by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 11, 2013 | Agriculture, Building Alternatives, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Imani Altemus-Williams / Waging Nonviolence
At 9 am on an overcast morning in paradise, hundreds of protesters gathered in traditional Hawaiian chant and prayer. Upon hearing the sound of the conch shell, known here as Pū, the protesters followed a group of women towards Monsanto’s grounds.
“A’ole GMO,” cried the mothers as they marched alongside Monsanto’s cornfields, located only feet from their homes on Molokai, one of the smallest of Hawaii’s main islands. In a tiny, tropical corner of the Pacific that has warded off tourism and development, Monsanto’s fields are one of only a few corporate entities that separates the bare terrain of the mountains and oceans.
This spirited march was the last of a series of protests on the five Hawaiian islands that Monsanto and other biotech companies have turned into the world’s ground zero for chemical testing and food engineering. Hawai’i is currently at the epicenter of the debate over genetically modified organisms, generally shortened to GMOs. Because Hawai’i is geographically isolated from the broader public, it is an ideal location for conducting chemical experiments. The island chain’s climate and abundant natural resources have lured five of the world’s largest biotech chemical corporations: Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer and BASF. In the past 20 years, these chemical companies have performed over 5,000 open-field-test experiments of pesticide-resistant crops on an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 acres of Hawaiian land without any disclosure, making the place and its people a guinea pig for biotech engineering.
The presence of these corporations has propelled one of the largest movement mobilizations in Hawai’i in decades. Similar to the environmental and land sovereignty protests in Canada and the continental United States, the movement is influenced by indigenous culture.
“All of the resources that our kapuna [elders] gave to us, we need to take care of now for the next generation,” said Walter Ritte, a Hawai’i activist, speaking in part in the Hawaiian indigenous language.
“That is our kuleana [responsibility]. That is everybody’s kuleana.”
In Hawaiian indigenous culture, the very idea of GMOs is effectively sacrilegious.
“For Hawaii’s indigenous peoples, the concepts underlying genetic manipulation of life forms are offensive and contrary to the cultural values of aloha ‘ʻāina [love for the land],” wrote Mililani B. Trask, a native Hawaiian attorney.
Deadly practices
Monsanto has a long history of making chemicals that bring about devastation. The company participated in the Manhattan Project to help produce the atomic bomb during World War II. It developed the herbicide “Agent Orange” used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War, which caused an estimated half-million birth deformities. Most recently, Monsanto has driven thousands of farmers in India to take their own lives, often by drinking chemical insecticide, after the high cost of the company’s seeds forced them into unpayable debt.
The impacts of chemical testing and GMOs are immediate — and, in the long-term, could prove deadly. In Hawaii, Monsanto and other biotech corporations have sprayed over 70 different chemicals during field tests of genetically engineered crops, more chemical testing than in any other place in the world. Human studies have not been conducted on GMO foods, but animal experiments show that genetically modified foods lead to pre-cancerous cell growth, infertility, and severe damage to the kidneys, liver and large intestines. Additionally, the health risks of chemical herbicides sprayed onto GMO crops cause hormone disruption, cancer, neurological disorders and birth defects. In Hawaii, some open-field testing sites are near homes and schools. Prematurity, adult on-set diabetes and cancer rates have significantly increased in Hawai’i in the last ten years. Many residents fear chemical drift is poisoning them.
Monsanto’s agricultural procedures also enable the practice of monocropping, which contributes to environmental degradation, especially on an island like Hawai’i. Monocropping is an agricultural practice where one crop is repeatedly planted in the same spot, a system that strips the soil of its nutrients and drives farmers to use a herbicide called Roundup, which is linked to infertility. Farmers are also forced to use pesticides and fertilizers that cause climate change and reef damage, and that decrease the biodiversity of Hawai’i.
Food sovereignty as resistance
At the first of the series of marches against GMOs, organizers planted coconut trees in Haleiwa, a community on the north shore of Oahu Island. In the movement, protesting and acting as caretakers of the land are no longer viewed as separate actions, particularly in a region where Monsanto is leasing more than 1,000 acres of prime agricultural soil.
