People Before Profit blog

All but 50 U.S. research chimps to be retired

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:46:00 +0000

On Jan. 22, the National Institutes of Health Council of Councils Working Group approved an NIH committee proposal to retire all but 50 chimpanzees from U.S. government testing and federally funded research. As a result, some 400 chimps will be moved to a national sanctuary, where they will have room to live and play in peace.

The proposal also called for major cuts to grants to study the remaining chimps in labs. The Council of Councils noted that chimps should only be used when there is no other way to study a threat to human health, and that the research ought to be approved by an independent committee with members from the public. Currently, "there is no compelling scientific reason to maintain a large research population," according to Daniel Geschwind, a researcher at University of California at Los Angeles and co-chairman of the group that made recommendations to an advisory panel for the NIH. "The majority of NIH-owned chimps should be designated for retirement."

Those chimps will be going to a sanctuary just outside Shreveport, Louisiana called Chimp Haven. Nine already arrived there on Jan. 22, and seven more will arrive there today. Chimp Haven was built on a 200-acre park, and should offer the animals plenty of room and comfort, experts say.

Various animal rights and welfare organizations responded enthusiastically to the development, which may mark a turning point in how the U.S. sees animals in relation to scientific research. "At last, our federal government understands," said PETA in a statement. "A chimpanzee should no more live in a laboratory than a human should live in a phone booth."

Kathleen Conlee, vice president of the Humane Society of the U.S., remarked, "These recommendations reinforce what the public has been asking for, which is a move away from invasive research and getting these chimps to sanctuaries."

NIH director Francis Collins said that significant scientific advances have rendered invasive research on chimps unnecessary, and furthermore that the animals' similarity to humans "demands special consideration and respect."

John P. Gluck, a University of New Mexico Department of Psychology professor, noted that there are valid moral concerns over the testing and invasive research of all animals - not merely chimps. In scientific research that uses animals in this way, he explained, "the lack of ethical self-examination is common and generally involves the denial or avoidance of animal suffering, resulting in the dehumanization of researchers and the degradation of their research subjects."

Notably, the U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that still keeps and uses chimpanzees for research.

David Favre, a Michigan State University College of Law professor, said that reduced funding and bigger cuts to grants that go to chimp research might help the remaining animals, overall. "Then," he said, "the practicality of the cost of keeping chimpanzees in these centers will rise up and result in most of them being dismantled."

Photo: Conan, a chimpanzee, eats fruit at Chimp Haven in Louisiana. Jim Hudelson, The Shreveport Times/AP

Environment vs. jobs: Bill McKibben's contributions and limits

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:40:00 +0000

Bill McKibben plays a vital role in the environmental movement. He has written several important books, including "The End of Nature" and "Eaarth, Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" (yes, that's "Eaarth" with two a's). He founded 350.org, an international Internet-based organization which has sponsored worldwide demonstrations calling for a return to no more than 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is essential if the planet is to avoid the worst effects of climate change. As an activist, and thinker, his contributions have international significance.

The role he and 350.org are playing in the fight against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project is central. This struggle will only intensify since Nebraska's governor, Dave Heineman, recently approved building the pipeline across sensitive areas of Nebraska's piece of the giant Oglalla Aquifer, which tens of millions of people rely on for fresh water and agricultural irrigation.

In a recent column at the Huffington Post, McKibben encourages people to join him at a major demonstration in Washington, D.C., on President's Day 2013. He also praises the work on almost 200 campuses where student groups are fighting to get their colleges and universities to divest funds from investments in fossil fuel companies.

But he has three weaknesses, all on exhibit in that column.

One: He places the struggle against President Obama as the central one for environmentalists today. He is correctly worried about how the Obama administration will deal with the Keystone XL pipeline, but he sees Obama and his perceived lack of leadership on climate change issues as the main problem. As Obama made clear in his second inauguration speech, he understands the science and intends to take more action in his second term on climate change issues.

This matches well with the intentions of Ban Ki-Moon, UN secretary-general, who said recently, "Climate change is fast happening - much, much faster than one would have expected. Climate and ecosystems are under growing strain." Moon puts climate change as one of his top priorities for world action in 2013, seeking a new, binding international treaty on climate change.

Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, included action on climate change among the first 10 bills he will place before the new Senate. Vice President Joe Biden, at an inaugural "Green Ball," insisted that "there is science in the White House" and urged environmentalists to "keep the faith."

Of course the environmental movement and its allies need to pressure Obama, but Obama is not the main obstacle to action on climate change - the right wing and its science-denying propagandists, funded by fossil fuel companies, are the source of the problem, the source of the main opposition to action. Obama's actions on the environment have been positive and real, even if it will be a real challenge to implement the changes we need, as Obama stressed in his inaugural speech.

To build the broadest movement requires winning millions who were part of the Obama re-election victory. And placing an attack on him and his administration as central to progress will push them further away from their natural allies in the environmental movement.

Two: McKibben sees people in general as his target audience. This is understandable, since people in general will all be negatively affected by environmental problems. But to create fundamental change requires winning a majority of workers and building real connections with their unions. That requires environmental campaigns that make a jobs program central. Blaming unions in part for the delay in raising automobile emission standards, while it has an element of truth, is not the strongest way to win an argument for the labor movement to fully engage in alliances with environmentalists.

People in general can accomplish much. They can demonstrate and protest, sign petitions, write letters, blog, vote and canvass for votes, educate neighbors, and connect worldwide environmental issues to local issues.

But only workers have the power to shut down the economy. Only workers, when organized, have the power to transform the system.

Three: He places climate change struggles in competition with other struggles, arguing that action of global warming should take precedence over other struggles, like the one for universal health care coverage - rather than making the argument for the connections between climate change and other struggles. That's a sure way to discourage allies whose main focus is and will continue to be those other struggles.

All progressive struggles have an environmental component, and successful alliances have been built by joining environmental programs with jobs programs - uniting environmental concerns with economic ones, uniting environmental and labor organizations. Environmental and civil rights organizations can find common ground in fighting environmental racism. Worldwide environmental issues can be joined with struggles for peace and justice worldwide.

This holds true for the other sides of these coalitions - they too need to reach out and make alliances with environmental organizations, rather than caricaturing them as against jobs, against progress on other issues, primarily white not only in membership but in concerns-as if environmental problems are a racial issue. Of course the environmental movement needs to expand, reach out, build alliances, and so do all these other groups. It is up to all of them to find common ground and engage in mutual support.

Participating in the important national demonstrations against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is one way to move more people into action, and for people from all parts of society to join with environmental activists. Short-term job growth that forces people to engage in work that is harmful to their own long-term survival is wrong, and there are better ways to create jobs. Making that clear is the path for the environmental movement to take.

Photo: Bill McKibben. Nancy Bataglia/350.org CC 2.0

Bear sanctuary saved from eviction

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:35:00 +0000

After a bear center in Vietnam, run by charity group Animals Asia, had been facing the threat of eviction since October 5, 2012, government Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung concluded that the shelter should be maintained. As a result, the 77 workers there will keep their jobs, and the 104 bears living there will continue to have a home.

The decision to preserve the center, according to an Animals Asia press release, will ensure the continued safety of the bears. The animals were previously rescued from the torturous bear bile industry, which painfully pumps them to extract their bile for medicinal purposes. The danger of eviction had arisen last year when the Truong Giang Tam Dao Joint Stock corporation showed an interest in clearing the land so it could build hotels and an eco-tourism site there. The company had been agressively lobbying the Vietnam Administration of Forestry to get approval for real estate development. Those plans are now cancelled, however, after the government clearly decided that the livelihoods of the bears are more important.

The positive outcome also ensures that Animals Asia, a charity devoted to ending bear bile "farming," and improving the wellbeing of Vietnamese and Chinese animals, will not suffer $2 million in losses as previously feared.

The organization's Vietnam Director, Tuan Bendixsen, remarked, "We are very grateful to the Prime Minister for his commitment to the bear rescue center. We look forward to working with the government to end bear bile farming and help conserve the bear species."

Animals Asia's work is far from finished, as there are 10,000 bears still being kept on farms in China - and 2,400 in Vietnam - that regularly pumped for bile, even though there are many alternatives for the medicine it is used in - ones that don't involve animal cruelty. Some of the bears are kept in small cages for up to 30 years while they are continuously starved, dehydrated, and tortured.

