ECOLOGY & NATURE UNDERNEWS

IN FACE OF WATER SHORTAGES, TOILET TO TAP RECYCLING PLANS GROW

2008-05-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

LA TIMES Los Angeles officials will revive a controversial proposal to recycle wastewater as part of a plan to curb usage and move the city toward greater water independence. . . Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's effort could cost up to $2 billion and affect a wide range of daily activities. For example, residents would be urged to change their clothes' washers, and new restrictions would be placed on how and when they could water lawns and clean cars. . . . Builders would be pushed to install waterless urinals, weather-sensitive sprinkler systems and porous parking lot paving that allows rain to percolate into groundwater supplies.

Prohibitions during the 1990s drought -- banning residents from washing driveways and sidewalks, letting sprinklers flood into gutters and watering grass in midday -- would be enforced again, with additional restrictions. One part of the proposal would limit lawn watering to certain days of the week.

Cities facing the same challenges, including Long Beach, have already moved to curtail residential and commercial water usage and punish waste. . . .

Los Angeles' plan -- a copy of which was made available to The Times -- would invest in projects to capture and store rainfall and clean up a sprawling, contaminated water supply beneath the San Fernando Valley. About $1 billion would be allocated for reclamation, including a politically sensitive plan to use treated wastewater to recharge underground drinking supplies serving the Valley, Los Feliz and the Eastside.

A similar system was approved and built in the 1990s, then abandoned after critics labeled it a "toilet-to-tap" scheme. . .

One critic said voters should decide whether the water supply will be blended with treated wastewater. "It's grossly unfair for the mayor, the City Council or the DWP to decide consumers are going to be using this recycled water," said Gerald A. Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino.

But Millie Hamilton, an Encino Neighborhood Council member and docent at the city's Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, said recycling is safe, needed and nothing new. "There is no new water on this planet," said Hamilton, who was referred to The Times by the mayor's office. "We are drinking the same water the dinosaurs drank. All our water has been and is being recycled."

WALL STREET JOURNAL Cities ranging from San Diego to Denver already recycle wastewater for irrigation and industrial use. Some communities, such as the Tampa Bay area of Florida, desalinate seawater, which is generally more expensive than recycling. Many cities are also pushing water-conservation initiatives such as implementing restrictions on when residents can water lawns or offering rebates for high-efficiency washers and toilets.

But cities considering large-scale systems that recycle wastewater to drinking standards may face an uphill battle. Such initiatives -- dubbed "toilet to tap" proposals by critics -- have encountered resistance in the past as a result of cost and the overall yuck factor. In 2001, Los Angeles scrapped a $55 million wastewater-recycling project that would have provided the equivalent of the annual water needs of 200,000 city residents. A similar proposal in San Diego was derailed in the late 1990s amid an outcry that poor neighborhoods would be forced to use the wastewater from rich neighborhoods.. . .

The concept of recycling wastewater to meet drinking-water standards isn't new. A handful of cities in the U.S. and abroad have done it on smaller scales and sometimes with older technology. In most cases, the water is disinfected and pumped into an aquifer or reservoir where it remains for a period of time before being distributed to the public through drinking-water wells -- a concept known as indirect potable reuse. Wastewater in Orange County is treated with reverse osmosis to remove viruses, salts and pharmaceuticals.

Recurring droughts and growing populations are increasing the allure of recycling. In Los Angeles, groundwater contamination in the San Fernando Valley, where the majority of the city's groundwater supply is produced, has limited water available for pumping. "If we don't commit ourselves to conserving and recycling water, we will tap ourselves out," says Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in a statement.

A new system in Orange County, Calif., where water demand is expected to increase 16% between 2010 and 2030, is the largest and most high-tech in the world. . . Other cities that are planning their own projects say they are using the Orange County system as a standard.

It is a three-step process: Sewer water that has already been treated by the county's sanitation district goes through a microfilter to remove solids and bacteria. It then undergoes a reverse-osmosis treatment, which passes the water through a membrane filter that removes viruses, salts, pharmaceuticals and other materials. Finally, it is treated with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide to get rid of contaminants that are left.

The water is then pumped into a groundwater basin where it mixes with other water and filters through materials like sand, gravel, and clay. It takes about a year for the water to travel to a drinking-water well -- so county residents aren't yet drinking water that has been treated with the new system. The Orange County Water District, which manages the county's groundwater basin, compares its quality to that of distilled water.

