 이어지기까지 연속성을 지니기 때문에 일부 구간이 아닌 유역 전체 차원의 접근이 이뤄져야 지속가능한 관리가 가능하다"고 말했다.
그는 2002년부터 2006년까지 과거 5년간 한국의 하천정비 예산은 연평균 1조1천331억원으로, 같은 기간 일본의 하천치수사업 예산 10조157억원의 10％ 수준으로 인구와 국토 크기를 감안하더라도 투자액이 적다며 4대강 사업의 필요성을 재차 강조했다.
박 원장은 "다목적 댐 건설이 집중됐던 경제개발계획 시기 이후 대대적인 물관리 사업에 대한 투자 기회가 없었다"며 "이번 4대강 살리기 사업을 기후변화에 대응한 수량ㆍ수질ㆍ수생태 복원 등의 목표를 달성하기 위한 국가적 투자의 기회로 봐야 한다"고 말했다.
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
Ju Hyun, Park
ReplyDeleteToxic Bath
It is hard to believe that toxic chemicals were found in children's bath products. The products found were not a few, but numerous. It is obviously unacceptable. Children, with weak immune system, are highly vulnerable to toxic chemicals. It is even more surprising how the extensive research studies are not responding "properly." The fact that the amount of the chemicals are extremely small and probably incalculable doesn't mean that it is not harmful at all. Moreover, the chemicals found are known to be hazardous only when is inhaled or ingested, which convinces the studies that the bath products are not to harm the children. However, children are called children because they do unexpected things such as eating shampoo and bubbles from bubble bath. I strongly believe that the Federal Government, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration should react promptly and properly.
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Toxic chemicals in children's bath products?
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reports finding traces of 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde in shampoos, bath gels and wipes. But federal experts say any health hazard is vanishingly small.
Washington Post
March 14, 2009
Washington — Extensive studies of two toxic chemicals found in children's bath and personal care products suggest that if they pose a health hazard, it is likely to be extremely small and probably incalculable, a review of scientific research shows.
The two chemical compounds -- 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde -- were found in trace quantities in children's shampoos, bath gels, lotions and wipes in a study conducted by the consumer group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
The group's results, released this week, showed that of the 48 products studied, two-thirds contained 1,4-dioxane. A subgroup of 28 products was tested for formaldehyde, and about 80% contained that compound. Numerous compounds contained both.
Neither compound is listed as an ingredient in the products. Formaldehyde is a breakdown product of preservatives in the liquids, and 1,4-dioxane is a trace contaminant left from the manufacturing process.
But federal experts on Friday urged caution in assessing the results of the study.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which evaluates the toxicity of chemical compounds, released a statement Friday saying that it "is currently doing new human health risk assessments on both dioxane and formaldehyde."
It noted that previous studies had shown dioxane may cause cancer when inhaled, and formaldehyde may cause cancer when ingested, but that the agency has "not yet reached a determination pertaining to skin exposure."
Because the products are washed off, the body's ability to absorb them is limited. The low-dose, short-lived and intermittent nature of exposure is one of the reasons the Food and Drug Administration does not require that the chemicals be removed. The human health effects of formaldehyde have been studied extensively; those of 1,4-dioxane, less so.
At the Society of Toxicology's annual meeting, in Baltimore next week, a Centers for Disease Control scientist is scheduled to present a study in which blood levels of 1,4-dioxane were measured in about 2,000 Americans 12 and older. No detectable amounts were found, suggesting that actual exposure to the compound is virtually nil.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-baby-wash14-2009mar14,0,5185531.story
1. Martin Weiser
ReplyDelete2. Biofueled planes and Korea's deal in Madagascar
3. Although alternative energies for cars have been disputed for several years I have never heard of or thought about biofuels for planes. So I was surprised about finding lots of articles about this topic. There are already announcements of lots of airlines to have biofuel-only flights within the next 5 years.
While the numbers of flights will ongoingly increase in the next decades, biofuels can reduce the negative effects.
I also found another article about Korea's big company Daewoo that signed a deal with Madagascar to lease about 1.3 million hectares for farming mainly corn and palm oil. Since this area is said to amount to more than half of its arable land and might be almost free, this deal seems rather unfair.
