Toxic Chemicals Costing Society Billions in Damages to Human Health Alone

A field of soybeans. (Photo:  Tom Erickson/flickr/cc)

Common Dreams | Mar 6, 2015 | Sarah Lazare

New study finds hormone-disrupting chemicals found in pesticides, plastics, and more driving staggering—and costly—human health problems

Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in human-made products—from plastics to pesticides—are causing health problems that cost society billions, a new study finds.

Published Thursday in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the examination was conducted by eighteen researchers in eight countries and is the first attempt to quantify the concrete costs of these chemicals.

According to researchers, the costs come to more than $170 billion a year in Europe alone—what they call a "conservative" estimate.

But beyond the dollar amount, the human health problems the study highlights are staggering.

"Global experts in this field concluded that infertility and male reproductive dysfunctions, birth defects, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurobehavioral and learning disorders were among the conditions than can be attributed in part to exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs)," reads a summary of the research.

Nneka Leiba, deputy director of research for Environmental Working Group, points out that endocrine-disruptors are found in common products around the world: "Potent hormone disruptors such as bisphenol A, or BPA, are in the lining of most canned goods and on many cash register receipts. Phthalates are in PVC plastic, food packaging and personal care products. And brominated flame retardants are ubiquitous in most upholstered furniture."

Researchers found that, in the EU, intellectual disabilities caused by prenatal exposure to pesticides containing organophosphates—which are endocrine disruptors—were the number one cause of this high cost.

"The analysis demonstrates just how staggering the cost of widespread endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure is to society," said Leonardo Trasande, associate professor at New York University who led the study. "This research crystallizes more than three decades of lab and population-based studies of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the EU."

And Leiba notes "this is not just a European problem. Americans are routinely exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in everyday consumer products."

Leiba adds, "All of them are everywhere in American households."

Industrial Vs Organic Farming Myths Busted

Natural Blaze | Mar 3, 2015

How can we feed the world—today and tomorrow?

The biggest players in the food industry—from pesticide pushers to fertilizer makers to food processors and manufacturers—spend billions of dollars every year not selling food, but selling the idea that we need their products to feed the world. But, do we really need industrial agriculture to feed the world? Can sustainably grown food deliver the quantity and quality we need—today and in the future? Our first Food MythBusters film takes on these questions in under seven minutes. So next time you hear them, you can too.


Visit Food Myths

Busted! Fukushima Operator Concealed Radioactive Leak for Nearly a Year

© AP Photo/ Toshiaki Shimizu

Sputnik | Feb 26, 2015

Tokyo Electric Power Co., TEPCO, has been slammed by fishermen, for knowingly allowing radioactive substances to flow freely into the sea for ten months.

Operators of the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant admitted that a drainage ditch allowed highly-contaminated water to flow into the sea, and that the leak was first detected back in May 2014.
Fishermen were shocked to hear such confession, voicing disappointment in the company that has been criticized for the cleanup of the Fukushima disaster that happened four years ago.

"I don't understand why you (TEPCO) kept silent about the leakage even though you knew about it. Fishery operators are absolutely shocked," Masakazu Yabuki, chief of the Iwaki fisheries cooperative said.

© AP Photo/ Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Underground water is being released into the ocean through a piping at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan Wednesday, May 21, 2014. Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant has begun releasing groundwater from the least contaminated areas of the facility into the ocean so it does not run into contaminated areas and create more toxic water amid storage space limitations.

A TEPCO officials justified the cover-up saying the company found out during an investigation.

"This was part of an ongoing investigation in which we discovered a water puddle with high levels of radiation on top of the Reactor No. 2 building, and because this also happens to be one of the sources for this drainage system, we decided to report everything all at once."

A company spokesperson added that it did not disclosed the leak because samples from ocean water surrounding the area showed no substantial spikes of hazardous material.

TEPCO had to get permission from the fishermen to dispose of groundwater in the surrounding ocean.

In Sept. 2013, when Tokyo was announced to be the host country for 2020 Summer Olympics, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised the International Olympic Committee that all radiation leaks at the tsunami-ravaged plant were “under control.”

The Japanese government also announced that TEPCO would be the main sponsor of the 2020 Olympics.

Meanwhile, TEPCO maintains that the contaminated water that has been freely leaking into the Pacific Ocean does not violate regulations and the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has not detected a spike in the level of toxins.

In March 2011, the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in Japan was hit by a massive earthquake-triggered tsunami that led to meltdown of three of the plant’s six nuclear reactions. Four people were killed, 37 had physical injuries and two were taken to the hospital for radiation burns. The entire death toll from the earthquake and tsunami is estimated to be around 20,000.

Camping in Amerika: How the System Does Not Protect You

TruthStream Media | Feb 17, 2015

This video is a rant of sorts filmed half an hour after we confronted someone who had drunkenly tried to break into our tent (and subsequently, our car) at Garner State Park in the middle of the previous night at 3 am. Authorities, however pointless, got involved.

All their rules and regulations, all the police state security theater and when it really counted, could they protect us? Nope. And the fact that it was a gun free zone only left us and our children that much more vulnerable to a very real and potentially deadly threat.

‘Tiny houses’: California homelessness gets new $40 solution (PHOTOS)

Watch video

RT | Feb 21, 2015

An Oakland artist is ingeniously battling homelessness in Oakland, California: he builds small houses out of materials he can find in the streets, with each edifice costing around forty bucks.

The tiny homes are made of pallets, bed boards, washing machine doors, and other bizarre objects that catch Greg Kloehn’s attention. Mr Kloehn first noticed that homeless people built shelters from whatever they find in the street, and he wanted to make a house like this.

He jokes that he constructs "illegal homes out of illegal garbage." The cost of one house is “$30 to $40,” Kloehn told RT.

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

“The real cost is just in the wheels: I buy large casters for the bottom, so that they are mobile, and then nails, and screws, and paintbrushes. But everything else I get for free,” he said.