Parts of Orange County, though, have been drinking treated wastewater since the 1970s through a system called Water Factory 21, which used reverse osmosis on a smaller scale. That system, when it existed, recycled just five million gallons a day.

Doctors and engineers say recycled water is safe to drink. Indeed, reverse osmosis coupled with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide treats wastewater beyond what federal and state drinking standards require, they say.

FDA SHRUGS OFF MAJOR CONCERN OVER PLASTIC BOTTLES

2008-05-15T13:08:00.001-07:00

Daily Green The controversy over the safety of the chemical bisphenol A continues, as the U.S. FDA issues a statement saying that the agency sees no reason to tell consumers to stop using products that contain it, Reuters reports. This includes polycarbonate baby bottles, water bottles and more (which should be labeled with the #7 recycling code).

The FDA's statement, released in a climate of heavy pressure from the chemical industry, is in contrast to developments in Canada. On April 19 the Canadian government began a 60-day public comment period on whether polycarbonate baby bottles should be banned in the country. Observers have said a comprehensive ban on polycarbonate is even possible up north in the near future.

For its part, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., makers of Nalgene bottles, have announced that they will stop using polycarbonate. Wal-Mart says it expects all baby bottles it carries to be free of the material by early next year, and Toys R Us has discussed a similar plan.

If such major players are clearly expressing concern over BPA, what legs does the FDA have to stand on for its reassurance? According to Reuters, the FDA's associate commissioner for science, Norris Alderson, said the feds are reviewing safety concerns, and pointed to two industry-funded studies claiming it poses no risk.

GREENHOUSE GASES HIGHEST IN AT LEAST 800,000 YEARS

2008-05-15T13:03:00.001-07:00

Reuters Greenhouse gases are at higher levels in the atmosphere than at any time in at least 800,000 years, according to a study of Antarctic ice on Wednesday that extends evidence that mankind is disrupting the climate. Carbon dioxide and methane trapped in tiny bubbles of air in ancient ice down to 3,200 meters (10,500 ft) below the surface of Antarctica add 150,000 years of data to climate records stretching back 650,000 years from shallower ice drilling. . . Before the Industrial Revolution, levels of greenhouse gases were guided mainly by long-term shifts in the earth's orbit around the sun that have plunged the planet into ice ages and back again eight times in the past 800,000 years.

CARBON DIOXIDE LEVEL HITS RECORD HIGH

2008-05-13T11:37:00.001-07:00

GUARDIAN, UK The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to new figures that renew fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control. Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. . .

Scientists say the shift could indicate that the Earth is losing its natural ability to soak up billions of tons of carbon each year. Climate models assume that about half our future emissions will be re-absorbed by forests and oceans, but the new figures confirm this may be too optimistic. If more of our carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere, it means emissions will have to be cut by more than currently projected to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.

TORNADOES WAY OVER NORMAL

2008-05-12T11:36:00.001-07:00

BUSH SAYS POLAR BEARS CAN LUMP IT

2008-05-11T09:27:00.001-07:00

GEOFFREY LEAN, INDEPENDENT, UK It's a classic stand-off between one of the world's best loved animals and one of its most unpopular leaders, between the planet's largest bear and its most powerful man. And it comes to a head this week.

On Thursday, by order of a federal judge, George W Bush must stop stalling on whether to designate the polar bear as a species endangered by global warming. The designation could have huge consequences for his climate-change policies; his administration would, by law, have to avoid doing anything that would "jeopardise the continued existence" of the mammal whose habitat is melting away.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the administration has sought to avoid the decision. It has delayed it for months, and was seeking to put it off for months more. . .

Polar bears depend on the sea ice for hunting, mating and moving around. Last summer, 200,000 square miles of ice – more than twice the size of Britain – melted for the first time, shrinking the frozen sea to an extent that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted would not occur until 2050. More and more scientists believe the Arctic could be ice-free in summer in little more than 20 years.

AGRIBUSINESS MAKING HUGE PROFITS OUT OF FOOD CRISIS

2008-05-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

INDEPENDENT, UK Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation. . . And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry. The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor - who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food - into hunger and destitution.

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world's richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn.

Cargill's net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.

Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of the world's largest fertilizer companies, saw its income for the three months ending 29 February rise more than 12-fold, from $42.2m to $520.8m, on the back of a shortage of fertilizer. The prices of some kinds of fertilizer have more than tripled over the past year as demand has outstripped supply. As a result, plans to increase harvests in developing countries have been hit hard. . .