Chris Gee, external affairs manager at the World Society for the Protection of Animals, explained, "Bears suffer immense cruelty and pain as a result of being kept captive in bear bile industry conditions. Taking action to phase out the bear bile industry is essential to protect existing and future generations of bears from this completely unnecessary and cruel practice that is damaging to nature."

According to Chinese researcher Dr. Yibin Feng, bear farms are "unnecessary centers of animal cruelty," and that "herbal substitutes that are derived from plants are virtually indistinguishable from bear bile in terms of effectiveness." He added, "Bears are being inhumanely treated and bear farming must end in the near-future."

Animals Asia MBE/founder/CEO Jill Robinson concluded, "Our priority is to rehabilitate these bears after their years of trauma from being locked up in small cages and milked for their bile. If we had been forced to relocate it would have [had] a terrible impact on their wellbeing. We want to sincerely thank the tens of thousands of supporters from around the world who wrote letters, sent emails, and signed petitions calling for the eviction to be stopped."

Photo: Now that Animals Asia's sanctuary has been saved from eviction, bears like the one pictured will continue to thrive there. Animals Asia/Dropbox

Australian fires threaten observatory, uncover drug labs

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:03:00 +0000

On January 14, 28 more homes were destroyed by the brushfire currently attacking large portions of Australia. The flames also licked at the country's primary space observatory in Canberra, threatening and damaging portions of the facility, but sparing many precious telescopes that have mapped far-off galaxies and discovered new planets. Meanwhile, a father and son nearby were arrested after deliberately spreading the wildfire to try and destroy illegal drug labs they had been operating, which had been hidden in dense bushland.

The fires were fueled by a record-breaking, scorching heat wave - caused and worsened by climate change - that resulted in emergency evacuations, 100 missing people in Tasmania, and various injuries to workers fighting the blaze, including the death of an elderly firefighter. The biggest blaze has so far blackened 100,000 acres of sensitive forestry around Warrambungle National Park.

The mountaintop Siding Springs Observatory, which houses 15 important telescopes, was caught in the path of the flames, which swept over it along with thick, black smoke. While the telescopes were spared - prompting a collective sigh of relief from the scientific community there - portions of the facility were damaged, nonetheless. Scientists have not yet been able to visit the site to assess the extent of the damage. Siding Springs' telescopes have contributed endless discoveries, including confirming the existence of dark energy and finding over 30 new planets over the past decade.

Australian Astronomical Observatory director Andrew Hopkins remarked, "The significance of the site is absolutely huge. The Siding Spring Observatory site is the premiere astronomical observatory facility in Australia for optical and infrared observing."

While scientists lamented the havoc the wildfires have wreaked, others revelled in the destruction: The father and son who ran several illegal, outdoor drug labs were arrested on January 13 after fueling part of the fire that swept through Blue Mountains National Park, hoping it would burn their labs to a crisp before the police could uncover them. Police, however, were previously aware of the drug sites, but had to postpone a planned raid due to the extreme danger of the fires in the area.

"The two sites were inaccessible by foot and required police to trek through tick-, leech-, and snake-infested shrubland to reach them," said the New South Wales state police in an official statement. They added that the father and son were charged with "the large commercial manufacture of a prohibited drug," as well as contaminating a water catchment area.

Fires continue to sweep across the country, showing no signs of slowing. Scientists say that in the face of global warming, measures must be taken in all countries to ensure the safety of people and houses, and that includes carefully choosing where structures are built. "We're losing homes in fires because homes are being put into hazardous conditions," said Jon Keeley, a fire ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. 'The important thing is to not blame it on the fire event, but instead to think about planning and reducing putting people at risk."

Photo: Michele Landi/Fotopedia (Creative Commons)

Diplomats to gather, address mercury pollution

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:55:00 +0000

Mercury pollution, caused by coal-fired power plants, is a growing worldwide problem. Next week, when diplomats from 128 countries meet in Geneva, Switzerland, that problem will be addressed as they negotiate a treaty on emissions of the deadly neurotoxin.

