Drought is hitting the ten-year mark in some regions, hopes for a good soaking from La Niña are rapidly fading, and Australia's government says climate change is at least partially to blame.
Photo: Lake Hume at four percent (Suburbanbloke)]]>
If you're British, and the nuclear bomb manages to ruin your afternoon tea, well, then you've really got a problem.
Or so one might conclude from the release last week of declassified Cold War-era documents that found British officials worrying about what a nuclear war would do to food supplies.
The BBC quoted one document from 1955 as saying the government must be "completely ready to maintain supplies of food to the people of these islands, sufficient in volume to keep them in good heart and health from the onset of a thermonuclear attack on this country."
But, the document stated, the kind of rationing that existed in World War II would be "fatally deficient" in keeping the British people fed in the case of a nuclear war.
And the devastation of national tea supplies would just add insult to injury.
"The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75 percent of stocks and substantial delays in imports and with no system of rationing it would be wrong to consider that even one ounce per head per week could be ensured," said one government report from some time between 1954 and 1956.
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Nuclear threat sparked tea worry"
BBC News, May 4, 2008
"Teatime terror: Brits' big nuclear worry revealed"
Agence France-Presse, May 5, 2008
"Documents: Nuclear threat triggers tea worry in UK"
Xinhuanet (China), May 5, 2008
But, like most weather reports, the outlook for large windmill projects is anything but predictable, plagued as they are by noise complaints, endangered species and fickle commercial backers.
In the United Kingdom, a giant wind farm planned for the Thames River estuary now appears to be in jeopardy after Dutch oil giant Shell announced it would pull out of the project.
The BBC reported that Shell, citing the rising cost of building materials, would sell its 33 percent stake in the London Array, a proposed wind farm that had been listed by Forbes magazine as one of the biggest clean energy projects in the world.
The pullout sparked anger on the part of environmentalists and other supporters of the project.
Nick Rau, an activist with Friends of the Earth, pointed out that the decision comes at a time of record profits for oil companies.
"Shell announced a 12 percent profit rise to 3.92 billion pounds," Rau told the BBC. "It should be investing those profits in renewable energy projects, not focusing its efforts on making money from sucking fossil fuels out of the ground and contributing to climate change."
The company has said it will continue to pursue wind power projects in the United States.
Yet U.S. wind power projects have run into some snags of their own.
A proposed set of three wind farms in Massachusetts' Buzzards Bay was scaled back to two this week after officials concluded that one location would pose a threat to endangered birds in the area.
In contrast to the London Array, which was supported by Friends of the Earth, the Massachusetts clean energy project was partly scuttled by opposition from environmentalists.
New Bedford's Standard-Times cited the Massachusetts Audubon Society as one of the groups that helped kill the third wind farm.
Wind power is sometimes touted as one of the cleanest energy sources available, but as the Tribune-Democrat, in Johnston, Penn., reported, windmills can sometimes cause noise pollution.
According to the newspaper, Todd and Jill Stull of Portage Township, Penn., have filed suit against Gamesa Energy USA, alleging that the company's 30-turbine Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm, which began operating last year, has created a public nuisance.
The Tribune-Democrat quoted the couple's lawyer, Bradley Tupi, as saying: "They assured the officials in the township in question that the turbines would be quiet. The turbines are quite loud. They wake Dr. Stull up and he must go to the basement to sleep."
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Wind turbine plan off Fairhaven dropped; 2 other SouthCoast sites still eyed"
Standard-Times (Mass.), May 6, 2008
"Couple sues wind farm over noise levels"
Tribune-Democrat (Penn.), May 4, 2008
"Green Giants: The World's Biggest Clean-Energy Projects"
Forbes.com, April 30, 2008
"Shell pulls out of big wind farm"
BBC.com, May 1, 2008
That periodic cooling of the eastern Pacific typically brings increased rainfall to the land Down Under -- which would have been a blessing for a country entering its tenth year of drought in some regions.
But, with the La Nina pattern fading, the prognosis is grim.
Heavy rainfalls did indeed come to Australia, but only certain parts, and not in the quantities need to break the enduring drought cycle.
Areas plagued by record-low rainfall are actually increasing, and the resurgence of average rainfall elsewhere wasn't enough to officially close out the dry spell.