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The Top 10 Biofuels Stories of 2008: #10, Airlines test biofuels
Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand completed 747 biofuel tests this year, with Virgin testing a B20 blend using babassu palm oil and coconut oil in February while Air New Zealand used a B50 blend from jatropha in its December test.
Continental and Japan Airlines announced early 2009 tests as well. British Airways announced future tests, but avoided the term “biofuels” in the announcement due to the controversy over indirect land-use changes.
Not only are the airlines facing steep fuel charges, but airlines will now enter the European Trading Scheme for carbon emissions in 2012, and the industry is facing up to $10.5 billion in carbon charges unless it reduces its carbon footprint.
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Daewoo to pay nothing for vast land acquisition
By Song Jung-a and Christian Oliver in Seoul and Tom,Burgis in Johannesburg
Published: November 20 2008 02:00 | Last updated: November 20 2008 02:00
Daewoo Logistics of South Korea said it expected to pay nothing to farm maize and palm oil in an area of Madagascar half the size of Belgium, increasing concerns about the largest farmland investment of this kind.
The Indian Ocean island will simply gain employment opportunities from Daewoo's 99-year lease of 1.3m hectares, officials at the company said. They emphasised that the aim of the investment was to boost Seoul's food security.
"We want to plant corn there to ensure our food security. Food can be a weapon in this world," said Hong Jong-wan, a manager at Daewoo. "We can either export the harvests to other countries or ship them back to Korea in case of a food crisis."
Daewoo said it had agreed with Madagascar's government that it could cultivate 1.3m hectares of farmland for free when it signed a memorandum of understanding in May. When the company signed the contract in July, it agreed to discuss costs with Madagascar. But Daewoo now believes it will have to pay nothing.
"It is totally undeveloped land which has been left untouched. And we will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar," said Mr Hong. The 1.3m hectares of leased land is more than half the African country's current arable land of 2.5m hectares.
But Madagascar could also benefit from Daewoo's in-vest-ment in roads, irrigation and grain storage facilities.
However, a European diplomat in southern Africa said: "We suspect there will be very limited direct benefits [for Madagascar]. Extractive projects have very little spill-over to a broader industrialisation."
Asian nations havebeen looking more often in the past five years or so to Africa to meet their resource needs. China has been particularly aggressive in building up stakes in oilfields and mines on the continent, sometimes facing accusations of neocolonialism.
But now the countries are moving from minerals and oil into food. Roelof Horne, who manages Investec Asset Management's Africa fund, said he expected to see more farmland investments on the continent. "Africa has most of the underutilised fertile land in the world," he said, though he cautioned that "land is always an emotive thing".
Apart from Daewoo, an increasing number of South Korean companies are venturing into Madagascar, investing in projects from nickel mines to power plants.
State-run Korea Resources recently signed a preliminary agreement with Madagascar to expand collaboration on resources development including mining projects for other metals.
Daewoo plans to start maize production on 2,000 hectares from next year and gradually expand it to other parts of the leased land. The company plans to plant maize on 1m hectares in the western part of Madagascar and oil palm trees on 300,000 hectares in the east.
The company plans to ship the bulk of the harvests back to South Korea and export some supplies to other countries. It is unclear if any of the production will remain in Madagascar, an impoverished nation where the World Food Programme provides food relief to about 600,000 people - about 3.5 per cent of the population.
The WFP, the UN agency in charge of emergency food relief, said more than 70 per cent of Madagascar's population lives below the poverty line. "Some 50 per cent of children under three years of age suffer retarded growth due to a chronically inadequate diet," it said.
The pursuit of foreign farm investments follows this year's food crisis, which saw record prices for commodities such as wheat and rice, and food riots in countries from Egypt to Haiti. Prices for agricultural commodities have tumbled by about half from such levels but nations are concerned about long-term supplies.
Daewoo said it chose Madagascar because it is relatively untouched by western companies. "The country could provide bigger opportunities for us as not many western companies are there," said Mr Hong.