The houses are just comfortable enough to lie down in a warmer place than a cardboard box, and the homeless in Oakland are “so happy,” Kloehn told the Independent. "One cried and got on his knees to thank me. They think I should make them bigger and suggest improvements. They like to decorate them themselves.”

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

Currently, about 25 people use the homes. One couple’s home burned down, another one was stolen, and a third was sold.

“It is tough out there. So I keep making more," Kloehn said. It takes about a week to finish a house, depending on the style.

“There are some quick, easy homes in maybe two or three days. But some more elaborate ones, some more Victorian-style ones, some different dome shapes – it takes a little bit longer," he told RT.

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

Some people choose to change their homes, Kloehn said to RT. “One guy remodeled the house and made it twice as big!”

The creator chooses funny names for the homes: R2D2, The Settler, Romanian Farm House, Uni-bomber Shack, the Tank and The Chuck Wagon to name a few.

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

“They are not just homes but fast becoming a life style option. They are usually cheaper than regular homes, giving more people the opportunity of ownership,” he said.

"By skipping the traditional 30 years mortgage, perhaps the tiny home movement could even reshape the way we think about work and what we want to accomplish with our lives."

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

 

Citizens worldwide mobilize against corporate water grabs

Water is Life! - Milwaukee in solidarity with
those fighting water shutoffs in Detroit.
Photo: OccupyRiverWest.com.

The Ecologist | Feb 15, 2015 | Victoria Collier

The US and other governments are pushing a failed model of water privatization, writes Victoria Collier - but water is a human right, not just a commodity to be traded for profit or monopolized by corporations, and citizens and communities worldwide are fighting back, from Detroit to Cochabamba, from Berlin to Malaysia, to reclaim their water commons. 

"The last 15 years have seen at least 180 cases of water 'remunicipalization' in 35 countries, according to the Transnational Institute, and the trend is growing."

Earlier this month on 5th February, New Jersey became the latest state to subvert democracy by authorizing the fast-track sale or lease of water utilities without public notice, comment, or approval.

The controversial decision highlights the intensifying struggle over who owns, controls, and profits from the most precious - and threatened - resource on Earth.

We tend to associate corrupt water privatization schemes with the developing world, where according to the World Health Organization, nearly 2.6 billion people still lack a latrine and 1.1 billion people have no access to any type of improved drinking source of water.

In this crisis environment, the World Bank and IMF have spent decades imposing water privatization as a condition of their exploitative loans, profiting a handful of transnational water corporations. But according to renowned food and water rights advocate Maude Barlow,

"The performance of these companies in Europe and the developing world has been well documented: huge profits, higher prices for water, cut-offs to customers who cannot pay, little transparency in their dealings, reduced water quality, bribery, and corruption."

Double diasaster for impacted communities

Water privatization has also followed on the heels of war and natural disaster in devastated regions where massive reconstruction projects are needed. These are the largely unregulated profit-centers of what journalist Naomi Klein coined the "disaster capitalism complex".

But now, disaster capitalism has come home to the United States. Private corporations are taking advantage of lucrative opportunities created by the intentionally crippled tax base of American states.

Decades of neo-liberal policies have bled the public sector to the point of collapse: deregulation, outsourcing, tax cuts for the one percent, and trillions lost annually to war spending, corporate welfare and off-shore tax-havens.

Cash-strapped governments can finally no longer repair crumbling infrastructure or meet future development needs. Offering to "fill the budget gap", the private sector is grabbing public assets and resources, particularly water, blinding public officials to the consequences of long-term contracts with substantial up-front payments.

The fast-growing 'public-private-partnership' or PPP model is a friendly marketing euphemism for privatization. PPPs facilitate the transfer of public utilities, like water, to profit-driven private corporations. This is proving a slippery slope as laws are constantly changing, always further acceding to corporate demands.

In June 2014, water investment advisors Bluefield Research praised the "revised regulatory landscape" and cheered a "major step forward for the market" when President Obama signed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) into federal law, which among many other provisions seeks to expand private financing for water projects.

Private sector groups like the American Water Works Company (AWWC), Water Environment Federation (WEF), and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) began lobbying to further weaken WRRDA's public protections and to force tax-free Private Activity Bonds (PABs) so private investors can pocket more money at the expense of public coffers.

Meanwhile, investment banks including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Carlyle Group, Allianz and many others are aggressively buying up the world's declining fresh water supply and infrastructure in what is being called a "liquid gold rush".

The global water fightback

But water is not a commodity; it is a human right. As climate change, population growth, industry use and pollution threatens the world's dwindling fresh water supplies, the onslaught of privatization is being countered by a powerful backlash to reclaim that precious resource for the public sphere.

The last 15 years have seen at least 180 cases of water 'remunicipalization' in 35 countries, according to the Transnational Institute, and the trend is growing.

In France, which had the longest history of water privatization, numerous cities have recently reclaimed their water, including Paris in 2010. From Spain to Buenos Aires, Cochabamba to Kazakhstan, Berlin to Malaysia, water privatization is being aggressively rejected.

Yet, because water privatization is notoriously at odds with democracy, citizens often find they must take to the streets in nonviolent marches and civil disobedience in order to defend their rights and reclaim control of this vital resource.

In Bolivia, a historic public uprising literally drove Bechtel from Cochabamba in 2000. In Ireland, nearly 100,000 people took to the streets in December 2014, to protest the right-wing government's plans to privatize water services. India and Nigeria are also launching campaigns against dangerous and undemocratic privatization schemes.

In the Unites States, residents of Detroit, Michigan spent the summer of 2014 fighting mass water shut-offs to tens of thousands of low-income, mostly African American residents. More than 3,000 protesters marched and citizens - including the elderly and disabled - engaged in direct action to block the trucks sent to disconnect water without notice. Detroiters will now have to mobilize against the water privatization expected through their new regional authority.

In Portland, Oregon, residents are mobilizing now to oppose the costly and unnecessary water system to be built by CH2M Hill, the notoriously corrupt mega-developer and privatization pioneer. CH2M Hill has also planned a mass-privatization scheme for California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, called the West Coast Infrastructure Exchange.