During the march, people chanted and held signs declaring, “Aloha ‘āina: De-occupy Hawai’i.”
The phrase aloha ‘āina is regularly seen and heard at anti-GMO protests. Today the words are defined as “love of the land,” but the phrase has also signified “love for the country.” Historically, it was commonly used by individuals and groups fighting for the restoration of the independent Hawaiian nation, and it is now frequently deployed at anti-GMO protests when people speak of Hawaiian sovereignty and independence.
After the protest, marchers gathered in Haleiwa Beach Park, where they performed speeches, music, spoken-word poetry and dance while sharing free locally grown food. The strategy of connecting with the land was also a feature of the subsequent protest on the Big Island, where people planted taro before the march, and also at the state capitol rally, where hundreds participated in the traditional process of pounding taro to make poi, a Polynesian staple food.
The import economy is a new reality for Hawaii, one directly tied to the imposition of modern food practices on the island. Ancient Hawai’i operated within the Ahupua’a system, a communal model of distributing land and work, which allowed the islands to be entirely self-sufficient.
“Private land ownership was unknown, and public, common use of the ahupua’a resources demanded that boundaries be drawn to include sufficient land for residence and cultivation, freshwater sources, shoreline and open ocean access,” explained Carol Silva, an historian and Hawaiian language professor.
Inspired by the Ahupua’a model, the food sovereignty movement is building an organic local system that fosters the connections between communities and their food — a way of resisting GMOs while simultaneously creating alternatives.
Colonial history
The decline of the Ahupua’a system didn’t only set Hawai’i on the path away from food sovereignty; it also destroyed the political independence of the now-U.S. state. And indeed, when protesters chant “aloha ‘āina” at anti-GMO marches, they are alluding to the fact that this fight isn’t only over competing visions of land use and food creation. It’s also a battle for the islands’ political sovereignty.
Historically, foreign corporate interests have repeatedly taken control of Hawai’i — and have exploited and mistreated the land and its people in the process.
“It’s a systemic problem and the GMO issue just happens to be at the forefront of public debate at the moment,” said Keoni Lee of ʻŌiwi TV. “ʻĀina [land] equals that which provides. Provides for who?”
The presence of Monsanto and the other chemical corporations is eerily reminiscent of the business interests that led to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Throughout the 19th century, the Hawaiian Kingdom was recognized as an independent nation. That reality changed in 1893, when a group of American businessmen and sugar planters orchestrated a U.S. Marine’s armed coup d’etat of the Hawaiian Kingdom government.
Five years later, the U.S. apprehended the islands for strategic military use during the Spanish-American War despite local resistance. Even then-President Grover Cleveland called the overthrow a “substantial wrong” and vowed to restore the Hawaiian kingdom. But the economic interests overpowered the political will, and Hawai’i remained a U.S. colony for the following 60 years.
The annexation of Hawai’i profited five sugarcane-manufacturing companies commonly referred to as the Big Five: Alexander & Baldwin, Amfac (American Factors), Castle & Cooke, C. Brewer, and Theo H. Davies. Most of the founders of these companies were missionaries who were actively involved in lobbying for the annexation of the Hawaiian islands in 1898. After the takeover, the Big Five manipulated great political power and influence in what was then considered the “Territory of Hawaii,” gaining unparalleled control of banking, shipping and importing on the island chain. The companies only sponsored white republicans in government, creating an oligarchy that threatened the labor force if it voted against their interests. The companies’ environmental practices, meanwhile, caused air and water pollution and altered the biodiversity of the land.
The current presence of the five-biotech chemical corporations in Hawai’i mirrors the political and economic colonialism of the Big Five in the early 20th century — particularly because Monsanto has become the largest employer on Molokai.
“There is no difference between the “Big Five” that actually ruled Hawai’i in the past,” said Walter Ritte. “Now it’s another “Big Five,” and they’re all chemical companies. So it’s almost like this is the same thing. It’s like déjàvu.”