Officials said global climate change is at least partly to blame for the persistent drought.
The problem is so bad that the world's largest cattle ranch, an almost 15,000 square mile spread in Australia's northwest, is set to shut down completely in the next few months if no additional rains come.
Source:
"Drought getting worse, despite rain"
The Advertiser (Australia), May 6, 2008
"World's biggest cattle station gets rid of stock"
The Advertiser (Australia), May 6, 2008
Africa, in particular, is threatened by the trend, according to Kenya's The Nation newspaper.
The culprits -- mostly large commercial fleets from Asia and Europe -- break international law, and prey on developing nations that lack the infrastructure and clout to enforce fishing regulations.
While the collective financial losses are huge -- adding up to $1 billion annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone -- the effects are felt at the local level.
Family and subsistence fishers, for example, find their traditional waters suddenly populated with massive trawlers they can't compete with.
Ecological devastation also follows in the wakes of these fleets, which use vast nets and long lines that sweep up marine life indiscriminately.
Much of this catch is consider economically worthless, and is dumped, lifeless, back in the ocean, further depleting local waters.
Source:
"Africa: Illegal Fishing Costs Continent Sh62 Billion"
The Nation (Kenya), May 2, 2008
The activist group EarthRights International says it has interviewed villagers near the Yadana Pipeline who claim government troops working for Chevron have killed local residents, and used others as slave labor.
The pipeline brings in $969 million annually for the Myanmar junta. Marco Simons, the EarthRights legal director, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Chevron has a "moral responsibility" to shut down the pipeline, pressuring the dictatorship to end the abuses.
Chevron, however, says the charges are unfounded. Citing research by CDA Collaborative Learning Projects of Cambridge, Mass., a nonprofit consultancy for international aid organizations.
CDA's February 2008 report was developed in partnership with Total, the French oil company and a major shareholder in the pipeline.
It was the fifth report in as many years, and found widespread support for social services provided to regional villages offered by Total.
An EarthRights spokesman suggested that the villagers CDA interviewed -- 75 in all -- might have been afraid of being open to foreigners, and said that his organization works with Burmese nationals, some of whom have been studying rights abuses in the region for more than a decade.
Source:
"Killings alleged at Chevron's Burma pipeline"
San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2008
"The Burma Backstory: How Fossil Fuels Keep the Junta in Business"
Newsdesk.org, September 26, 2007
"Energy Giants Sued for Third World Violence: Doe v. Unocal"
Newsdesk.org, May 13, 2002
Newsdesk.org Topic Search: Myanmar
"Total Myanmar/Burma: Yadana Gas Transportation Project, Visit V"
CDA Cooperative Learning Projects, February 2008
"The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past five to 10 years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of climate change."
-- Australia's Bureau of Meteorology on persistent, nationwide drought (see "Top Stories," below).
CONTENTS:
*Top Stories*
More deaths alleged at Chevron's Myanmar pipeline
Africa reels from illegal fishing
Drought persists Down Under
*Environment*
New wind-power projects becalmed
*War, & Other Civilized Pasttimes*
For Cold War Brits, the Day After was a tea-time nightmare
* More Deaths Alleged at Chevron's Myanmar Pipeline
Alleged human rights abuses by soldiers guarding a Burmese pipeline have revived old questions about pipeline co-owner Chevron's relationship with the military dictatorship that hosts it.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the activist group EarthRights International has interviewed villagers near the Yadana Pipeline, who say government troops working for Chevron have killed local residents, and used others as slave labor.
Activists say that the pipeline brings in $969 million annually for the Myanmar junta, and claims that Chevron has a "moral responsibility" to shut down the pipeline, and thus pressure the dictatorship to end the abuses.
Chevron, however, says the charges are unfounded, and that researchers from another nonprofit, CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, found no evidence of abuse by soldiers.
An EarthRights spokesman suggested that the villagers CDA spoke to might have been afraid of speaking too freely to foreigners, and said that his organization works with Burmese nationals, some of whom have been studying rights abuses in the region for more than a decade.