The soaring prices of food and fertilizers mainly come from increased demand. This has partly been caused by the boom in biofuels, which require vast amounts of grain, but even more by increasing appetites for meat, especially in India and China; producing 1lb of beef in a feedlot, for example, takes 7lbs of grain.

URBAN FARMING GROWS INTO A BUSINESS

2008-05-08T13:29:00.001-07:00

TRACIE MCMILLAN, NY TIMES For years, New Yorkers have grown basil, tomatoes and greens in window boxes, backyard plots and community gardens. But more and more New Yorkers are raising fruits and vegetables, and not just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block. This urban agriculture movement has grown even more vigorously elsewhere. Hundreds of farmers are at work in Detroit, Milwaukee, Oakland and other areas that, like East New York, have low-income residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of fresh produce and available, undeveloped land.

Local officials and nonprofit groups have been providing land, training and financial encouragement. But the impetus, in almost every case, has come from the farmers, who often till when their day jobs are done, overcoming peculiarly urban obstacles. . .

The city's cultivators are a varied lot. The high school students at the Added Value community farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn, last year supplied Italian arugula, Asian greens and heirloom tomatoes to three restaurants, a community-supported agriculture buying club and two farmers' markets.

In the South Bronx a group of gardens called La Familia Verde started a farmers' market in 2003 to sell surpluses of herbs like papalo and the Caribbean green callaloo. . .

The city's success with urban farming will receive international attention on Saturday when, during an 11-day conference in New York, 60 delegates from the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development are scheduled to visit Hands and Hearts, the Bed-Stuy Farm and two traditional community gardens in Brooklyn.

There was not always so much enthusiasm for city farming, though.

John Ameroso, a Cornell Cooperative Extension agent who has worked with local farmers and gardeners for 32 years, said that when he first suggested urban farm stands in the early 1990s, city environmental officials dismissed the idea. " 'Oh, you could never grow enough stuff with the urban markets,' " he said he was told. 'That can't be done. You have to have farmers.' "

But local officials have come around. . .

On a fringe of Philadelphia, a nonprofit demonstration project used densely planted rows in a half-acre plot and generated $67,000 from high-value crops like lettuces, carrots and radishes.

In Milwaukee, the nonprofit Growing Power operates a one-acre farm crammed with plastic greenhouses, compost piles, do-it-yourself contraptions, tilapia tanks and pens full of hens, ducks and goats - and grossed over $220,000 last year from the sale of lettuces, winter greens, sprouts and fish to local restaurants and consumers.

A NEW APPROACH TO MOTORBIKING

2008-05-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

TREE HUGGER - A young Canadian inventor named Ben Gulak has created a new electric motorbike that takes some of the lessons learned from the Segway device, but implements them in a cooler package. The bike, called the Uno, looks from its profile like a strange powered unicycle but actually employs two wheels side-by-side. Riders lean forward to accelerate -- a feature used by the Segway - and can hit a top speed of 25 mph in its current configuration. The Uno also makes use of a set of gyros to enhance ease of balance, and the wheels are independently operated making turning much more precise.

Gulak, who's 18 years old, says that the Uno is relatively simple to ride but, "takes a bit of getting used to because you have to learn to trust it. The young inventor is currently courting investors for his project. . .

"It has a range of about 2.5 hours and it is designed for the commute to work through busy towns" says Gulak." MORE

YOU KNOW AN IDEA IS CATCHING ON, WHEN THEY TEACH ABOUT IT IN LAW SCHOOL

2008-05-07T13:28:00.001-07:00

DAN PILLER, DES MOINES REGISTER - Here's another sign that wind energy is coming of age: Wind law is now piling up in court precedents and is being taught at law school. Drake University law professor Neil Hamilton, the director of the school's Agricultural Law Center, has just finished teaching the school's first class in wind law to eight law school students and three practicing attorneys. . .

Hamilton's wind law course covers the gamut of the legal nitty-gritty about wind energy, including easements and leases, property issues, land-use regulations, utility regulation, metering and financing, and state and federal tax, energy and environmental policies. Hamilton's class is one of three in the United States. The University of Texas at Austin has a wind law class and so does the University of Oregon in Eugene. . .

While wind has a gentle image, the industry has had its share of disputes. Some farmers in Buena Vista and Cherokee counties were angered earlier this year when the owner of the 10-year-old wind farm on their properties cut their annual payments, which totaled up to $2,100, by two-thirds. . .

