<text>From: biosph-l@ubvm.BITNET, sci.environment@conf.BITNET /* Written 12:12 am Jun 11, 1991 by elves in cdp:en.climate *//* ---------- "Health effects of Global Warming" ---------- */Here's an interesting little item on some of the speciesdistribution effects of climate change. Front Page, large headlinestuff. from the West Australian, Fri, June 7, 1991, page one. ********************************************************************** Global Warming Disease Threat The National Health and Medical Research Council says Australia is already seeing saerious health effects from climatic changes associated with global warming. Epidemics associated with warmer, wetter weather had hit the Northern Territory first but were likely to spread across Australia, the Federal medical body warned. There are already indications of increasing incidence of diseases such as Ross River virus in WA. "What we're facing is probably the biggest health catastrophe the human race has faced." Dr. Tony Adams, Chairman of the NHMRC's public health committee said yesterday. Infectious diseases which had swept across Northern Australia in the past six months had been brought on by one of the wettest rainy seasons that region had experienced. Dr Adams said. "these may be early signs of the Australian situation - signs that things may be going wrong" he told a meeting of the NHMRC. Dr. Aillen Plant, chief medical officer of the NT Department of Health and Communications, said the NT had suffered four major infectiouis diseases epidemics brought on by "the wettest wet we've had in years". Naegleria Fowleri, a usually rare organism known to cause amoebic meningitis was found in a Darwin sam used for water skiing. The dam had to be closed to prevent an outbreak of meningitis. The NHMRC has just released a report into the health effects of climatic change brought on by global warming. The study, by researchers from the Department of Public Health and Nutrition and the Department of Geography at Wollongong University, predicted that all the problems seen in the NT would become widespread as the earth warms. In Perth, WA Environmental Protection Authority cjairman Barry Carbon said there was no doubt that the climate was changing. Those who claimed it was not were wrong. Mr. Carbon said Ross River Virus was a tropical diseasae that was not found in the South of WA 10 years ago. Now it had travelled down from the north-west and occured as far south as Bunbury. Athsma was another serious medical problem that was becoming more prevalent right across Australia. Mr. Carbon said Naegleria Fowleri lived in soil but was killed by chlorine in drinking water supplies. In most cases it reaches the brain by passing through a membrane above the nasal passages after water goes up a swimmer's nose. The NHMRC said earlier this year that the secondary effects of global climate change may be far more devestating than better known threats like rising sea levels. The council warned that most of Australia would very probably experience some environmental change as a result of long-term climate changes and some were already occurring. "It seems highly likely that these changes will create health problems and it is vital that planning be undertaken now to address these problems."it said. The first signs of trouble in the NT appeared when people in Darwin began to develop meliodosis, a rare disease caused by an organism that lives in the soil. The heavy rain made the underground water table rise, bringing the meliodosis organisms to the surface. Dr. Plant said the heavy rains and the need to stay indoors brought on an outbreak of gastroenteritus which "just rolled on for months". Then a Ross River virus epidemic started. ********************************************************************** For you who don't know, WA is Western Australia, NT is the Northern Territory. Ross River virus is a mosquito-borne virus that causes severe muscular / nervous system effects including long-term (years) paralysis in some cases. I have some doubts as to Mr Carbon's statements about the spread south being a result of global warming, s ince the disease only entered WA from the NT about thirty years ago, and has been spreading steadily down the coast. My understanding is that it originally entered the NT fron northern Queensland. The issue is serious, however, since one of the primary effects of global warming will be to change habitats, and therefore species distribution. This is likely to have all sorts of ramifications for our species, and is liable to be devestating to species that are currently under pressure, particularly those on "biological islands", remnant areas of native bush, or unique environments surrounded by physical barriers. The issue of changing distribution of disease is also a major one, since many disease organisms thrive under hotter conditions. Of interest, but not mentioned are the dinoflagellate algae, many species of which are toxic, and some of which cause severe sensory and behavioral effects. These are important given the fact that Australia is a predominately coastal culture, and several new toxic algae have recently been introduced, apparently in bilgewater of freighters, and as an unintentional part of the "first fleet" reenactment. There is one dinoflagellate in particular, found currently off Darwin and in other NT waters, which has the effect of permanently reversing the normal perception of hot and cold. People ingest them when eating fish and shellfish. Other species cause different effects, and we can expect that their range will start to extend southwards. With increased UV light, we can also expect a far higher rate of mutation in both algae and bacteria. Dhanu</text>
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<text>By Jennifer WarrenLOS ANGELES TIMESDUNSMUIR, Calif.—Like a kick in the gut, the scope of the loss finally hit Mike Rode last Tuesday.The sparkling Sacramento River — his longtime laboratory, his workplace, his backyard—was dead, killed by a wily chemical demon that escaped from a wrecked train car.Rode went diving that day — pulled on a wetsuit, snorkel and mask and plunged into a deep river pool with some fellow fish experts. After days of anxious speculation, the biologists wanted to see the carnage close-up."It was like a cemetery down there, corpses everywhere," Rode recalled later, describing the eerie mix of decaying algae and animal carcasses drifting beneath the river's surface. "There was this huge feeling of emptiness. And it hit me that this whole aquatic ecosystem —every last living thing—was gone. It was all dead."There will be more death along the ravaged river, perhaps much more. The television cameras are gone, shifted to fresher news. But left behind is a sterile stream and a vast population of birds and animals robbed of their feeding trough.The endangered bald eagle and the kingfisher, the otters and mink that burrow in the moist river banks, they will be getting hungry now. So too will the raccoons, the herons, the mergansers and the odd little ouzel, a gray bird that hops from rock to rock and gobbles bugs from the river floor.There are no live fish remaining in the waterway, no insects. And, for many river-dependent species, there are no alternatives."The public has the perception that these animals can just go next door and continue to survive," David Smith, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game, said as he knelt beside the foul-smelling river one recent afternoon. "It doesn't work that way. "This habitat is gone—it won't be the same for years and years and years…. And there is nowhere else for them to go."It has been two weeks since a Southern Pacific tank car derailed and spewed its lethal cargo of pesticide into the upper Sacramento, poisoning a 45-mile stretch from north of Dunsmuir down to Shasta Lake. As the toxic slick continues to dissipate in the reservoir, scientists summoned to the worst river disaster in California history are grimly taking stock – cataloguing the losses and mapping plans for what will be a long and difficult recovery.The river will come back, but how quickly is anyone's guess. The full extent of the devastation is not yet clear. With no fish to eat, what will become of the osprey and their chicks peering down from treetop nests? Deprived of insects, how will the salamanders, frogs and other amphibians fare?There are other mysteries as well.The long-term threats posed by the spilled chemical, a soil fumigant called metam-sodium, are unknown. It might disrupt the reproductive systems of wildlife that ingested tainted fish or breathed toxic vapors, jeopardizing future generations.It could also decimate the river's dense canopy of riparian plants, a vitally important jungle that stabilizes the stream banks and provides nesting habitat, food and shelter for countless species. Already, many small willows have turned crispy and died, clumps of Indian rhubarb are brown and wilted, and towering alder and cottonwood trees are sagging, their leaves yellow. "There are a lot of unknowns right now," said Smith, who estimated that 250 species of birds, mammals and amphibians may be touched by the spill. What is certain "is that we've wiped out the entire ecological pyramid. If it had been one layer, say the top of the pyramid, it wouldn't be so bad. But here, the whole foundation of the food chain has just been swept away."You can hear anguish and anger in the scientists' voices as they walk the river, surveying the damage, making notes and theorizing about what may lie ahead. They wonder why Southern Pacific did not improve the notorious stretch of track where the train derailed. Why the pesticide was not transported in a double-hulled car. Why railroad crews did not quickly pump some of the chemical out of the punctured tanker, stemming the toxic leakage.James Nelson, a Fish and Game botanist, summed up the feeling this way: "We biologists went into this field because we like to study living things. What we're doing here is writing an obituary."Mixed in with the sorrow, however, is a keen scientific curiosity: "I wish this disaster had never happened," said Rode, who has studied the upper Sacramento River for Fish and Game for 13 years. "But scientifically speaking, we have a great, rare opportunity here to watch an entire ecosystem regenerate."Because of the Sacramento's fame as an unparalleled fishing stream, public attention has focused on when the native fish will return. Hundreds of thousands of trout, sculpin and other fish were killed by the chemical plume, and some experts say it may take 10 years or more for their populations to rebuild.But before the fishery can recover, the underpinnings of the aquatic food chain must first take root. At the very bottom is algae, the mossy green coating that makes the river's stones slick.The pesticide quickly killed off the nutrient-rich plant, turning it into a milky brown goo that now does little but consume oxygen as it decays. Gradually, spores of algae from tributaries and the two-mile stretch of river above the spill will float into the sterile area and recolonize on the rocks. Assuming there is no toxic residue in the stream, the algae may be fully reestablished within a year, said Charles R. Goldman, director of the Institute of Ecology at the University of California, Davis.Once this fundamental food crop is thriving again, the next rung on the ladder—insect larvae—can begin to take hold. Adult insects on tributary streams will mate and lay their eggs on the decimated river in the weeks and months to come. Their populations, however, can only rebound once the larvae's nutritional source (the algae) is in place."There will be caddis flies, dragon flies, salmon flies, may flies— all very important fish food," Goldman said. "Some of the larvae will begin drifting into the river right away, but until the very base of the food pyramid is established, they will starve."Returning with the insect larvae will be tiny invertebrates like freshwater limpets and worms. Meanwhile, trout that survived in tributaries and above the derailment site will swim into the main river, looking to regain a foothold. Initially, they will not survive, finding the waters an ecological desert.But ultimately, perhaps as early as next spring's spawning season, there will be food to sustain some. Gradually, these pioneers will reproduce, and the fishery will expand. It will be five years or more however, before any reach the hefty size that once drew anglers from across the state.Once the fish return, the rehabilitation will slowly spiral upward through the pyramid, through the ranks of amphibians, small mammals and birds. Ultimately, Smith hopes, the 45-mile stretch will regain its "carrying capacity" —or its ability to sustain a diverse balance of animal life.But no one knows when that will occur. And until it does, wildlife linked to the river are "in trouble," Smith said. "We will lose populations. We don't know the numbers, we don't know how far the ripple will extend up the food chain.... But there will be long-term effects."Warren, Jennifer. "Every Last Thing Was Dead. Toxic Spill Makes River Ecosystem and Aquatic Desert." Los Angeles Times News Service. Published in Albuquerque Journal. 28 July 1991.</text>
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<text>Greenhouse card #1Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1991 17:41:21 PDTReply-To: larris@IGC.ORGSender: List Owner <davep@acsu.buffalo.edu>From: larris@IGC.ORGSubject: GREENHOUSE BLUES /* Written 5:39 pm Jul 19, 1991 by toma in cdp:en.climate *//* ---------- "GREENHOUSE BLUES" ---------- */Howdy. I hate to come out as a pinko, but here's an essay which I just published in Socialist Review. It's the new technoscience issue and may be of general interest. -- toma GREENHOUSE BLUES "A permanent modern scenario: apocalypse looms, and it doesn't occur... Apocalypse has become an event that is happening, and not happening. It may be that some of the most feared events, like those involving the irreparable ruin of the environment, have already happened. But we don't know it yet, because the standards have changed. Or because we do not have the right indexes for measuring the catastrophe. Or simply because this is a catastrophe in slow motion. -- Susan Sontag [1] The 1990 edition of the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World [2] claims we have about 40 years to establish a sustainable economy -- or be engulfed in a self-perpetuating spiral of ecological and economic decline. It's an odd, precise figure, the sort usually discounted as a product of apocalyptic excess. These days, though, it seems to warrant extra consideration. For one thing, the elements of the projected catastrophe -- from pollution, extinction, and population growth to deforestation and the ecological costs of energy production -- have become depressingly familiar. For another, the power, inertia, and sheer dilapidation of the global economy have begun to sink in, as have the depth and power of institutionalized militarism. Twenty years after the first Earth Day, we are then perhaps only 40 years from the abyss. If the greenhouse theorists are right -- and the bulk of the evidence suggests that they are -- local ecological crises must be seen in the light of, and indeed as elements of, theeven more threatening catastrophe of climatic destabilization. This aggregation offers the perverse satisfaction of rendering equivocation and half-measures absurd, but it may also set the stage for a tragic denouement that has been centuries in the making. Death, to misquote Samuel Johnson, concentrates the mind wonderfully, and it's for just this reason that global warming makes so potent a subject of reflection. The frames within which it is presented reveal, with rare clarity, the presumptions and prejudices of the framers. This is true in the media battle between those who emphasize the near-consensus among scientists on the warming and those whose stories