Source:
"Killings alleged at Chevron's Burma pipeline"
San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2008
"The Burma Backstory: How Fossil Fuels Keep the Junta in Business"
Newsdesk.org, September 26, 2007
"Energy Giants Sued for Third World Violence: Doe v. Unocal"
Newsdesk.org, May 13, 2002
Newsdesk.org Topic Search: Myanmar
* Africa Reels from Illegal Fishing
Billions of dollars have been lost worldwide, and entire ecosystems are at risk from the effects of illegal fishing.
Africa, in particular, is threatened by the trend, according to Kenya's The Nation newspaper.
The culprits -- mostly large commercial fleets from Asia and Europe -- break international law, and prey on developing nations that lack the infrastructure and clout to enforce fishing regulations.
While the collective financial losses are huge -- adding up to $1 billion annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone -- the effects are felt at the local level.
Family and subsistence fishers, for example, find their traditional waters suddenly populated with massive trawlers they can't compete with.
Ecological devastation also follows in the wakes of these fleets, which use vast nets and long lines that sweep up marine life indiscriminately.
Much of this catch is consider economically worthless, and is dumped, lifeless, back in the ocean, further depleting local waters.
Source:
"Africa: Illegal Fishing Costs Continent Sh62 Billion"
The Nation (Kenya), May 2, 2008
* Drought Persists Down Under
Australians had high hopes for the Pacific weather pattern known as La Nina.
That periodic cooling of the eastern Pacific typically brings increased rainfall to the land Down Under -- which would have been a blessing for a country entering its tenth year of drought in some regions.
But, with the La Nina pattern fading, the prognosis is grim.
Heavy rainfalls did indeed come to Australia, but only certain parts, and not in the quantities need to break the enduring drought cycle.
Areas plagued by record-low rainfall are actually increasing, and the resurgence of average rainfall elsewhere wasn't enough to officially close out the dry spell.
Officials said global climate change is at least partly to blame for the persistent drought.
The problem is so bad that the world's largest cattle ranch, an almost 15,000 square mile spread in Australia's northwest, is set to shut down completely in the next few months if no additional rains come.
Source:
"Drought getting worse, despite rain"
The Advertiser (Australia), May 6, 2008
"World's biggest cattle station gets rid of stock"
The Advertiser (Australia), May 6, 2008
* New Wind-Power Projects Becalmed
With oil prices setting new highs nearly every day, wind power is getting another look.
But, like most weather reports, the outlook for large windmill projects is anything but predictable, plagued as they are by noise complaints, endangered species and fickle commercial backers.
In the United Kingdom, a giant wind farm planned for the Thames River estuary now appears to be in jeopardy after Dutch oil giant Shell announced it would pull out of the project.
The BBC reported that Shell, citing the rising cost of building materials, would sell its 33 percent stake in the London Array, a proposed wind farm that had been listed by Forbes magazine as one of the biggest clean energy projects in the world.
The pullout sparked anger on the part of environmentalists and other supporters of the project.
Nick Rau, an activist with Friends of the Earth, pointed out that the decision comes at a time of record profits for oil companies.
"Shell announced a 12 percent profit rise to 3.92 billion pounds," Rau told the BBC. "It should be investing those profits in renewable energy projects, not focusing its efforts on making money from sucking fossil fuels out of the ground and contributing to climate change."
The company has said it will continue to pursue wind power projects in the United States.
Yet U.S. wind power projects have run into some snags of their own.
A proposed set of three wind farms in Massachusetts' Buzzards Bay was scaled back to two this week after officials concluded that one location would pose a threat to endangered birds in the area.
In contrast to the London Array, which was supported by Friends of the Earth, the Massachusetts clean energy project was partly scuttled by opposition from environmentalists.
New Bedford's Standard-Times cited the Massachusetts Audubon Society as one of the groups that helped kill the third wind farm.
Wind power is sometimes touted as one of the cleanest energy sources available, but as the Tribune-Democrat, in Johnston, Penn., reported, windmills can sometimes cause noise pollution.
According to the newspaper, Todd and Jill Stull of Portage Township, Penn., have filed suit against Gamesa Energy USA, alleging that the company's 30-turbine Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm, which began operating last year, has created a public nuisance.
The Tribune-Democrat quoted the couple's lawyer, Bradley Tupi, as saying: "They assured the officials in the township in question that the turbines would be quiet. The turbines are quite loud. They wake Dr. Stull up and he must go to the basement to sleep."