Daewoo plans to develop the arable land in Madagascar over 15 years and intends to provide about half South Korea's maize imports. Heavily populated South Korea is the fourth largest importer of maize.
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http://biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/12/31/the-top-10-biofuels-stories-of-2008-10-airlines-test-biofuels/
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b0099666-b6a4-11dd-89dd-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
1. Anne Severe
ReplyDelete2. Water Shortage in Quillagua, Chile
3. In Quillagua, Chile, "the driest place on earth," water rights are privately owned. Therefore, water is not a public commodity, and the government has little say in its distribution. Mining companies have polluted the water supply and created such a monopoly that the resources are drying out. Residents are fleeing rapidly, crops are dying out, and livelihood is flailing. There is a tremendous question of sustainability options and the future of this city. I found this article interesting because it poses political, ethical, and environmental issues.
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Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: March 14, 2009
QUILLAGUA, Chile — During the past four decades here in Quillagua, a town in the record books as the driest place on earth, residents have sometimes seen glimpses of raindrops above the foothills in the distance. They never reach the ground, evaporating like a mirage while still in the air.
Multimedia
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The Driest Place on Earth
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Tomas Munita for The New York Times
Water for Quillagua’s residents is trucked in. They say mining companies have polluted their river and bought up water rights. More Photos »
The New York Times
Quillagua has a record as the driest place on earth. More Photos >
What the town did have was a river, feeding an oasis in the Atacama desert. But mining companies have polluted and bought up so much of the water, residents say, that for months each year the river is little more than a trickle — and an unusable one at that.
Quillagua is among many small towns that are being swallowed up in the country’s intensifying water wars. Nowhere is the system for buying and selling water more permissive than here in Chile, experts say, where water rights are private property, not a public resource, and can be traded like commodities with little government oversight or safeguards for the environment.
Private ownership is so concentrated in some areas that a single electricity company from Spain, Endesa, has bought up 80 percent of the water rights in a huge region in the south, causing an uproar. In the north, agricultural producers are competing with mining companies to siphon off rivers and tap scarce water supplies, leaving towns like this one bone dry and withering.
“Everything, it seems, is against us,” said Bartolomé Vicentelo, 79, who once grew crops and fished for shrimp in the Loa River that fed Quillagua.
The population is about a fifth what it was less than two decades ago; so many people have left that he is one of only 120 people still here.
Some economists have hailed Chile’s water rights trading system, which was established in 1981 during the military dictatorship, as a model of free-market efficiency that allocates water to its highest economic use.
But other academics and environmentalists argue that Chile’s system is unsustainable because it promotes speculation, endangers the environment and allows smaller interests to be muscled out by powerful forces, like Chile’s mining industry.
“The Chilean model has gone too far in the direction of unfettered regulation,” said Carl J. Bauer, an expert on Chile’s water markets at the University of Arizona. “It hasn’t thought through the public interest.”
Australia and the western United States have somewhat comparable systems, but they contain stronger environmental regulation and conflict resolution than Chile’s, Dr. Bauer said.
Chile is a stark example of the debate over water crises across the globe. Concerns about shortages plague Chile’s economic expansion through natural resources like copper, fruits and fish — all of which require loads of water in a country with limited supplies of it.
“The dilemma we are facing is whether we can permit ourselves to continue to develop with the same amount of water we have now,” said Rodrigo Weisner, Chile’s water director in the Public Works Ministry.
“There is no political consensus about how to deal with the challenge of producing the resources we have — including the biggest reserves of copper in the world — in a country that has the most arid desert in the world,” Mr. Weisner said.
Fernando Dougnac, an environmental lawyer in Santiago, said that balance was particularly difficult because the “market can regulate for more economic efficiency, but not for more social-economic efficiency.”
Lately, the country’s approach to water has been showing some cracks. In the Atacama desert city of Copiapó, unbridled water trading and a two-year drought mean that “there are many more water rights for the river than water that arrives from the river,” Mr. Dougnac said.
