Help Block Power Plant
on Navajo Lands
Bio Gems
Please speak out now against plans for
a dirty, coal-fired power plant in New Mexico that would release
mercury and other toxic contaminants into the environment, pollute
waterways and threaten human health.
Go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction
right away and tell the Bush
administration to reject the proposed Desert Rock power plant.
A global energy company and the Dine
Power Authority want to build the plant on the eastern edge of the
Navajo Nation in northwestern New Mexico.
The Four Corners region is already
home to two of the most polluting power plants in the country. If we
don't act now, this area could soon be besieged by a new wave of
environmental hazards.
In addition to mercury, the proposed
Desert Rock plant would increase emissions of soot and soot-forming
pollutants, which can cause asthma attacks, heart disease and other
health problems.
Furthermore, the Navajo Nation would
receive less than five percent of the projected electricity output
from Desert Rock, even though many Navajo people still have no
electricity in their homes. Most of the power would likely be
exported to Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Last month, NRDC Members and online
activists turned out at public hearings in Albuquerque and Santa Fe
to oppose the Desert Rock plant, which would significantly increase
global warming pollution in New Mexico at a time when states should
be working to curb these dangerous emissions.
Please add your voice to this outcry.
Go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction
right away and tell the Bush administration to reject the
proposed Desert Rock power plant and instead develop new initiatives
that focus on energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy
solutions.
Must We Quit Flying to
Save the Planet?
by
Mark Rice-Oxley, Seattle Times
LONDON — For the hundreds of
climate-change activists who have camped out near Heathrow Airport
for the past week, there is only one way to reduce the carbon
footprint of aircraft: Stop flying so much.
"Aviation is a luxury we can live without," said a protester named
Merrick. Booming air travel, he said, is multiplying greenhouse
gases just as the climate-change imperative starts to bite. "It has
to be scaled right back," he said.
The protesters are also targeting the proposed addition of a runway
at Heathrow. As they planned an unspecified action for today,
aircraft engineers, scientists and climate experts around the world
were urgently assessing if technology, taxation and rationing — or a
combination of the three — are needed.
The statistics look ominous. Aviation contributes about 3 percent of
global carbon emissions, but air travel is growing at about 5
percent a year, meaning numbers of air-passenger miles will more
than triple by 2030. Boeing estimates aircraft numbers will double
to more than 30,000 within about 10 years...
Click
here
for the rest of the story.
U.S., North Korea Meet
For One-On-One Nuclear Talks
by Laura MacInnis, ENN
GENEVA (Reuters) - Top negotiators
from the United States and North Korea met on Saturday for two days
of talks meant to advance an international drive to end Pyongyang's
nuclear program.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill and his North Korean
counterpart Kim Kye-gwan did not speak to the press on arrival at
the U.S. mission in Geneva, where the first day of the weekend talks
began.
Their session, aimed at normalizing relations between the countries
that fought each other in the 1950-53 Korean War, is expected to
focus on how the Stalinist state will disable and account for its
nuclear facilities, as promised in a February "six-party" deal...
Click
here
for the rest of the story.
“The Largest Man-Made
Environmental Catastrophe”
by Mary King, Environmental Graffiti
The annual conference of the Royal
Geographical Society was rocked yesterday by the announcement by an
international team of scientists that arsenic contamination in
drinking water is "the largest identified man-made environmental
catastrophe". A presentation by Cambridge University researchers
revealed that 60 countries over 5 continents have been affected by
arsenic contamination, with South East Asia, particularly
Bangladesh, as the worst off. The health of 140 million people is
threatened by the presence of arsenic, mostly in developing
countries.
Whilst arsenic is naturally present in groundwater in some areas, it
is through human error that it has entered the food chain in such
large quantities. The pollution occurs when dead organic matter in
the rock layers around the groundwater decay, creating an
environment without oxygen. This leads to the microbial dissolution
of iron oxides, releasing the arsenic that is usually strongly bound
to the iron oxides.
Despite a heavy natural arsenic presence in the Ganges Plain of
India and Bangladesh, international aid agencies, including UNICEF
and the World Bank, began the practice of digging down to access
groundwater to avoid the surface contamination in the 1970s. The
project was initially a success, with levels of diarrhea-type
illnesses and infant mortality cut in half. However, concerns about
arsenic contamination surfaced, and Dipankar Chakraborti brought the
problem to international attention in 1995. His research found 900
villages with arsenic above the government limit, but he described
this figure as "only the tip of the iceberg..."
Click
here
for the rest of the story.
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