Earth Island Journal articles from January 1999

Earth Island Journal archives from January 1999

Dear Journal:.
January 1, 1999... Greening the Jails This letter reaches out from a faithful Journal reader. I also happen to be a prisoner. I have used the knowledge I have gained from the Journal to introduce a recycling program that helps keep the local landfills...

Corrections.
January 1, 1999... Research assistance for Chris Bryson's expose of the Donora Fog ["A Secret History of America's Worst Air Pollution Disaster," Fall '98 EIJ] was provided by Ellie Rudolph. In the Summer '98 Rethink Paper project report, the reference to a...

ebb & flow.
January 1, 1999... Atmosphere Falls Five Miles UK -- The greenhouse effect not only traps heat close to the ground, it also keeps that heat from radiating back into space. The British Antarctic Survey reports that this cooling has caused the upper atmosphere...

The Eco Mole.
January 1, 1999... UnCrudentialed: Utah's Department of Environmental Quality held up the license renewal for Envirocare of Utah, Inc., after it was discovered that the company engineer who approved construction plans for 100 nuclear waste dumps had faked his...

POSITIVE NOTES.
January 1, 1999... ... SUVs sacked... The California Air Resources Board has unanimously agreed to require new pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles to comply with the state's vehicle emission requirements by 2004. Previously exempt, due to an historic...

Keep the Label Honest.
January 1, 1999... There is still plenty of time to join the thousands of volunteers all over the country who are sending letters to the Secretary of Commerce William Daley to "Keep the Dolphin-Safe Label Honest." Daley's decision will determine the fate of...

STARVING ORCAS EATING OTTERS.
January 1, 1999... The Bering Sea stretches from Alaska's west coast to the shores of the Russian Far East. Within its frigid waters lie the 800 kilometer, west-central chain of the Aleutian Islands, where scientists have uncovered the chilling truth behind the...

Bluewater Battles Snowmobiles.
January 1, 1999... Twenty-five years ago, many National Parks closed down during the winter. No longer. Last winter, two endangered gray wolves were intentionally run down and killed by snowmobiles in Voyageurs National Park. In the last three years, at least...

Clean Water: A Hard Act to Follow?
January 1, 1999... Ahhh... the Clean Water Act! It makes you want to dip your eco-friendly camping mug into a cool, mountain stream and drink deeply, doesn't it? After all, look at the improvement in Lake Erie since the Act was passed in 1972. And the Cuyahoga...

Borneo's Native Lands at Risk.
January 1, 1999... Malaysia -- In 1998, Sarawak's Ministry of Resource Planning proposed reclassifying large tracts of rainforest land as "Protected Forests" and "Forest Reserves." The actual intention, however, was not to protect these forests, but rather to...

Earth Island in the News.
January 1, 1999... Jetskis Beached: Last year, Bluewater Network (BWN) won jetski bans in San Francisco and five National Parks -- Golden Gate National Recreational Area, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Everglades, Olympic and Grand Canyon. BWN's work also led to proposed...

BioWatch.
January 1, 1999... Small Fires: Big Troubles BRAZIL -- Small fires can spell big trouble for a rainforest, according to a report in Conservation Biology. A thin strip of ankle-high fire that might bum only 100 meters (roughly 300 feet) a day will leave 90...

The Global Marketplace.
January 1, 1999... News that Smokes US -- A March 20, 1990 memo unearthed during Minnesota's lawsuit against US tobacco companies revealed the existence of Philip Morris' "Top Secret Operation Rainmaker." In order to influence public debate, the memo...

Around the World.
January 1, 1999... Water Running Out China -- Two thirds of China's 600 cities suffer from water shortages and an estimated 550 million residents of northern China lack adequate drinking water. Drought claims $35 billion in agricultural and industrial...

Shrimp Industry Greenwashing.
January 1, 1999... The multi-billion dollar seafood industry is launching a "greenwashing" strategy as consumers are becoming aware of the problems of overfishing and bycatch. Shoppers are not just demanding free-range chicken and hormone-free beef, they also are...

Mercury Threatens the Arctic Ocean.
January 1, 1999... Residents in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia have been shaken by reports that more than 550 tons of metallic mercury have been released into the environment over the last 27 years. According to the Russian State National Committee on Ecology,...

Animals Die in Live-Animal Markets.
January 1, 1999... San Francisco -- Animals sold for food in San Francisco's live animal markets -- frogs, lobsters, turtles, fish, and chickens, quail, doves and pheasants -- are either slaughtered on-the-spot for shoppers who insist on freshly-killed cuisine,...

ALASKA PIPELINE EXPLOSION!
January 1, 1999... US -- A violent explosion and fire rocked the TransAlaska Pipeline at Prudhoe Bay last October. Despite the severity of the blast, the incident received scant press coverage outside Alaska. According to the November 1 Anchorage Daily News,...

SLOW HEADWAY ON THE HEADWATERS.
January 1, 1999... US -- The political deal to "save" California's Headwaters Forest from the sawmills of Texas billionaire Charles Hurwitz continues to draw fire. Hurwitz's Maxxam-owned Pacific Lumber (PL) company has written its own "habitat conservation...

On the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
January 1, 1999... Tribunal Condemns Globalism UK -- On December 10 -- the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights -- the University of Warwick School of Law hosted the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Global Corporations and Human Rights. An...

TURF-BATTLE VICTORY AT OFFHAM HILL.
January 1, 1999... UK -- Last April, Offham Hill Valley was saved from senseless destruction after hundreds of volunteers labored for two weeks to restore South Downs turf heavily damaged by a farmer's plow. Offham Valley lies in the eastern portion of the...

Army Arsonists and "Land Mafia" Torch Turkey.
January 1, 1999... Turkey -- Deforestation is a burning issue in Turkey. While the media point to "irresponsible tourists who don't extinguish campfires properly," there are other reasons for man-made forest fires in western Turkey. In the coastal areas, the vast...

