Teeny, so good hearing you're recovering well, and shopping!
Please take it easy though.
Happy Earthturn ehBeth, and to all the wildclickers!
http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674
Good morning all wildclickers. Two days left to plant seeds and tomato plants before next day of rain arrives.
Clicked.
White House Blocked Rule Issued to Shield Whales
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 1, 2008; A03
White House officials for more than a year have blocked a rule aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales by challenging the findings of government scientists, according to documents obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The documents, which were mailed to the environmental group by an unidentified National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official, illuminate a struggle that has raged between the White House and NOAA for more than a year. In February 2007, NOAA issued a final rule aimed at slowing ships traversing some East Coast waters to 10 knots or less during parts of the year to protect the right whales, but the White House has blocked the rule from taking effect.
North Atlantic right whales, whose surviving population numbers fewer than 400, are one of the most endangered species on Earth, and scientists have warned that the loss of just one more pregnant female could doom the species. Some shipping companies have opposed the NOAA proposal, saying slowing their vessels will cost the industry money.
The documents, which House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) released yesterday, show that the White House Council of Economic Advisers and Vice President Cheney's office repeatedly questioned whether the rule was needed. Waxman, who sent a letter to the White House asking for an explanation, said the exchange "appears to be the latest instance of the White House ignoring scientists and other experts."
In one document, the Council of Economic Advisers questioned "the reliability of analysis in the published literature on which NOAA is basing its position." The council conducted its own analysis and concluded that "the relationship between [vessel] speed and [whale] injury . . . may not be as strong of a relationship as is suggested in published papers."
NOAA scientists were not swayed, writing in response, "The basic facts remain that (1) there is a direct relationship between speed and death/serious injury, and (2) at vessel speeds at or below 10 knots the probability of death/serious injury is greatly reduced."
A separate document reveals that Cheney's staff argued "that we have no evidence (i.e., hard data) that lowering the speeds of 'large ships' will actually make a difference." NOAA again fired back, writing that there was "no basis to overturn our previous conclusion that imposing a speed limit on large vessels would be beneficial to whales."
Since NOAA initially proposed the regulation, at least three right whales have died from ship strikes and two have been wounded by propellers.
Amy Knowlton, a scientist at the New England Aquarium who has studied right whales, said the documents show that "the rule really is based on good science. NOAA has done a very good job in sticking to its guns on this."
Kristen Hellmer, spokeswoman for the White House Council for Environmental Quality, said in a statement that the office is reviewing the Waxman letter.
"We will make an appropriate response to the committee," she said, adding that "we are confident this longstanding rulemaking process will provide an approach that will achieve our shared goals."
Beth Allgood, a program officer at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, questioned why the administration had not acted on the rule.
"The administration's own scientists have answered these questions six months ago, and they still haven't issued the rule. That's one of the most shocking things," Allgood said. "It's not a huge burden on industry; it's a huge burden on the whales."
The World Shipping Council has campaigned to block the rule, but the Chamber of Shipping of America backs it. In an Aug. 24 letter, its director of maritime affairs, Kathy J. Metcalf, wrote White House officials that "the economic impacts associated with the proposed rule (assuming it includes a provision for increased speeds for safety of navigation) are well worth the benefits."
Report Targets Costs Of Factory Farming
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 30, 2008; A02
Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.
The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.
Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests.
In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.
"At the end of his second term, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation about the dangers of the military-industrial complex -- an unhealthy alliance between the defense industry, the Pentagon, and their friends on Capitol Hill," wrote Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which wrote the report. "Now the agro-industrial complex -- an alliance of agricultural commodity groups, scientists at academic institutions who are paid by the industry, and their friends on Capitol Hill -- is a concern in animal food production in the 21st century."
The report, "Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Production in America," comes at a time when food, agriculture and animal welfare issues are prominent in the American psyche.
Food prices are rising faster than they have for decades. Concerns about global climate change have brought new attention to the fact that modern agriculture is responsible for about 20 percent of the nation's greenhouse-gas production. And recent meat recalls, punctuated by the release of undercover footage of cows being abused at a California slaughterhouse, have struck a chord with consumers.