abet equivocation and business-as-usual. And it's true in the environmental movement, where the warming, though unproven, is taken dead seriously, and the debate centers on its political and cultural significance. THE SCOPE OF THE THREAT The major consequences of a rapid greenhouse warming have been envisioned in detail: dying reefs, withering forests, seas of refugees (many of them leaving the United States), extinction, drought, and crushingly violent storms. Still, and despite the clarity of such foresight, uncertain and prospective events are difficult to force onto the policy agenda -- especially in the United States, where much of the ruling elite regards the costs of prevention as a threat more dire than the warming itself. The bulk of the greenhouse warming is caused by carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and methane, gases which have been called "nontraditional" pollutants because they take their toll not by despoiling isolated regions but by accumulating globally and destabilizing the biosphere as a whole. CO2, which because of its sheer abundance is the most damaging of the greenhouse gases, is an unavoidable product of fossil-fuel consumption -- and the cheap, easy energy available from fossil fuels has played a major and largely unappreciated role in the history of industrial capitalism. Now, it seems imperative to drastically reduce the use not only of methane and CFCs, but of the fossil-fuels as well, even though this reduction implies a radical break with the energy economy that has underlain capitalism from its very earliest days. As the Gulf War has once again shown, this break will not come easily. There is -- and this is crucial -- much that can be done, though not an indefinite time to do it in. This is clear from the gap between "bad case" and "good case" scenarios, both supplied by the World Resources Institute [3]. In the bad case, no substantive effort is made to slow C02 emissions, increase energy efficiency, or speed solar development, although CFC production and use is brought in line with the Montreal Protocol. The outcome? By 2020, an average global temperature of from 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit greater than it was a century ago, and by 2075 a rise of 5.8 to 17.5 degrees! If coal use increases as well -- a real possibility, particularly in China -- the warming could soon reach a truly staggering magnitude. (Even this isn't the worst case scenario, since there's a possibility of a "super greenhouse effect" set off by a relatively small warming and a series of "positive feedbacks" on it. Melting permafrost ice, for example, could release massive amounts of methane, an extremely powerful greenhouse gas.) In the "good case" scenarios, such as they are, strong global efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions allow the atmosphere to stabilize. Oil, gas, and coal prices are sharply increased, per capita energy use declines in industrialized countries, and support for solar development is radically increased. Tropical countries not only stop decimating their rain forests but begin large-scale reforestation efforts. And so on. The World Resources Institute model indicates that, even if all these heroic efforts had begun in 1988, there would still be a warming of 3 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2075, when the temperature would level off. Such a temperature increase, over such a short period of time, is unprecedented in human history, and could well be large enough to cause massive ecological and social disruptions. According to the First Assessment Report [4] of the scientific committee of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. agency chartered with the task of coordinating global warming policy, the "state of scientific knowledge" indicates that such a "stabilization" is the best that can be expected, and would require "an immediate reduction in global man-made [CO2] emissions by 60 to 80%." So, if greenhouse theory is valid, the whole global economy must be restructured, fundamentally and soon. The longer marketeers push their phony optimism, the longer politicians dispute, equivocate, and lie, the longer technicians strain for faith in the viability of half measures, the worse the odds will get. Not that these are the last days -- humans are adaptable and will likely survive (which is more than can be said for lots of other species). But each moment wasted is another step along a path to an ugly and inauspicious future. As the predictions of greenhouse theory have become familiar, they -- like ecology in general -- have emerged as key social metrics. We now know, for example, that ours is not a "sustainable" society, and as the ecological crisis worsens this charge becomes damning in a manner that somehow exceeds all prior accusations. It's no wonder, then, that ecological and climactic science are clotted with politics, or that the media frames imposed on greenhouse theory often emphasize "uncertainty," cost, and the putative dangers of "over-reaction." The issues here are difficult, for science resists reduction to ideology, even as it can offer ideology its firmest ground. Witness the influence of John Sununu, architect of U.S. greenhouse policy and probably the first high U.S. official to hold a PhD in fluid dynamics, a PhD he uses to disguise a corrupt and technocratic optimism as legitimate scientific skepticism. The outlines of at least the immediate future are clear. The Bush Administration has distinguished itself by the vehemence of its opposition to meaningful anti-greenhouse policies, while every other wealthy industrial country has taken at least tentative steps toward stabilizing or reducing CO2 emissions by the year 2000. Germany, New Zealand, Denmark, and Australia have committed themselves to emission reductions of at least 20 percent by 2005, and though this is cause for hope, global negotiations have been all but paralyzed by the U.S. delegation. (The first U.N. session, held February 1991 in Chantilly Virginia, was spent, by U.S. insistence, on procedural matters. All substantive proposals were deferred.) Meanwhile, in the Third World, particularly India and China, efforts to engage the greenhouse issue have been caught up in charges of "environmental colonialism." And in the old Soviet bloc, particularly the Soviet Union itself, rapid progress does not appear likely. All in all, it's fair to say that the politics of the greenhouse are inseparable from the politics of the larger world system -- which suffers its fossil-fuel dependency as only one element in a rich variety of debilitating legacies. ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIMISM, ECOLOGICAL DESPAIR The most compelling of the new greenhouse books are probably Stephen Schneider's Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century?, Michael Oppenheimer and Robert Boyle's Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect and Bill McKibben's The End of Nature [5]. Taken together, they form a grim syllabus, not only about global warming but also about the depth of the environmental movement's break with systemic political analysis. Each chooses, in its own manner and for its own reasons, to present the erosion of climatic stability by the fossil-fuel economy -- coal and oil! -- with barely a nod to the political, economic, or ideological dynamics of the society within which it developed. Stephen Schneider, head of Interdisciplinary Climate Systems at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is among the most famous of the greenhouse scientists, and serves well to reveal the contours of mainstream environmentalism. Schneider cuts an interesting figure -- the liberal public scientist as statesman of the greenhouse age. His world is big science and big government, and though he spends a good deal of time debating Reaganesque bureaucrats and politicians, he doesn't allow himself to lose hope. Trained in the habits of rationalism, he sees an emergency and thinks the need for a cooperative global response will soon be undeniable. He is a pragmatist, as he believes the times require. In Scientific American's special "Managing Planet Earth" issue, Schneider argued that conversion to a post-greenhouse economy would cost "hundreds of billions of dollars every year for many decades, both at home and in financial and technical assistance to developing nations," yet he was confident that this was a realistic possibility. Anticipating a pessimistic reading, he argued that pessimism was too easy, that not long ago "a massive disengagement of NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe also seemed inconceivable." [6] And so it did, to many. But today, with the flush of post-Cold War euphoria long past, the case for pessimism is again obvious. It is well known that world military expenditures, at almost a trillion dollars per year, could feed and educate the entire human race. They could also build a post-greenhouse economy. The question is whether they'll ever be spent doing so. Optimism can be dangerous. When the Worldwatch Institute's ten-hour series, The Race to Save the Planet -- which took five years and $7 million to produce -- was recently broadcast in the San Francisco Bay Area, one local critic remarked that it devoted so much time to upbeat segments (designed, presumably, to avoid spreading doom and gloom) that it left the impression that the situation wasn't that grim after all. The producers had stumbled in the great, precarious tug-of-war of ecologic politics, which, despite widespread grassroots activism and an increasingly coherent analysis, is torn between despair on the one side and liberal optimism on the other. Here's an extreme dose of inspirational liberal optimism, from Dead Heat, written by Michael Oppenheimer, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Robert Boyle. This text was reprinted (as "Techno-Hope") in the 1990 Earth Day issue of Mother Jones: The change began in 1992 when the nations of the world, under the guidance of the United Nations Environmental Program, signed an agreement to limit greenhouse gases. Cynics scoffed at a "toothless" accord, but they failed to notice the underlying currents. Battered by foreign economic invasion and constrained by a limited budget, the United States canceled the Super Collider, the Space Station, and Star Wars and diverted billions to research and education. By the mid-1990s, it had concluded a series of treaties with the Soviet Union, which led gradually to a mutual reduction of forces. But the expected blow to the defense contractors never materialized because the government poured some of the billions of dollars saved into procurement of solar energy sources, and several large companies quickly converted to renewable-energy development. The trend accelerated when the Great Drought of the late nineties struck and industry began the total phaseout of fossil fuels. Now rich nations compete to supply smaller countries with solar cells rather than weapons. One must ask the purpose of such prose. Should it be excused as bad exhortatory fiction, or is it true to the dreams of Washington environmentalists? If this the hope they can imagine, it's no wonder that "radical environmentalism," as it has emerged in the last decade, has chosen pessimism. Examples of radical pessimism are easy to come by, but Bill McKibben's The End of Nature is distinguished by its vivid evocation of greenhouse crisis and by its relentless despair. McKibben is an apostle of deep-ecological radicalism. Not being a scientist, he need not posture at objectivity -- yet neither does he accept political and economic views. To even name this society as "capitalist" and insist that the distinctions made thereby are significant strikes him as absurd. The warming is only the last in a long series of attacks on the environment, and politics too small a thing to place against the end of wilderness. We can and should resist -- with direct action, by consuming less, wearing sweaters around the house, not having children -- but it won't be enough, not really. Soon we'll find ourselves almost alone, with only the plants and animals we've chosen to save, on a desiccated and lonely world. It's a view so tragic as to be almost absurd, were it not for its desire to face the whole grim truth. With the U.S. Administration bent on resisting any real greenhouse treaty, there's a strong temptation to see the measures being taken elsewhere -- like Germany's commitment to a 25 percent cut in CO2 production by the year 2005 -- as substantial alternatives. But are they? The Third World is now well along on the road of fossil-fuel industrialism -- will the Europeans pay to help it go solar instead? In the next 40 years? McKibben knows of the calls for massive military cuts and a crash campaign of conversion to a post-greenhouse economy; he just doesn't think it's going to happen. "UNCERTAINTY" AS IDEOLOGY In February 1990, when President Bush addressed the UN's climatic change panel, many environmentalists were bitterly disappointed. They had allowed campaign rhetoric about a "White House effect" to seduce them into hope for emergency initiatives, and now Bush, instead of giving voice to any spirit of emergency, had insisted that greenhouse policy "be consistent with economic growth and free-market principles." [7] Just days before Bush delivered his speech, revisions had transformed it from one that emphasized the seriousness of global warming to one that emphasized scientific uncertainties and made no recommendations for action. In the preceding months, the media had taken the same turn, buzzing with reports that scientists (except for a few greenhouse radicals) in fact doubted the warming predictions. On December 13, 1989, for example, The New York Times ran a cover feature on the "greenhouse skeptics," and Forbes -- which subsequently began advertising itself as "The magazine that's not afraid to take a little heat" -- ran an expose on "The Global Warming Panic" (in its 1989 Christmas issue.) The backstage maneuvering had been going on for some time, with both greenhouse theorists and skeptics pressing their arguments in Washington as the time for Bush's speech approached. In September 1989, for example, Richard S. Lindzen of M.I.T and Jerome Namais of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography wrote the White House, arguingthat current global warming forecasts "are so inaccurate and fraught with uncertainty as to be useless to policy makers." Sununu and Bush, according to press reports, "welcomed the input." [8] Lindzen and Namais are both noted meteorologists and members of the National Academy of Sciences. Lindzen, who is perhaps the leader of the anti-greenhouse scientists, has made major contributions to atmospheric theory. Their views carry weight. Yet Lindzen's theories are, by his own words, of a "theological or philosophical" nature [9], and reduce to a faith in the existence of atmospheric dynamics, yet undiscovered, of sufficient magnitude to counter the known effects of the greenhouse gases. That such faith can be used to justify U.S. intransigence in U.N. greenhouse negotiations indicates how strong the political currents running below the surface of "objective" science can be. More specifically, it demonstrates the ideological uses, not only here but in a variety of debates over cancer and toxicity, of the "uncertainty" of scientific data. (Incidentally, one of Lindzen's chief claims -- that water vapor may diminish rather than amplify global warming -- was refuted by research published only a month after Bush's speech. [10]) Uncertainty plays such a key role in scientifically loaded policy debates because it converts the question "What is to be done?" into "Should anything be done at all?" Witness Warren Brookes' Forbes article, which asks whether greenhouse warming is "the 1990s version of earlier scares: nuclear winter, cancer-causing cranberries and $100 oil?" and goes