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Wind turbine plan off Fairhaven dropped; 2 other SouthCoast sites still eyed"
Standard-Times (Mass.), May 6, 2008
"Couple sues wind farm over noise levels"
Tribune-Democrat (Penn.), May 4, 2008
"Green Giants: The World's Biggest Clean-Energy Projects"
Forbes.com, April 30, 2008
"Shell pulls out of big wind farm"
BBC.com, May 1, 2008
* For Cold War Brits, the Day After was a Tea-Time Nightmare
A wry old anti-nuclear slogan used to say "One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day."
If you're British, and the nuclear bomb manages to ruin your afternoon tea, well, then you've really got a problem.
Or so one might conclude from the release last week of declassified Cold War-era documents that found British officials worrying about what a nuclear war would do to food supplies.
The BBC quoted one document from 1955 as saying the government must be "completely ready to maintain supplies of food to the people of these islands, sufficient in volume to keep them in good heart and health from the onset of a thermonuclear attack on this country."
But, the document stated, the kind of rationing that existed in World War II would be "fatally deficient" in keeping the British people fed in the case of a nuclear war.
And the devastation of national tea supplies would just add insult to injury.
"The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75 percent of stocks and substantial delays in imports and with no system of rationing it would be wrong to consider that even one ounce per head per week could be ensured," said one government report from some time between 1954 and 1956.
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Nuclear threat sparked tea worry"
BBC News, May 4, 2008
"Teatime terror: Brits' big nuclear worry revealed"
Agence France-Presse, May 5, 2008
"Documents: Nuclear threat triggers tea worry in UK"
Xinhuanet (China), May 5, 2008
- - - - - - - - - -
SUPPORT US
Newsdesk.org and News You Might Have Missed are commercial-free, and available at no charge.
We welcome your tax-deductible contributions!
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DISCLAIMER: All external links are provided as informational resources only, consistent with the nonprofit, public-interest mission of Independent Arts & Media. Independent Arts & Media does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations and does not have a copyright on any of the content located at these sites.
Or, that's how it's supposed to be.
But the numbers of migratory birds reaching the north from their winter grounds in the south have plummeted in recent years.
One British study found numbers of migratory birds down by 20 percent in just four years, according to the Telegraph newspaper.
A five-year study just concluded in Vermont found 17 new species since the last time an atlas was taken, in the 1970s, but other species have dwindled or disappeared altogether, according to the Burlington Free Press.
The leader of the study, Rosalind Renfew of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, told the newspaper: "You can think of birds as sentinels of change, a kind of alarm system about what is happening to our environment."
Some studies have found that pesticides used in Latin America are killing off songbirds such as the bobolink.
"Everyone who has looked for pesticide poisoning in birds has found it," Bridget Stutchbury, a professor of biology at York University in Toronto, told Britain's Independent newspaper. "When we count birds during our summers we are finding significant population declines in about three dozen species of songbirds."
Stutchbury also wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which she blamed North American consumers for the problem.
"Each year, as we continue to demand out-of-season fruits and vegetables, we ensure that fewer and fewer songbirds will return," she wrote.
But pesticides in the Americas can't be blamed for the decline of birds in Britain.
"It seems as though there is a big signal emerging from all the noise -- that migrants as a group are declining -- but we haven't yet found the smoking gun," David Gibbons, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told the British newspaper the Telegraph.
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Volunteers complete 5-year survey of Vermont breeding birds"
Burlington Free Press (VT), April 28, 2008
"Migrating bird numbers plummet in UK"
The Telegraph (UK), April 21, 2008
"Garden birds decline by 20 per cent in four years"
The Telegraph, March 26, 2008
"American songbirds are being wiped out by banned pesticides"
The Independent (UK), April 4, 2008
"Did Your Shopping List Kill a Songbird?"
New York Times, March 30, 2008
Yes, you read that right.
NextEnergryNews reports that plans are afoot for a 30-story, $200 million building which will feature crops growing on many of its floors -- and the building will go up in the notoriously environmentally unfriendly city of Las Vegas.
According to the article, the project could reportedly make up to $25 million a year through selling food to nearby casinos, with perhaps another $15 million generated through tourism at the site -- and the project could be completed as early as 2010.
The Las Vegas skyscraper is perhaps the most flamboyant example of a surge in urban agriculture projects.