Secret Memo: US Business Dictated US Climate Policy.
January 1, 1999... Argentina -- A leaked memo from the Business Roundtable to Stuart Eizenstat, chief US negotiator at last November's critical climate talks in Buenos Aires, reveals that Exxon, General Motors and other US powerful business interests were behind...

"hacktivists" proclaim CYBER WAR.
January 1, 1999... Cyberspace -- Last July, two teams of teenage computer hackers known as MilwOrm and the Ashtray Lumberjacks infiltrated 300 websites run by nuclear and defense organizations around the world and plastered each home page with a picture of a...

The Year 2000 Glitch: An Insider's View.
January 1, 1999... US -- On June 2, Alan Simpson, president of Satellite Communications Ltd., spoke at a Y2k conference held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies [1800 K St., NW, Washington, DC 20006]. Here are some o/his observations: *...

Whales of the Asian Pacific in Peril.
January 1, 1999... Russia -- Plans to drill for oil in the Sea of Okhotsk on Russia's eastern coast threatens to devastate the last critical summer habitat for the Western Pacific gray whale. With only about 80 Western Pacific gray whales left in the world, any...

Greenpeace Exposes Sakhalin Drillers.
January 1, 1999... Sea of Okhotsk -- On October 24, the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise approached the giant Molikpaq oil platform in the waters off northeast Sakhalin. Three speedboats were launched, carrying seven Greenpeace activists and one representative of...

RADIOACTIVE CESIUM SPILL COOKS EUROPE.
January 1, 1999... Spain -- In late May, high measurements of radioactive cesium-137 activated alarm systems in France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Greece. The plume of cesium-137 fallout marked the worst nuclear contamination on...

The Monsanto Roundup.
January 1, 1999... Did Monsanto Fake Science? Canada -- In 1993, the US Food and Drug Administration had to decide whether to permit farmers to inject Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) into dairy cows to artificially increase milk...

Havoc in Honduras.
January 1, 1999... When climate modelers warned that entire nations could become victims of global warming, it seemed likely that the first countries to vanish from the face of the Earth would be the low-lying island nations of the South Pacific -- flooded by...

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN ARGENTINA.
January 1, 1999... Argentina -- Climate negotiators in Buenos Aires kept the Kyoto Protocol alive -- but just barely -- in two weeks of contentious deliberations that ended last November. The Buenos Aires "tango" began with tough speeches, and devolved into...

EMPTYING OUR MEDICINE CABINETS INTO OUR WATERS.
January 1, 1999... When you pop a pill, it doesn't stop there Pharmaceuticals given to people and domestic animals -- including antibiotics, hormones, painkillers, tranquilizers, and chemotherapy drugs given to cancer patients -- are turning up in surface, ground...

US Violates World Law to Militarize Space.
January 1, 1999... Nuclear-powered activities in space are illegal under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which the United Nations describes as the "basic framework on international space law." The Outer Space Treaty also specifies: "States shall be liable for...

Sewage Forests: Cleaning Water and Cooling the Planet.
January 1, 1999... Conventional sewage treatment releases nearly 27 million tons of [CO.sub.2] into the air each year. Sewage forests could capture 740 million tons of [CO.sub.2] a year--almost 15% of the US total. Conventional wastewater treatment is based...

CITIZENS WEAPONS INSPECTIONS.(includes related article)
January 1, 1999... Weapons analysts Robert Norris and William Arkin of the Natural Resources Defense Council estimate that the number of US nuclear weapons In all categories (operational, hedge, reserve and retired warheads awaiting dismantling) stands at 12,500....

MILITARISM and MAI.
January 1, 1999... The end of the Cold War changed the world: international diplomacy has been replaced with international marketing; nuclear weapons-free zones with free-trade zones; Third World debt with IMF bail-outs; peace delegations with trade missions; and...

Occidental Exposures: Gary's Story.
January 1, 1999... Gary Pittman's first and last job was working for the Occidental Chemical Corporation's phosphoric acid factories in Hamilton County, Florida. Gary was 18 and in excellent health when he started work as a sample man in the analytical laboratory...

THE END OF ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE LIMITS OF HUMAN NEEDS.
January 1, 1999... Until the industrial revolution, 200 years ago, the typical standard of living had changed little throughout history. Today, the United States and the other developed nations have affluent economies, with only a small fraction of their output...

Protecting Communities from Y2K CHAOS.
January 1, 1999... If the world's computers fail when the 19th century ends on January 1, 2000, there's a good chance that disruptions of food and fuel supplies could bring us a colder, hungrier winter. But while the national economy depends on computers,...

Y2k and "Survival Equity".
January 1, 1999... What About the Poor? When the Year 2000 rolls around, the lives of the world's indigenous jungle- and desert-dwellers may continue without the slightest disruption. But for anyone living within ten feet of a wallsocket, Y2k has the...

The Siena Declaration on the Crisis of Economic Globalization.
January 1, 1999... Siena, Italy, September 1998 The Siena Declaration was prepared at a meeting held in Siena, Italy, in September 1998 by the board of directors of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), an alliance of leading scholars, activists,...

Petroleum weather.
January 1, 1999... What if Hurricane Mitch had taken the name not of a person but of one of the largest off corporations in the world? Imagine the headlines: "Exxon Devastates Central America: 9,000 Dead, More Than 10,000 Missing. Hundreds of Thousands Homeless....

Those Annoying Little Pwicks.(personal water craft)
January 1, 1999... I remember, some years ago, gazing with some envy at a television screen on which then-president Bush was dashing among the rocks and reefs of what looked for all the world like coastal Maine in his big blue powerboat Fidelity. Fidelity is...