on to assert that "just as Marxism is giving way to markets, the political `greens' seem determined to put the world economy back into the red, using the greenhouse effect to stopunfettered market-based expansion." [11] Further, Brookes says, even though "60% of the public is convinced [global warming] will worsen," in reality "the evidence of that alleged trend is under increasingly sharp and solid attack." Is it indeed? This claim, common in the popular press, directly contradicts the scientific consensus and the conclusions of the U.N. IPCC's scientific committee. (The United States has its greatest veto power in the policy committee). Yet because climatic dynamics are both complex and poorly understood, uncertainty can always be made to seem plausible simply by citing data selectively. Brookes, for example, is careful to focus on U.S. statistics, rather than the global statistics that would contradict his chosen view. All scientists acknowledge uncertainties in the atmospheric models. The real debate turns on the meaning of that uncertainty, and its ideological uses. These uses are both conscious and deliberate, as demonstrated by a White House memo to the American IPCC delegation, which was leaked to the press in April 1990. The memo's list of "debates to avoid" included whether "there is or is not" global warming and how much warming could be expected. "In the eyes of the public," it went on, "we will lose this debate. A better approach is to raise the many uncertainties that need to be understood on this issue." [12] "Uncertainty" has a different meaning in the laboratory than in the White House press room. Though scientists argue over the details, the scientific community accepts the thrust of greenhouse theory for the simple reason that it dovetails with routine laboratory physics. Carbon dioxide, methane and the CFCs do trap heat; that's why they're called greenhouse gases. The rising atmospheric concentrations of these gases are not in dispute; nor is the geological record, which indicates that increases in CO2 correlate with increased temperatures. And though the earth's metabolism incorporates many buffers -- ice sheets, forests, oceans, clouds -- there's no scientific reason to believe that these buffers will neutralize the vast seas of CO2 that will be spewed into the air in the coming century. The summer of 1988, with its wilting heat wave and corresponding spike of greenhouse fear, was ages ago in ideological time. (Though globally 1990 was the hottest year on the recent record books.) The anti-greenhouse counter-revolution began in 1989, and today, as oil, recession, and militarism push hope, ecology and Eastern Europe off the front page, it's wise to brace for a wave of denial and lies. Even before the Gulf War, with ecology still in the media foreground, the greenhouse debate had begun to thicken with equivocation. Now, stonewalling is official U.S. policy. The near future of the debate is reasonably predictable. It is only necessary to project current trends, and to review the history of another atmospheric crisis -- the destruction of the ozone layer by chlorinated chemicals. Here, too, laboratory science predicted the threat. Here, too, the difficulty of proving atmospheric damage made it possible for interested powers to frame a scientific near-consensus as controversy -- even though it was already clear in 1973 that CFCs damaged the ozone layer. Only the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole finally turned the tide. (If indeed it has been turned at all. The 1990 revision to the Montreal Protocol allows half again the CFCs produced in the past 50 years to be produced in the next ten! [13]) Sherwood Rowland, the scientist whose lab discovered the ozone-shredding properties of CFCs, once commented "It is quite common on the scientific side of industry to believe that there aren't any real environmental problems, that there are just public relations problems." [14] It's an astute remark. Public relations, not physics, is the paradigm science of the modern age, and it's difficult to imagine it counting for more than it does today, when 76 percent of the American people describe themselves as environmentalists. Why, finally, is prudence so difficult, even in the face of a more-than-plausible catastrophe? There are many answers, but rising above the fog is the insistence that the economy be left unfettered unless it can be "proved" that the ecological costs of inaction areabsolutely intolerable. Meanwhile, 1990 was the hottest year to date, the year that dying coral reefs (global warming is the chief suspect) became big news, and the fourth straight record year for coal production.FOSSIL-FUEL DEPENDENCY The fossil-fuel economy is expensive, very expensive. In the United States, subsidies to the automobile alone are about as large as the military budget -- amounting to $2,200 per car per year, or $400 billion a year! [15] (The U.S. truck and auto fleet now exceeds 180 million vehicles, up from 108 million in 1970. That's one for every 1.7 Americans, up from one for every 2.4 per in 1970). In fact, the real auto subsidy is much larger: although the $400 billion figure includes highway and road construction and repair, as well as other direct support services like police protection and paramedical aid, it does not include indirect costs like the estimated $47 billion the United States has annually spent patrolling the Persian Gulf -- a figure that has recently been substantially increased. And then there are the billions that go to Big Oil each year as tax shelters and depletion allowances, the health costs associated with the burning of fossil fuels, and the costs of the strategic petroleum reserve and oil-spill cleanups. The cost of this last item alone vastly exceeds the entire solar-energy budget. As for the ultimate costs of oil and coal dependence, these defy calculation. The fossil fuels benefit from fantastic, almost unaccountable subsidies -- paid in dependence, demoralization, and catastrophe, as well as in cash. In the 1970s, it seemed that a scarcity of oil might force a transition to a new energy economy, but in the last few years more fossil fuel has been discovered than has been extracted from the ground. This trend leaves state regulation standing alone, without increased energy prices to buttress environmental policies -- a situation that will likely remain for the indefinite future. Just before the war OPEC held a meeting that focused on Western European moves to reduce pollution by curbing the use of oil. Calling this "a serious challenge," a Saudi official said that OPEC economists would study the environmental concerns of Western Europe and the effects they might have on the use of oil. [16] Now, after the war, price stability -- at a level advantageous to the winners -- is the order of the day, and there's little chance that the cost of oil will go high enough to force a real energy transition. The New York Times Magazine recently claimed that "many people, throughout the world, believe that the implications -- scientific, economic, medical, social, technological and political -- of LA's environmental confrontation foreshadow the showdown awaiting the entire world." [17] It's a plausible claim. If even Los Angeles, one of the world's richest cities, can't control its air pollution, can there be any hope in the larger global "showdown"? At issue, of course, is the auto-industrial economy, or rather, the car. Cars mean individual freedom, and given the social and physical structure of the modern world, and especially of its cities, it's not hard to see why. Roads jam and commutes grow ever longer, but instead of real mass transit (which is hard to build for the low-density cities of the automobile age) we get "auto environments" -- quieter cars, CD stereos, recorded novels, cellular phones, and even microwave ovens. Even technical fixes, long scorned by eco-radicals as means of avoiding substantive changes, are considered threats -- to the point where it's hard to imagine a technology as revolutionary as, say, insulation, being used to anything approaching its potential. In late 1988 a mild EPA report on greenhouse policy became instantly controversial, recommending as it did auto efficiency standards of 40 miles per gallon, plantation-grown wood as a fossil-fuel substitute, and the aggressive pursuit of solar power. Such initiatives pose no threat to capitalism, at least not in the abstract, though they seem to threaten this particular capitalism, with all its ties -- in history, ideology and infrastructure -- to cheap fossil fuels. If there is to be a conversion to a post-greenhouse economy, the power of the fossil-fuel sector must be broken. This, obviously, is a tall order, for we inhabit a world in which "cheap" fossil fuels face us on every side, objectified as cities, factories, ruling elites. It will take work to get out of here, and luck, and planning. But, at least in the United States, free-market ideology is so strong, and planning held in such ill esteem, that even government research and development funds for computer and networking technologies are threatened. One need be no friend of the high-tech path to see that, if the dogmatic allure of minimal government can endanger developments such as these, solar power and light rail are far from any renaissance.</text>
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<text>Greenhouse card #2PREVENTION VERSUS ADAPTATION In the greenhouse literature, conversion strategies aimed at reducing the production of greenhouse gases (i.e. carbon taxes aimed to phase out fossil-fuels) go by the name of "prevention," while muddling along as the climate changes (i.e. building dikes against rising seas) is known as "adaptation." Environmentalists support prevention, while mainstream economists, following their own failing god, usually advocate "freeing" the market to reshape society (and nature) to the new climate. Usually, the debate is restrained, and the likely specifics of adaptation -- political chaos, for example, or ferocious storms -- disappear in a cloud of genteel generalization. And though everyone knows that some adaptation will be inevitable, environmentalists don't like to admit it, justifiably fearing that such an admission will help force prevention from the agenda. It's easier, after all, to breed drought-resistant crops (the Israelis are already doing so) than to convert to a sustainable economy; easier to insure against a possible rise in sea level by raising the height of offshore drilling platforms (Shell Oil is already doing so) than to reduce oil consumption. Stephen Schneider has weighed into the prevention-vs-adaptation debate with the notion of "active adaptation," in which preventive measures are used to slow the warming and a planned post-greenhouse infrastructure is phased in as the existing infrastructure wears out. It's a fine idea, if a bit abstract, and he tries to make it practical as well by arguing that the adaptations necessary to stabilize the atmosphere -- conservation, reforestation, and all the rest -- would be economically beneficial in themselves, regardless of any threat of global warming. The U.S. economics establishment, for its part, is wasting no time in combatting moves to make prevention strategies appear reasonable. The New York Times, in a front-page story by economics writer Peter Passell, entitled "Cure for Greenhouse Effect: The Costs Will Be Staggering," [18] sketched the drift of official opinion. "Crude initial estimates," Passell opines, indicate that for at least the next 50 years it will be cheaper to adapt to greenhouse warming than to attack its causes. He then presents a number of economists, all regally unconcerned by the "externalities" ignored by their models -- storms, starvation, extinction -- and suffering little strain extending their traditional views to emerging conditions. Harvard's Thomas Shelling argues that increasing costs for irrigation and flood control will raise the price of food by only 20 percent, that the quality of life 100 years from now will depend as much on technology and capital as on the amount of CO2 in the air, and that "if money to contain carbon dioxide emissions comes out of other investment, future civilizations could be the losers." In another article, Passell is even more sanguine. Citing Department of Agriculture estimates that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would cost $170 billion annually in reduced agricultural productivity, he concluded, "That's a lot of money. But it amounts to just 1 percent of current world income. As [Bush's Council of Economic Advisors] argues, it is in the same ballpark as the costs of government regulations that now distort food production and reduce its total value. To put it another way, freer markets in agriculture, the Council suggests, could more than offset greenhouse-effect losses." [19] There are more examples, equally appalling. The anti-prevention economists tend to the political right, and generally see the economy as conforming to some idealized notion of free-market efficiency. In reality, the economy is anything but efficient, as is shown by the work of physicist and alternative energy analyst Amory Lovins. A "LEAST COST" ENERGY ECONOMY? Lovins, best known for his Soft Energy Paths [20], takes a position so far from the traditional standard that it's hard to believe he's describing the same world. While many economists argue that conversion to a post-greenhouse world is unaffordable, especially in the Third World, Lovins insists that it would be far cheaper to cut greenhouse gas emissions by increasing energy efficiency than to continue along the present path. Further, he sees energy efficiency as a prerequisite for sustainable development, and believes that "far from being costly, abating global warming should, on the whole, be immensely profitable. Improving energy productivity can save the world upwards of a trillion dollars per year -- as much as the global military budget." Lovins isn't crazy. He's simply worked out the "inefficiencies" in world energy markets, in detail, and concluded that the world can be saved by being rationally frugal. Talking about a 1981 book, Least Cost Energy: Solving the CO2 Problem, which he coauthored, Lovins says, "We began by documenting the potential to save about three- fourths of the energy used in 1973 to run the West German economy... We then imagined, a century hence, an entire world industrialized to that level: a world of eight billion people, with a fivefold gross increase in the World Product and a tenfold increase in developing countries' economic activity. Yet if, in such a world, energy were used in ways that saved money with 1980 prices and technologies, total energy use would fall to a third of today's level... Of course, a world with eight billion people industrialized to a West German standard may be unrealistic or undesirable for other reasons. Our point was that an energy policy built on efficiency would enable the Earth to support a prosperous civilization that was not plagued by acid rain, global warming, urban smog, nuclear proliferation and deforestation." [21] And what of Lovins' view that the market makes a good vehicle for such discipline? It makes his work interesting in two respects. First, by showing just how far today's economy diverges from one based on "least cost" energy, he proves the ideological nature of analyses that treat the existing economy as the product of "efficient" market forces. Second, his faith in the market prompts a key question: Why, after all, is our present society so monumentally inefficient? Is it, as Lovins believes, because powerful institutional forces prevent the market from imposing economic discipline? Or is it, as green radicals have long claimed, the very success of the market -- in particular its success in "externalizing" social and ecological costs -- that is to blame? Certainly the captains of industry