Hamilton said most wind leases today don't have royalty clauses for electricity production, like the lease Meyer signed. Rather, they tend to pay $3,500 to $4,000 per year to lease land, with no production royalties. This differs from the structure of many oil and gas lease agreements. "You can claim your land rights, but how can you claim the wind?" Hamilton said.

DECLINE IN OCEAN OXYGEN FOUND

2008-05-05T11:00:00.001-07:00

SCIENTIFIC BLOGGING Marine scientists led by Dr. Lothar Stramma from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany say they have made an alarming new discovery - in some regions of the world oceans, oxygen essential for marine organisms is declining. The new study documents that the oxygen values in tropical oceans at a depth of 300 to 700 meters have declined during the past 50 years. As large marine organisms can either no longer exist in these areas or they would avoid them, the expanding oxygen minimum zones may have substantial biological and economical consequences. . .

"We found the largest reduction in a depth of 300-700 m in the tropical northeast Atlantic, whereas the changes in the eastern Indian Ocean were much less pronounced", explains Dr. Stramma. "Whether or not these observed changes in oxygen can be attributed to global warming alone is still unresolved", Stramma continues. The reduction in oxygen may also be caused by natural processes on shorter time scales" Nevertheless, the results are consistent with model results which predict a further decline in the future.

CALIFORNIA FACES WATER RATIONING

2008-05-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

SF CHRONICLE Two parched years - punctuated by the driest spring in at least 150 years - could force districts across California to ration water this summer as policymakers and scientists grow increasingly concerned that the state is on the verge of a long-term drought. State water officials reported Thursday that the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the source of a huge portion of California's water supply, was only 67 percent of normal, due in part to historically low rainfall in March and April.

With many reservoirs at well-below-average levels from the previous winter and a federal ruling limiting water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the new data added a dimension to a crisis already complicated by crumbling infrastructure, surging population and environmental concerns.

"We're in a dry spell if not a drought," said California Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman. "We're in the second year, and if we're looking at a third year, we're talking about a serious problem."

Chrisman stopped short of saying the state would issue mandatory water rationing, which appears possible only if the governor declares a state of emergency. Rather, the burden will fall on local water agencies. Many, such as San Francisco and Marin County, have asked residents and businesses over the past year to cut water usage voluntarily by 10 to 20 percent.

Others have taken more drastic steps.

In Southern California, the water district serving about 330,000 people in Orange County enacted water rationing last year, due in part to a ruling by U.S. Judge Oliver Wanger reducing water pumped from the delta by about a third to protect an endangered fish.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District announced in April that it was considering water rationing, price increases and other measures in response to critically low reservoirs. The district, which serves 1.3 million customers in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, will vote on the measures this month.

TEENS HELP A TOWN GO GREEN

2008-04-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Tree Hugger interviewed Taylor Schmidt a 17-year-old member of the local Green Club in Greensburg Kansas, a town leveled by a tornado.

Taylor Schmitt: Well after at least 96% of the town was destroyed there has obviously been a massive need for rebuilding, and the town has come together as a big family, really, and it's been one joint effort to rebuild the town better than it was and more sustainable and green than it was. . .

TH: And what have people in Greensburg learned that's struck you particularly?

TS: Well we live in a very red, conservative state. It's the buckle of the Bible Belt. But we have become informed about green and see it as a universal concept. It's really a bipartisan issue, so I believe that parties shouldn't influence it. And green just makes sense to us, it's really simple switches. Simple ways you can build where it will last longer, save more energy, and use fewer resources. And there's been an incredible amount of folks helping us implement these ideas.

TH: How well do the other kids in Greensburg understand all of this?

TS: Kids have been the driving force for rebuilding. It's practically unprecedented. They've actually encouraged us to come into the process of rebuilding and haven't been shunning us like most people would. They've really embraced us; almost all of the youth have become involved in the rebuilding of Greensburg. We've been on committees with FEMA and there are around 20 students out of 100 involved on various committees and things like that.

And because of that involvement a green club has formed at Greensburg High School. Basically it's a group of kids that want to learn more about green, what it is, how simple it is, how we can implement it in our lives. And what affect it has on our lives, finances, and the city.

It's just so exciting; I don't think you can find a person in the whole high school who doesn't know about going green.

TH: How have the youth of Greensburg helped others in town understand the concept of going green?

