Earth Island Journal articles from June 2000

Earth Island Journal archives from June 2000

Dear Journal.
June 22, 2000... The First Earth Day The first Earth Day was initiated in San Francisco with the help of Dave Brower on March 21, 1970 -- the Vernal Equinox (not April 22). Earth Day continues to be celebrated by the United Nations on the Equinox --...

Ebb & Flow.
June 22, 2000... Gooshy Sushi JAPAN -- Pollution has accomplished what activism failed to do: Chemical contamination has harpooned Japan's appetite for whale meat. Oceanic residues of DDT, dioxin, PCBs and methyl mercury have wound up in the flesh of...

Eco-Mole.
June 22, 2000... NATO's Cam Scam On April 12, 1999, a NATO jet fired two rockets at a bridge over the Juzna Morava River south of Belgrade, hitting a train and killing 14 civilian passengers. NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark quickly called a...

Positive Notes.
June 22, 2000... Yasher koach! (Congratulations!) Israel has banned animal experiments in its high schools and junior high schools. Thanks may be sent to Israeli Minister of Education Yossi Sarid (Maretz party) [sar@education. gov.il], the Israeli Society for...

Making Waves.
June 22, 2000... Earth Island Founder David Brower returned to the Glen Canyon Dam on March 14, as part of the global Day of Action Against Dams. Dave and the Glen Canyon Action Network [www.drainit.org] hope to empty Lake Powell and restore the hidden canyon....

In a Land of Oil and Agony.(Nigeria)
June 22, 2000... NIGERIA -- I have just returned from the frontlines of a battlefield called the Niger Delta, where an intense war has been obscurely raging for more than 40 years. The Niger Delta contains the third-largest contiguous mangrove forest in...

New US `Dolphin-Safe' Label is a Dolphin Death Certificate.
June 22, 2000... Earth Island Institute's International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) is protesting new tuna-labeling regulations released by the Clinton Administration's US Department of Commerce on January 3, 2000. The new rules would allow US vessels to set...

The European Dolphin Campaign.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... During the week of February 28, I joined Mark Palmer and Paolo Bray (IMMP's European Coordinator for the tuna monitoring program) for a ten-day series of meetings with European tuna importers. The meetings, which ranged from London to Hamburg,...

Genesis Awards.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... The Ark Trust's 14th annual Genesis Awards, held in Los Angeles on March 18, honored Masato Sakano of Japan's Circlet and Dolphin and Whale Action Network. Sakano was saluted for his filming of a dolphin slaughter Last October in Futo, Japan....

In Memoriam.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... The International Marine Mammal Project would like to express our gratitude for a generous bequest given in memory of Gail McGarry. Gail was a teacher and an excellent swimmer who had a love for the oceans and all its inihabitants. She...

Sea Otter Victory.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Last November, US-based International Animal Consulting Group, Inc. (IACG), asked the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for a permit to capture five Alaskan northern sea otters for export to two Japanese sea-parks -- Izu-Mito Sea Paradise and...

ATVs, Jetskis and `biles -- Oh My!(all-terrain vehicles)
June 22, 2000... An armada of five million motorized thrill-craft -- jet skis, snowmobiles, and off-road/all-terrain vehicles -- is assaulting America's public lands. Every day, thousands of these gas-fueled contraptions tear across some of our most...

Sea Lions vs. Fisheries.
June 22, 2000... Alaska's "Sea Bears," the world's largest sea lions, may be headed for extinction. The fertile seas off Alaska sustain a glorious panoply of marine species and the largest fisheries in the US, worth $1 billion annually. But declines in...

Bio Watch.
June 22, 2000... Gibbon Take THAILAND -- The gibbons of Thailand are endangered by logging and by poachers who kill female gibbons and sell their babies for display in tourist cafes. The gibbons' teeth are pulled (without anesthetics) to prevent biting and...

Global Marketplace.
June 22, 2000... The Globalization of Air Travel UK -- Globalization promotes corporate mergers, but regulatory hurdles and national pride have forced the world's airlines to settle for strategic alliances -- at least for now. Two alliances dominate world...