skip out on the bill whenever they can, but this doesn't prove the market compels them to do so, for today's economy is structured as much by militarism and state subsidy as by direct market force. What part, then, does the market play? Is this even an important question, or is it enough to know that countries and corporations alike find profit and comparative advantage in wasted energy? If some new energy policy could change the rules of the game, making it more profitable to pursue a solar transition than to continue along the present disastrous path, would that policy stand a chance of being implemented? Lovins believes that it would, and perhaps he's right. But is such an energy policy possible, given the degree to which the rich and powerful have bound their interests to the fossil fuels? Is it possible soon enough? THE POLITICS OF EMERGENCY Like ecological crisis in general, the greenhouse crisis compels us to ask, first of all, what will work. Unfortunately, this isn't a simple question, even in the best of cases -- and judging by the rush to parlay the greenhouse crisis into a rebirth for nuclear power, it doesn't appear that much rational, clear-headed pragmatism will come of this emergency. Just how much room remains for cheap maneuvering is clear from the wave of articles we've suffered in the last few years on a "new generation" of "passively safe" reactors. The anti-nuclear battle, it seems, will have to be fought once again, and this time the battle lines will not be clearly drawn. Senator Wirth caught the spin of greenhouse nuclear boosterism just right when he argued, a few years back, that it's time for the country to get over the "nuclear measles." "The environmentalists will come around," he added. "They can't help but come around." [22] And some environmentalists have come around. William Reilly, director of the Environmental Protection Agency, is one of them, and so is Schneider, who finds himself compelled to advocate "inherently safe" nukes -- in a book published by the Sierra Club! [23] Thus, environmentalists take up the spirit of emergency, but sometimes only deepen the fogs of false necessity that obscure the real choices. Lovins, with his insistence on simple economics, is rather clearer, noting that "investing in nuclear power rather than in far cheaper energy-efficient technologies will make global warming worse." [24] It's a point that alone justifies the end of the nuclear industry. It also shows how, amidst apocalyptic storms, the "least cost" argument can be a welcome tonic -- the more you spend on nukes, the less you have for fluorescent bulbs, weatherstripping, solar research and mass transit. It's from the strength of such simple economics, ultimately, that "Third Wave Environmentalism" draws its charms. The Third Wavers, from the Worldwatch Institute to the Environmental Defense Fund to the EPA, seek to yoke the market to the goal of ecological reform -- and to avoid stickier political issues -- by arguing that the best hope lies in modulating existing markets with new taxes (like carbon taxes) and in creating new markets in abstract goods like tradable "pollution rights." With such markets in place, both companies and countries could profit by controlling pollution, for any unused space in their pollution allocations could be sold to the highest bidder. The goal of such devices is to "internalize" ecological costs into the economic calculus, and to thereby avoid the absurdities that occur when bureaucracies attempt to micromanage economies. In other words, Third Wavers want to use the market to force the larger economy to adapt to natural limits. The historical background here is crucial -- traditional pollution-control measures have failed, and just about everyone admits it. Further, in the wake of the Eastern Bloc catastrophe, state-centered "planning" is held in poor repute indeed. The Third Wavers,without faith in democratic forms of planning (if they have even heard of them) see the market as the sole alternative to bureaucratic command-and-control. These days, there are even radical Third-Wavers, dreaming of markets that, though still capitalist, have become both ecologically efficient and democratically accountable. [25] It's a desperate dream, to be sure, for it relegates popular opposition to the margins of a market-oriented politics. "Substantive democracy" is just not in the cards. Democracy may be possible, even necessary, but ecological realism demands that the old dream of liberation yield to the "socialization of the market." Can Third-Wave environmentalism work? The test must come in the real social world. Could a global market in CO2-emissions rights, as Bush has half-seriously proposed, really help? The first problem is determining just how much CO2 each country would have the "right" to generate in the first place. If any matter was ever complicated, this is it, but it's fair to say that, in general, the issue is split between the North and the South, with the North preferring quotas based on GNP and the South preferring quotas based on population. This is a rather basic disagreement, and it's hard to imagine it being overcome without social changes that go far beyond those imagined by Third Wave reformers. In fact, it's difficult to be optimistic about the prospects for any kind of regulation, direct or market-mediated, as long as the core institutions of society -- the market, militarism, property and wage relations, the fossil-fuel economy -- are taken as surface phenomena amenable to easy manipulation by bureaucratic agencies. Consider Los Angeles again, or any traffic-clotted U.S. city. What institutions were central to its construction? Well, there's the auto-industrial complex, for starters, but also the real-estate market. How shall they be regulated? Fossil Fuels Policy Action, a small and not particularly Third Wave organization, proposes a "paving moratorium." [26] It's a simple, lovely idea, and we may perhaps measure our condition by checking to see if we can take it seriously. THE THIRD WORLD The greenhouse debate has split the planet between the industrialized nations and countries like China and India that claim that, since they currently generate only a fraction of the greenhouse gases, they should be substantially aided for cooperating in ways that will impede their development. As things stand, their claim is more than reasonable. The habits of the average North American release five tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, while the global average, an average that includes North Americans, is only half a ton. From an ecological perspective, everything depends on the Third World following a post-greenhouse path. If it doesn't, conservation gains in the industrialized countries will be swamped by deforestation and increased greenhouse gas production in the Third World -- where the rate of growth of energy production, much of it based on burning dirty coal, is twice the global average. Unfortunately, helping the Third World carve out a radical new development path is no more than a rhetorical priority in the North, where all the real effort is going into the post-Cold War scramble for position. At least environmentalists now understand this situation, something that was not true as recently as five years ago. In fact, both the left and the liberal wings of the environmental movement now see Third World debt as an ecological issue -- along with pollution, population, energy production, agriculture, and the rest of it. Today, all serious reviews of the greenhouse crisis agree there's no real solution that doesn't define a new kind of development, one attractive enough to derail the considerable momentum of heavy-metal industrialism. All of which serves to complicate life for liberal politicians like Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who recently became the first U.S. Senator to write (with coauthor Jack Waugh) a greenhouse book, World on Fire: Saving an Endangered Earth. [27] Its most interesting moment comes when Mitchell tries to wedge "sustainable development" into the political agenda. He makes the main point, that "even dramatic improvements in energy efficiency will not be sufficient to protect the environment -- if they are confined to the industrialized world," then goes on to call for "retiring the debt of developing countries" and for "technology-transfer, subsidies and loans" designed to "take developing counties beyond the levels of efficiency justified on the basis of free market prices." Brave words, these, from a Senator who toured the Persian Gulf before the war, posing with Bush and adding a much-needed bipartisan gloss to his threats of war. Public relations, as always, is part of the problem. The "development community" -- the World Bank and its kin -- is abuzz with talk of "sustainable development," but thus far the reality has been considerably less inspiring than the rhetoric. It's the same story with the debt crisis. Certainly the Brady Plan for "debt relief" aims not to lift the debt now crushing the Third World, but only to reduce it enough to avoid open revolt, and thus to continue the agonizing process by which the debt crisis is indefinitely, and profitably, protracted. The workings of the debt-management machinery are familiar enough -- new loans and a new market, this time a market in discounted debt. The discounts reflect domestic austerity and international "confidence," and the debt market that sets them seems natural enough in a market-fixated society. Will it, however, ease the burden enough to allow humane development paths? This is an altogether different matter. Much of the Third World is sinking into ecological and social chaos, yet the international response is constrained by the prerogatives of the banks. The banks! This will change only when, in the words of one New York Times commentary, a Washington "consensus" develops that "the problems afflicting [the] debtors pose a threat to regional political and economic stability." [28] How, under such conditions, can the Third World be asked to sacrifice for the common good? The bottom line is that the Third World is profoundly constrained by economic and political dependency on the cores of international power. The industrial nations, with their control of capital and technology, hold the keys to a global post-greenhouse economy. If ecological disaster is to be avoided, they must act soon, decisively and in a way that doesn't simply seek to modernize the terms of Third World dependency. It's difficult to see this happening without a successful and radical campaign for ecological conversion here at home. And where is that campaign? Stalled as usual, though conversion activists remain optimistic about "the long run." There are, to be sure, grounds for optimism -- if the US economy continues its decline, as is likely, pressure for a green "New Deal" of some sort will build. But will it be green enough to stop the warming? Think concretely. What authority would enforce the depreciation of oil company stocks? If this is politically impossible, then what politics and what market structure could motivate the redeployment of the capital now tied up in fossil fuels? Over what time period? What about the overall infrastructure, so much of which wouldn't fit into a post-greenhouse world? Who would take the loss? The government? Is the financing of a solar transition in the Third World to be left to the World Bank? What, finally, will it take to get something more than fatal half- measures?ECOLOGY AFTER THE COLD WAR Earth Day 1990 brought a spasm of liberal self-congratulation, a "Good Earthkeeping Seal of Approval," and a victory in the dolphin battle -- but little by way of structural reform. Still, 1990 will remain as a milestone, marking the passing of the Cold War as clearly as it marks a watershed in environmental history. The next decade may not be a happy one, but it will see the emergence of a new kind of ecological politics. Not that there isn't already a radical green politics, or that it hasn't already marked the political landscape. But, far too often, the radicals place their faith in abstract ideals like "nature" and "personal responsibility," and are innocent of any coherent, sensible explanation for ecological crisis. Fortunately, a mature red/green politics is also, finally, emerging -- "fortunately" because the need for it is acute. Why do we go to war for oil? Why is economic growth so chaotic and compulsive? Why does technology always seem to betray its promise? These questions simply find no good answers in the moral and biocentric catagories of traditional environmentalism. The ecology movement has been deeply marked by the silences and fears of Cold War culture, and it will take time for it to learn the significance (and limits) of the socialist tradition. Many if not most ecological radicals still see "politics" as synonymous with self- serving compromise, and "capitalism" as merely an ideological category of a justly moribund left. Their view -- that communism and capitalism are only variations on a system of exterminist industrialism -- is not without merit, but it's hard to see it as the basis of an adequate politics, if only because its name for the beast, "industrialism," suggests inadequate correctives. It is a measure of the times that, in the last few years, an essay called The End of History [29] and a book called The End of Nature both took proud places in the march of literary events. In the first, a State Department functionary named Francis Fukuyama invoked Hegel's philosophy of history to claim the "triumph of liberal democracy" as an event of such significance that now "there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history." In the second, a young man described the likely outcomes of greenhouse warming, then went on to dismiss all politics as insignificant, and to compose an ode to despair. McKibben tells the tale of environmental radicals throughout the developed world, who can squeeze neither their fears nor their hopes into the old moulds. That they reject "socialism" along with official environmentalism is not altogether bad news, for the "real" socialism we have known has no just claim to our loyalty. But neither is it good news, for environmentalism, radical or otherwise, has a distance to go before it can take up the challenges of the ecological crisis. The distinctive culture and ideas of the greens -- deep ecology, romantic naturalism, the claim to be "neither right nor left, but out front," animal rights, direct action, the too-simple Luddism that sees only evil in advanced technology -- are easy to ridicule. But recall that the ecology movement evolved in a world where socialism, and left radicalism in general, were lost in the shadows of the Eastern Bloc, and that by virtue of its independence it has been able to claim key cultural and technological problems as its own, and to develop its own increasingly radical language. Left greens should remember this, even as they call upon their traditions to study the economic and political aspects of the crisis, deepen the notion of radical democracy, and mark the currents in these all pervasive and almost invisible capitalist waters. The coming devastation will breed a vast hatred. It may even be that the ideas of the green hard core -- ecological misanthropy most notable among them -- are poised for a breakout into larger domains. Fortunately, this is not the only possibility, and radical outrage is not likely to remain eternally constrained within the anti-communist frameworks of Cold War analysis. The ecology movement is full of those just now discovering the pleasures of romanticism, and believing it the essence of true revolution. Far more important than their illusions, though, is the probability that capitalism -- like the atmosphere -- may soon cease to seem a part of a natural, eternal world. It's hard to be realistic about the ecological crisis without yielding to the formidable logic of a very grim situation. Still, it is wrong to follow McKibben in attributing the tragedy of the times to some inescapable trajectory towards an ecological holocaust. It is, rather, because our trajectory is not inescapable, because there is so much that could be done, and because so little of it is being done that this is such a dark time. This paralysis is the real tragedy.I'd like to thank Bill McKibben, who's book pissed me off so much I had to write this, and the San Francisco Socialist Review Collective, which really bent over backwards to help me get it right. NOTES 1) Susan Sontag, "AIDS and Its Metaphors," New York Review of Books,October 27, 1988. 