Public-Public Partnerships (PUPs) are emerging frameworks for preventing corporate takeovers of natural resources and developing non-profit, public-driven solutions for water infrastructure needs.

PUPs are partnerships between "two or more public authorities or organizations based on solidarity, to improve the capacity and effectiveness of one partner in providing public water or sanitation services", according to the Public Services International Research Unit.

Such solidarity partnerships are underway in Japan, the Netherlands, India, Costa Rica, Brazil, and many other countries.

We must continue to organize in the United States around similar, pro-active democratic solutions, to prepare for a future increasingly defined by resource scarcity, and fundamentally threatened by the corporate imperative of profits over people and democracy.

---

Victoria Collier is the Education Director of the National Election Integrity Coalition, the co-founder of Girasol, a center for sustainable ecology and economy in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
This article was originally published on CounterPunch.

California wants to close fracking wells to protect drinking water during historic drought

RT | Feb 11, 2015

The US Environmental Protection Agency has waded into the fight between oil and water in drought-stricken California. A mandated review of oil and gas injection wells used in hydraulic fracturing ‒ better known as fracking ‒ discovered that over 2,500 wells are injecting fluid into water aquifers. Now state regulators are set to take action. RT’s Lindsay France takes a closer look at how the Golden State proposes protecting drinking water from fracking chemicals.

Senate approves Keystone XL pipeline despite veto threat

A depot used to store pipes for Transcanada Corp's
planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in
Gascoyne, North Dakota November 14, 2014.
(Reuters/Andrew Cullen)

RT | Jan 29, 2015

The Republican-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan bill approving construction of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, prompting a showdown with President Barack Obama, who has promised to veto the legislation.

In a 62-36 vote, Republicans were able to peel away nine Democrats from President Obama’s position on the pipeline, ensuring easy passage for the bill once it cleared a filibuster. If Obama vetoes the bill as promised, however, supporters do not have the 67 votes needed to override his decision.

The pipeline was first proposed in 2008 and would carry oil 1,179 miles from Canada’s tar sands to Nebraska, where it would connect to an existing pipeline and continue traveling south.

“Constructing Keystone would pump billions into our economy,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said prior to voting. “It would support thousands of good American jobs and as the president’s own State Department has indicated, it would do this with minimal environmental impact.”

The bill now moves into the reconciliation process with the House of Representatives, which passed its own bill approving the pipeline earlier this month.

Previously, the White House resisted attempts by Congress to force the president to make a decision. In 2012, Obama vetoed a proposal supporting the pipeline, but the project’s developer, TransCanada Corp, then reapplied.

Now environmentalists are urging the president to reject it again, as they argue it will make it easier to drill for oil in Canada’s tar sands –a dirty process which burns a lot of energy in itself. The State Department is also seeking input on the project's potential environmental fallout from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.

The project has also sparked opposition from Native American tribes, particularly those living on Nebraska land that the pipeline is expected to run through.




Supporters of the pipeline argue that its construction will create jobs and boost the United States' energy independence. Construction is estimated to create thousands of jobs and contribute a few billion dollars to America's GDP, but once it is completed some 50 people will be required to maintain its operation.

"The fact is, Keystone would create only 35 permanent jobs -- a drop in the bucket," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to the Huffington Post. "A fried chicken franchise creates about as many jobs."

The Thursday vote ended weeks of vigorous debate, which had the Senate up until the small hours of the morning on one occasion. Dozens of amendments to the bill were also considered, but only a few made it in, including one that got the GOP-controlled Senate to say on the record that climate change is real and another two promoting energy efficiency.

Both the House and Senate are expected to reconcile any outstanding issues quickly, meaning that the bill could land on Obama’s desk within days. The White House insists it will veto construction proposals until an ongoing review process by the State Department is completed.

For its part, TransCanada CEO Russ Girling welcomed the vote.

“It’s time to approve Keystone XL so we can transport Canadian and American oil to fuel the everyday lives of the American people," he said. "We look forward to a decision by the U.S. Administration to approve the construction of Keystone XL."

Kansas Officials Admit "Strong Correlation" Between Quakes & Fracking

Zero Hedge | Jan 21, 2015 | Tyler Durden

“If the government and the Kansas Corporation Commission care about the people of Kansas and the damages, they will order a moratorium,” exclaims Joe Spease, chairman of the Kansas Sierra Club's fracking committee following a report from Kansas officials, who have been reluctant to link the mysterious earthquakes in south central Kansas to fracking, admitted last week that "we can say there is a strong correlation between the disposal of saltwater and the earthquakes."


As LJWorld reports, it's the first time state officials have so clearly stated the likely cause of the earthquakes, which are afflicting a region where fracking is widely used, as Rick Miller, a geophysicist and senior scientist for the Kansas Geological Survey, said he believes the injection of fracking chemicals into the earth has been a catalyst for the quakes.

During hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” for short, operators use a mixture of saltwater and chemicals to break tight underground rock formations to release oil and gas. To get rid of the water after the fracking process, operators inject the water deep into disposal wells.

Naming the cause of the earthquakes is, in part, a matter of semantics. Questions have long been raised about whether fracking activity is causing the earthquakes, and officials in other states have concluded that it has. But Kansas officials consider the waste water disposal a separate process, and so have not considered the fracking itself to be the key factor in the quakes.

At issue now is what, if any, action to take. The state’s Sierra Club chapter wants Kansas to follow in the steps of New York, New Hampshire, Maryland and numerous local governments nationwide and call a moratorium on fracking. Others, including Lawrence Rep. Tom Sloan, ask where the nation will get energy if the option is off limits.

...

“He is not being sincere,” said Joe Spease, chairman of the Kansas Sierra Club's fracking committee and owner of a renewable energy company in Overland Park.

“It is so ridiculous, this issue of semantics,” Spease said. “There are millions of dollars in property damages happening, and we have our scientists playing word games.”