Rising up
At the opening of this year’s legislative session on January 16, hundreds of farmers, students and residents marched to the state capitol for a rally titled “Idle No More: We the People.” There, agricultural specialist and food sovereignty activist Vandana Shiva, who traveled from India to Hawai’i for the event, addressed the crowd.
“I see Hawai’i not as a place where I come and people say, ‘Monsanto is the biggest employer,’ but people say, ‘this land, its biodiversity, our cultural heritage is our biggest employer,’” she said.
As she alluded to, a major obstacle facing the anti-GMO movement is the perception that the chemical corporations provide jobs that otherwise might not exist — an economic specter that the sugarcane companies also wielded to their advantage. Anti-GMO organizers are aware of how entrenched this power is.
“The things that we’re standing up against are really at the core of capitalism,” proclaimed Hawaiian rights activist Andre Perez at the rally.
Given the enormity of the enemy, anti-GMO activists are attacking the issue from a variety of fronts, including organizing mass education, advocating for non-GMO food sovereignty and pushing for legislative protections. Organizers see education, in particular, as the critical element to win this battle.
“Hawai’i has the cheapest form of democracy,” said Daniel Anthony, a young local activist and founder of a traditional poi business. “Here we can educate a million people, and Monsanto is out.”
Others are using art to educate the public, such as Hawaiian rapper Hood Prince, who rails against Monsanto in his song “Say No to GMO.” This movement is also educating the community through teach-ins and the free distribution of the newly released book Facing Hawaii’s Future: Essential Information about GMOs.
Hawai’i has already succeeded in protecting its traditional food from genetic engineering. Similar to the way the Big Five controlled varying sectors of society, the biotech engineering companies are financially linked to the local government, schools and university. Monsanto partially funds the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at the University of Hawaii. The university and the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center began the process of genetically engineering taro in 2003 after the university patented three of its varieties. Once this information became widely known, it incited uproar of objection from the Hawaiian community. Taro holds spiritual significance in the islands’ indigenous culture, in which it is honored as the first Hawaiian ancestor in the creation story.
“It felt like we were being violated by the scientific community,” wrote Ritte in Facing Hawaii’s Future. “For the Hawaiian community, taro is not just a plant. It’s a family member. It’s our common ancestor ‘Haloa …. They weren’t satisfied with just taking our land; now they wanted to take our mana, our spirit too.”
The public outcry eventually drove the university to drop its patents.
Anti-GMO activists are hoping for further successes in stopping genetic food engineering. In the current legislative session, there are about a dozen proposed bills pushing GMO regulation, labeling and a ban on all imported GMO produce. These fights over mandating GMO labeling and regulation in Hawai’i may seem like a remote issue, but what happens on these isolated islands is pivotal for land sovereignty movements across the globe.
“These five major chemical companies chose us to be their center,” said Ritte. “So whatever we do is going to impact everybody in the world.”
From Waging Nonviolence: http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/the-struggle-to-reclaim-paradise/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 9, 2013 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Jonathan Watts / The Guardian
An Amazonian community has threatened to “go to war” with the Brazilian government after what they say is a military incursion into their land by dam builders.
The Munduruku indigenous group in Para state say they have been betrayed by the authorities, who are pushing ahead with plans to build a cascade of hydropower plants on the Tapajós river without their permission.
Public prosecutors, human rights groups, environmental organisations and Christian missionaries have condemned what they call the government’s strong-arm tactics.
According to witnesses in the area, helicopters, soldiers and armed police have been involved in Operation Tapajós, which aims to conduct an environmental impact assessment needed for the proposed construction of the 6,133MW São Luiz do Tapajós dam.
The facility, to be built by the Norte Energia consortium, is the biggest of two planned dams on the Tapajós, the fifth-largest river in the Amazon basin. The government’s 10-year plan includes the construction of four larger hydroelectric plants on its tributary, the Jamanxim.
Under Brazilian law, major infrastructure projects require prior consultation with indigenous communities. Federal prosecutors say this has not happened and urge the courts to block the scheme which, they fear, could lead to bloodshed.