2) Lester Brown, et. al., State of the World, 1990: A WorldwatchInstitute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society. (New York:W.W. Norton, 1990. Page 174.) 3) Francesca Lyman, et al., The Greenhouse Trap: What We're Doing tothe Atmosphere and How We can Slow Global Warming. (Boston: BeaconPress, World Resources Institute, 1990. Page 159-162). 4) "Team of Scientists Sees Substantial Warming of Earth," New YorkTimes, April 16, 1990. 5) Stephen H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Green-house Century? (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1989). MichaelOppenheimer and Robert Boyle, Dead Heat: The Race Against theGreenhouse Effect (New York: Basic Books, 1990). Bill McKibben, TheEnd of Nature. 6) Stephen H. Schneider, "The Changing Climate," Scientific AmericanSeptember 1989. Page 79. 7) "Bush Asks Cautious Response To Threat of Global Warming," New YorkTimes, Feb 6, 1990. Page 1. 8) "Skeptics are Challenging Dire 'Greenhouse' Views," New York Times,December 13, 1989. Page 1. 9) "Greenhouse Skeptic Out in the Cold," Science, December 1, 1989.Page 1118. 10) "Vapor Trail: Observations Support a Key Aspect of WarmingForecasts, Scientific American, March 1990. Page 24. 11) Warren T. Brookes, "The Global Warming Panic," Forbes, December25, 1989. 12) "Bush Denies Delaying Action On Averting Shift in Climate," NewYork Times, April 19, 1990. 13) See 50% More Production: The Failure of the 1990 MontrealProtocol, a report of the Greenpeace Atmosphere and Energy campaign. 14) Dennis Hayes, "Highest Disregard," Mother Jones, December 1989. 15) See, "The Clean Air Act Won't Clean the Air," Greenpeace, November12, 1989, "The True Cost of Oil," Earth Island Journal, Summer 1988,page 22., and "Stagnant Politics, Dirty Air: Autos and theEnvironment," In These Times, December 12, 1989. 16) "Controlling Oil's Two Great Threats," New York Times, December14, 1990. 17) "LA Fights for Breath," New York Times Magazine, July 30, 1989. 18) "Cure for Greenhouse Effect: The Costs Will Be Staggering," NewYork Times, November 19, 1989. 19) "Global Warming: Look or Leap?," New York Times, February 14,1990. 20) Amory B. Lovins, Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace,(Cambridge: Ballinger, Friends of the Earth, 1977). 21) Amory Lovins, et al., Least-Cost Energy. Reprinted by the RockyMountain Institute, 1739 Snowmass Creek Road, Snowmass CO) 81654-9199. 22) Fighting the Greenhouse Effect," New York Times, August 28, 1988.For a more recent, and very unabashed version of the same tale, see"Nuclear Power: Do We Have a Choice?," the cover story of the April29, 1991 issue of Time. 23) Reilly's support of nukes is a matter of public record, but seefor example "U.S. Reported Speeding Talks For Global Warming Accord,"in the November 21, 1989 issue of the New York Times. For Schneider'sposition, see Global Warming, page 245. 24) See Least Cost Energy; in fact, see the Rocky Mountain Institute'scatalog. 25) See Amory Lovins, "Making Markets in Resource Efficiency," RockyMountain Institute, 1989. For an entry into the left discussion, seeDiane Elton's "The Socialization of Markets," in issue 172 of New LeftReview (Nov/Dec 88, pages 3-44), or look up "environmental protection"in the index of Alec Nove's The Economics of Feasible Socialism,(Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1983) 26) Alliance for a Paving Moratorium, Federal Square-E. PO Box 8558Fredericksburg VA 22404. 27) George Mitchell with Jack Waugh, World on Fire: Saving anEndangered Earth (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1991). 28) "U.S. Efforts to Aid Debtor Nations Bring 'ProfoundDisappointment'", New York Times, July 24, 1989. Page 1. 29) "The End of History" was first printed in the Summer 1989 issue ofThe National Interest. BIO BLURB Tom Athanasiou runs an online publishing group at Sun Microsystems. He is currently developing a book on ecological politics after the Cold War.*****************************************************************Please send any feedback on this article to: Tom AthanasiouInternet: toma@igc.org*****************************************************************</text>
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<text>From: jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer)Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.environmentSubject: NEWS: Lake & Ashtabula Counties Key to Great Lakes Toxic BattleMessage-ID: <JYM.91Aug6161154@remarque.berkeley.edu>Date: 7 Aug 91 00:11:54 GMTSender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator)Followup-To: alt.activism.d,talk.environmentOrganization: The Naughty Peahen Party LineLines: 80[Greenpeace Press Release from Environet -- Redistribute Freely] LAKE & ASHTABULA COUNTIES KEY TO GREAT LAKES TOXIC BATTLE ASHTABULA, Ohio July 30, 1991 (GP) -- Greenpeace called Lake and Ashtabula counties "key" in the nation's battle to reduce toxic waste at a public forum on toxics issues held tonight at Ashtabula's Lakeshore Park. "Ashtabula and the surrounding area has been used as the nation's dumping ground for too long," said Beth Newman of the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign. She identified U.S. Representative Dennis Eckert's role in crafting federal hazardous waste law as "critical" to ending toxic poisoning in Ohio. Greenpeace visited the Ashtabula with its campaign bus, the Terrapin as part of its ten-week Zero Discharge tour of the Great Lakes. The Terrapin and a Greenpeace boat, the Moby Dick, are visiting 40 Great Lakes communities this summer to raise awareness about the problems of toxic pollution in the Great Lakes. "Eckert is naturally sensitive to the concerns of his voters," says Beth Newman of the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign. "People in Northeast Ohio should know that their voices are very important in protecting their own communities and in influencing national policy on toxic waste." Dennis Eckert sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington. This committee writes national environmental laws such as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), better known as Superfund. The Resource Conversation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is the law which regulates most hazardous wastes in the United States and is up for reauthorization this year. Greenpeace supports a ten year moratorium on all new incineration permits, both for hazardous and municipal waste incinerators and for mandated reduction of toxic waste generation and is calling for a ban on new incinerators in or near the Great Lakes basin. "As long as cheap and easy disposal is available, dirty industry will never get serious about reducing its toxic waste," said Newman. Greenpeace is calling on Representative Eckert to co-sponsor a bill being introduced by Rep. Kostmayer (D-Pennsylvania) that would achieve many of these goals. Eckert can also play a prominent role on a particularly controversial proposed change in the Superfund law, Newman said. Under Title X of the Banking Reform Act, Congress is attempting to remove all liability for toxic contamination from the nation's banks who finance these sites. House Rule 1450 has been introduced by Representative John LaFalce (D- NY). This change would, along with existing exemptions, completely absolve banks of blame for financing even the dirtiest of businesses. Furthermore, the new exemptions proposed under Title X would mean that, if a contaminated property were foreclosed on by a bank, the "first time purchaser" would have no obligation to clean up past toxic contamination from the former owner. As the bank would also be exempt from responsibility, the clean-up of contaminated properties would fall directly on the nation's taxpayers. Greenpeace is encouraging citizens of Lake and Ashtabula counties to call and write Eckert to oppose Title X of the Banking Reform Act. The Moby Dick and Terrapin will be in Cleveland from July 31 to August 4. The tour will conclude on September 28 in Traverse City at the International Joint Commission (IJC) meeting. The IJC is responsible for monitoring progress on the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. In addition to calling for a ban on new incinerators in or near the Great Lakes basin, Greenpeace is calling for a ban on the use of chlorine in the pulp and paper industry and establishing a system of sunset permits for industrial processes which use or produce persistent toxic substances. Contact: Beth Newman, Greenpeace Toxics Campaign, 216 - 526 - 0640, Extension 221 #### </text>
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<text>Water Quality and Laundry Problemsby Ann Vanderpoorten BeardExtension clothing and textiles specialist The Texas A&M University SystemResearch on laundering has shown that many factors affect the cleanliness of the wash. One often ignored factor is the quality of the water used. Several laundry problems are directly related to minerals, organic matter, and other impurities in the water supply. Some laundry problems may have similar symptoms but more than one possible cause. To determine if a combination of factors or water quality alone is responsible for your laundry problem, consider your equipment, water, products and procedures.Problem: Hard WaterLaundry Symptoms:1. Dinginess or graying, yellowing2. General soil build-up3. Stiff, harsh feel to fabrics4. White or gray streaks on colored fabricsCalcium and magnesium are usually the minerals that make water hard. The greater the concentration of these minerals, the harder the water. Hard water doesn't clean as effectively as soft water. In hard water much of the detergent added to the washer goes to soften the water instead of to clean the clothes. This means that more detergent must be used than in soft water. Softening water by using more detergent has two drawbacks; it is expensive and if the detergent contains phosphate it can add to water pollution. Heavy duty liquid detergents will remove soil in hard water almost as effectively as powdered phosphatebuilt detergents and they do not contribute to water pollution. Non-phosphate powdered detergents and soap do not perform satisfactorily in hard water.Solution: To prevent the problems caused by hard water, take two actions. First, use adequate amounts of low-sudsing phosphate detergent or heavy duty liquid detergent and water as hot as recommended for the fabric since all detergents perform better at higher temperatures in any quality water.Second, soften the water. Water may be softened in the washer with nonprecipitating ion-exchange water conditioners, commonly sold in grocery stores simply as water conditioners. Water softener systems which exchange sodium for calcium and magnesium may also be connected to the water supply lines for the washer, the kitchen, or for the entire house. However, persons on sodium-restricted diets should consult their physicians before adding a water softener system to lines that supply water for drinking and cooking because the sodium content of the water will increase.To remedy problems that have already occurred, fill the washer with the hottest water appropriate for the fabric. Add four times the normal amount of phosphate detergent and one cup of nonprecipitating water conditioner. Agitate just long enough to wet the clothes. Soak overnight or for about twelve hours. Drain and spin without agitating. Launder, using regular cycle, no detergent, and one cup of nonprecipitating water conditioner. If needed, repeat the launderings using one cup of nonprecipitating water conditioner and no detergent until no suds appear during the rinses. In order to remove all dinginess it may be necessary to launder with one cup nonprecipitating water conditioner and bleach which is safe for the fabric, following package instructions for the amount of bleach to use.Problem: Rusty water or red waterLaundry SymptomΓÇó Yellow, red or brown stainsΓÇó Yellowing, especially when chlorine bleach is usedRusty or red water is caused by iron. Iron may be dissolved in the water or may be suspended as particles, or iron bacteria may cause the problem. The iron may come from the water supply or from a water heater or metal parts in the well that are rusty.Solulion: Replacing a rusty water heater may solve the problem. Dissolved iron may be removed by water softening equipment, special iron-removal equipment or filters, chlorination and filtering through sand and carbon, or by aeration followed by sand filtration. Chlorination and filtering also removes iron bacteria. Chlorine reacts with the dissolved iron to form particles of iron (an insoluable precipitate) which do not dissolve and settle out of the water. If the precipitate is formed in the washer by the use of chlorine bleach during laundering it will be deposited in the fabric and cannot be removed.To remove rust stains from white and colorfast washable fabrics, use a commercial rust remover. Follow product directions. Do not use commercial rust removers in the washing machine. Be sure all traces of rust remover are rinsed from the fabric. An alternate method is to sprinkle salt on the spot and dampen it with lemon juice. Dry articles in the sun, then rinse. Test procedures on a hidden portion of the article first, since they may cause color change. Take non-colorfast fabrics to a commercial laundry for professional treatment.Problem: Turbid waterLaundry SymptomsΓÇó Yellowing and dinginessTurbid water has very fine particles of silt, clay, or organic material in it. Normally, this problem is prevented by water treatment plants. It may be a problem for small private water supplies.Solution: A filter is needed to collect the suspended particles before the water enters the lines. If you do not filter the water, nonprecipitating water conditioners added each time the washer fills may help hold the particles in suspension and away from clothes.Stains and yellowness from turbid water may be removed by laundering with bleach appropriate for the fabric.Problem: Acid waterLaundry SymptomsΓÇó Red, reddish brown, green, or blue stainsAcid water is caused by a variety of conditions, the most common being carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. The stains on fabrics are caused by the corrosive action of the water on pipes. The type of metal used in the pipe determines the color of the stains.Solution: The problems of acid water must be corrected with chemicals and filters. For example, a soda ash solution feeder or a bed of coarse limestone chips will raise the pH of acid water.Metallic stains on fabrics may be difficult to remove. Treat red or reddish brown stains as rust stains. Blue or green stains may respond to bleach if it is safe for the fabric.More Than LaundryWater quality affects more than laundry. It may also affect your health, the taste and odor of the water, as well as the operation and life span of appliances. If you suspect you have water quality problems, have your water tested and take the steps necessary to improve the quality. There are a number of places to have water samples tested, usually for a fee. Some large cities have water quality testing laboratories associated with their health departments that may provide sample analysis. Many commercial testing laboratories also test water samples. The Texas Department of Health routinely analyzes home water samples for bacterial contamination and performs certain chemical tests upon referral by a physician. The Soil and Water Testing Laboratory of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service also tests water for salts and some other impurities.ReferencesPettyjohn, W.A. "Soft Water and Soap." Lisle, Illinois: Water Quality Association.Private Water Systems Handbook. Ames, Iowa: Midwest Plan service, 1979.Purchase, M.E. "Quality WaterΓÇöYour First Step to a Cleaner Wash." Lisle, Illinois: Water Quality Association.Saunders, B. "Clothing Care." College Station, Texas: Texas Agricultural Extension Service, 1982."Water-Quality Improvements For Farmstead and Rural Home Water Systems." College Station, Texas: Texas Agricultural Extension Service, 1985.Brochure issued by the Texas Agricultural Extension Service. The Texas A&M University System. 10MΓÇö3-88, New. L-2278.</text>