Quillagua is in Guinness World Records as the “driest place” for 37 years, yet it prospered off the Loa River, reaching a population of 800 by the 1940s. A long-haul train stopped here — today the station is abandoned — and the town’s school was near its 120-student capacity. (Today there are 16 students.)
That prosperity first began to ebb in 1987, when the military government reduced the water to the town by more than two-thirds, said Raul Molina, a geographer at the University of Chile. But the big blows came in 1997 and 2000, when two episodes of contamination ruined the river for crop irrigation or livestock during the critical summer months.
An initial study by a professor concluded that the 1997 contamination had probably come from a copper mine run by Codelco, the state mining giant. The Chilean government then hired German experts, who said the contamination had a natural origin.
Chile’s regional Agriculture and Livestock Service, part of the Ministry of Agriculture, refuted those findings in 2000, saying in a report that people, not nature, were responsible. Heavy metals and other substances associated with mineral processing were found that killed off the river’s shrimp and made the water undrinkable for livestock. (Drinking water for residents had been transported in for decades.)
Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner, rejects any responsibility. Pablo Orozco, a company spokesman, said that the river water had been bad for years, and that heavy rains around the time of the contamination episodes had briefly swelled it, sweeping sediments and other substances into the water.
But the debate is largely academic, because without suitable water to raise crops, many residents saw no reason to continue resisting outside offers to buy the water rights in their town. One mining company, Soquimich, or S.Q.M., ended up buying about 75 percent of the rights in Quillagua. Most residents moved away; those who remain average around 50 years old.
“Quillagua cannot resist much longer,” said Alejandro Sanchez, 77, pointing a cane at a parched, grassless field where he once grew corn and alfalfa.
In 2007, the national water agency started investigating claims that Soquimich was extracting even more water from the Loa River than it was due. The inquiry is still pending, officials said, though the company says it has never taken more water than it owns rights to.
But early last year, the regional water authority started satellite monitoring along the Loa. After recording no water at all in the summer of 2007, Quillagua suddenly received small amounts last year, and again this January.
That has made water authorities suspicious that companies had been draining more water than permitted, according to Claudio Lam, a regional director for the Chilean water agency.
Even so, the water arriving in the summer is still not enough to produce crops, said Victor Palape, the chief of the Aymara Indians in Quillagua.
In a cruel twist, the town survives only because of daily water trucks that are partly financed by Codelco and Soquimich, the two companies that residents blame most for their troubles.
Quillagua’s residents remain determined. Mr. Palape, who owns the town’s main restaurant, still dreams of attracting tourists to the 108 meteor crater sites in and around Quillagua.
His sister Gloria is equally proud of Quillagua’s place in history.
“To be able to live in the driest place in the world, with everything that has happened, the people have to be resilient, to be stubborn,” she said. “We are not giving up.”
Pascale Bonnefoy contributed reporting from Santiago, Chile.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/world/americas/15chile.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
1. Young Hui Na
ReplyDelete2. the superbugs and anti biotics
3. The prospect of an anti-biotics resistant virus formulated by the long term human practice of overuse of anti-biotics in livestocks made me realize the depth of human manipulation of nature. What is even more problemetic is that, unlike what we used to believe, we are no longer in total control of the outcome of our manipulation, and we are even at the stage of grave danger because of our own shortsighted actions. Pollution and environment degredation is rather blunt in image and more visible, but such issues of environment distortion that 'inevitably' occur during our economic activities are harder to detect, since it is in a more private realm. It is more secretive, less alarming but equally traumatic. Then how do we make such agendas become more popular, and mobilize people to apply pressure onto the concerned industries, the government and so on? It is always surprising in the end, that the seemingly evident and 'personal' threat to our health by the industry is at often times justified as a necessary evil, or simply disregarded. How do we move on from the stage of 'genuine surprise' to mobilized action? I am curious as to whether that is a part of what environment sociology is interested in.
4. Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: March 11, 2009
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The late Tom Anderson, the family doctor in this little farm town in northwestern Indiana, at first was puzzled, then frightened.
He began seeing strange rashes on his patients, starting more than a year ago. They began as innocuous bumps — “pimples from hell,” he called them — and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and agonizing to touch.