TS: We've been reading about it so we can help those who don't understand it as much in older generations; and as we learn more about things we can do ranging from emailing assignments or encouraging some people that are rebuilding to use CFLs instead of incandescent light bulbs we're really making a difference. The school community has really been supportive as well. The school is even going to be rebuilt to LEED platinum standards. . . We've even gone with several of our teachers up to Chicago to the national green building convention and learned about how we can rebuild school and town with green roofs for water, and other practices ranging from all sorts of simple things like using efficient lighting and efficient water usage to installing wind turbines and solar and geothermal heating. Our school is actually going to be powered by its own large wind turbine. . .

I think of myself as a 17-year old watching our town learn about how we can thrive again and even grow back better than we were before. Some people think how terrible it must be, but I think it's a blessing to live in such exciting times.

TH: What have you come to believe makes the town of Greensburg so unique?

TS: We've realized that the spirit of working together is what makes Greensburg so unique. Before this happened we all (the youth) wanted to leave, but now we want to stay. It's given us a reason to understand we have a long term affect on our community and the world. . .

WILL YOUR CANDIDATE SUPPORT BIDETS?

2008-04-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

TREE HUGGER - Bidets [are] a key green technology, because they eliminate the use of toilet paper. They also provide important health benefits. These include increased cleanliness, and the therapeutic effect of water on damaged skin (think rashes or hemorrhoids).

We use 36.5 billions rolls of toilet paper in the U.S. each year, this represents at least 15 million trees pulped. This also involves 473,587,500,000 gallons of water to produce the paper and 253,000 tons of chlorine for bleaching purposes. The manufacturing process requires about 17.3 terawatts of electricity annually. Also, there is the energy and materials involved in packaging and transporting the toilet paper to households across the country.

Toilet paper also constitutes a significant load on the city sewer systems, and water treatment plants. It is also often responsible for clogged pipes. In septic systems, the elimination of toilet paper would mean the septic tank would need to be emptied much less often.

Basically, the huge industry of producing toilet paper could be eliminated through the use of bidets. Instead of using toilet paper, a bidet cleans your posterior using a jet of water. Some bidets also provide an air-drying mechanism.

In Japan, high-tech bidets called Washlets are now the most popular electronic equipment being sold -- 60% of households have them installed. In Venezuela they are found in approximately 90% of households.

MONSANTO GOES AFTER FARMERS FOR ACTING LIKE FARMERS

2008-04-27T19:25:00.001-07:00

DONALD L. BARLETT AND JAMES B. STEELE, VANITY FAIR - As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the 'seed police' and use words such as 'Gestapo' and 'Mafia' to describe their tactics.

When asked about these practices, Monsanto declined to comment specifically, other than to say that the company is simply protecting its patents. 'Monsanto spends more than $2 million a day in research to identify, test, develop and bring to market innovative new seeds and technologies that benefit farmers,' Monsanto spokesman Darren Wallis wrote in an e-mailed letter to Vanity Fair. 'One tool in protecting this investment is patenting our discoveries and, if necessary, legally defending those patents against those who might choose to infringe upon them.' Wallis said that, while the vast majority of farmers and seed dealers follow the licensing agreements, 'a tiny fraction' do not, and that Monsanto is obligated to those who do abide by its rules to enforce its patent rights on those who 'reap the benefits of the technology without paying for its use.' He said only a small number of cases ever go to trial.

Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.

For centuries-millennia-farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head.
Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. 'It's not like describing a widget,' says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto's activities in rural America for years.
Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world's food supply. In its decision, the court extended patent law to cover 'a live human-made microorganism.' In this case, the organism wasn't even a seed. Rather, it was a Pseudomonas bacterium developed by a General Electric scientist to clean up oil spills. But the precedent was set, and Monsanto took advantage of it. Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Farmers who buy Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.

ECOLOGY CONCERNS DRAW ATTENTION TO FOOD SHIPPING TRADITIONS

2008-04-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, NY TIMES Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya. . .

Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. . .

Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower. . .

But the movable feast comes at a cost: pollution - especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas - from transporting the food.

Under longstanding trade agreements, fuel for international freight carried by sea and air is not taxed. Now, many economists, environmental advocates and politicians say it is time to make shippers and shoppers pay for the pollution, through taxes or other measures.

“We’re shifting goods around the world in a way that looks really bizarre,” said Paul Watkiss, an Oxford University economist who wrote a recent European Union report on food imports.