The Kansas Sierra Club supports a bill, not yet introduced, to impose a moratorium on fracking to give the oil and gas industry time to develop a solution to the saltwater disposal issue, Spease said.

“If the government and the Kansas Corporation Commission care about the people of Kansas and the damages, they will order a moratorium,” Spease said. “If they only care about the profits of the oil and gas (industry), it will be business as usual. I hope that is not the case.”

As RT reports, this is not the first linkage...

According to a team of scientists working under Duke University geochemistry professor Avner Vengosh, wastewater associated with fracking sites contains large amounts of ammonium and iodide, which may in turn encourage the formation of certain carcinogenic byproducts.

“We were not aware that they existed in oil and gas waste products,” Vengosh told ThinkProgress. “Until now, no one was aware — no one was monitoring for those contaminants.”

“The relatively high frequency of spills associated with the intensity of shale gas development and reports of an overall increase of the salinity in watersheds associated with hydraulic fracturing activities, combined with data presented in this study, suggest that the release of [oil and gas wastewater] to the environment is one of the major risks associated with the development of hydraulic fracturing,” the study reads. “Our findings indicate that discharge and accidental spills of [oil and gas wastewater] to waterways pose risks to both human health and the environment.”

As RT reported previously, a separate study published earlier this month determined that fracking in an Ohio community caused 77 earthquakes during a span of just a few days last March.

Ironically, two days after the paper published its report, four small quakes occurred in the southern part of the state and through neighboring Oklahoma.

Of course - only one thing matters...

State Rep. Tom Sloan, a Lawrence Republican who has served on several Federal Energy Regulatory Commission committees and task forces, said a moratorium would hurt the economy.

“How do you draw the line?” he asked.

“If you don’t allow fracking, you will shut down the entire industry,” he said.

*  *  *

Pesticide Industry Seeks to Leverage Power Through EU-US Trade Deal

"The pesticide industry’s proposal hides its true aim:
to weaken, slow, or stop efforts to protect people
and the planet from exposure to toxic chemicals,"
said report co-author Erica Smith. 
(Photo: CGIAR/flickr/cc)

Common Dreams | Jan 8, 2015 | Andrea Germanos

Organziation's new report details how industry proposal puts environment, food safety at risk

The pesticide industry is leveraging its power to push forth a proposal for a pending EU-US trade deal that would put the environment and human health at risk, according to a new report.

The analysis (pdf) by the Washington, DC- and Geneva-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) looks at recommendations (pdf) from pesticide lobby groups CropLife America and the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) to negotiators for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to align regulatory standards by lowering them to US levels rather than increasing them to the stronger safeguards in EU.

The proposal from CropLife America and ECPA, groups that represent the interests of BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta, states: "A harmonized risk assessment framework for pesticide regulation is necessary to ensure the highest level of consumer and environmental protection, while promoting international trade, creating jobs, and enhancing social and economic viability of the EU and the US."

Erica Smith, co-authof the CIEL reports, stated, "Using words like ‘harmonization’ and ‘cooperation’ the pesticide industry’s proposal hides its true aim: to weaken, slow, or stop efforts to protect people and the planet from exposure to toxic chemicals."

The report, Smith and co-authors David Azoulay and Baskut Tuncak write, "reveals the extent to which the pesticide industry is willing to go to maximize profits."

Specifically, the report states, the proposal would:

• Change EU laws to permit the use of carcinogens and other substances of very high concern as pesticides, posing a health hazard to workers, consumers, and communities;
• Allow the import of food from the US with higher levels of toxic pesticides;
• Weaken, slow or stop efforts to regulate endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals;
• Obstruct efforts to save bee populations, risking irrevocable damage to the quality and quantity of our food supply;
• Block access to information that is vital to developing non-toxic alternatives;
• Interfere with the democratic process b y usurping the regulatory authority of US States and EU Member States;
• and Install a "regulatory ceiling" hampering global pesticide regulation

Rather than adhering to the EU's hazard-based approach based on the precautionary principle, CropLife and ECPA's proposal would open the floodgates in Europe to scores of pesticides that are known carcinogens or contain hormone disrupting chemicals and that are banned in the EU but currently allowed in the US, the authors write.

As for how the groups' proposal would thwart the development of non-toxic alternatives, the report states that it would encourage the use of "exclusive use" periods. The report explains:

Exclusive use periods under US law allow for the concealment of regulatory data for a minimum of 10 years after registration. During the exclusive use period, only the provider of data may use or gain access to that information for the purpose of supporting additional studies or registrations, effectively blocking public access to data and information that could illustrate risks and lead to the development and commercialization of safer alternatives to hazardous pesticides.

A woman holds a sign at an anti-TTIP
demonstration in October 2014.
(Photo: Garry Knight/flickr/cc)

Also potentially thwarting less harmful alternatives is the industry's proposal for aligned standards on protection of confidential business information, which would include information claimed by companies as "trade secrets."

"Access to information regarding the identity of chemicals is vital for the identification of hazardous properties and for the generation of health and safety information regarding those properties, enabling scientists to develop safer solutions," the report states.

Absent from CropLife America and ECPA's proposal is any mention of regulatory "harmonization" happening as a result of the US adopting more stringent EU standards, the report notes.

The US and EU positions on the pesticide industry's recommendations have not yet been disclosed, CIEL states.

Even without the industry proposal, the TTIP had faced previous criticism by environmental groups based on a leaked text of the deal that included "least trade restrictive" measures that would be a boon to corporations but would threaten fair and safe food for consumers. Further, the Center for Food Safety issued a report on TTIP dangers in May 2014 highlighting that "harmonization" could weaken standards, and put food safety on both sides of the Atlantic at risk.

The European greens have opposed the deal as it stands, as well, based in part on its risk to environmental and food safety. They also warned against giving President Obama fast track authority, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, which would hasten the deal's passage through Congress. That authority has received increased attention as a result of another pending trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The release of the CIEL report coincides with a step towards transparency regarding the TTIP. Following repeated criticism over the deal's secrecy, the EU trade commissioner published the EU's negotiating documents for the trade deal.

