Earth Island Journal articles from June 1998

Earth Island Journal archives from June 1998

Save the spoonbill.
June 22, 1998... Taiwan -- One of the rarest birds in the world, the black-faced spoonbill (Plataleaminor) winters in the coastal wetlands of Chi-gu Lagoon at the mouth of the Tsengwen River. Although more than half the world's remaining 550 black-faced...

Feds target seals. (Federal government program targets California seals)
June 22, 1998... After 25 years of protection, California's sea lions may soon be targets of a large-scale federally approved killing program A National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) draft management plan proposes killing seals and sea lions to protect...

Sea turtle deaths mount in Texas.
June 22, 1998... The WTO ruling against sea turtle protections sends a message to the world's shrimp fleets that shrimp sales are more important than sea turtles. Drownings of endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico -- the primary US shrimp fishery -- have...

Bamboo paper is not forest-friendly.
June 22, 1998... As public interest in "tree-free" paper has grown, some companies within the pulp and paper industry have seized upon tropical bamboo as a "green" alternative to virgin wood fiber. But industrial use of tropical bamboo, combined with an...

UN investigates US human rights.
June 22, 1998... For the first time in history, a United Nations delegation conducted an investigation of alleged human rights violations inside the US. In February, Abdelfattah Amor of the UN Commission on Human Rights arrived in the Black Mesa/Big Mountain...

The corporate co-optation of the UN. (United Nations)
June 22, 1998... The Netherlands Via EcoNet -- The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) represents the largest transnational corporations on Earth, including General Motors, Novartis, Bayer and Nestle. The ICC, which for many years has pushed for global...

EPA plan for radioactive recycling. (Environmental Protection Agency)
June 22, 1998... From the walls of a nuclear plant to your baby's stroller, with your government's blessings? Someday soon, "slightly" radioactive steel containing traces of tritium, strontium 90 and plutonium 239 salvaged from defunct nuclear facilities may...

Airports: deadly neighbors.
June 22, 1998... As anyone living near an airport can attest, jet aircraft noise is a serious physiological and psychological health hazard. Less known are the health hazards posed by the release of airport chemicals. A Boeing physicist once described the...

Antarctica's "deep impact" threat.
June 22, 1998... In the Spring issue of the Earth Island Journal we reported that British scientists feared the "critically unstable" Larsen Bice shelf "could break apart in as little as two years, triggering unpredictable weather events around the world." ...

Electricity is leaking from your home!
June 22, 1998... Home electronics and small house hold DC appliances -- TVs, telephone answering machines, cordless phones, electric-powered portable tools, etc. -- draw energy even when the power is ostensibly off -- thanks to a phenomenon known as "leaking...

Zapped from space. (satellite transmissions)
June 22, 1998... In May, the last of 72 satellites making up the new $5 billion Iridium/Motorola communications system was blasted into orbit from Kazakstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome. The low-orbiting Iridium system is designed to reach its cell phones anywhere on...

HDTV: who really needs it? (digital televisions and broadcasting)
June 22, 1998... The promise of High Definition TV; sharper images, bigger pictures, increased energy demands, accelerated global warming, loss of broadcast diversity and the subversion of democracy. Beginning in November, the US government will start requiring...

The life and times of an embattled urban farm.
June 22, 1998... For me, farming was like falling in love. My relationship with the land followed a classic course. Nature seduced me and I fell in love with the little farm on Fairview Avenue. I was in awe of the magic of emerging seeds, and enchanted by...

Pipeline in peril. (Trans-Alaska Pipeline)
June 22, 1998... As it enters its 22nd year of operation, the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline poses a growing risk to Alaska's environment. Carrying more crude oil than any other pipeline in the US, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS) pumps about 1,400,000 barrels...

Baja's whales vs. Mitsubishi. (Baja California)(Cover Story)
June 22, 1998... In 1994, the US Endangered Species List moved the Eastern Pacific gray whale (also referred to as the `California' gray) from "endangered" to merely "threatened." This change held a special significance for conservationists and political...

USDA's organic standards rejected but the fight's not over. (United States Department of Agriculture)
June 22, 1998... The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) unseemly foray into the world of organic agriculture became official last December with the release of its National Organic Standards, a dismal, dumbeddown, 600-plus-page document with one ultimate...

Global warming, rising tides, and cultural genocide.
June 22, 1998... Among all the speeches and pontificating at the Kyoto Climate Summit, the following statement stood out for its poignancy and power. It was delivered by Kinza Clodumar, President of the Republic of Nauru -- immediately prior to Vice President Al...

Fluorides and the environment.
June 22, 1998... While fluoride compounds occur naturally m some water supplies, the past 50 years have seen a dramatic -- and troubling -- increase in the volume of man-made industrial fluoride compounds expelled into our water and air. Pouring...

A clear and present danger. (fluoride)
June 22, 1998... Since childhood we have been told that fluoride is good for our teeth. It is added to the water supply of many regions for just that reason. Our children brush regularly with great quantities of it. But fluoride toxicity has been linked to...

Fluoridation and hip fractures.
June 22, 1998... The costs and health effects of osteoporotic fractures in the US are enormous. The total cost of fracture care is now about $9 billion/year. It is estimated that about 350,000 hip fractures occur per year and the incidence is rising. A...

Impact of artificial fluoridation on salmon in the northwest US and British Columbia.
June 22, 1998... In the US Northwest, species of salmon using the Snake-Columbia River system, are listed as "endangered." On the North Thompson River of British Columbia, Canada, sperm banks are being employed to preserve salmon species. Proposed water diversion...

The effects of fluorides on plants.
June 22, 1998... Fluoride-induced symptoms have been described in many reviews (Weinstein and McCune 1970; Weinstein and McCune, 1971; Thomas and Alther 1966; Brandt and Heck 1977; Treshow and Pack 1970; Guderian et al. 1969; Hindawi 1970; Thomas 1961). The...

Fluoride and the phosphate connection.
June 22, 1998... Cities all over the US purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh pollution concentrate from Florida -- fluorosilicic acid ([H.sub.2][SiF.sub.6]) -- to fluoridate water. Fluorosilicic acid is composed of tetrafluorosiliciate gas...