Earth Island Journal articles from December 1999

Earth Island Journal archives from December 1999

Dear Journal.(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 1999... Eco-tourism To promote ecotourism as green, selfless and a gift to the remote corners of the world is greenwash ["Ecotourism and Ethics," Fall '99 EIJ]. What in the world could an American Ecotourist teach a Mongolian? How to conserve jet...

Corrections.(photography credits; International Marine Mammal Project)(Correction Notice)
December 22, 1999... * Due to an electronic printing glitch, two critical credits disappeared from our Fall 1999 issue. The stunning cover photo was provided by Galen Rowell. The cover and table of contents both were designed by the Public Media Center. * The...

Ebb & Flow.(environmental and population issues)
December 22, 1999... "Autocumulus" Clouds? JAPAN -- Haruhiro Tsukamoto, a member of the Meteorological Society of Japan, has named a new kind of cloud. Kan-nana and Kan-pachi clouds are pollution-filled cumulus clouds that form above Tokyo's Kan-nana and...

Eco-Mole.(environmentalism and animal rights)
December 22, 1999... The Name is Muir, John Muir: The Mole is all atwitter at news that Sean Connery will co-produce and star in a Paramount Pictures film about a fellow Scot, environmentalist John Muir. The film, based on Alan Duncan Ross and Meridith Burrell's...

Positive Notes.
December 22, 1999... Home Depot victory After weathering a two-year barrage of grassroots demonstrations, boycotts and ad campaigns, Home Depot has agreed to halt all sales of lumber from old-growth and endangered trees -- redwood, cedar and tropical lauan. Home...

Earth Island Sues US over Fraudulent "Dolphin-Safe" Label.(tuna fish label)
December 22, 1999... SAN FRANCISCO -- On August 18, 1999, Earth Island Institute, joined by nine other environmental groups and 87-year-old environmental activist David R. Brower filed a lawsuit in US District Court to overturn the government's decision to weaken...

On Tour with the Tuna Monitors.
December 22, 1999... The International Monitoring Program (IMP) was founded in 1991 to oversee tuna companies' compliance with Earth Island's Dolphin Safe labeling program. IMP was created by Brenda Killian, who devised the monitoring program to guarantee that...

The Clean Ferry Myth.
December 22, 1999... For many years, Americans have had a love affair with ferryboats. Ferries not only relieve our frayed nerves after we've stewed in bumper-to-bumper traffic, but conventional wisdom says ferries also reduce congestion and air pollution by...

Welcome to the Mixing Zone.
December 22, 1999... In September of 1998, Earth Island launched the Campaign to Safeguard America's Waters (C-SAW) to stop the authorization of mixing zones (pollution-dilution zones) in federal wastewater discharge permits. Polluters save money by using mixing...

GLOBAL WARMING Could Put Northwest in Hot Water.
December 22, 1999... Global warming can seem such a vast, complex issue. It's global, after all. But when prospective impacts are brought closer to home, its grave import becomes clear. One way to grasp the significance of global warming for the Northwest is...

Making Waves ... Earth Island in the News.
December 22, 1999... BLUEWATER BLOCKS CHEVRON! After a series of explosions shut down several Chevron refineries, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) granted Chevron an emergency variance to sell up to 3.5 million barrels of "dirty" gasoline in California....

Earth Island Projects.
December 22, 1999... Baikal Watch gary cook,* Erika Rosenthal. (baikalwatch@earthisland.org) Bay Area Wilderness Training Kyle Macdonald,* Victoria Ryder. (kylemac@bawt.org) Bluewater Network Russell Long,* Brooke Coleman, Sheila Gallagher, Sally Ann...

Bio Watch.
December 22, 1999... Pigs Stymied CANADA -- Scientists at Ontario's University of Guelph have bio-engineered three little pigs to emit manure with less phosphorus, to reduce pollution from pig megafarms. Phosphorus robs water of oxygen, thus killing fish, and...

Global Marketplace.
December 22, 1999... World Bank Fuels Global Warming US -- At the 1992 Earth Summit, World Bank officials vowed to take the read in investing for a "green" future. Since 1992, however, the bank has promoted $13.9 billion worth of fossil fuel projects. Over the...