The next round of TTIP negotiations are set to take place in Brussels next month.

Fracking caused earthquake boom in Ohio town – study

Anti-fracking demonstrators protest on 51st
Street and 7th Avenue.(AFP Photo / Bryan Thomas)

RT | Jan 6, 2015

In March 2014, hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – caused 77 earthquakes in a small Ohio town that had no previous experience with seismic activity, according to a new study. One quake was large enough to be felt in neighboring areas.

Fracking in Poland Township, Ohio was halted two days after the area was hit with a magnitude-3 earthquake along a hidden fault in rock which was deep beneath a natural gas well in the Utica Shale, according to research published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

The study's authors said the magnitude-3 quake was "one the largest earthquakes ever induced by hydraulic fracturing in the United States."

All 77 quakes occurred between March 4-12, the study found.

Besides the magnitude-3 quake, the study reported that most of the seismic activity was not felt by Poland Township's population, which numbered 14,960 in the 2010 census.

No previous seismic activity had occurred in Poland Township, which sits near the Pennsylvania border, and the quakes stopped once fracking operations were put on hold, according to lead study author Robert Skoumal, a graduate student in seismology at Miami University in Ohio.

To unleash oil or natural gas, fracking requires blasting large volumes of highly pressurized water, sand, and other chemicals into layers of rock. The contents of fracking fluid include chemicals that the energy industry and many government officials will not name, yet they insist the chemicals do not endanger human health, contradicting findings by scientists and environmentalists. Once used, toxic fracking wastewater is then either stored in deep underground wells, disposed of in open pits for evaporation, sprayed into waste fields or used over again.

Fracking has been linked to groundwater contamination, an uptick in earthquakes in other states, exacerbation of drought conditions and a host of health concerns for humans and the local environment.

Ohio and many other US states, including Oklahoma and Texas, have been subject to intense amounts of fracking in recent years, as the effects of the process have caused controversy from coast to coast.

For instance, a separate study released in October found that fracking had a direct connection to some 400 micro-earthquakes in the eastern Ohio town of Canton.

Last month, New York became the first US state to ban fracking.

“I cannot support high volume hydraulic fracturing in the great state of New York,” said Howard Zucker, acting New York State Health Commissioner. He equated fracking to second-hand smoke, the health risks of which were not fully understood until many years of scientific studies were conducted.

A fracking ban was recently instituted in Denton, Texas, a town of 123,000 located on top of the natural gas goldmine that is the Barnett Shale formation, the birthplace of the much-maligned oil and gas extraction method.

Meanwhile, dozens of other US cities, towns, villages, and counties have passed measures against the practice, according to Food and Water Watch.

In November, cities in Ohio voted on fracking ban measures, with mixed results. The cities of Gates Mills, Kent, and Youngstown – all located in northeast Ohio, near Poland Township – voted down bans, while the town of Athens approved one.

Yet city bans are not always sure to remain in place, as local ordinances against fracking can run afoul of state laws that allow the process, as is the case in Ohio.

In Colorado, for instance, state officials have worked to supersede local, voter-approved bans through the legal system.

How a Low-Tech Seed Bank in Greece Preserves Thousands of Heritage Crops

Photo by Prensa 420 / Flickr.

Yes Magazine | Dec 29, 2014 | Jeffrey Andreoni

Members of the Greek seed bank Peliti say that keeping their wares in production—instead of in refrigerators—improves the health of the plants they’re working to save. 

Ethical consumers in the United States are increasingly concerned with the seeds used in the production of their food. However, this has been an issue in Europe for many years. In fact, there are several transnational seed-saver networks, like Arche Noah, whose members have become experts on heritage seeds.
 

One of the most famous groups within Arche Noah’s 8,000-member network is the “live” seed bank Peliti, which has been raising awareness about endangered varieties of heritage seeds since 1995. Once tiny, now Peliti is an NGO that receives thousands of visitors for its annual seed swap where you can get a mind-boggling number of seed varieties for free. It’s the biggest event of its kind in the world with an estimated 5,000 visitors from about 50 different countries in 2013. Recently I had the opportunity to interview one of the 200 Peliti volunteers, who are spread throughout Greece and beyond.

They call themselves a “live seed bank” because traditional seed banks store seeds under refrigeration, sometimes for up 15 years, which is “more like a seed museum than a seed bank,” according to volunteer Vasso Kanellopoulou. Peliti concentrates on keeping their seeds reproducing and germinating so they don’t fall victim to genetic erosion. Originally they started out with only a few hundred varieties, now they have thousands they’re saving from extinction.

Autonomous seed networks

Peliti isn’t just a community. It is yet another node within the larger global seed-saver network. They are now morphing into a decentralized network themselves. Their organization has given birth to many satellite communities that are linked with one another via a Google Group.

These satellite communities, one of which is in Athens, organize local seed swaps for those unable to travel to Peliti. The local seed swaps emerged from a growing interest by urban farmers in Greece who wanted more heritage seeds after the financial crisis. Peliti is encouraging growth of urban agriculture throughout their network.

Their organization goes even further, with a consortium of seed savers being represented in the European Union by a team of lawyers. They’ve also helped stop a law against heritage seeds in the E.U. parliament. Ironically, it was the Greek government that proposed the legislation that had seed savers all over Europe worried. Thankfully the E.U. parliament has rewritten the legislation after hearing the complaints.

Recently, Peliti launched International Seed Days, a series of meetings attended by delegations from more than 18 countries. The meetings are closed to the public and take place two days before the seed swap. The renowned activist Vandana Shiva spoke at International Seed Days last year.

Panagiotis Sainatoudis, Peliti’s founder, says that one of the organization’s basic principles is “to support man’s freedom to keep his own seed so he won’t depend every year on seed purchase, commerce, not even on the seeds supplied by Peliti.” When you get connected to the Peliti network, you automatically gain some autonomy.