The conference will be the last of five meetings, and talks of a treaty are expected soon after. Signatories have suggested signing the treaty in Minamata, Japan, a town that famously fell victim to widespread mercury poisoning. But many believe the measures taken against mercury emissions will be soft, and thus inconsequential in curbing the toxin, which can cause brain and IQ damage to the unborn, injure the heart and kidneys, and rack up massive health care costs each year.

The treaty as proposed will reportedly not require identification or remediation of contaminated mercury sites, nor will it require polluters to pay for health damage or environmental clean-up. Ultimately, the treaty is not expected to reduce global mercury levels in fish and seafood.

In 2012, the Obama administration made much-needed progress on reducing mercury emissions. The EPA adopted the first-ever Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which will prevent 90 percent of mercury that emanated from power plants from being released into the air. But as U.S. coal consumption dwindles, it increases elsewhere, and experts say that a large-scale, global solution is needed to reduce these harmful pollutants. As it is, mercury raining down from coal-fired plants has poisoned fish in every single U.S. state. As for fish in Japan and Uruguay - they contained mercury levels so high that according to EPA guidelines, they are regarded as unsafe for human consumption.

The reason why the treaty is so controversial is because it only calls for reductions on a per-facility basis, rather than demanding an overall reduction to emissions in air and water. It will, however, curb emissions from gold mining, which is currently largely unregulated and a significant contributor to mercury pollution.

Experts see the lack of a crackdown on corporate coal-fired power plants as a large part of the problem. "When corporations choose not to remove as much mercury as is humanly possible from the exhausts of their plants, they are damaging the environment, which in turn harms and poisons children and adults," said Dr. Jerome Paulson, medical director of the Children's National Medical Center.

Scientists and environmentalists conclude that something substantial must be done to combat mercury toxicity now, because the effects of the pollutant are long lasting and severe. David Streets, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, noted, "Once emitted into the air, it's like a genie that has escaped the bottle. It takes decades or even centuries to get it fixed."

Photo: Demonstrators rally in support of EPA regulations on toxic air pollution from power plants. (Matt Rourke/AP)

2012 hottest U.S. year ever, warming and wildfires continue

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:32:00 +0000

2012 - a year marked by droughts, brushfires, and crop damage, was the hottest year on record for the lower 48 U.S. states. Extreme weather events became even more commonplace, establishing an undeniable link between the uptick in heat and climate change. The pattern looks set to continue worldwide this year, with scorching temperatures and brushfires burning through Australia this week.

According to an annual State of the Climate report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average temperature last year was 55.3 degrees - that's 3.3 degrees greater than the average had been during the 20th century. Moreover, the U.S. saw more extreme weather events than any year except for 1998 (which saw many due to an influx of tropical storms). NOAA's report on average global temperatures, meanwhile, will be finished soon, and is expected to mark 2012 as the eighth-hottest year on record worldwide. And the heat, experts say, is here to stay.

"We expect to see a continued trend of big heat events," said Deke Arndt, chief of the NOAA's climate monitoring branch. "We expect to see big rain events, and with slightly less confidence, we expect to see a continued trend in drought. This is consistent with what we would expect in a warming world."

Scientists have stressed the age-old facts that many Americans - and many Republicans in Washington - continue to deny: the higher temperatures are due to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels.

Experts have added that the GOP-pushed agenda of climate change denial is going to have dire ramifications for the country and for the world. "A hundred years from now, they're not going to be talking about health care or the fiscal cliff," said Vanderbilt Law School professor Michael Vandenbergh. "They're going to ask, 'What did you do when you knew we were going to have serious climate change?'"

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, remarked, "The facts speak for themselves - whether it's NOAA's announcement today that 2012 was the hottest year on record or the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy."

Scientists from the U.S., U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands are involved in a project called the Bighorn Basin Coring Project, which studies hyperthermal events. In a statement, they noted, "In the next 100 years the combination of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increased temperature could be catastrophic for an overpopulated world ... and there will be a scramble to eat a diminishing and less nutritious food supply" as crops dry up and other food resources are damaged by weather events including drought.

Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona, added, "The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms, and wildfires. This is certainly what I and many other climate change scientists have been warning about."