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<text>[Greenpeace Press Release from Environet] GREENPEACE DENOUNCES OZONE PROTECTION AGREEMENT NAIROBI - June 13, 1991 (GP) With less than one week to go before a crucial meeting in Nairobi of signatories to the Montreal Protocol, Greenpeace has highlighted the fact that nearly all the major ozone-destroying countries have failed to ratify the agreements to phase out ozone-destroying chemicals. The Montreal Protocol is an international agreement, signed by 69 countries, which was designed to stop the depletion of the protective ozone layer. Based on recent reports produced under the Protocol process, Greenpeace has determined that several countries are delaying implementation of the terms of the agreement: o. As of April this year, only two countries had ratifiedamendments to the Montreal Protocol which were agreed in Londonlast June. At least 20 countries must ratify the amendmentsbefore they come into force. o. The promised $240 million fund to assist developingcountries to protect the ozone layer stands at a paltry $9.4million. o. More than half of the countries which promised to submitinformation on their 1986 consumption levels of ozone destroyingchemicals -- chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons -- have failedto do so or have provided incomplete data. Four of thesecountries are members of the European Community. Recent reports from the Montreal Protocol Secretariat on the use of CFCs and halons provides a dramatic example of how some countries have even increased production of these chemicals since the Protocol was first signed in 1987: o. Use of halons in the 12 European Community countriesincreased by 27 percent between 1986 and 1989. Halons are up toten times more damaging to the ozone layer than the worst of theCFCs.The Montreal Protocol's failure to protect the ozone layer is being highlighted two months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revealed that ozone layer depletion over northern latitudes was proceeding twice as fast as scientists had predicted. The US's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that in the US alone, 200,000 more people will die from skin cancer over the next 50 years as a result of the increased ultraviolet radiation this will cause. "Even after two attempts at negotiation, the Montreal Protocol is still a charter which sanctions the chemical industry's destruction of the ozone layer," said Greenpeace's Sheldon Cohen. "It is, therefore, even more worrying to see that the terms of such a weak agreement are not being complied with. Something as essential for life on Earth as the ozone layer should not be negotiable." Greenpeace is calling for an immediate end to production of all ozone- destroying substances. These include CFCs, halons, methyl chloroform and carbon tetrachloride, as well as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). Although HCFCs destroy the ozone layer, they are promoted by the chemical industry as replacements for other ozone destroyers. Notes: The Third Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol is being held from 19-21 June in Nairobi. CONTACT: Sheldon Cohen or Tracy Heslop at Hotel Ambassadeur (Nairobi), Tel: 254 2 336803, Fax: 254 2229388. ####</text>
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<text>Once, when I was reading my son a book about rocks and minerals, we encountered the following passage: "No one really knows what water is, but perhaps the best definition would be- 'liquid rock'."For some reason this definition pleased both of us immensely. Maybe because of our childish delight in paradox. But maybe it was pleasing at some even deeper level because it implied a basic mystery about water, a mystery that suggested that water was some kind of medium for the interdependence of all things, organic and inorganic. At this level water seems almost sacramental.Water is indeed a very precious fluid. It has been equated to life itself. Although we don't always think of it that way, water is our most important life-sustaining food. No one wittingly would foul this element, for to poison it is to destroy life.Yet, each year we witness the human impairment of our water resources.Recently we learned of the possible sterilization of the Pecos River from poisons leaking out of mine waste. The Eldorado housing development appears to have seriously over-committed its water supplies. No one really knows all the ramifications to the watertable posed by the haphazard disposal of radioactive waste at Los Alamos. And, a few years back, Goldfield's Ortiz Mine, a heapleach operation, poisoned the watertable with cyanide and heavy metals.These assaults on our water occur despite our vigilance. While usually unintended, water is lost or fouled because of poor planning, ignorance, or economic desperation. Sometimes, too, it is harmed by plain old human greed.Public officials should listen more intently to the examples of history, and less intently to the reassuring talk of developers. They should take seriously the public trust that is violated every time the life-giving, perhaps even sacramental, purity of water is violated.ΓÇöHarold E. StorsveHarold is a resident of Santa Fe. His family has worked in the gold mines of the Mountain West since the turn of the century.Storsve, Harold. "Water and the Interdependence of All Things." The Santa Fe Sun. May, 1991. V3 N7. Page 5.</text>
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<text>Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 11:24:27 PDTReply-To: Bill Arnett <arnett@UNIXG.UBC.CA>Sender: List Owner <davep@acsu.buffalo.edu>From: Bill Arnett <arnett@UNIXG.UBC.CA>Subject: Water Purification in Hot Tubs/PoolsX-To: Biosphere-L <biosph-l%ubvm.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu> I came across this in a Net News discussion. Does anybody know anything about this or its environmental consequences? How does this method of water purification compare with bromine and chlorine for toxicity, etc.? -------------------------------------------------------------------------> I was following the discussion about hot tubs/spas and the associated> methods of keeping them clean. Have you netters ever heard of a product> called "Caribbean Clear" ? It is an water purifier developed just for> pools, spas, and hot tubs. Instead of chemicals of any kind, it uses> silver and copper to kill bacteria and algea in the water. It uses a> small processor to moniter the temperature of the water, the amount of> copper in the water, and can be set to release just the exact amount of> copper and silver into the water. It is installed into the plumbing> of your pool or hot tub either before or after the pump. The device> uses two electrodes made of an alloy of silver and copper and when the> water is pumped thru the electrodes, that's when the copper and silver> is released into the water. It's been U.L. tested and listed, the> EPA has tested it and certified it, in fact, the EPA even passed it> to produce water safe for human consumption. If I sound like a commercial,> I can't help it. I've got one and it's been worth every penny. It retails> for around $300 to $600 for hot tubs and $800 up for pools, but you never> have to buy chemicals again. You have a one time cost,(the unit itself),> and replace the electrodes about once every 3 years. You check the water> for proper PH about once a week and that's it. Now, you do have to> clean the trash out, like leaves and dirt, but that's with anything> that you use to purify the water. If you're tired of chlorine and the> smell, try it. The company has a 30 day money back deal. If you don't> like it, they give your money back, no questions asked.> Here's two telephone numbers if you want a brochure or more imformation.> 1-800-426-1023 or (803) 750-1000. These people have been producing> the unit for 8 years now and have dealers nationwide.--Bill Arnett Internet: arnett@unixg.ubc.caOffice of Budget and Planning Internet: bill_arnett@mtsa.ubc.caUniversity of British Columbia Bitnet: userarnt@ubcmtsa.bitnetVancouver, BC, Canada. V6T 1Z2 Phone: (604) 822-6318</text>
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<text>From: jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer)Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.environment,ca.environment,ca.driving,ba.transportationSubject: NEWS: Caltrans' Pesticide Use on Highways Exceeds All Others'Message-ID: <JYM.91Aug26121554@remarque.berkeley.edu>Date: 26 Aug 91 20:15:54 GMTSender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator)Followup-To: alt.activism.d,talk.environment,ca.environmentOrganization: The Naughty Peahen Party LineLines: 51[Greenpeace Press Release from Environet -- Redistribute Freely] CALTRANS' TOXIC SECRET: PESTICIDES ON THE HIGHWAYS SAN FRANCISCO, August 24, 1991 (GP) -- Last month, Californians were shocked when a train derailment spilled almost 20,000 pounds of pesticide into the Sacramento River. Yet few people realize the California Transportation Department purposely -- and needlessly -- sprays several times that amount of toxic pesticide compounds along state highways each year. "How can we depend on our state officials to protect us from pesticide poisoning when our own state agencies are part of the problem?" asked David Chatfield, regional director of Greenpeace. "Caltrans and other agencies that oversee public lands and property should have no higher concern than the health and safety of the people of California," said Chatfield. "Instead, in the name of cosmetics and convenience, Caltrans is perpetuating the circle of poison." According to its own reports, Caltrans has become the largest single user of pesticides in the state. Last year, in just one state highway district, Caltrans sprayed almost 11 pounds of pesticide per mile. Incredibly, this means that a state agency -- using tax dollars -- is the largest single factor in an industry that costs the state and its citizens uncounted millions for regulation, transport and cleanup, to say nothing of the costs of health care for those harmed by these poisons. Yet as it sprays 15,000 miles of roads with toxic chemicals, Caltrans does not give citizens advance notice, post sprayed areas or even take steps to keep the public out of newly sprayed areas. Even though Caltrans' herbicides have polluted water supplies, have made passersby ill and have been banned by health officials in a number of California counties, the agency has just spent $600,000 on a report to justify continued use of chemicals. "For the state to continue this practice is worse than arrogance, and worse than stupidity," said Chatfield. "It is suicidal. Caltrans should scrap this scorched-earth policy now. What's more important: highway medians that look like golf courses, or the lives of Californians?"CONTACT: David Chatfield or Bill Walker, Greenpeace (415)512-9025 ####</text>
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<text>Date: Mon, 16 Sep 91 19:13:47 EDTReply-To: Pollution and grondwater recharge <AQUIFER@IBACSATA.BITNET>Sender: Pollution and grondwater recharge <AQUIFER@IBACSATA.BITNET>From: Nick Fitzpatrick <nick@SUNBURN.UWATERLOO.CA>Subject: AQUIFERX-To: GW@watmath.waterloo.edu, Land@watmath.waterloo.edu, and@watmath.waterloo.edu, aquifer@ibacsata.BITNET, quality@watmath.waterloo.edu, use@watmath.waterloo.edu Boy, this has to be one of the quietest news lists I've seen! Oh well I'll tell the world what I'm doing, perhaps I can get some constructive comments. We have a project here in relating ground water quality to land use. We are looking at land use in a very detailed manner, for example delineating by photo lab/leather works, as opposed to industrial/commercial. One of our fears is that we will not be able to differentiate between these sources when we look at the available water quality data. This is more of an industrial/commercial study than an agricultural one. The study will look at the history of land use in the region, for example what was once a coal-tar plant with exstensive DNAPL deposits is now a fairly innocent looking field. Hopefully the result from the study will be information on where the danger spots are in the region. What pollution is where in the ground and when could it be a danger to drinking water supplies. The project will use the Kitchener-Waterloo Region as an example. (Pop 300,000, mostly using groundwater as drinking water) Any comments NET land? nick@sunburn.waterloo.edunick@sunburn.Uwaterloo.ca Nicholas Fitzpatrick,Department of Civil Engineering,University of Waterloo</text>
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<text>From: laurie@iosys.UUCP (laurie butgereit)Newsgroups: sanet.talk.politics,talk.environmentSubject: Water Pollution in South AfricaMessage-ID: <1214@iosys.UUCP>Date: 31 Aug 91 09:37:59 GMTFollowup-To: sanet.talk.politicsOrganization: Io Systems (Pty) LtdLines: 85Extracted with permission from the Broederstroom Action Committee Newsletter------------------------------------------------------------------We residents living along the Moganwe River which flows into the Hartebeesport Dam [in the vicinity of Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa] have for some time noticed a deterioration of the already polluted water in our river. It was only when we realised that we no longer had any animal life - not a crab, not a fish, not an otter, not a leguan, not even a frog - that we contacted the (South African) Department of Water Affairs.The Department of Water Affairs came to inspect immediately. This fast reaction was due to the fact that an investigation had already been started by Robin & Tosca Vorster of Hakahana Ranch [a neighboring farm]. Atomic Energy CorporationOther concerned residents tolds us of streams that came from the Atomic Energy Corporation which passed under the main road and joined the Moganwe River. Water samples were taken and an unacceptably high PH of 12.5 was registered. The fluoride content was so high that Water Affairs tested some local boreholes to check if this dangerous level of pollutant had seeped into our drinking water. Although Water Affairs declined to give us the reports on the boreholes, the borehole water is apparently in order.According to accounts related to us by residents, it appears that the "back door" effluenting by Atomic Energy Corporation has possibly been occurring since the late 1970's. South African Defence ForceBattalion 115, situated next to Hakahana Ranch, increased its complement of men and the existing sewage system simply could not cope. Hakahana has a borehole which is polluted beyond human use. To make matters even worse, Hakahana had raw human faeces along the river bank! Water Affairs was horrified. This situation must be corrected immediately. After much negotiation, however, it appears that Battalion 115 may be moving in perhaps three months time. According to Water Affairs, if the Battalion does not move in that period of time, Water Affairs will THEN ask them to do something to clean up the pollution. In the mean time, the official position is that it is unreasonable to expect them to spend money on correcting the problem.At Battalion 115 there is a tanker expressly there for the purpose of removing sewage if it becomes necessary. Unfortunately, due to the high security fence around the property, the tanker cannot fit through the gates. So the tanker sits imprisoned inside and the sewage is freely discharged on the ground. When the rains come, who knows what will happen! AttridgevilleAttridgeville is another major source of pollution. For years now there have been ongoing problems with the sewage plant pumps. When the pump is down (which appears to happen with monotonous regularity) the grids block up with what Water Affairs euphemistically calls SOLIDS. These SOLIDS then rise due to the blockage and run down a manhole (which was created purely for this emergency) and straight into the Moganwe River.The officials concerned feel it is highly unlikely that this has been occurring for some years. However, we now have in our possession a number of letters dating back to 1988 complaining of exactly this problem. Some of these letters complain of the problem happening for nearly 18 months previous to the date on the letter. Thus it would appear that massive sewage pollution of this river system has possibly been occurring since 1986.Water Affairs has had meetings with both Attridgeville and Pretoria municipalities to try to monitor the situation and to try to arrange finance from the Regional Service Council to install new pumps.------------------------------------------------------------------I don't receive talk.environment, please e-mail any respnses from ouyside South Africa-- Laurie Butgereitlaurie@iosys{uunet,olgb1,olnl1}!olsa99!iosys!laurie</text>