Around the World.
June 22, 2000... "Climate Disaster" by 2100 SWITZERLAND -- After studying 40 scenarios of potential climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), produced "the best consensus" on the likely outcomes of climate change. The IPCC...

US Navy vs. Puerto Rico.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... In April 1999, a US Marine pilot dropped a bomb on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, killing a civilian guard and triggering a call for the US to leave the island it has used as a bombing range for 58 years Outraged Puerto Ricans --...

"Earth's Day Celebrated in SF.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Thirty years ago, on March 21, San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto declared the first "Earth Day." Chosen to coincide with the Vernal Equinox, Earth Day was later endorsed by President Gerald Ford. Equinox Earth Day has been celebrated around...

Bluewater's New Campaign: Cruise Ship Pollution.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... On October 25, 1994, a radar-equipped Coast Guar plane detected a long oil slick trailing behind the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Sovereign of the Seas as it approached the port of San Juan, Puerto Rico. A subsequent criminal investigation...

The Green Screen Awards.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Each year, Earth Island Journal takes time out from raking muck to scan the silver screen in search of films with honorable environmental messages. Here are the winners of our 1999 Green Screen Awards. The Matrix. In the process of creating a...

Environmental Hero.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... US -- In February, Andreas Toupadakis resigned from a highly paid position doing classified work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Toupadakis, who previously worked at the US nuclear weapons facility in Los Alamos...

THE FOOD PYRAMID & NUTRITIONAL RACISM.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... US -- There are more than 1,000 citizens' committees advising the government on the drafting of US law. Some 30,000 citizens serve on these committees. In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Advisory Committee Act to assure that these panels...

Al Gore and Big Oil Genocide.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... For eight years, the 5,000 seminomadic U'wa inhabitants of northeastern Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Cocuy mountains have fought to keep Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) from sinking oil wells inside their traditional territory. The U'wa have...

Biosafety Protocol Compromise.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... In January, delegates from more than 130 countries met in Montreal and signed a treaty to regulate the global trade in genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB) is meant to protect global biodiversity by...

Fluoridation Reconsidered.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Last year, Hardy Limeback, announced that no longer supports fluoridation of municipal drinking water. What makes this news is that Mr. Limeback is the Head of Preventative Dentistry at the University of Toronto and, for the previous 12 years,...

THE MERCURY PAPERS.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... CANADA -- Health activists who have spent years battling the use of mercury in dental fillings are howling with delight over the release of an exchange of letters between Health Canada and a Canadian entrepreneur we will call "Jane." The...

Uranium Falls from the Skies.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Another jumbo jet has crashed and the FAA still has no idea which planes are carrying depleted uranium components On December 22, 1999, a Korean Airlines (KAL) Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Stansted Airport, en...

Deadly Refuges.(trapping in wildlife refuges)
June 22, 2000... US wildlife refuges permit logging, hunting and trapping Caught in the steel-jaw leghold trap, the bald eagle's broken wing dangled limply by his side. Scattered feathers testified to his valiant struggle to escape the that had almost...

Fireworks and Pollution.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Millennium fireworks shows in Europe pumped an estimated 124 tons of lead into the sky. US fireworks shows added another 90 tons of lead Last December, environmentalists in Sweden, Germany and Australia issued a Global Call for Action,...

The Environmental Catastrophe That Changed History.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... "In AD 535-536, [humankind] was hit by one of the greatest natural disasters ever to occur. It blotted out much of the light and heat of the sun for 18 months and the climate of the entire planet began to spin out of control." -- David Keys,...

Let the Cyber-Wars Begin!(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... The eternal war between the Marketplace and the Commons (the same struggle that pits Capital against Labor and the World Trade Organization against just about everybody) has moved into cyberspace. The Internet is ablaze with brush-fire...

etoy Story.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... "Why should global culture be dominated by business?" The battle between e-commerce and e-creativity broke wide open in 1999 when the Internet toy giant eToys (www.etoys.com) tried to destroy etoy (www.etoy.com), the eclectic website of a...