The Web site WebUrbanist recently gathered five designs for urban farming skyscrapers, concluding: "In the long run such structures may not only provide food for hundreds of thousands of people per building but they will also relieve much of the burden on other flat landscapes where fewer and fewer usable growing spaces exist."
Most urban farming is on a much more modest scale.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on Oakland, Calif., resident K. Ruby and other farmers in the San Francisco Bay Area who have made it their mission to grow their own food within their crowded neighborhoods -- and to educate their neighbors about how to join in.
Ruby told the Chronicle that Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" inspired her to open the Institute for Urban Homesteading, an organization dedicated to "resourcefulness, and taking whatever space you have and using it as sustainably as possible."
The practice is not limited to the politically liberal Bay Area.
The British newspaper The Independent recently reported on Food Up Front, an organization that teaches Londoners how to grow their own food on whatever tiny spot of land they might have in front of their houses or on their balconies.
Group founder Sebastian Mayfield told the newspaper, "We wanted to reconnect people living in cities with food. You don't have to own acres of countryside in Essex like (TV chef) Jamie Oliver to grow your own vegetables -- anyone can do it using pretty much any old space."
In the developing world, the need for urban farming can be less about environmentalism and more about survival.
Latin America Press reported recently on the Urban Agriculture program, which helps residents grow their own food in the poorest neighborhood in Bogota, Colombia.
"We need to realize: if we don't work, we won't have anything to eat," one participant said.
Until the projects take off, the organization also provides free meals.
"You can't say to people who are suffering from hunger that they come to the allotment and in three months they'll have something to eat," program coordinator German Bueno said. "You have to give them food immediately."
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"How far can urban agriculture go?"
Latin America Press, April 10, 2008
"5 Urban Design Proposals for 3D City Farms: Sustainable, Ecological and Agricultural Skyscrapers"
WebUrbanist, March 30, 2008
"Las Vegas to Build World's First 30 Story Vertical Farm"
NextEnergyNews, January 2, 2008
"The city-dwellers who are becoming front garden farmers"
The Independent (UK), April 17, 2008
"Urban back-to-the-land movement"
San Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 2008
DEAR READERS: We at Newsdesk.org/News You Might Have Missed are on overtime getting ready for the big Innovations in Journalism Expo coming up this Saturday, May 3, in Sunnyvale, Calif.
The event is being produced by our parent agency, Independent Arts & Media, working with the Society of Professional Journalists-Northern California. You can learn more about the Expo online.
Tickets will be available at the door, but we will likely sell out, so plan ahead if you want to attend.
The keynote will be recorded by KQED-FM for broadcast; we'll send that info along as soon as it's available.
Meanwhile, due to the heavy workload, this week's NYMHM will be slightly shorter than usual. Thanks much to Will Crain for another stellar batch of topic roundups ...
And thank YOU for your readership and support!
"Everyone who has looked for pesticide poisoning in birds has found it."
-- Biology professor Bridget Stutchbury, on the drastic declines in migratory songbird populations (see "Environment," below).
CONTENTS:
*Environment*
Where have all the songbirds gone?
*Agriculture*
Look, up in the sky! Urban farming puts down roots
* Where Have all the Songbirds Gone?
Songbirds fly thousands of miles to return to the northern hemisphere every spring, just as regularly as the sun comes up every morning.
Or, that's how it's supposed to be.
But the numbers of migratory birds reaching the northern hemisphere from their winter grounds in the south have plummeted in recent years.
One British study found numbers of migratory birds down by 20 percent in just four years, according to the Telegraph newspaper.
A five-year study just concluded in Vermont found 17 new species since the last time an atlas was taken, in the 1970s, but other species have dwindled or disappeared altogether, according to the Burlington Free Press.
The leader of the study, Rosalind Renfew of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, told the newspaper: "You can think of birds as sentinels of change, a kind of alarm system about what is happening to our environment."
Some studies have found that pesticides used in Latin America are killing off songbirds such as the bobolink.
"Everyone who has looked for pesticide poisoning in birds has found it," Bridget Stutchbury, a professor of biology at York University in Toronto, told Britain's Independent newspaper. "When we count birds during our summers we are finding significant population declines in about three dozen species of songbirds."
Stutchbury also wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which she blamed North American consumers for the problem.