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<text>AGRICULTURE'S ROLE IN NONPOINT SOURCE POLLUTIONPesticides Are Not A Large Problem in Groundwater, But Nitrate Levels May Exceed Standardsby Ric JensenInformation SpecialistPollutants that can be linked to a specific source are referred to as "point" sources of pollution. Examples include a municipal treatment plant that discharges wastewater into a river, or someone who spills chemicals down an open well and contaminates a groundwater supply.In contrast, nonpoint pollution cannot be traced to a specific source. Once it is linked to an identifiable source, it becomes a point sourceWhat kind of a dilemma does nonpoint source pollution pose?Many cases of nonpoint source pollution are caused when heavy rains sweep a wide array of pollutants (including sediments, pesticides, fertilizers, plant debris, fecal bacteria and others) into rivers and streams. Even though specific pollutants may be detected downstream, it's hard to target which activity is responsible. For example, it may be obvious that excess amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous have run off into a lake, but it may be nearly impossible to determine if the pollution resulted from agricultural practices, landscapes, or septic tanks. In some cases, pollution which may appear to be caused by man's activities may actually be the result of naturally occurring contaminants like salts.Nonpoint sources may also pollute groundwater supplies. Pollution is most likely when excess amounts of agricultural pesticides and fertilizers are applied on highly permeable soils or areas with shallow groundwater systems . Heavy rains following chemical application also increase pollution risks. Septic tank and landfill wastes can also seep through soils and contaminate groundwater supplies.Despite the seeming complexity of the problem, there are some "common sense" solutions that can improve water quality. Most of these strategies involve the use of best management practices (BMPs) that lessen the amount of chemical inputs and reduce erosion, runoff and drainage.Gathering more information about the linkages between agriculture and nonpoint sources of pollution is important for many reasons. If agricultural activities are introducing pollutants into rural groundwater systems, they will likely pose a health threat. Because many rural wells are not tested on a regular basis, residents may not know their water is contaminated and suffer long-term exposure. Knowing whether excess application of fertilizers and pesticides are causing pollution problems in specific instances saves producers money and benefits the environment. No one wins when resources are wasted.Basic InformationMany nonpoint sources are linked to land use practices including agriculture, forestry, mining, transportation, landfills, and construction. Improper land management can increase the amount of pollutants that are carried in runoff after heavy rains.Agricultural production, dairy and feedlot operations, construction, and natural processes can all produce increased sedimentation. Sediments also bind other pollutants that are transported in runoff. Excess amounts of sediments can make rivers and streams more turbid and can reduce the volume of water that can be stored behind dams. Some sedimentation and erosion also occurs naturally. Sediments are needed to form river deltas (which create fertile agricultural lands) and marshes, and provide essential nutrients to bays and estuaries. However, too little or too much sediment can destroy fragile ecosystems. The TWC views sediments as nonpoint source pollutants only when they exceed naturally occurring levels. The TWC recognizes contaminants transported by sediments as nonpoint source pollutants.Nitrates are a critical nonpoint source pollution problem, especially in groundwaters. In rare cases, high nitrate levels can cause death in infants who drink contaminated water. Septic tanks, fertilizers, and animal wastes can.all increase nitrate levels in surface and ground waters. Runoff into surface waters can lead to increased algal growth and eutrophication. Not all nitrate problems are caused by man's activities. Many groundwater systems in Texas have naturally occurring high nitrate levels.Pesticides, herbicides, and toxic chemicals used in agricultural production can also pollute surface and ground water. Many newer chemicals quickly degrade into less harmful by-products after being applied to reduce nonpoint source pollution risks. Some older chemicals that are more persistent are still found in the environment many years after being applied.Pathogens and disease-causing microorganisms are introduced from liquid wastes and fecal matter produced by cattle, poultry, and other domestic animals, wild animals, and human waste in septic tanks.Even though agricultural activities are believed to be a major contributor to nonpoint source problems, it's difficult to establish that's the case. Many different practices can increase sedimentation, raise levels of nitrogen, and produce fecal bacteria. As a result, it's hard to identify activities that are responsible for nonpoint source problems, although isotope analysis may be helpful in some cases (Kreitler, 1989).National StudiesAccording to the EPA, agriculture comprises the most pervasive sources of nonpoint pollution of surface waters in the U.S.,Agricultural nonpoint source pollutants can threaten both surface and ground water. EPA estimates that 25 to 40% of the soil eroding from croplands reaches a water body. EPA (1984) also predicts that more than 6.8 million tons of nitrogen and 2.6 million tons of phosphorus run off to surface waters annually, accounting for nearly 70% of the total loads of these pollutants.However, it doesn't appear that normal use of agricultural chemicals is causing widespread groundwater pollution.Isolated cases of groundwater contamination were reported in rural areas throughout the U.S. in the EPA National Pesticide Survey (1990). Results of the survey showed that more than 10% of community water systems (CWS) and more than 4% of rural domestic wells contained at least one pesticide in detectable amounts that would not cause significant health problems. EPA estimates as many as 9,500 CWS wells and 60,900 rural individual wells could be impacted nationally. No CWS wells and only 0.6% or rural domestic wells that were tested exceeded pesticide Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) set by EPA. Roughly half of the wells contained detectable levels of nitrate. More than 1% of CWS wells and 2% of rural domestic wells exceeded the nitrate MCL of 10 mg/L.Monsanto conducted a national survey of alachlor levels in groundwater as part of the re-registration process for some of its herbicides . Results estimate that more than half the wells in the alachlor use area are expected to contain nitrate. Roughly 5% of wells that were tested exceeded the MCL for nitrate, and just 0.02% exceeded the MCL for alachlor. Detectable levels of atrazine were found in about 12% of rural wells, but alachlor was present in less than 1% of rural wells (Klein, 1990).A recent study by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (Hess, 1989) showed that pesticides had been detected in groundwater from 28 states.While pesticide detections are of concern, the most widespread and serious problems appear to be associated with nitrate contamination.Texas StudiesIs agriculture causing nonpoint source pollution problems in Texas? Although some recent national studies suggest that agriculture may be causing increased levels of pesticides in rural drinking water wells, there is little evidence that is occurring in Texas. However, dairy operations and nutrient applications to croplands are contributing to increased levels of fecal coliform bacteria and nitrates in surface and ground waters.The TWC recently assessed surface and ground water systems impacted by nonpoint source pollution (TWC, 1990). The report shows that 37 surface water bodies are "known" to be impacted by nonpoint sources of pollution. Problems that were identified include runoff from range, cropped and urban lands; naturally occurring contaminants (mainly salinity); outflows from septic tanks, pesticide and nutrient application; petroleum exploration; erosion from agricultural tillage practices and construction sites, golf course runoff and others (see Table 1). Contaminants that were found include sediments, chlorides, sulfates, phosphorus, nitrogen, nitrate, total dissolved solids, fecal coliform bacteria, trash and debris, fertilizers and pesticides, and heavy metals such as mercury and lead.More than 70 other lakes, rivers and streams are identified as "potentially" having nonpoint source pollution problems.Examples of problems listed in the report included runoff of dairy wastes that led to high levels of fecal bacteria in the Upper North Bosque River (the State's worst problem); increased nutrient loadings from croplands into Lake Belton; runoff from agricultural, forested and mined lands that is increasing sedimentation in reservoirs in the Sabine River Basin; and naturally occurring saline water in lakes and rivers in West and Central Texas that is polluting fresh water rivers.No groundwater systems were listed as "known" to be contaminated, but the Ogallala, Seymour, and Carrizo aquifers were assessed to "potentially" be impacted by nonpoint sources. Additional information on the susceptibility of groundwater systems to agricultural pollution has also been developed by the TWC. The TWC used the DRASTIC methodology to rank and map areas where groundwater pollution may be a problem. Work is now under way to computerize DRASTIC data so it can easily be retrieved (TWC, 1989). Little information is known on groundwater contamination by synthetic organic chemicals.Is pesticide runoff from nonpoint sources polluting ground and surface water supplies?In 1990, nearly 800,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer, 200,000 tons of phosphorus fertilizer, and 100,000 tons of potassium fertilizer were sold in Texas (See Figure 1 ) . In contrast, only 14,000 tons of pesticide were sold.A report by the Texas Department of Agriculture (Aurelius, 1989) showed that nine pesticides were detected in samples from 10 of the 188 wells that were tested during 1987 and 1988. However, most of the detections were below maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) and did not pose significant health risks. Some pesticides were not detected in follow-up studies. Many of the problems stemmed from point source contamination of wells and wellhead areas.Groundwater quality testing was also conducted in the Ogallala Aquifer by the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 in 1987. Results showed that only 14 of 575 samples that were tested showed trace amounts of six pesticides (High Plains District, 1988). When followup tests were conducted 1988, these pesticides could no longer be detected. Other tests showed that nitrate levels were below EPA drinking water standards.Routine application of pesticides and fertilizers to agricultural croplands does not have to produce nonpoint source pollution. A survey of pesticide and fertilizer use in the Trinity River watershed was recently conducted by Texas Agricultural Extension Service (TAEX) specialists (Harris, 1990). Results show that many crops consume more nitrogen than is typically applied, leaving little excess nutrients to run off or seep into groundwaters.There are few examples of pesticide runoff that can be linked to normal agriculture use in Texas. The Sabine River Authority reported that runoff of arsenic based defoliants is flowing into lakes and rivers in its watersheds. Sampling of the Lower Rio Grande and the Upper Trinity rivers and of Austin's Town Lake has detected pesticides that have either not been used for many years (chlordane and DDT) or pesticides that could be used for both urban and agricultural purposes. Pesticide runoff has been noted from rice producing areas, but usually only when sufficient detention time has not been provided due to storms. These results suggest that Texas farmers are not over-fertilizing as is the case in several Midwest states.Statewide TAEX data suggest that nitrate is not causing significant groundwater pollution problems in Texas (Unruh, 1990). For example, 63% of all soil nitrate levels tested were less than 5 parts per million (ppm), while nitrate concentrations of more than 20 ppm make up only 8% of the total (see Figure 2) . I n addition, more than half of the high nitrate levels were found within a foot of the soil surface where they pose the least threat to groundwater contamination. Routine nitrogen applications may not produce excess nitrogen in soils. TAEX studies suggest that cotton, hay, and wheat remove the most nitrogen per unit of crop produced. West and Central Texas are the areas where the most nitrogen is being removed per the unit of nitrogen applied.Pollution can still occur when excess nutrients and pesticides are applied (typically when nutrient budgets are not followed) or when droughts or floods impede crop growth and limit the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus crops can remove.Studies by the USDA Agricultural Research Service have shown that erosion in the Texas High Plains can be three to five times greater from cultivated watersheds than from uncultivated rangelands (Jones, et al, 1985) . That study also pointed out the impact of severe storms and notes that less than 1% of the storms produce up to 40% of the runoff.Erosion from agricultural lands has been classified as a"major" land management problem on more than 24 million acres of crop and pasture lands (See Figure 3). Total annual erosion has been estimated at 1.94 tons per acre (Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, 1990) . Rangeland accounts for most of Texas' erosion from agricultural lands (55%), followed by croplands (30%).Farmer participation in the Federal Conservation Reserve Program may significantly reduce erosion. The program encourages producers to not cultivate soils that are highly vulnerable to wind and water erosion. So far, Texas farmers have placed