Here's a personal example: In 2011 I was cycling through Greece and discovered a Peliti participant, Vasilios, on his farm outside Thessaloniki. Vasilios and I remained in contact so when I got back to London he mailed me some seeds for varieties of lettuce and Swiss chard that grow well in cold climates. I planted the seeds and, as the rule goes, I let a certain amount go to seed after the harvest.

Now every year I have Peliti seeds to plant; I just have to be careful to instruct my housemates not to “weed the seeds,” which happened one year when a journalist roommate who fancied himself a gardener threw away all my Peliti seeds! Good thing I had a reserve. You never know where your Peliti seeds will wind up; I share extras when I have them.

There is a state organization in Greece dedicated to preserving the biodiversity of Greece. However, its future remains uncertain because of the financial crisis. It is said that the National Seed Bank has around 15,000 varieties (a small percentage of the total genetic heritage of Greece). However, 5,000 of these have been lost due to funding cuts. Losing money is one thing, but losing species is dangerous!

Perhaps Greece’s most important national bank could be its agricultural gene bank. After Spain, Greece is the country with the richest biodiversity in Europe, and Peliti aims to keep it that way as their seed collection will soon surpass that of the National Seed Bank. It’s a case of community stewardship supplanting the duties of the state.

Jeffrey Andreoni wrote this article for Shareable, where it originally appeared. Jeffrey is a writer who divides his time between London and Athens. His writing covers subjects from fine art to adventure travel. In addition he organizes flash mobs and social interventions in a variety of locations. Originally from Rhode Island, Jeffrey moved to Italy in 1998 and hasn’t stopped moving since; hence his nickname, Bezdomny.

How The Elite Stay In Power

We Are Change | Dec 30, 2014

In this video we break down in simple terms a very complex game that is happening behind the scenes that many do not notice. A complex game played by the very few against everyone else.

Poverty and Fear Still Rankle, Ten Years After the Tsunami

Common Dreams | Dec 26, 2014 | Amantha Perera, Inter Press Service

Men walk past destroyed buildings in the
Hambantota town in southern Sri Lanka.
Reconstruction in this town subsequently
moved at a rapid pace.
(Photo: Amantha Perera/IPS)

It took just 30 minutes for the killer waves to leave 350,000 dead and half a million displaced. Less than one hour for 100,000 houses to be destroyed and 200,000 people to be stripped of their livelihoods.

For many thousands of people in South Asia, the Christmas holidays will always double as a memorial for those who suffered tragic losses during the 2004 tsunami, which rushed ashore on Dec. 26 leaving a trail of tears in its wake.

The island nation of Sri Lanka was one of the worst hit, with three percent of its population affected and five percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) lost in damages.

According to the Disaster Management Center (DMC), over a million people, mainly poor families from the coastal areas, had to be evacuated.

The Northern and Eastern provinces – already struggling in the grip of the protracted civil conflict that at the time was showing no signs of abating – bore the lion’s share of the destruction.

Weary from years of war, the population caught up in the fighting between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were battered further by the waves: according to government data, 60 percent of the tsunami’s impact was concentrated on the northern and eastern coasts.

Read more..

Fukushima and the institutional invisibility of nuclear disaster

Black smoke at Fukushima
Daichi, 24th March 2011.
Photo: deedavee easyflow via Flickr.

The Ecologist | Dec 20, 2014 | John Downer

Speaking at press conference soon after the accident began, the UK government's former chief science advisor, Sir David King, reassured journalists that the natural disaster that precipitated the failure had been "an extremely unlikely event".

In doing so, he exemplified the many early accounts of Fukushima that emphasised the improbable nature of the earthquake and tsunami that precipitated it.

A range of professional bodies made analogous claims around this time, with journalists following their lead. This lamentation, by a consultant writing in the New American, is illustrative of the general tone:

" ... the Fukushima 'disaster' will become the rallying cry against nuclear power. Few will remember that the plant stayed generally intact despite being hit by an earthquake with more than six times the energy the plant was designed to withstand, plus a tsunami estimated at 49 feet that swept away backup generators 33 feet above sea level."

The explicit or implicit argument in all such accounts is that the Fukushima's proximate causes are so rare as to be almost irrelevant to nuclear plants in the future. Nuclear power is safe, they suggest, except against the specific kind of natural disaster that struck Japan, which is both a specifically Japanese problem, and one that is unlikely to re-occur, anywhere, in any realistic timeframe.

An appealing but tenuous logic

The logic of this is tenuous on various levels. The 'improbability' of the natural disaster is disputable, for one, as there were good reasons to believe that neither the earthquake nor the tsunami should have been surprising. The area was well known to be seismically active after all, and the quake, when it came, was only the fourth largest of the last century.

Read more..

How One Indigenous Woman Took On a Multinational Mining Corporation... And Won

Common Dreams | Dec 19, 2014 | Sarah Lazare

Acuña de Chaupe at her property in front
of the Blue Lagoon (Photo: Jorge Chávez Ortiz)

Indigenous Peruvian farmworker Maxima Acuña de Chaupe withstood violent eviction attempts, beatings, and a legal battle to protect her land from being turned into an open-pit gold mine

For over three years, indigenous Peruvian farmworker Maxima Acuña de Chaupe has refused to allow a U.S.-based multinational corporation to turn her land into an open-pit gold mine, withstanding multiple violent eviction attempts by corporate and state agents.

On Wednesday, Acuña de Chaupe finally saw victory when a Peruvian appeals court struck down a lawsuit levied by the Yanacocha mine—which is 51 percent owned by Colorado's Newmont Mining Corporation—that had sought to expel and imprison the family for "invading" their own land.

The ruling is an important win in a case that has become a rallying point for local resistance to multinational plunder.

In 1994, Acuña de Chaupe and her family built their home in Tragadero Grande in the region of Cajamarca next to the Blue Lagoon of Celendin. This lake was sought after for the building of the open-pit Conga gold mining project—an extension of the one at Yanacocha.