He noted that Britain, for example, imports - and exports - 15,000 tons of waffles a year, and similarly exchanges 20 tons of bottled water with Australia. More important, Mr. Watkiss said, “we are not paying the environmental cost of all that travel.”

Europe is poised to change that. This year the European Commission in Brussels announced that all freight-carrying flights into and out of the European Union would be included in the trading bloc’s emissions-trading program by 2012, meaning permits will have to be purchased for the pollution they generate.

BIOPLASTICS AREN'T WHAT THEY'RE MEANT TO BE

2008-04-26T12:20:00.001-07:00

GUARDIAN, UK The worldwide effort by supermarkets and industry to replace conventional oil-based plastic with eco-friendly bioplastics made from plants is causing environmental problems and consumer confusion, according to a Guardian study. The substitutes can increase emissions of greenhouse gases on landfill sites, some need high temperatures to decompose and others cannot be recycled in Britain.

Many of the bioplastics are also contributing to the global food crisis by taking over large areas of land previously used to grow crops for human consumption.

The market for bioplastics, which are made from maize, sugarcane, wheat and other crops, is growing by 20-30% a year.

The industry, which uses words such as "sustainable", "biodegradeable", "compostable" and "recyclable" to describe its products, says bioplastics make carbon savings of 30-80% compared with conventional oil-based plastics and can extend the shelf-life of food.

Concern centers on corn-based packaging made with polylactic acid. Made from GM crops, it looks identical to conventional polyethylene terephthalate plastic and is produced by US company NatureWorks. The company is jointly owned by Cargill, the world's second largest biofuel producer, and Teijin, one of the world's largest plastic manufacturers.

Pla is used by some of the biggest supermarkets and food companies, including Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Del Monte. It is used by Marks & Spencer to package organic foods, salads, snacks, desserts, and fruit and vegetables. . .

While Pla is said to offer more disposal options, the Guardian has found that it will barely break down on landfill sites, and can only be composted in the handful of anaerobic digesters which exist in Britain, but which do not take any packaging. In addition, if Pla is sent to UK recycling works in large quantities, it can contaminate the waste stream, reportedly making other recycled plastics unsaleable.

Anson, one of Britain's largest suppliers of plastic food packaging, switched back to conventional plastic after testing Pla in sandwich packs. Sainsbury's has decided not to use it, saying Pla is made with GM corn. "No local authority is collecting compostable packaging at the moment. Composters do not want it," a spokesman said.

EPA SCIENTISTS REPORT POLITICAL PRESSURE

2008-04-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

AP Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey by an advocacy group. The Union of Concerned Scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work.

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar attributed some of the discontent to the "passion" scientists have toward their work. He said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, as a longtime career scientist at the EPA himself, "weighs heavily the science given to him by the staff in making policy decisions."

But Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Scientific Integrity Program, said the survey results revealed "an agency in crisis" and "under siege from political pressures" especially among scientists involved in risk assessment and crafting regulations.

"The investigation shows researchers are generally continuing to do their work, but their scientific findings are tossed aside when it comes time to write regulations," said Grifo. . .

The report said 60 percent of those responding, or 889 scientists, reported personally experiencing what they viewed as political interference in their work over the last five years. Four in 10 scientists who have worked at the agency for more than a decade said they believe such interference has been more prevalent in the last five years than in the previous five years.

WARM CLIMATE CAN BRING BEETLE INFESTATIONS THAT LIMIT FORESTS' ABILITY TO ABSORB CARBON

2008-04-24T12:29:00.001-07:00

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR A beetle about the length of a well-trimmed fingernail may be challenging scientists' projections for global warming. Forests store large amounts of carbon drawn from the atmosphere, helping Earth keep cool. But an infestation of mountain pine beetles is turning more than 144,000 square miles of woods in British Columbia from a slight carbon absorber - or sink - to a net CO2 emitter. Canadian scientists unveiled projections Wednesday that between 2000 and 2020, the forest will have lost 270 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

The process has the potential to become a vicious cycle: As the climate warms, it favors more severe outbreaks, and if severe outbreaks increase, that leaves fewer trees to absorb carbon and more emissions as dead trees decompose. Researchers say British Columbia's problem highlights a growing threat that North American forests, too, face from climate change.

"This is very important," acknowledges Tom Veblen, a geographer at the University of Colorado at . . . He notes that climate models do not take this type of feedback into account when they gauge temperature trajectories as human-related greenhouse-gas emissions rise. . .