“The Munduruku have already stated on several occasions that they do not support studies for hydroelectric plants on their land unless there is full prior consultation,” the prosecutors noted in a statement.
However, a court ruling last week gave the go-ahead for the survey. Government officials say that neither researchers nor logistical and support teams will enter indigenous villages. The closest they will get is about 30 miles from the nearest village, Sawré Maybu.
The ministry of mines and energy noted on its website that 80 researchers, including biologists and foresters, would undertake a study of flora and fauna. The army escort was made possible by President Dilma Rousseff, who decreed this year that military personnel could be used for survey operations. Officials say the security is for the safety of the scientists and the local population.
Missionaries said the presence of armed troops near Sawré Maybu village, Itaituba, was intimidating, degrading and an unacceptable violation of the rights of the residents.
“In this operation, the federal government has been threatening the lives of the people,” the Indigenous Missionary Council said. “It is unacceptable and illegitimate for the government to impose dialogue at the tip of a bayonet.”
The group added that Munduruku leaders ended a phone call with representatives of the president with a declaration of war. They have also issued open letters calling for an end to the military operation. “We are not bandits. We feel betrayed, humiliated and disrespected by all this,” a letter states.
One of the community’s leaders, Valdenir Munduruku, has warned that locals will take action if the government does not withdraw its taskforce by 10 April, when the two sides are set to talk. He has called for support from other indigenous groups, such as the Xingu, facing similar threats from hydroelectric dams.
Environmental groups have expressed concern. The 1,200-mile waterway is home to more than 300 fish species and provides sustenance to some of the most biodiverse forest habitats on Earth. Ten indigenous groups inhabit the basin, along with several tribes in voluntary isolation.
With similar conflicts over other proposed dams in the Amazon, such as those at Belo Monte, Teles Pires, Santo Antônio and Jirau, some compare the use of force to the last great expansion of hydropower during the military dictatorship.
“The Brazilian government is making political decisions about the dams before the environmental impact assessment is done,” said Brent Millikan of the International Rivers environmental group.
“The recent military operations illustrate that the federal government is willing to disregard existing legal instruments intended to foster dialogue between government and civil society.”
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/03/brazil-dam-activists-war-military
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 6, 2013 | Climate Change, Mining & Drilling
By Max Wilbert / Deep Green Resistance Great Basin
While global warming is a topic of conversation and news coverage every day around the world, the basic raw materials that drive the global economy are rarely discussed as being involved. But these materials play a key role in global environmental issues.
Where do plastics come from? How is paint made? How do simple electronics, like land line telephones, come to be? How does the electric grid itself come to be? And in a world that is being wracked by warming, how do these basic industrial technologies impact the climate?
This will be the first article in a series exploring these questions and more. This inaugural piece will focus on steel: a material so ubiquitous it is nearly invisible, a material that was the foundation of the industrial revolution, a material that even today is used a measure for the health of the global economy.
The foundation of an economy
Steel, alongside oil, is the basic raw material of the global industrial economy. The material is widely used in construction and almost all other industries. The amount of steel being consumed per capita is often used as a measure of economic progress: financial firms like the World Bank consider 700 pounds of steel consumption per person per year a basic measure of the economic development of a nation.
More than 1.3 billion tons of steel is produced every year.
What is steel made of?
Steel is an alloy composed mainly of iron mixed with smaller portions other material, most often carbon, but sometimes manganese, chromium, vanadium, or tungsten. These other substances act as hardening agents to strengthen the steel.
The first step in our journey along the path of steel production is the extraction of the basic materials. The largest iron ore mine in the world is the Carajás Mine in Northern Brazil. The facility produces more than 90 million tons of iron ore every year. The ore is transported nearly 900km (in the largest train in the world) along a single train track to the port city of Sao Luis.
The train line, called EFC, was shut down in October of 2012 by indigenous inhabitants of the region protesting a planned expansion of the mine.