ECHELON -- US SPY NETWORK EXPOSED.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... The US' double standard regarding "cyber vandalism" was underscored in February, when George Washington University researchers posted recently declassified Defense Department documents on the internet. For years, the US has denied the existence...

The Rise of Right-wing Environmentalism.
June 22, 2000... Throughout Western Europe, the Radical Right has put environmental ideas near: the center Of its political concerns, from the Vlaams Blok in Belgium to the Center Democrats in the Netherlands; to Italy's Northern League to France's National...

Acting for Nature.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Acting for Nature tells the stories of 13 remarkable kids who saw some beautiful part of their world threatened and decided to something about it. In Germany, 14-year-old Peter Klausch challenges a coal mine -- and the local mayor -- to protect...

DEFENDING ANDREW'S FISHING HOLE.
June 22, 2000... When twelve-year-old Andrew Holleman read the letter, he felt sick to his stomach. The letter stated that a developer was planning to transform 16 acres of wildlands in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, into a new subdivision with roads, drainage...

AIKA'S LEGACY: A COMIC BOOK FOR THE EARTH.
June 22, 2000... Twelve-year-old Aika Tsubota and her mother stood outside and gazed up at the night sky. Where they lived, in the remote town of Shimane in western Japan, few streetlights interfered with the light from the stars. Tonight, Aika could see the...

W2K: The Extreme Weather Era.
June 22, 2000... When the date rolled over from mid-night 1999 to the first minutes of Year 2000, most computers continued to hum and the world's oil-electric-silicon-based societies breathed a sign of relief. True, there were a few glitches (the National...

Global Green Deal.
June 22, 2000... A winning strategy: Globalize anti-globalization Anti-globalization forces scored a major victory at the World Trade Organization talks last December, but what's next? The alliance forged in Seattle between labor, environmental and other...

Sinking Islands, Vanishing Worlds.
June 22, 2000... What is there to celebrate in the new millennium if our island nations are about to disappear beneath the ocean? As a ten-year-old, I used to look at the sea with awe, at the seemingly endless supply of fish that I could harvest with my...

The Case for Democratic World Government.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... "We must replace the anarchic law of force with a civilized force of law. Democracy -- civilization itself -- is at stake." For many years, I did my best to report on the issues of the day in as objective a manner as possible. When I had my...

Walt Whitman: Patron Saint of Nomads.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth. --Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road," from Leaves of Grass, 1856. California -- In June 1999, the Albany...

Victory!
June 22, 2000... A Triumph for Baja Whales and Wildlife! Mexico Cancels Salt Plant! "Five years after the Grupo de los Cien [Group of 100] first denouced the plan to build the world's largest saltworks on the shores of Laguna San Ignacio, the president...

Sound and Fury.
June 22, 2000... US Navy threatens whales to safeguard foreign interventions A recently-declassified high-tech US Navy project to aid in detection of hostile submarines is shaping up as a major new threat to marine life. Nonetheless, the Navy is pressing...

Earth Island's Campaign to Save San Ignacio Lagoon.
June 22, 2000... Earth Island Institute's International Marine Mammal Project has worked to protect San Ignacio Lagoon since 1995, when our colleagues in Mexico contacted us about the dangers of the new proposed industrial salt plant from ESSA and Mitsubishi....

26 Environmental and Animal Welfare Groups Urge President of Mexico to Halt the Baja Salt Plant.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Dear President Zedillo: We are writing to you out of our deep concern for the preservation of the land, waters and wildlife of the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, and the environmental threats posed by the proposed ESSA/Mitsubishi Corporation...

An Open Letter to the Members of the World Heritage Committee.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2000... Dear World Heritage Committee Members: Many of us have worked to establish and support the outstanding work of the United Nations to preserve the Earth's Cultural and Natural Heritage through the efforts of the World Heritage Bureau and...

Japan Assaults California Gray Whales!
June 22, 2000... At the same time that Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation was proposing a massive salt plant on the shores of Baja's San Ignacio Lagoon, a major calving sanctuary for gray whales, the Japanese government is preparing to resume the commercial...