The report acknowledges that the decades-long trend toward reliance on "concentrated animal feeding operations," or CAFOs, has brought some benefits, including cheaper food. In 1970, the average American spent 4.2 percent of his or her income to buy 194 pounds of red meat and poultry annually. By 2005, typical Americans were spending 2.1 percent of their income for 221 pounds per year.
But the system has brought unintended consequences. With thousands of animals kept in close quarters, diseases spread quickly. To prevent some of those outbreaks -- and to spur faster growth -- factory farms routinely treat animals with antibiotics, speeding the development of drug-resistant bacteria and in some cases rendering important medications less effective in people.
It appears that the vast majority of U.S. antibiotic use is for animals, the commission noted, adding that because of the lack of oversight by the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies, even regulators can only estimate how many drugs are being given to animals.
The commission urges stronger reporting requirements for companies and a phaseout and then ban on antibiotics in farm animals except as treatments for disease, a policy already initiated in some European countries.
"That's a good recommendation. A strong recommendation," said Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which released its own report last week documenting billions of dollars in farm subsidies to factory farming operations and annual federal expenditures of $100 million to clean up their ongoing environmental damage.
The Pew report also calls for tighter regulation of factory farm waste, finding that toxic gases and dust from animal waste are making CAFO workers and neighbors ill.
In calling for a 10-year phaseout of intensive confinement systems such as gestation crates for pigs and so-called battery cages for chickens, the commission adds impetus to recent commitments from some corporate operators to drop, gradually, those controversial practices.
"These animals can't engage in normal behavior at all," said commission member Michael Blackwell, a veterinarian and former assistant U.S. surgeon general.
Calls for comments from industry representatives were not returned.
The report also calls for implementation of a long-delayed national tracking system that would allow trace-back of diseased animals within 48 hours after a human outbreak of food-borne disease. And it calls for an end to forced feeding of poultry to produce foie gras, a delicacy that Blackwell described unpalatably as "diseased liver."
Activists said it will be up to Congress and agency officials, under public pressure, to implement some of the commission's recommendations. Congress is now considering a bill, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, that would accomplish some of the Pew recommendations.
Excellent articles, sue!
Happy planting!
Super busy next three days with landscaping, house, and errands. Seems there arn't enough hours in a day anymore.
Sending healing prayers to Teeny and Pattie and wishing all wildclickers a great Spring day.
Hurray for the rain, sue!
http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674
back from the dentist
clicked
reading
You and your 300 friends have supported 2,887,156.3 square feet!
Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 207,457.2 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 300 friends have supported: (207,457.2)
American Prairie habitat supported: 65,851.5 square feet.
You have supported: (16,247.2)
Your 300 friends have supported: (49,604.3)
Rainforest habitat supported: 2,613,847.5 square feet.
You have supported: (186,969.8)
Your 300 friends have supported: (2,426,877.8)
Thursday. Double click.
The blue herons love water.
Great photo, alex. The herons are one of my favorite family of birds.
ECOLOGY: Fire in the Far North
Andrew M. Sugden
Paleoecological data sets contain historical records of biotic responses to changes in climate. Currently, high-latitude regions are suffering a particularly aggressive regimen of climate change; hence, an understanding of past vegetation dynamics in these regions is especially pertinent. Higuera et al. have analyzed pollen records from north-central Alaska and find that a combination of drier climates and shrubbier tundra during the late glacial period 14,000 to 10,000 years ago led to regular fires. Given present-day increases in shrub biomass and temperature, tundra fire activity might increase again, with consequences for vegetation dynamics and carbon cycling. Tinner et al. have analyzed pollen and other records from the past 700 years (a period that includes the Little Ice Age of 1500 to 1800 CE) in southern Alaska, and find that temperature fluctuations of 1° to 2°C, together with changes in moisture balance, led to conversions between boreal forest and tundra with concomitant alterations in fire regimes. Taken together, these findings are consistent with models predicting a conversion of tundra to boreal forest as temperatures increase. -- AMS
PLoS ONE 3, e0001744 (2008); Ecology 89, 729 (2008).