"Each year, as we continue to demand out-of-season fruits and vegetables, we ensure that fewer and fewer songbirds will return," she wrote.
But pesticides in the Americas can't be blamed for the decline of birds in Britain.
"It seems as though there is a big signal emerging from all the noise -- that migrants as a group are declining -- but we haven't yet found the smoking gun," David Gibbons, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told the British newspaper the Telegraph.
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Volunteers complete 5-year survey of Vermont breeding birds"
Burlington Free Press (VT), April 28, 2008
"Migrating bird numbers plummet in UK"
The Telegraph (UK), April 21, 2008
"Garden birds decline by 20 per cent in four years"
The Telegraph, March 26, 2008
"American songbirds are being wiped out by banned pesticides"
The Independent (UK), April 4, 2008
"Did Your Shopping List Kill a Songbird?"
New York Times, March 30, 2008
* Look, up in the Sky! Urban Farming Puts Down Roots
Urban farming can be as simple as a backyard vegetable patch or as complicated as a proposed agricultural skyscraper in Las Vegas.
Yes, you read that right.
NextEnergryNews reports that plans are afoot for a 30-story, $200 million building which will feature crops growing on many of its floors -- and the building will go up in the notoriously environmentally unfriendly city of Las Vegas.
According to the article, the project could reportedly make up to $25 million a year through selling food to nearby casinos, with perhaps another $15 million generated through tourism at the site -- and the project could be completed as early as 2010.
The Las Vegas skyscraper is perhaps the most flamboyant example of a surge in urban agriculture projects.
The Web site WebUrbanist recently gathered five designs for urban farming skyscrapers, concluding: "In the long run such structures may not only provide food for hundreds of thousands of people per building but they will also relieve much of the burden on other flat landscapes where fewer and fewer usable growing spaces exist."
Most urban farming is on a much more modest scale.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on Oakland, Calif., resident K. Ruby and other farmers in the San Francisco Bay Area who have made it their mission to grow their own food within their crowded neighborhoods -- and to educate their neighbors about how to join in.
Ruby told the Chronicle that Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" inspired her to open the Institute for Urban Homesteading, an organization dedicated to "resourcefulness, and taking whatever space you have and using it as sustainably as possible."
The practice is not limited to the politically liberal Bay Area.
The British newspaper The Independent recently reported on Food Up Front, an organization that teaches Londoners how to grow their own food on whatever tiny spot of land they might have in front of their houses or on their balconies.
Group founder Sebastian Mayfield told the newspaper, "We wanted to reconnect people living in cities with food. You don't have to own acres of countryside in Essex like (TV chef) Jamie Oliver to grow your own vegetables -- anyone can do it using pretty much any old space."
In the developing world, the need for urban farming can be less about environmentalism and more about survival.
Latin America Press reported recently on the Urban Agriculture program, which helps residents grow their own food in the poorest neighborhood in Bogota, Colombia.
"We need to realize: if we don't work, we won't have anything to eat," one participant said.
Until the projects take off, the organization also provides free meals.
"You can't say to people who are suffering from hunger that they come to the allotment and in three months they'll have something to eat," program coordinator German Bueno said. "You have to give them food immediately."
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"How far can urban agriculture go?"
Latin America Press, April 10, 2008
"5 Urban Design Proposals for 3D City Farms: Sustainable, Ecological and Agricultural Skyscrapers"
WebUrbanist, March 30, 2008
"Las Vegas to Build World's First 30 Story Vertical Farm"
NextEnergyNews, January 2, 2008
"The city-dwellers who are becoming front garden farmers"
The Independent (UK), April 17, 2008
"Urban back-to-the-land movement"
San Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 2008
- - - - - - - - - -
SUPPORT US
Newsdesk.org and News You Might Have Missed are commercial-free, and available at no charge.
We welcome your tax-deductible contributions!
- - - - - - - - - -
DISCLAIMER: All external links are provided as informational resources only, consistent with the nonprofit, public-interest mission of Independent Arts & Media. Independent Arts & Media does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations and does not have a copyright on any of the content located at these sites.
But a handful of experts have pointed to a simpler cause: a shortage of water.