Climate change's havoc was witnessed outside of the U.S. this week, when Australia recorded its hottest day on record on January 7 and continues to endure vicious brushfires that damaged and destroyed property and burned away thousands of acres of farmland and forest.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard also drew a link between these disasters and global warming, stating, "We know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events and conditions."

Photo: A wildfire burns in Miles City, Florida. Josh O'Connor/Flickr & U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast

Australian wildfires burning out of control

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:46:00 +0000

One hundred and thirty fires blazed across New South Wales, Australia's most heavily populated state, today as emergency teams evacuated national parks and fought to get the flames under control. While there have so far been no deaths reported, 100 people are missing in Tasmania, where a fire destroyed 90 homes. After the numerous fires that ravaged parts of the world in 2012, it seems the plague of climate change will do the same this year.

"You don't get conditions worse than this," said New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. "We are at the catastrophic level," the most severe rating for wildfires.

In New South Wales, more than 74,000 acres have been burned so far by the drought-triggered brushfire. And in Tasmania, 50,000 acres have been scorched, including forests and farmland. A cool front moving across the region this afternoon, however, is expected to bring some relief and avoid major damage to properties.

One volunteer firefighter suffered severe burns to the hands and face while fighting a grass fire in Gundaroo Village (near Sydney) on Monday and was flown to a hospital for treatment. However, both residents and authorities are so far grateful that there have been no confirmed deaths.

"If we get through today without loss of life and loss of property, we'll have had a remarkable escape from what could have been," said New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell.

Temperatures in New South Wales soared to 113 degrees today, and to 108 degrees in Tasmania on January 4 - both record-breakers for their respective areas.

Mitchell Power, assistant professor of geography at the University of Utah, noted, "Our climate is the primary controller of fire, and so we have seen in the last decade. Temperatures have warmed. We're seeing more fires. We're seeing a longer fire season."

The U.S. can expect to see more wildfires like those currently bedeviling Australia in the near future, as global warming worsens.

"America's western forests now see seven times more large fires over 10,000 acres in an average year than in the 1970's," said Dr. Alyson Kenyard, who authored a 2012 report by Climate Central on the issue, which was based on 40+ years of data from the U.S. Forest Service. "Over the same time period, spring and summer temperatures in the west have also increased dramatically."

Writer Joe Romm, who authored a separate study on the issue for Climate Progress, noted that these disasters will grow increasingly common as climate change grows more severe. For the western U.S., for example, he said, "Increases in temperature cause annual mean area burned to increase by 54 percent, relative to the present-day, by the 2050s."

Alasdair Hainsworth, assistant weather services director of the Bureau of Meteorology, remarked, "Extreme heat events such as this one have wide ranging impacts across agricultural and horticultural sectors, infrastructure and transport, and not least human health and safety."

Photo: A helicopter dumps water onto a smoldering fire in the Lane Cove National Park in Sydney. Rick Rycroft/AP

Environment in 2013: You can’t fool Mother Nature

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 12:21:00 +0000

There may not yet be the political will in Congress to pass significant climate change legislation. But we can be sure that any and all efforts to address this issue will continue to get strong support from Mother Nature.

Just as Hurricane Sandy helped convince millions that climate change was indeed real and already affecting us, weather and climate events in 2013 will reinforce that message. The resonance of the climate change deniers' message is receding, in large part due to declining receptiveness to anti-science claims. Millions are learning from their own experiences that predictions of climate-change-induced weather disasters are not some far-off futuristic unlikely event: they are coming true in the here-and-now.

We can't know for certain whether there will be another massive, unexpected hurricane, nor where any of the hurricanes to come this year will strike with greatest force. But we can be certain that this year and for many years to come, at least some hurricanes will be larger and more intense, and will hit ground in unexpected places. And we can be sure that storm surges will continue to start from higher and higher sea levels.

We can be sure that the intense droughts that have swept different parts of the globe, including more than half of the continental United States, along with major agricultural areas of Russia and Australia, will continue. Again, we don't know exactly where or exactly how intense they will be, but there is no doubt that droughts (and desertification) will spread.