This mine is widely opposed by peasant, worker, and indigenous peoples in the region, who have protested its resource extraction, exploitation, displacement, and environmental harm with with mass marches and general strikes.

When Yanacocha sought to buy Acuña de Chaupe's land in 2011, she refused, in a bid to protect the environment and her family's home.

"I may be poor. I may be illiterate, but I know that our mountain lakes are our real treasure," Acuña de Chaupe told New Internationalist Magazine two years ago. "From them, I can get fresh and clean water for my children, for my husband and for my animals!"

"Yet, are we expected to sacrifice our water and our land so that the Yanacocha people can take gold back to their country? Are we supposed to sit quietly and just let them poison our land and water?" Acuña de Chaupe continued.

What ensued, according to Acuña de Chaupe, was a corporate intimidation campaign, orchestrated by the mining company with the aid of private security and the Peruvian state.

Acuña de Chaupe says she and her family have faced at least three violent eviction attempts by the company, aided by Peruvian police and soldiers. One beating left Acuña de Chaupe and her daughter unconscious and landed her son in the hospital.

The plight of Acuña de Chaupe and her family sparked outrage and support from regional and international organizations, including the Women's Movement of Peru and World March of Women. At the recent People's Summit in Lima, Peru, climate justice advocates held a large rally in solidarity with Acuña de Chaupe.

Here is a video of Acuña de Chaupe telling her story:


La Jalqueñita - english from Alexander Luna on Vimeo.
When Acuña de Chaupe refused to give in, Yanacocha sued her and her family on charges they were illegally occupying their own land. In August, a judge sentenced four members of her family to "to two years and eight months of suspended imprisonment for not vacating the land," Telesur reports. "The judge also ordered the family to pay close to US$2,000 in penalties."

Wednesday's ruling, however, tosses out all of these sentences.

"I want to thank the judges of the court of justice of Cajamarca for being impartial and applying justice and for not permitting that we the farmworkers suffer at the hands of Yanacocha," Acuña de Chaupe declared following her acquittal. "I pray to God to take care of them. During the four years this process has lasted, many authorities tortured me, defamed me, and persecuted me. But here we have good authorities."

Movement against Fracking Wins as New York Bans Hydraulic Fracturing

Global Research | Dec 19, 2014 | Kevin Zeese

In a major victory for people who have been working to stop hydraulic fracturing for gas, known as fracking, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York announced a ban on fracking in New York State.

This would not have occurred had it not been for the consistent and ongoing educating, organizing and mobilizing by groups like New Yorkers Against Fracking and We Are Seneca Lake, among others. This has been a six year campaign of creative protests, civil resistance, direct action and local communities voting to ban fracking, a power upheld by New York’s highest court.  One opponent of fracking, Walter Hang, an environmental mapping consultant wrote:

This stupendous victory was won by an unrelenting grassroots citizen campaign powered by amazing press coverage that systematically highlighted the public health and environmental concerns of shale fracking. That effort has won a victory unparalleled in the annals of the American environmental movement.

Tom Wilber who writes Shale Gas Review which covers gas development in Marcellus and Utica shales, noted the power of the anti-fracking movement and how it related to the science on fracking:

Science is part of the calculus. But despite what Cuomo would like us to believe, scientists don’t make these kinds of decisions. The full equation is Science + politics = policy. Cuomo finally got tired of being hounded on the issue by his political base. The movement in New York against shale gas was relentless and it was focused on him.

People rising up and saying ‘no’ to fracking made it impossible for the government to ignore the health, safety and environmental problems caused by fracking. See this December 2014 compendium of the research. This victory is one that will spur the anti-fracking movement throughout the country and puts in question the fracking infrastructure being built, e.g. pipelines, compressor stations and export terminals, currently being pushed throughout the country by Big Energy.

Inside Climate News reports that Sandra Steingraber, an environmental health expert and fracking activist in New York, told them from the parking lot of a sheriff’s office where she was bailing out 28 musicians arrested in an ongoing protest against a fracked gas storage facility in the Seneca Lakes region of New York that when she told the activists the news, they picked up their instruments and there was “singing and dancing in the streets.” She added “Fracking is able to roll over so many communities because people are told it is inevitable. This decision emboldens us all. It shows this fight is winnable.”

At a meeting in Calvert County last night where Dominion Resources is building a fracked gas export terminal, Tracey Eno of Calvert Citizens for a Healthy Community, a member ofWe Are Cove Point, mentioned the Cuomo decision to inspire people to realize that we can defeat big energy.

Yesterday morning we received an email message urging people in New York to prepare to protest as Governor Cuomo was expected to announce three pilot fracking projects in New York, instead the governor decided to continue the moratorium on fracking. This reminds us that we often do not realize how close we are to victory, indeed people often feel like they are failing or cannot win, when in fact victory is within reach and much closer than they realize.

Cuomo spoke briefly at a press conference after his cabinet meeting announcing the fracking ban and saying he was following the advice of experts. He then turned the press conference over to them to explain the decision.

The New York Times reports that the state health commissioner expressed concerns about the health impacts of fracking:

In a presentation at the cabinet meeting, the acting state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, said the examination had found “significant public health risks” associated with fracking.

Holding up copies of scientific studies to animate his arguments, Dr. Zucker listed concerns about water contamination and air pollution, and said there was insufficient scientific evidence to affirm the safety of fracking.

Dr. Zucker said his review boiled down to a simple question: Would he want his family to live in a community where fracking was taking place?

Zucker said that in other states where fracking is already happening, he found that state health commissioners “weren’t even at the table.”

At the same time, Joe Martens, the environmental commissioner described the economic stimulus from fracking was not as great telling a press conference that the prospects for fracking in New York are “uncertain at best” and describing economic benefits as “far lower than originally forecasted.”  As The Times reported:

Martens noted the low price of natural gas, the high local cost of industry oversight and the large areas that would be off-limits to shale gas development because of setback requirements, water supply protections, and local prohibitions. He said those factors combine to make fracking less economically beneficial than had been anticipated.