They could be anywhere, but were most common on the face, armpits, knees and buttocks. Dr. Anderson took cultures and sent them off to a lab, which reported that they were MRSA, or staph infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) sometimes arouses terrifying headlines as a “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria.” The best-known strain is found in hospitals, where it has been seen regularly since the 1990s, but more recently different strains also have been passed among high school and college athletes. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.
Dr. Anderson at first couldn’t figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?
“Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,” recalls his widow, Cindi Anderson. “Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.”
By last fall, Dr. Anderson was ready to be a whistle-blower, and he agreed to welcome me on a reporting visit and go on the record with his suspicions. That was a bold move, for any insinuation that the hog industry harms public health was sure to outrage many neighbors.
So I made plans to come here and visit Dr. Anderson in his practice. And then, very abruptly, Dr. Anderson died at the age of 54.
There was no autopsy, but a blood test suggested a heart attack or aneurysm. Dr. Anderson had himself suffered at least three bouts of MRSA, and a Dutch journal has linked swine-carried MRSA to dangerous human heart inflammation.
The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.
A few caveats: The uncertainties are huge, partly because our surveillance system is wretched (the cases here in Camden were never reported to the health authorities). The vast majority of pork is safe, and there is no proven case of transmission of MRSA from eating pork. I’ll still offer my kids B.L.T.’s — but I’ll scrub my hands carefully after handling raw pork.
Let me also be very clear that I’m not against hog farmers. I grew up on a farm outside Yamhill, Ore., and was a state officer of the Future Farmers of America; we raised pigs for a time, including a sow named Brunhilda with such a strong personality that I remember her better than some of my high school dates.
One of the first clues that pigs could infect people with MRSA came in the Netherlands in 2004, when a young woman tested positive for a new strain of MRSA, called ST398. The family lived on a farm, so public health authorities swept in — and found that three family members, three co-workers and 8 of 10 pigs tested all carried MRSA.
Since then, that strain of MRSA has spread rapidly through the Netherlands — especially in swine-producing areas. A small Dutch study found pig farmers there were 760 times more likely than the general population to carry MRSA (without necessarily showing symptoms), and Scientific American reports that this strain of MRSA has turned up in 12 percent of Dutch retail pork samples.
Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States. A new study by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist, found that 45 percent of pig farmers she sampled carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of the hogs tested.
The study was small, and much more investigation is necessary. Yet it might shed light on the surge in rashes in the now vacant doctor’s office here in Camden. Linda Barnard, who was Dr. Anderson’s assistant, thinks that perhaps 50 people came in to be treated for MRSA, in a town with a population of a bit more than 500. Indeed, during my visit, Dr. Anderson’s 13-year-old daughter, Lily, showed me a MRSA rash inflaming her knee.
“I’ve had it many times,” she said.
So what’s going on here, and where do these antibiotic-resistant infections come from? Probably from the routine use — make that the insane overuse — of antibiotics in livestock feed. This is a system that may help breed virulent “superbugs” that pose a public health threat to us all. That’ll be the focus of my next column, on Sunday.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/opinion/12kristof.html
Youngone Suh
ReplyDelete4 Main Rivers Restoration Policy:
but is it really Green?
(sorry, unfortunately I couldn’t translate the article, so I’m writing a long paragraph to give the class a brief description of what it is about. For those who read Korean, check out the url link posted below. It will take you further into what government plans and how THEY explain this project.)
Late last December the Korean government launched the four rivers restoration project as part of the Green New Deal policy (see photo: ). This project is very interesting to look at, because there has been nothing like this before. The project is mainly focused on restoring the environmental and cultural surroundings of the 4 big rivers in Korea (Han River, Nakdong River, Geum River, Youngsan River). But the policy also promises some outcomes that will benefit the nation greatly: less floods, CO2 reduction due to expanding greenbelt area and new energy production plants next to rivers, promote tourism, bicycle pathways and 190 thousand new jobs. So this is actually a very big project, as it touches on many areas, it sort of gives us an impression that this may be other than simply more concrete and lining up of the river flow. In order to have balanced development throughout the nation, the 4 rivers project also includes the restoration of other selection of small rivers stretched out all over country connected to the larger streams.