The environmental impacts of the mine are numerous. Firstly, to reach the ore, the rainforest must be cleared. More than 6,000 square kilometers of forest around the Carajas mine are clearcut every year for charcoal alone. More forest is removed for direct mining operations. Mercury is used in the mining process, and contaminates 90 percent of fish downstream of the mine.
In addition to the environmental impacts, iron ore mining in the Amazon has displaced tens of thousands of indigenous people, decimated newly-contacted tribes through the spread of infectious diseases, and flooded remote areas with thousands of workers, networks of roads, and all the associated impacts.
Poverty, social conflict, and environmental devastation have been the wages of mining. As the World Wildlife Federation has noted, “Mining is one of the dirtiest industrial activities on the planet, in terms of both its immediate environmental impacts and its CO2 emissions.”
Smelting and steel production
Once the raw materials for steel production are gathered, they must be combined. The first step is the smelting of iron ore in a blast furnace. The heat to melt iron ore usually comes from burning natural gas, coal or, more often coke.
“Coke is the most important raw material fed into the blast furnace in terms of its effect on blast furnace operation and hot metal quality,” writes Hardarshan S. Valia, a scientist at Inland Steel (now ArcelorMittal).
Coking coal is a fuel and heat source that is essential to the production of steel. Coke, also known as metallurgical coal, is produced by baking coal in an airtight furnace at 2,000-3,000 °F. Generally, two tons of coal are baked to create one ton of coke. The process of creating coke toxifies large amounts of water, releases copious greenhouse gases and other toxic fumes, and requires large amounts of electricity.
“Air emissions such as coke oven gas, naphthalene, ammonium compounds, crude light oil, sulfur and coke dust are released from coke ovens,” notes the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, “[and] quenching water becomes contaminated with coke breezes and other compounds.”
At this stage of the process, ground up limestone or other carbon-rich rock is added to the molten iron ore to balance the acidity of coke and coal. This is called reduction. While a small portion of the carbon content of the limestone and coal or coke is adsorbed into the molten metal and adds strength to the steel, the bulk of this carbon is released to the atmosphere as CO2.
At current rates, around 1.9 metric tons of CO2 are released for every metric ton of steel production. Overall, the International Energy Agency estimates that 4-5% of global CO2 emissions come from the iron and steel industry.
Once the smelting process in the blast furnace is complete, the result is an intermediate stage in steel production called pig iron. This molten pig iron is now prepared for the next step, which involves processing in a basic oxygen furnace.
In the basic oxygen furnace, molten pig iron is poured into a large ladle and scraps of recycled steel are added. Impurities of silicon, phosphorous, and sulfur are removed by means of a chemical reaction, and high purities of oxygen are blown into the vessel at velocities greater than the speed of sound. This superheats the mixture and removes further impurities. The molten metal is now steel.
The basic oxygen furnace is only the most common method of steel production, used for 60% of global production with the process described above. This is called “primary steel production”. Secondary steel, which requires less energy input but is a lower quality product, is made entirely from scrap steel using an electric arc furnace. Steel production from recycled scrap accounts for nearly half of all steel production in developed countries.
What is steel used for?
As noted above, steel is critical to the global economy. It is considered one of the basic raw materials for industrial development, and is used for the production of cranes, ships, trucks, trailers, cars, jacking platforms, underwater cables, electrical transmission towers and lines, rail cars, girders for buildings and bridges, home appliances, pots and pans, bicycles, guard rails, scaffolding - the list goes on endlessly.
While the role of steel and other polluting substances in many of these products and industries has been examined thoroughly, the same rigor has generally not been applied to alternative energy technologies. Wind turbines, for example, use a great deal of steel. As has been noted by the World Steel Association, the global trade group for the industry: “every part of a wind turbine depends on iron and steel.”
Can steel be sustainable?
One of the most common wind turbines in the world today is a 1.5 megawatt design produced by General Electric. The nacelle - the portion of the turbine on top of the tower - weighs 56 tons, while the tower weighs in at 71 tons and the blades at 36 tons. A single turbine, at over 60 percent steel, requires over 100 tons of the material.
This 1.5 megawatt model is a smaller design by modern standards - the latest industrial turbines can require more than twice as much steel.