Similarly with forest fires. They have grown more numerous and more intense for decades, and their upward trajectory shows no sign of slowing down. Some fires are now so intense that instead of requiring a few decades for the land to recover, it will take over a century.

Every study of the Greenland ice fields is concluding that they are melting at rates hitherto thought impossible, adding more fresh water to the oceans, slowing the Gulf Current and threatening a massive increase in sea levels. Arctic ice sheets are melting faster than predicted, and the "Northern Passage" is becoming a reality - and decreased ice means the darker, underlying water will absorb more heat from the sun, increasing even further the warming at the poles, which is much higher than at more temperate latitudes.

Global warming is, at the very least, contributing to excessively hot summers in different parts of Europe (from France in 2003 to Russia in 2010-11). This not only affects the weather, it also affects the water supply, the growing season, the cost of food worldwide, the spread of drought, increases in health disasters from smog to premature death, in addition to the direct effects on humans and on the demand for energy.

All these problems are going to get worse - the accumulated amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere guarantees that.

One big environmental battle this year will be a renewal of hostilities over the proposed U.S.-Canada Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama first postponed a decision until after last year's elections, then, when pressed by Republicans for an immediate decision, said "No" to the pipeline since there was insufficient time for the State Department to fully evaluate the proposal. Now there are continuing calls by Republicans, by some Democrats, and by some who buy the false claim of the company involved that it will create thousands of jobs. That claim is based on the most generous possible job-multiplier, not on actual jobs working on the pipeline, and based primarily on temporary construction jobs rather than any permanent jobs.

The pipeline is to transport shale oil from fields in Canada (this is why the State Department is involved) to the Gulf Coast, and will mainly be used to ship that oil elsewhere - in other words, it won't directly affect U.S. energy fuel availability nor price. Dr. James Hansen, prominent climate change scientist, has famously said that if the pipeline is built, it will be "game over for the environment." Bill McKibben's 350.org has coordinated many demonstrations last year against the pipeline, and continues to campaign against its construction.

This may result in another pitched battle between congressional Republicans and the White House. Environmentalists are nervous about the position the Obama administration will take, and are watching closely. The Republicans and other pipeline supporters claim that this is an energy-independence, job-creating project, and will continue to make fantastical claims about the supposed benefits. After suffering a public relations disaster following Hurricane Sandy, those who want us to ignore science in the name of short-term financial benefit (in which the benefits will accrue to very large energy companies and their investors, including U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice) persist in their efforts.

But the role of human action is to work to ensure that environmental conditions don't get so much worse that human life is threatened on a mass scale. A healthy humanity needs a healthy planet, and every step we take to heal the planet, or to keep it from getting hit harder, is a contribution to humanity's ability to survive and thrive.

This requires the combined efforts of the environmental movement, the labor movement, the peace movement (war and preparations for war are among the most environmentally destructive things that humans do), the civil rights movements, and youth, rightly worried about their future. Environmental issues are not just other issues we ought to do something about if we can get around to it. Environmental problems affect us all, and will continue to do so in 2013.

Photo: Flickr/Vietnam Student Astronomy Club

Grounded oil rig not yet leaking, investigation underway

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:43:00 +0000

The Kulluk drilling rig, owned by oil company Shell ran aground off Alaska on December 31 after breaking away from tow boats due to near-hurricane condition wind and waves. After several failed attempts to retrieve it, the rig currently remains there - clear evidence, many believe, that oil companies cannot manage operations in the sensitive Arctic, and have no business tampering with it in the first place.

This example of Shell's ineptitude follows a similar fiasco last year, when the company had to cease all oil exploration plans for 2012 after a spill containment system was damaged during tests. That year was marked by vicious opposition from environmental activists, which repeatedly put pressure on the company for its recklessness.

The Kulluk rig, carrying 155,000 gallons of fuel, is still stuck in an area near Kodiak Island. According to Shell officials, there is no evidence of "sheening" in the area, meaning that for the time being, it seems no oil has leaked from the rig.

"This is just the most recent incident in Shell's attempt to drill offshore in the Arctic," said congressman Edward Markey, D-Mass. "It raises serious questions about the company's ability to conduct these operations safely and in a way that protects the environment."