Chip Northrup, a former oil and gas investor who writes the No Fracking Way blog that opposes drilling in New York, wrote about the views of commissioners Zucker and Martens:

Both of them cited the greatly reduced area where fracking would actually take place in New York – since most upstate towns ban it.

And the only towns that might allow it are in an small area by the Pennsylvania border that is not currently economic.  So, frankly, simply not worth fracking fooling with.

Which makes perfect sense from all standpoints: environmentally, economically and politically.

At the press conference Cuomo said  “I think it’s our responsibility to develop an alternative … for safe, clean economic development.”

We urge advocates and the governor to now put in place a strategy to make New York the first state to put in place a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy economy by 2025. This is not an impossible fantasy but an achievable goal. Here is one example of how New York could achieve a clean energy economy.  Putting in place a clean energy policy is the kind of leadership that could revive Cuomo, who had a very difficult re-election, as a viable presidential candidate in 2020.

Kevin Zeese is co-director of Popular Resistance which is a member of We Are Cove Point which seeks to stop the development of a fracked gas expert terminal at Cove Point in Maryland.

Source: Popular Resistance

Out of Control Fracking Well Forces Evacuations

Efforts Tuesday to regain control of a fracking
well Tuesday failed.  (Photo: bill baker/flickr/cc)

Common Dreams | Dec 17, 2014 | Andrea Germanos

Official said Tuesday blowout at Monroe County, Ohio well remained a threat

An out-of-control natural gas fracking well in Monroe County, Ohio forced more than two dozen families from their homes and may pose the threat of an explosion.

The blowout at the Triad Hunter-operated well on the Utica Shale happened at approximately 2:00 p.m. EST on December 13, 2014, according to a statement released Sunday by the operator's parent company, Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation.

According to reporting by the Columbus Dispatch, the well had been temporarily plugged a year ago.
The company states that "despite numerous precautionary measures taken in connection with the temporary plugging and abandonment operation, the well began to flow uncontrollably while recommencing production operations. Triad Hunter personnel were removing the well's night cap flange when a pressure disruption occurred. They attempted to bolt back down this equipment but were not able to safely do so prior to natural gas flowback."

Bethany McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the agency which regulates the gas and oil industry, told the Dispatch Tuesday: "There’s still a steady stream of natural gas coming from the wellhead," and though there is no fire, the gas being emitted could be explosive.

No injuries have been reported in the incident so far.  Over twenty-five families in the area were evacuated, though they now have daytime access to their homes.

According to reporting by Wheeling, West Virginia's WTRF, the first attempt to regain control of the well failed on Tuesday.

Canada pressures US to pass Keystone XL as falling oil prices threaten project

Joe Raedle / Getty Images / AFP

RT | Dec 15, 2014

The Keystone XL pipeline may no longer make economic sense to build, thanks to falling global oil prices. However, Canada's natural resources minister is in Washington to push hard for the project’s construction.

On Friday, the price of crude oil dropped below $60 a barrel, down from a high of $116 in June. Oil demand growth for 2015 was slashed by 230,000 barrels per day, and is set to only increase by one percent, or by 900,000 barrels to 93.3 million barrels per day. In 2014, that number was 92.4 million barrels per day.

The plummeting oil prices are a good thing for environmentalists opposed to the Keystone pipeline extension.
“Oil prices going low gives the president a landing place to reject the pipeline because Canada needs cheap and big infrastructure,” Jane Kleeb, founder of the anti-Keystone group Bold Nebraska, told Politico. “When oil prices are high, producing the expensive and high-carbon tar sands makes sense. But now that oil is low, the only way tar sands will continue to expand is if Canada gets big pipelines.”

The proposed extension would have allowed the transport of crude oil from Canada's tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico, traveling from Hardisty, Alberta in Canada to Steele City, Nebraska in the US. There, it would join the already-built Keystone pipeline, traveling to Patoka, Illinois or Nederland, Texas via Cushing, Oklahoma, through a newly completed extension.

By some estimates, the price of oil has already dropped below what investors in Keystone would need to break even, and some analysts believe further drops are in store, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"The recent decline in [oil] prices has to give the sponsors some pause," Chris Lafakis, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics, told the paper.

A recent State Department study found that when oil is selling for $65-$75 per barrel, it is a "potential danger zone" for oil production in western Canada – the point where transportation costs driven higher by failing to build the pipeline could "have a substantial impact" on the industry's growth, according to Politico.

The price of oil has lost 20 percent since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) last meeting on November 27, when the consortium ‒ heavily influenced by Saudi Arabia ‒ decided not keep the market over-supplied in an attempt to drive out more high-cost producing nations, such as Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, the US, and Canada.

United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei says OPEC will maintain output at 30 million barrels of oil a day, and wants to monitor the price for three months before even considering a meeting about possible changes.

“We are not going to change our minds because the prices went to $60 or to $40,” Mazrouei told Bloomberg on Sunday at a conference in Dubai.

Within the US, the project faces an uphill battle for approval. In mid-November, the lame-duck US Senate failed to fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline project, falling one vote short of breaking a filibuster against the bill. The Nebraska Supreme Court is expected to rule as early as Friday on ongoing litigation in that could ultimately affect the pipeline route in that state.


It is amid this global setting that Canadian Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford is in Washington, DC to meet with his American and Mexican counterparts, US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Mexican Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell. Much of the agenda will focus on energy data and Mexico’s regulatory reforms for its oil and energy sector, but the three “will surely discuss energy infrastructure” as it pertains to the Keystone project, Global News reported.

Rickford told reporters at a Monday press conference that the project to carry oil sands from Alberta to Gulf of Mexico refineries would help the US end its dependence on unreliable sources of oil in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The US Congress is expected to take up the proposed legislation in the new year, once all the newly elected members are in office..