"The two underlying causes of the world food crisis are falling supplies and rising demand on the international market," writes environmental consultant and author Fred Pearce in the London Telegraph. "Why falling supplies? Because of major droughts in Australia, one of the world's big three suppliers, and Ukraine, another major exporter.
"Why rising demand?" Pearce continues. "Mainly because of booming China, where demand for grain is rising sharply at a time when every last drop of water in the north of the country, its major breadbasket, is already taken. The Yellow River rarely reaches the sea now."
Indeed, China is having serious problems with water management.
Another great Chinese river, the Yangtze, fell to a 140-year low earlier this year, the Telegraph reported in January.
Cargo ships have run aground as water drains away underneath them and the endangered Yangtze River dolphin is now presumed extinct.
According to the Telegraph, Chinese authorities have admitted that they had diverted too much water away from the Yangtze when designing the enormous Three Gorges Dam.
Pearce's article introduces the concept of "virtual water," a term some economists use to describe the process whereby a water-poor nation imports food from a water-rich nation.
Perhaps the surest sign that the concept is catching on is the fact that environmental blogs are now making snarky comments about it.
"Remember when calculating your carbon footprint was all the rage?" a writer for Grist asked last week, before describing a new Web site that lets reader calculate their virtual water footprint.
The site, Waterfootprint.org, takes into account not only personal water use, but diet and other indicators of virtual water.
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Water - the under-reported resource crisis"
Telegraph, April 22, 2008
"Yangtze River water level at 140-year low"
Telegraph, January 17, 2008
"Virtual water is the new carbon footprint"
Grist, April 21, 2008
The latest round of press came after the release of two studies suggesting a link between cell phone use and cancer, and one that denies such a link altogether.
Australia's Dr. Vini Khurana made waves recently with research finding that using cell phones for more than 10 years could more than double the risk of developing malignant brain tumors.
But what hit the headlines was Khurana's contention that cell phones could present more of a risk to public health than smoking or asbestos.
Based on a 15-month review, Khurana found increased reports of malignant brain tumors associated with heavy cell phone use, with tumors showing up near the phone user's preferred ear for making calls.
Khurana suggested that the phones may heat up the brain, and that headset phones may "convert the user's head into an effective, potentially self-harming antenna," Australia's The Age reported.
Dana Blankenhorn, who writes about health for ZDNet, wrote that he was initially skeptical, but Khurana's report impressed him.
"Having covered this area for many years now, I can tell you that this cell phone-brain cancer scare comes up every few years, and in the past it has always been dismissed," Blankenhorn wrote. "But even if the risk is minimal, why is the industry taking it?"
Meanwhile, a Danish study found no relation between cell phones and brain cancer.
Dr. Christoffer Johansen, of the Danish Cancer Society, found 427 people with brain cancer and 822 healthy people and questioned them about how often they used their cell phones.
His team then checked the respondents' answers against their phone records to gauge the accuracy of their replies.
They found no correlation between frequency of calls or length of use and the presence of brain tumors, nor did they find any relation between the side of the head used for phone calls and the area in which tumors were found, according to an article in Pakistan's International News Network.
In the New Republic, Ezekiel J. Emanuel cast doubt on a link between cell phones and brain cancer, saying, "Rates of brain cancer have remained remarkably steady despite the advent of the cell phone in 1984."
But, even if the brain cancer link is disproven, there are other dangers to worry about.
In another study, an Israeli scientist found evidence for a link between cell phones and tumors of the salivary glands.
The study, by Dr. Siegal Sadetzki of the University of Tel Aviv and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that people who used a cell phone heavily were 50 percent more likely to develop a benign or malignant tumor in the main salivary gland than people who didn't use cell phones.
"Unlike people in other countries, Israelis were quick to adopt cell phone technology and have continued to be exceptionally heavy users," Sadetzki was quoted in TopCancerNews.com. "This unique population has given us an indication that cell phone use is associated with cancer."
--Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
"Brain cancer fears over heavy mobile phone use"
The Age (Australia), March 31, 2008
"Cell Phones Won't Raise Brain Tumor Risk"
International News Network (Pakistan), April 12, 2008
"Link between cell phone usage and the development of tumors"
TopCancerNews, April 12, 2008
"Who kicked up the cell phone scare?"
ZDNet, April 1, 2008
"Will Your Cell Phone Kill You?"
The New Republic, April 9, 2008