Around the World.
December 22, 1999... Code Red: Coke Bust Goin' Down AUSTRALIA -- Soda machines in Sydney didn't wait for Y2K to go haywire. Last summer thousands of "smart" vending machines installed throughout the city started making crank calls. The machines were designed...

Cars, hurricanes and the Sixth Extinction.
December 22, 1999... The increasing frequency -- and ferocity -- of tropical hurricanes has been linked to higher ocean temperatures caused by global warming. Since 1995, the annual onslaught of Atlantic hurricanes has increased by more than 40 percent. The major...

Coal-burning Computers.
December 22, 1999... Computers and telecommuting were supposed to dear the air by keeping cars off the road. Unfortunately, computers have been proliferating even faster than people. The electronic revolution now consumes 290 billion kwh of electricity -- nearly 8...

Whistleblowers confirm Journal Trans-Alaska Pipeline warning.
December 22, 1999... UK -- On July 12, six senior Trans-Alaska Pipeline (Alyeska) employees warned that a rupture of the 800-mile-long pipeline could occur at any time. "It's not a matter of if it is going to happen, it's when it is going to happen," one of the...

Un Confirms Journal's Jets-and-Climate Story.
December 22, 1999... UK- On June 4, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a study on "Aviation and the Global Atmosphere" that confirms Earth Island Journal's warning [Summer `97] that emissions from the world 16,000 aircraft are...

Did air pollution kill the Kennedys?
December 22, 1999... The air tragedy that claimed the rife of John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife and her sister, last July may have been the result of industrial air pollution that obscured Kennedy's destination in a nearly opaque haze. According to Atmospheric...

Global "riots against capitalism".
December 22, 1999... GERMANY -- An International Day of Action against globalization was held to coincide with the meeting of the G-8 leading industrial countries in Cologne on June 18. Around the world, hundreds of thousands of citizens celebrated a "Carnival...

Anti-Cha-Cha: The fight against globalizing the Philippines.
December 22, 1999... Philippine President Joseph "Erap" Estrada has staked his future on a controversial plan to globalize the economy by rewriting the national constitution. Estrada believes that the key to economic prosperity is to arrow foreign corporations to...

The Houston Principles.
December 22, 1999... "If you will promise to make sustainable jobs a product of environmental protection, we will promise to make environmental protection our most important job." -- David Foster, Northwest Director of the United Steelworkers of America ...

A global plea to halt logging.
December 22, 1999... Around the world, large-scale commercial logging threatens the survival of gorillas, chimpanzees, jaguars, ocelots and rare birds like the toco toucan and the hyacinth macaw. Despite pledges made at the 1990 Earth Summit, national...

The Arms Code of Conduct.
December 22, 1999... Since the end of World War II, more than 25 million people have died in armed conflicts -- and 90 percent of these casualties were civilians. The proliferation of conventional "small arms" (guns, grenades, mines, rifles, mortars) accounts for...

A Bill to Turn Bombs into Jobs.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... On July 30, Congresswoman Eleanor Norton (D-DC) introduced the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act (HR 2545). The NDECA would not only require the US "to dismantle its nuclear weapons and refrain from replacing them with weapons of...

Ottawa's Wicked Ways: Canada Screws Nanoose for US.
December 22, 1999... Canada -- The Canadian government has threatened to expropriate a portion of British Columbia's Nanoose Bay, so that the US Navy can continue to test weapons in Canadian waters. According to the Pacific Campaign for Disarmament and Security...

Jubilee 2000: Hope for the Poor.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 22, 1999... The millennium will be marked with fireworks, monuments and multinational marketers jostling to capture advertising opportunities. But for the majority of the world's people there will be no celebrations. In the year 2000, more than 1.5 billion...

Earth's Ten Commandments.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... FOLLOWING A SERIES OF TRAGIC SHOOTINGS AT US SCHOOLS, CONGRESS WAS CHALLENGED TO ENACT A STRONG GUN-CONTROL LAW. INSTEAD, CONGRESS RESPONDED BY REQUIRING SCHOOLS TO POST THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. IN HOPES OF STEMMING THE GROWING TIDE OF INDUSTRIAL...

Villagers Defy Rising Waters.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... The Indian government is battling its own people over the construction of a series of dams in western India. The Narmada Valley Development Project includes 30 large dams, 135 medium dams and 3,000 "small" dams. Construction and flooding...