roughly 3.9 million acres in the program.Research and EducationUniversities are now working with State and Federal agencies to learn more about nonpoint source pollution problems and ways to correct them.The Texas Groundwater Protection Committee is made up of representatives from the TWC, the Texas Water Development Board, the Texas Department of Health, the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board (TSSWCB), the Texas Railroad Commission, TAEX, and the Texas Department of Agriculture. The Agricultural Chemicals Subcommittee is considering ways to lessen nonpoint source pollution risks without limiting the use of chemicals that agricultural producers need. Ideas being considered include banning the use of some chemicals in critical areas or during given months, reducing allowable use rates, and developing efficient methods to apply chemicals.TAEX specialists are working with the TSSWCB, the USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCS), and other agencies in demonstration projects as part of the U.S.D.A. Hydrologic Unit Program. The goal is to encourage the adoption of BMPs that improve water quality. In the Seco Creek Project, TAEX specialists are assessing the impact of agricultural and brush control activities on the water quality in the Edwards Aquifer and nearby streams. Other Hydrologic Unit projects include curbing pollution from dairy and poultry operations that runs off into Lake Fork Creek, and lowering high nitrate levels in the Seymour Aquifer that may be related to agricultural operations.Expansion of large dairies in central Texas is causing a significant pollution problem. The dairies confine large numbers of cows to small areas, and it's estimated that as much as 35 million pounds of manure is generated each week in Erath County. Because the TWC has a no discharge policy for dairy wastes, manure and effluents are collected and disposed of on lands where grasses and forage crops are grown. Heavy rains can flush nitrogen, bacteria, and other pollutants into streams that feed the Upper North Bosque River. Pollutants can also be leached from manure holding ponds and fields into porous aquifers.Activities are now under way to improve water quality in the area. TWRI is sponsoring a project by John Sweeten and Mary Leigh Wolfe of the Agricultural Engineering Department at Texas A&M University to monitor the quality and quantity of liquid and solid wastes being generated by area dairies and to estimate their impact on water quality. Technologies and BMPs that could lessen the risk of nonpoint source pollution are being developed. Treatment techniques include the use of two-stage lagoons that can cut volatile solids and chemical oxygen demand by more than 85% and settling basins that reduce volatile solids by 45%. BMPs include matching wastewater irrigation rates to crop needs and recycling to conserve water (Sweeten, et al., 1990). The area is also the focus of a TAEX/ USDA Hydrologic Unit project study. TAEX specialists are selecting BMPs that will reduce runoff from dairies, malfunctioning septic tanks, and runoff and infiltration of agricultural chemicals.Wolfe is also working on two other nonpoint source pollution projects. One effort developed a Geographic Information System (GIS) that combines information on aquifer systems, cropped areas, and fertilizer use to assess the groundwater pollution potential posed by nitrate. Results show that roughly a third of outcrop areas for major aquifers (where aquifers are exposed to the surface) have a high pollution potential (Halliday and Wolfe, 1990).Wolfe is also working with Tom Thurow of the Texas A&M University Range Science Department to assess whether vegetative buffer strips can reduce pollutants transported in urban runoff. The study is cosponsored by TWRI and the City of Austin. Planting dense vegetation near waterways can improve water quality by settling out pollutants to before reaching streams. This project is measuring the amount of pollution reduction that occurs when bunch and sod grasses and oaks are utilized on slopes of 5% to 25% in field plots in Austin. Surface water runoff data is being gathered . Results may lead to better standards for vegetative filters in rural and urban areas.Scientists with TAES at Temple including Ray Griggs and Allan Jones are evaluating and refining computer simulation models that assess the likelihood for specific agricultural chemicals to pollute groundwater based on soil types, farming practices, and other information. Researchers are also monitoring surface waters and soil samples for pesticide residues.Studies by Ken Morgan and Leo Newland of the Environmental Studies Program at Texas Christian University (TCU) examined the impact of septic tanks and agricultural activities on nonpoint source pollution flowing to Lake Weatherford (Hayes, et al., 1990). Results suggest that agricultural chemicals comprise a major nonpoint source pollution problem because as much as 75% of them are applied in the spring when heavy rains occur. Additionally, 4,500 persons living near the lake's shoreline contribute an average of 267 pounds of organic chemicals and 50 pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus into the lake each day from septic tank discharges.A TCU study by Ray Drenner and Kyle Hoagland of the Biology Department evaluated the impact of agricultural chemical runoff on fish communities in lakes. Their results suggest that runoff of pyrethroid insecticides like befenthrin can result in significant pollution problems in lakes by reducing zooplankton communities.Forest management strategies can also impact the amount of erosion that results from those activities. Studies by Wilbert Blackburn, formerly of the Texas A&M University Range Science Department, assessed the amount of erosion caused by clear-cutting and associated activities. Results (DeHaven, et al, 1984) show that storm flows were greatest on the sites that were the most disturbed. Sediment losses were 10 times higher for areas that were sheared than for those that were chopped.Pollution PreventionMany things can be done now to reduce agricultural nonpoint source pollution.The TSSWCB is engaged in many activities to reduce nonpoint source pollution.For example, the TSSWCB offers technical assistance to farmers on agricultural management strategies that prevent pollution by preserving natural resources. Examples include encouraging the use of terraces, crop rotations that leave vegetation on otherwise bare soils, and reduced tillage systems. The TSSWCB is now developing a GIS to better understand nonpoint source pollution problems. The GIS will include data on land uses, soils, the amount and types of agrichemical use, levels of soil nitrate and other chemicals, and erosion and sedimentation rates. The GIS could be especially useful in identifying areas with severe nonpoint source pollution problems, measuring trends in pollutant loadings, and screening activities that may be impairing water quality.A new report by the TSSWCB (1991) shows the areas where erosion from crop and range lands is a significant problem, (See Figure 2). It also analyzes nitrate and pesticide nonpoint source pollution of ground and surface waters that may be resulting from agricultural activities.Specific BMPs that farmers can use to reduce nonpoint source pollution risks include conservation tillage, contouring, planting cover crops, strip cropping, terracing, increased application efficiency, integrated pest management, and regular soil testing (See Table 2).Pesticide and fertilizer application efficiency can be increased. The Low Energy Precision Application irrigation system can be utilized to efficiently apply pesticides. Insects can be controlled when only 6% of the labelled amount of pesticide is applied (Lyle and Bordovsky, 1989). New pesticides are being developed that are less toxic, less persistent, and less mobile.Integrated pest management (IPM) programs take advantage of natural predators and environment factors to control insect populations. This lessens the use of pesticides and reduces pollution risks. IPM systems used in cotton production, for example, emphasize delaying when cotton is planted and using short-season varieties that make it nearly impossible for boll weevils to feed and reproduce (Frisbie, 1989).The best way to lessen the risks of nonpoint source pollution is to annually conduct soil tests and develop nutrient budgets to determine the amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus crops actually need (Onken, 1990) . If too little nutrients are applied, crop yields will suffer. On the other hand, excess application of nutrients may cause environmental damage. Steps in developing crop budgets include soil testing of nutrient levels, determining the amount of nutrients individual crops require for given yield goals, and analyzing the costs and benefits of varying nutrient levels. Split applications and use of slow-release nitrogen fertilizers can lessen the risks of runoff pollution.Precautions can be taken to lessen nonpoint source pollution from livestock operations including locating feeding facilities away from streams and drainage channels, diverting and collecting runoff, and installing runoff holding ponds (Sweeten and Melvin, 1985). Safe disposal practices involve matching crop water and nutrient requirement to the amount of manure and effluents applied during the year.SummaryNonpoint source pollution is a serious water quality problem for Texas. As the ability to treat point sources of contaminants improves, nonpoint sources will become more obvious.Ways of controlling nonpoint sources of agricultural pollution are known and are being implemented both by voluntary means and by local ordinances and regulations. Helping agricultural producers become more efficient may be the best way to improve water quality.ReferencesA Comprehensive Study of Texas Watersheds and Their Impact on Water Quality and Water Quantity, Texas State Soil and Water Conserv. Board, Temple, TX, 1991.Aurelius, Lea, Testing for Pesticide Residues in Texas Well Water, Texas Department of Agriculture, Austin, TX, 1989.DeHaven, Mark, et al, Impact of Harvesting and Site Preparation on Stormflow and Water Quality in East Texas (TR-130), TWRI, College Station, TX, 1984.Frisbie, Ray, "Integrated Pest Management: A Focus on Environmental Quality," Proceedings of the 22nd Water for Texas Conference, TWRI, League City, TX 1989.Ground Water Quality of Texas, TWC, Austin, TX 1989.Halliday, Stuart, and Mary Leigh Wolfe, "Assessing Ground Water Pollution Potential Using a Geographic Information System," Presented at Summer Meeting of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, Columbus, OH, 1990.Harris, Bill L., Rodney Holloway, and H. Dale Pennington, "Pesticide and Fertilizer Use in the Upper Trinity Watershed," Presented at a TWRI Symposium titled "How Healthy is the Upper Trinity River?," Ft. Worth, TX, Oct. 1990.Hayes, Sharon, Leo Newland, Ken Morgan, and Kirk Dean, "Septic Tank and Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution within a Rural Watershed," Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry, New York, NY, Vol. 14 (1990), pp. 137-156.Hess, Allison, Beneath the Bottom Line: Agricultural Approaches to Reduce Agricultural Contamination of Groundwater Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Washington, DC, 1989.Jones, Ordie, Harold Eck, S.J. Smith, G.A. Coleman, and Victor Hauser, "Runoff, Soil, and Nutrient Losses from Rangeland and Dry Farmed Cropland in the Southern High Plains," Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, Ankeny, IA, Jan.-Feb. 1985 .Klein, Andrew, "Results of the National Alachlor Water Well Survey," Presented at Water for Texas Conference, Lubbock, TX, 1990.Kreitler, Charles, "Distribution and Identification of Sources of Nitrate in Texas Ground Water," Proceedings of 22nd Water for Texas Conf., TWRI, League City, TX, 1989.Lyle, William, and James Bordovsky, "Increasing the Efficiency of Agricultural Chemical Application Through the MultiFunction LEPA System," New Waves, TWRI, College Station, TX, Sept. 1989.National Pesticide Survey, EPA Office of Water, Washington, DC, 1990.1990 Update to the Nonpoint Source Water Pollution Assessment Report for the State of Texas, Texas Water Commission, Austin, TX, 1990.Nonpoint Source Water Pollution Control for the State of Texas: Recommendations for the Future, Texas Water Commission, Austin, TX, 1990.Onken, Arthur, "Crop Nutrient Budgets for Optimizing Fertilizer Rates and Minimizing Environmental Impacts," Presented at 23rd Water for Texas Conf., Lubbock, TX, 1990.Unruh, Larry, and Dale Pennington, "Distribution of Nitrogen Fertilizer Use in Texas and Its Impact on Groundwater," Presented at 23rd Water for Texas Conference, Lubbock, TX, 1990.Sweeten, John, and Stewart Melvin, "Controlling Water Pollution from Nonpoint Source Livestock Operations," Perspectives on Nonpoint Source Pollution, EPA, Washington, DC, 1985.Sweeten, John, J. Bennett, J.S. Cochran, J.N. Pope, E. Chasteen, A. Lane, and P. Wanke, Water Use for Manure Management at Erath Co. Dairy Farms, Texas Agricultural Extension Service, College Station, TX, 1990. Jensen, Ric. "Agriculture's Role in Nonpoint Source Pollution." Texas Water Resources. V17 N1. Spring 1991. TWRI, College Station, Texas 77843.</text>
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<text>Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 14:58:54 ESTReply-To: A discussion of Ecological and Environmental Theories and Practices <ECONET@MIAMIU.BITNET>Sender: A discussion of Ecological and Environmental Theories and Practices <ECONET@MIAMIU.BITNET>From: ritter@AMETHYST.BUCKNELL.EDUSubject: Urban Environmental Quality: water Urban Environmental Water Quality Policy Recommendations As a group of students from Bucknell University researching Urban Environmental water quality in the United States, we have found that in order to improve the water quality, the U.S. must take several steps. The first of which is increasing regulations on water pollution and increasing the fines for this pollution. For example, at the present a $50,000 dollar fine to a large corporation, such as Exxon for water pollution, isn't a very convincing punishment. If a much higher fine were imposed, these corporations would be much more cautious about hazardous waste removal. We also feel that a progressive tax should be placed upon corporations for the amount of waste they release in water after the set standard. What it comes down to is that corporations will violate the law if they can get away with it and if it is in their financial interest. We feel that these regulations in addition to our other recommendations are a must if corporations are going to comply with the law and contribute to the improvement of our water. The second recommendation is public education. The better acquainted with environmental issues citizens are, the more likely they are to demand environmentally sound decisions from their elected officials. The education will play an important role in overcoming the "not in my backyard," or NIMBY syndrome. Some problems associated with water quality, in particular, are made worse by the actions of people who may be in agreement with the need to solve a problem but do not want it solved in their local community. The third recommendation is accepting to pay the bill. If the United States waters are to be managed to meet future needs, the public will have to begin paying for maintenance and accept a "users pays" system instead of increasing federal subsidies.(Warren Viessman) In conclusion, we as a group feel that urban environmental water quality will not improve until these step are fully implemented. These steps are not the only measures available to us but these are the ones we found would definitely help alleviate the problem. We request any responses or comments on our policy recommendations. John RitterMark FarinaEd Concepion</text>