"This string of mishaps with Shell makes it crystal clear that we are not ready to drill in the Arctic," said Chuck Clusen, the National Resources Defense Council's director of Alaska projects.

Fortunately for concerned activists, it seems this mishap will negatively affect Shell's 2013 timetable, with Shell currently clueless as to how long it will take to retrieve the rig. The damage done to it is still being assessed, with salvage experts having been flown to the site on January 2 and 3.

All in all, it looks as though Shell's Arctic project is having as little luck this year as during 2012. Moreover, activists and organizations plan to launch another fightback against Arctic drilling this year.

Greenpeace remarked that the Kulluk rig is "an aging, rusty vessel - not the state-of-the-art fleet that Shell has been boasting about."

Today, 45 House Democrats called on the Interior Department and the U.S. Coast Guard to conduct a formal investigation of the grounding of the Shell rig. The Democrats belong to the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition; in a joint statement, they noted, "The recent grounding of Shell's Kulluk rig amplifies the risks of drilling in the Arctic. This is the latest in a series of alarming blunders." This is a "serious incident," they added, that warrants thorough investigation.

"Shell is not Arctic-ready," said Clusen. "We have lost all faith in Shell, and they certainly don't have any credibility left."

Photo: The Kulluk oil rig. Greenpeace.org

Factory farming: Torture with a side of pollution

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:58:00 +0000

Most factory farms are controversial enough in the way that animals are handled there. Chickens and pigs are crowded into small areas, often for their entire lives, subjected to overfeeding, and denied fresh air and sunlight. But an analysis by the National Resources Defense Council concluded that factory farming also poisons the environment by feeding animal wastes into massive lagoons, which leak and overflow. Pollution regulations are non-existent, to boot.

The manure and urine of the animals are funneled into odorous cesspools of dangerous microbes and drug resistant bacteria, which often get into water supplies. These lagoons also release toxic gases, including hydrogen sulfide, methane, and ammonia. People who work at factory farms are at even greater risk of being exposed to all this than those who live near the lagoons. Often, they inhale chemicals from decomposing manure that can cause headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath, and diarrhea. The effects they have on the body can even result in comas or death.

Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat producer, is perhaps the most notorious example of terrible factory farming conditions. The Arkansas-based corporation has been at the receiving end of many lawsuits, including a case in 2009 where they were found to be dumping hundreds of thousands of tons of bird waste onto sensitive farmland in Oklahoma. That waste subsequently got into rivers that were once pristine, filling them with arsenic, bacteria, and antibiotics.

That, however, seems to be the terrible price the environment pays for corporate agriculture, which Sierra Club conservation organizer Aloma Dew denounced as "threatening the way of life of our family farmers who believe in good-neighbor practices and care about the land and the law. Giant, corporate-owned factory farms are polluting our air and our water."

Factory farms are also responsible for a loss of genetic diversity in animals due to selective breeding, unsustainable use of water and energy, and poor unsanitary conditions for their workers.

Virginia-based pork processor Smithfield Foods has been found guilty of all of these things at one point or another. According to Rolling Stone, 500,000 pigs at a typical Smithfield factory generate more waste per year than all of the human inhabitants of Manhattan. Given that fact, it's particularly troubling that over a four-year period, Smithfield dumped 4.7 million gallons of hog manure into North Carolina's lagoons - which leaked into the rivers. Predictably, Smithfield has treated its workers with as little care as its swine, and has come to blows with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which tried desperately to organize workers throughout the 90's and did not succeed in doing so until 2008, after workers voted in favor of unionizing.

What one can glean from all this is that factory farms have become a destructive, pollutant corporate force in the U.S. But there are solutions to the problems they perpetuate.

The EPA can impose stricter regulations, including pushing for accountability, monitoring water quality, and making these companies pay for the cleanup and disposal of the wastes their animals create. Consumers can also push for improvements by refraining from purchasing meat from companies like Tyson or Smithfield Foods and looking instead for organic, free-range pork and poultry.

"We can't let [these corporations] treat waterways around the country like their personal sewer," said Environment Maryland's Meg Cronin. "It's time for the EPA to put tough limits on factory farm pollution."

Photo: EcoWatch.org