Radioactive Baby Buggies?(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... Thank Al "Hot Zippers" Gore Presidential candidate At Gore is pushing a plan to turn 100,000 tons of radioactive metal waste into consumer goods -- pots, pans, forks, zippers and baby buggies. On August 12, 185 environmental public...

Cassini Fly-by's Hidden Hazard.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 22, 1999... On August 18, NASA's Cassini space probe -- loaded with 72.3 pounds of plutonium and traveling 42,000 mph -- came within 719 miles of hitting the Earth. Cassini's close encounter sent the probe hurtling back into space toward a rendezvous with...

US Dooms Mir.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... After 13 years in orbit, Russia's star-crossed MIR spacestation may soon come tumbling uncontrollably back to Earth. And US officials couldn't be happier. Russian space chief Yuri Koptev has warned that "We must not allow the MIR space...

Stored Fuel Rods: A Y2K Risk.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 22, 1999... The risks of a nuclear meltdown in a power reactor owing to loss of control during a power failure are well-known. Less attention has been paid to the risks associated with the storage of used fuel rods in on-site cooling pools. These fuel...

Y2K Could Hit Nuclear Plants.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 22, 1999... No one knows what will happen on January 1, 2000 because of the Y2K computer bug," Yumi Kikuchi observes, but "the prevention of nuclear hazards must be our top priority worldwide. We are calling for a temporary moratorium on all nuclear...

The Rise and Fall of "Franken-Food".(Statistical Data Included)(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... Aspecter is haunting the boardrooms of Monsanto and the Gene Giants. Mass public resistance against genetically altered foods and crops (GAFs and GACs) in Western Europe and India, spearheaded by an incredible grassroots campaign in Britain,...

Brazil Fights Transgenics.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 22, 1999... Last June, Brazilian Federal Judge Antonio Souza Prudente halted Monsanto's attempts to market its genetically engineered Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans, arguing that "the irresponsible speed to introduce the advances of genetic engineering is...

Behind Indonesia's Hunger Myth.(Statistical Data Included)
December 22, 1999... News of drought-caused food shortages and hunger in Indonesia alarmed the world in 1998 and 1999. After the World Food Program (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that Indonesia needed to import as much as 5.14...

What Was Aboard Flight 1862?
December 22, 1999... "Mayday, Mayday. We have an emergency.... We have fire on engine number 3." Within minutes of clearing the runway at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport at 6:25 PM. October 4, 1992, El Al flight LY1862 was in trouble. Engine #3 was not only on...

The World Trade Take-Over.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... On November 30, trade ministers from 135 nations will arrive in Seattle for the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Third Ministerial conference. The WTO's masterplan for the 21st century includes a sweeping new agenda to increase the global...

The WTO and the Forests.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... The WTO'S Global Free Logging Agreement (FLA) would accelerate the logging of native forests, weaken environmental protections, and open the door to invasive species. The FLA is seen as such a threat that more than 130 groups have signed a...

What NATO's Bombs Did to the Environment.(Statistical Data Included)
December 22, 1999... NATO's bombs not only destroyed Serbia's military machine; they also devastated the region's land, air and water. After several months of Serbian forces' burning villages and NATO's flying over 40,000 sorties that dropped powerful explosives...

Direct from Belgrade.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... During the height of the NATO bombing of Belgrade, various residents were able to reach the outside world with personal accounts of what it was like to experience a NATO air attach. These accounts are based on frantic phone calls from two...

The Hague Appeal for Peace.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... During the last two centuries, humanity has outlawed slavery, colonialism and apartheid. Now after the bloodiest century in history, it is time to outlaw war. On May 11, 1999, the Hague Appeal for Peace convened an International Peace...

The Dangers of Biotechnology.(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... by His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales On December 1998, The Prince of Wales posted an essay questioning the satiety of genetically engineered (GE) foods on his website [www.princeofwales.gov.uk]. Soon thereafter, the Sunday Express...

Go Eat a Bug!(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... In all probability, you have never deliberately eaten an insect. However, you have probably inadvertently consumed over a pound of insects. Flour beetles, weevils, and other insects that infest granaries are milled along with the grain, ending...