The production and installation of wind turbines also requires large amounts of concrete (more than 1,000 tons for a standard wind turbine anchor platform) and other materials such as copper, which is used for electrical cables and makes up some 35% of the generator. About half of all copper mined worldwide is used for electrical wires and transmission cables.
Copper production is a large source of pollution and waste, starting with the exploration and development process, where roads and facilities are built, and ending with the toxic byproducts of copper refining.
Impacts of copper mining mirror steel production, and include land clearance, soil removal, erosion of soil and mine waste, toxic tailings, acid mine drainage, contaminant leaching, water extraction and contamination, the release of dust and particulate matter, air pollution from vehicles and machinery, mercury and other heavy metal contamination, habitat loss and fragmentation, soil and groundwater contamination, and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Bingham Canyon Copper Mine near Salt Lake City, Utah, is the largest man-made excavation in the world, and a good example of the toxic nature of extraction and refining – the Salt Lake Valley periodically registers the worst air quality in the United States. The mine is visible from space with the naked eye.
Global Trade
Beyond the direct impacts of steel production, the process of creating wind turbines must be assessed in context; in this case, the context of global trade. Creating a wind turbine is a worldwide manufacturing operation, explains Brian Doughty of Puget Sound Energy, who manages a wind power installation in eastern Washington state.
“For this particular project,” Doughty notes, “these tower sections came from Vietnam, the nacelles and blades came from Denmark, everything was brought into the port of Vancouver WA, and brought up here [to eastern Washington] by truck.”
This global arrangement of shipping and transportation tangles wind turbines further in a vast, deadly net of fossil fuels, pollution, devastated ecosystems, “free trade” agreements, and decimated communities.
Steel: the past, not the future?
The World Steel Association and other global entities are convinced that steel is a key material for the future of civilization. But as should be clear from the information presented above, steel is an industrial material for an industrial world – dirty, polluting, energy intensive.
There are many options for the human species moving forward. Steel lies along the industrial path that we have trodden before, dirty and littered with the bodies of the collaterally damaged. Which path is taken remains to be seen, but one thing is sure: before we can make the right decisions, we must have the facts. And with steel, the facts are grim.
References
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 2, 2013 | Toxification
By Edward Wong / The New York Times
Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total, according to a new summary of data from a scientific study on leading causes of death worldwide.
Figured another way, the researchers said, China’s toll from pollution was the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population.
The data on which the analysis is based was first presented in the ambitious 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study, which was published in December in The Lancet, a British medical journal. The authors decided to break out numbers for specific countries and present the findings at international conferences. The China statistics were offered at a forum in Beijing on Sunday.
“We have been rolling out the India- and China-specific numbers, as they speak more directly to national leaders than regional numbers,” said Robert O’Keefe, the vice president of the Health Effects Institute, a research organization that is helping to present the study. The organization is partly financed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the global motor vehicle industry.
What the researchers called “ambient particulate matter pollution” was the fourth-leading risk factor for deaths in China in 2010, behind dietary risks, high blood pressure and smoking. Air pollution ranked seventh on the worldwide list of risk factors, contributing to 3.2 million deaths in 2010.
By comparison with China, India, which also has densely populated cities grappling with similar levels of pollution, had 620,000 premature deaths in 2010 because of outdoor air pollution, the study found. That was deemed to be the sixth most common killer in South Asia.
The study was led by an institute at the University of Washington and several partner universities and institutions, including the World Health Organization.
Read more from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/world/asia/air-pollution-linked-to-1-2-million-deaths-in-china.html?_r=1&
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 29, 2013 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Emily Ford / The Times
About 28,000 rivers have disappeared from China’s state maps, an absence seized upon by environmentalists as evidence of the irreversible natural cost of developmental excesses.
More than half of the rivers previously thought to exist in China now appear to be missing, according to the 800,000 surveyors who compiled the first national water census, leaving Beijing fumbling to explain the cause.
Only 22,909 rivers, covering an area of 100 square kilometres were located by surveyors, compared with the more than 50,000 present in the 1990s, a three-year study by the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Bureau of Statistics found.