So for the next 4 years, as part of the president's new deal policy, 36% of the 50 trillion won new deal budget is being invested to this river project while 54.8% is generously allotted to railroad constructions and less than 10% for new energy development plans. Not surprisingly, this budget plan is already arousing doubt amongst the people who have begun wondering what could really be behind the "greenness" of this project. The project has been promoted as a solution to ending flood problems when in fact the 4 big rivers seldom overflowed since the last three decades.
On Feb 5, the government set up an interesting committee of planners that are to establish the master plan for the river project by this May. The team consists of: 19 people from Ministry of Land Transport and Maritime Affairs; 2 from Ministry of Public Administration and Security; one person from each of the following: Ministry of knowledge economy; Ministry of food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries; ministry of environment; the cultural heritage administration; ministry of culture, sports and tourism, 11 from local self-government committees and 2 contract workers (No specific detail is provided in any of the government policy files about who these "workers" are).
I hope just hope this project doesn’t turn out to be another one of those giant canal projects… They are so yesterday. I jog around Han River sometimes and it’s not as pleasurable as it used to be. :(
Focus on KFEM, check it out. http://kfem.or.kr/kbbs/bbs/board.php?bo_table=eletter&wr_id=407
4 rivers project promotion film on youtube. (made by Ministry of Land Transport and Maritime Affairs, and parts of it were proven faux) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD7u4GdMRnM
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국정과제 "4대강 살리기 우선 추진해야"
(서울=연합뉴스) 장재은 기자 = 박태주 한국환경정책평가연구원장은 10일 열린 제2회 국정과제 세미나에서 "4대강 살리기 사업을 둘러싸고 소모적 논쟁을 벌이기보다는 사업내용을 개선하고 효과를 높이는 데 역량을 집중해야 한다"고 주장했다.
박 원장은 `기후변화 적응 및 신성장 동력으로서 4대강 유역관리'라는 주제의 발표에서 "경기부양을 위한 사업들은 지연될수록 정책효과가 반감되고 비용만 늘어나게 된다"며 그 같이 말했다.
그는 일자리 창출의 속도와 산업연관 효과, 인력확보 및 투자조정 용이성 등을 기준으로 평가할 때 4대강 살리기는 경기가 회복할 때 투자를 조정할 수 있기 때문에 우선 추진하는 게 옳다는 논리를 폈다.
그는 "현실적으로 4대강 살리기 사업 이상으로 많은 지역에서 경기부양과 일자리 창출 효과가 큰 사업을 찾기는 쉽지 않다"며 "극복할 수 있는 부작용은 사업을 추진하면서 해결하는 방안을 찾아야 한다"고 말했다.
기후변화 대응책으로서의 4대강 살리기와 관련, 박 원장은 "하천의 본류를 주요 대상으로 하는 한계가 있다"며 "사업효과를 높이기 위해서는 본류를 포함한 유역차원의 접근이 병행돼야 한다"고 지적했다.
박 원장는 특히 "물은 발원지로부터 바다로 이어지기까지 연속성을 지니기 때문에 일부 구간이 아닌 유역 전체 차원의 접근이 이뤄져야 지속가능한 관리가 가능하다"고 말했다.
그는 2002년부터 2006년까지 과거 5년간 한국의 하천정비 예산은 연평균 1조1천331억원으로, 같은 기간 일본의 하천치수사업 예산 10조157억원의 10％ 수준으로 인구와 국토 크기를 감안하더라도 투자액이 적다며 4대강 사업의 필요성을 재차 강조했다.
박 원장은 "다목적 댐 건설이 집중됐던 경제개발계획 시기 이후 대대적인 물관리 사업에 대한 투자 기회가 없었다"며 "이번 4대강 살리기 사업을 기후변화에 대응한 수량ㆍ수질ㆍ수생태 복원 등의 목표를 달성하기 위한 국가적 투자의 기회로 봐야 한다"고 말했다.
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http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/society/2009/03/10/0711000000AKR20090310121300004.HTML