Canada's beetle problem highlights a threat North American forests face from climate change, in addition to wildfires, logging, mining, and other development activities, say researchers. By some estimates, mountain pine beetles and their bark-burrowing cousins infest some 50 million acres of forest, stretching from Alaska to the southwestern US.

CARBON AND METHANE IN AIR UP SHARPLY

2008-04-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

DAN SHAPLEY, DAILY GREEN The latest government data about the state of the Earth's climateshow an accelerating trend of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. As Reuters put it, "carbon dioxide levels this year are literally off the chart." Though, really, it's just a matter of choosing the scale of the chart, the trend is nonetheless startling.

Not only did carbon dioxide emissions increase 0.6% - that's 19 billion tons - but methane, an even more powerful but less common greenhouse gas, increased by 27 million tons after nearly a decade without increase. The amount of carbon added to the atmosphere in 2007 was 20% higher than the average annual increase in recent years (2.4 ppm versus 2 ppm), 60% more than the increase witnessed in the 1980s and more than double the increase recorded in the 1960s.

Whether that sudden spike indicates that the permafrost in the Arctic is melting remains to be determined. When permafrost melts, it releases a massive dose of greenhouse gases that will fuel more warming, which will melt more permafrost, which will. . . It's one of the most feared "positive feedback loops" that scientists predict will accelerate the global warming that is initiated by pollution from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil. . .

Besides emissions from wetlands, methane increased due to industrial development in Asia. Carbon dioxide emissions in China also now rival the annual contribution of the United States, though the U.S. has a much longer history of contributing significantly to the global climate problem.

The findings, from 60 sites around the world, are preliminary. But, they are also nothing if not worrying.

BAY AREA SHOPPERS ASKED TO LIMIT RICE PURCHASES

2008-04-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

NBC 11 - The price of rice has increased dramatically in recent weeks due to crop failure overseas and resulting hoarding, NBC11 reported. And at least one Bay Area store is asking customers to hold back on their rice purchases. Costco has posted signs asking customers to follow their regular rice-buying habits.

The rice price increase is a result of a domino effect, NBC11's Noelle Walker reported. Drought in Australia led to a severe decline in rice production that in turn led the world's largest rice exporters to restrict exports. That spurred higher rice prices and hoarding in Asian countries..

Now in the United States, rice prices have skyrocketed. Son Tran owns Le Cheval Vietnamese Restaurant in Oakland. He said he's seen the price of rice go from $20 to $40 in a matter of weeks.

And Le Cheval's stockpiles are dwindling. Add to that, the price of vegetables has gone up 50 percent, and some of Tran's regular customers aren't so regular anymore.

Rice isn't the only food in short supply. The unleavened bread snack matzo, popular with Jewish families during Passover, is also hard to find. Grocers underestimated demand for the product and one of the main producers of matzo crackers had a problem with one of its ovens on the East Coast, which also shortened supplies.

TIMES UK Experts told The Times yesterday that prices of rice, wheat and vegetable oil would rise further. They also forecast that high prices and shortages - which have caused riots in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti - were here to stay, and that the days of cheap produce would not return. Food-price inflation has already pushed up a typical family's weekly shopping bill by 15 per cent in a year.

MAJOR AID GROUP SAYS IT CAN'T FEED 1.5 MILLION IT FED LAST YEAR

2008-04-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

CNN - World Vision, one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations, announced that it cannot feed 1.5 million of the 7.5 million people it fed last year and made an urgent appeal for international donors to step in. The price of wheat flour went up an average of 60 percent across Afghanistan last year. The cutback could affect donations to 35 of the 100 countries in which the agency works, said Rachel Wolff, media relations manager for disaster response.

The cutbacks are occurring across the developing world. Some of World Vision's food aid programs have been cut altogether, such as those in East Timor and Sri Lanka, while others have been reduced, such as those in Burundi, Niger, Cambodia, North and South Sudan. The cuts affect people in nearly every region of the world.

In Haiti, where food riots forced a change in government last week, the next major food shipment is not expected before June, and that will not meet the need, Wolff said. . .

Wolff said the magnitude of the shortfall is unprecedented and predicted that the situation "probably will get worse as the year progresses."