Officials blame the apparent loss on climate change, arguing that it has caused waterways to vanish, and on mistakes by earlier cartographers. But environmental experts say that the disappearance of the rivers is a real and a direct manifestation of headlong, ill-conceived development, where projects are often imposed or approved without public consultation.
The United Nations considers China one of the 13 countries most affected by water scarcity, as industrial toxins have poisoned historic water sources and were blamed last year for causing the Yangtze to turn an alarming shade of red. This month the carcasses of about 16,000 dead pigs dumped in the river have been pulled from its waters, and 1,000 dead ducks were found dumped this week in the Nanhe River in the southwestern Sichuan province.
Ma Jun, a water expert at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said that the missing rivers were a cause for “great attention” and underscored the urgent need for a more sustainable mode of development.
“There might be some disparity [in the number of rivers] due to different research methods. However, the disappearance of rivers is the reality. It is really happening in China because of the over-exploitation of river resources,” Mr Ma said. “One of the major reasons is the over-exploitation of the underground water reserves, while environmental destruction is another reason, because desertification of forests has caused a rain shortage in the mountain areas.”
Large hydroelectric projects such as the Three Gorges Dam, which diverted trillions of gallons of water to drier regions, were likely to have played a role, Mr Ma said.
The census charted a decline in water quality, citing the “severe over-exploitation” of underground water reserves by 60 of its biggest cities.
The report came as Li Keqiang, the new premier, gave a speech in which he pledged greater transparency on pollution, which Beijing fears is a potential catalyst for social unrest.
“We must take the steps in advance, rather than hurry to handle these issues when they have caused a disturbance in society,” Mr Li was quoted by state media as saying.
The missing rivers provoked wistful recollections among Chinese internet users, most of whom will have witnessed dizzying urbanisation.
“The rivers I used to play around have disappeared, the only ones left are polluted, we can’t eat the fish in them, they are all bitter,” a person using the name Pippi Shuanger wrote on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.
Despite water shortages, the threat of floods is a problem for much of the Chinese mainland, with two thirds of the population living in flood-prone areas. Flash floods caused by heavy rain claimed the lives of 77 people in Beijing last July.
From The Times: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article3725724.ece
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 28, 2013 | Toxification
By Agence France-Presse
Crews were working Thursday to clean up as much as 30,000 gallons of oil that spilled onto a Minnesota field after a mile-long train derailed.
It was not yet clear whether the Canadian Pacific train was transporting regular crude or oil from the Alberta tar sands, but the spill will certainly add fuel to the fight against the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
Luckily, frigid temperatures helped contain the environmental damage after 14 train cars fell off the tracks and three began leaking oil on Wednesday morning.
“Minnesota is having a late spring and the site is still frozen and covered with quite a lot of snow, which helped prevent any oil from moving down the ditch or soaking into the soil,” said Dan Olson, a spokesman for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.”
“The accident currently poses no threat to either surface or ground waters.”
The bulk of the oil spilled from a single tank, which lost a “substantial amount” of its 26,000 gallon capacity, Olson told AFP. Two other tanks were leaking more slowly and the spill was estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 gallons.
No injuries were reported as a result of the derailment in a rural area about a mile north of Parkers Prairie in west central Minnesota, the Otter Tail county sheriff’s office said.
Environmental activists are preparing to flood an April 18 public hearing in Nebraska to discuss the controversial $5.3 billion Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline.
The US State Department released a draft environmental impact statement on March 1 suggesting the rerouted pipeline, which would transport some 830,000 barrels a day, would have no major impact on the environment.
Critics contend that the heavy tar sand oil would be nearly impossible to clean up if it were to spill in one of the more than 1,000 waterways that will be traversed by the pipeline, because it sinks instead of floats.
The exploitation of the tar sands also results in significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional oil extraction because it must be dug out of the ground and then basically melted with the heat of natural gas.
From The Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/28/train-derailment-spills-30000-gallons-of-oil-in-minnesota/