NEW ARCTIC SEA ICE MELTING FASTER DURING SUMMER

2008-04-23T11:11:00.001-07:00

PETER CALAMAI, TORONTO STAR New Arctic sea ice is now so perilously thin on average that it melts under the sunshine of clear summer skies it once could survive, American researchers conclude in a study . . . "When we had similar weather patterns in the past, they didn't appear to have as strong an effect on sea ice," said Jennifer Kay, an atmospheric scientist who led the U.S. research team. "Now because the ice is thinner you can have a chain reaction of runaway melting with a reduction in cloud cover," she said.

Research has linked the thinning of Arctic ice to warmer average temperatures caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases from human activities. Readings from U.S. submarines indicate a widespread reduction in sea ice thickness of 40 per cent since 1960.

The melting is also increased because the darker surface of open water absorbs the sun's rays as heat rather than reflecting them back into space like ice and snow.

The discovery of this additional vulnerability significantly ratchets up the prospects of international shipping within a decade through the fragile Canadian Arctic archipelago for months every year. . .

First-year ice makes up the bulk of the floating Arctic sea ice. But last summer only 13 per cent of this first-year ice survived the summer melt, instead of the customary 30 per cent. The 4.1 million kilometres of old ice remaining by September was the lowest since accurate satellite measurements began in 1979.

SERIOUS DECLINE IN EUROPEAN BIRD MIGRATION

2008-04-21T13:06:00.001-07:00

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, INDEPENDENT, UK Many of the birds that migrate to Britain and Europe from Africa every spring, from the willow warbler to the cuckoo, are undergoing alarming declines, new research shows. The falls in numbers are so sharp and widespread that ornithologists are waking up to a major new environmental problem - the possibility that the whole system of bird migration between Africa and Europe is running into trouble. It is estimated that, each spring, 16 million birds of nearly 50 species pour into Britain to breed from their African winter quarters, and as many as five billion into Europe as a whole, before returning south in the autumn. Many are songbirds weighing next to nothing, and their journeys of thousands of miles, including crossing the Sahara desert each way, have long been recognized as one of the world's most magnificent natural phenomena on the scale of the Gulf Stream or the Indian monsoon. But now their numbers are tumbling precipitately. . .

Across Britain, many people who used to look forward each year to hearing the first cuckoo - just about now, in the third week of April - no longer have the chance to do so. If fewer and fewer birds are returning to their breeding grounds, the inevitable consequence is that their populations will shrink ever more rapidly, ultimately, towards extinction. That may still be a long way off for the global populations of many migrants, but in Britain, several species are heading towards disappearance.

This worrying prospect is outlined in the first full statistical account put together by experts seeking to understand what is happening and why. Figures in an unpublished survey produced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds paints a startling picture of plunging populations. Of the 36 British-African migrant species for which there is long-term population data (going back to 1967), 21 have declined significantly.

These include the two species which have become extinct in Britain in the same period - the red-backed shrike and the wryneck, the only migratory woodpecker - and another 11 which have suffered declines of more than 50 per cent.

THE NEW FACE OF HUNGER

2008-04-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

ECONOMIST "World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period," says Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC. To prove it, food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting "We're hungry" forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt's president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. "It's an explosive situation and threatens political stability," worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d'Ivoire's chamber of commerce.

Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%. These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day. Some 40km outside Abidjan, Mariam Kone, who grows sweet potatoes, okra and maize but feeds her family on imported rice, laments: "Rice is very expensive, but we don't know why."

The prices mainly reflect changes in demand-not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programs, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behavior seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumors of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets.

Such shifts have not been matched by comparable changes on the farm. This is partly because they cannot be: farmers always take a while to respond. It is also because governments have softened the impact of price rises on domestic markets, muffling the signals that would otherwise have encouraged farmers to grow more food. Of 58 countries whose reactions are tracked by the World Bank, 48 have imposed price controls, consumer subsidies, export restrictions or lower tariffs.

But the food scare of 2008, severe as it is, is only a symptom of a broader problem. The surge in food prices has ended 30 years in which food was cheap, farming was subsidized in rich countries and international food markets were wildly distorted. Eventually, no doubt, farmers will respond to higher prices by growing more and a new equilibrium will be established. If all goes well, food will be affordable again without the subsidies, dumping and distortions of the earlier period. But at the moment, agriculture has been caught in limbo. The era of cheap food is over. The transition to a new equilibrium is proving costlier, more prolonged and much more painful than anyone had expected.

"We are the canary in the mine," says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localized. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. "