ECOLOGY: Frogs Leap to Extinction
Caroline Ash
The causes of recently documented declines in frogs since the 1980s have been hotly debated. One vigorously promulgated hypothesis is that the decline has been triggered by climate change, which has promoted virulence in a previously saprophytic fungus. An orthogonal view is that the decline reflects the spatiotemporal spread of an invasive fungal disease. In either scenario, the fungus is Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which colonizes frog skin and suffocates the amphibians. The declines have been particularly noticeable among the charismatic harlequin frogs of Central and South America. Lips et al. have developed a technique to analyze the unavoidably incomplete frog census data (due to infrequent sampling, remote habitats, and sociopolitical challenges) and see wavelike progressions of population falloffs that look very much like the spread of an invasive pathogen originating from three source locales. They categorically found no relation with climate change; indeed, the fungus does best at altitudes where conditions are cool and moist. -- CA
PloS Biol. 6, e72 (2008).
New EPA Standards Would Cut Amount Of Lead in the Air
Agency Scientists Urge Stricter Limits
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 2, 2008; A02
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday proposed tightening the federal limits for lead in the air, but the proposal fell short of what its own scientists said is required to protect public health.
Lead, which is emitted by smelters, mining, aviation fuel and waste incinerators, can enter the bloodstream and affect young children's development and IQ, as well as cause cardiovascular, blood pressure and kidney problems in adults. The United States has not changed its atmospheric lead standards in 30 years, but the Bush administration is under a court order to issue new rules by September.
U.S. emissions of lead have dropped from 74,000 tons a year three decades ago to 1,300 tons a year now, largely because leaded gasoline was taken off the market. Since 1990, however, more than 6,000 studies have examined the impact of lead on public health and the environment and have revealed that it has harmful effects at lower concentrations than previously thought.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus C. Peacock announced that the agency is proposing to cut the current standard of 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air to a range of between 0.10 and 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter.
"We are writing the next chapter in America's clean air story," Peacock said, adding the new standard would be "up to 93 percent stronger than the current standard."
Environmentalists criticized the administration for proposing a range of lead levels that exceeds what an independent scientific advisory panel and the EPA's scientific staff identified as the maximum amount of lead that should be in the air. Both groups said the new standard should not exceed 0.20 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air, and EPA staff members said it could be set as low as 0.02 micrograms.
The two groups also recommended that the agency average lead emissions from any given source over a single month, rather than over three months, as EPA officials proposed yesterday.
Avinash Kar, an attorney for the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council, called the rule "a flawed proposal" even though it is "moving in the right direction."
"According to EPA projections, emissions of 60 pounds of lead from a single pollution source could cause a median loss of up to three IQ points in children," Kar said. "Thousands of children across the United States live near lead plants emitting more than 60 pounds of lead every year. In fact, some plants emit tons of lead annually."
Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said the agency engaged in "statistical trickery" by providing a range of possible lead limits and lengthening the period over which polluters could average the amount of lead they put into the air.
But Rogene Henderson, who chairs the independent air advisory committee, said she was pleased with EPA's decision. "They heard us," she said.
Robert J. Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator at the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, said officials tried to "tease out" how much of the lead in the air comes from atmospheric emissions, as opposed to the lead in pipes, paint and other sources. Adults and children inhale lead from the air, which then works its way into the bloodstream from the lungs, but people can also ingest lead that has been deposited in the soil or on surfaces in the home.
The EPA estimates that the proposed rule would apply to 16,000 sources of lead nationwide and, depending on what standard is eventually adopted, between 12 and 23 U.S. counties would fail to meet the stricter standards.
Jeffrey R. Holmstead, who directed the EPA's office of air and radiation from 2001 to 2005 and now heads the environmental strategies group at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, said the 60-day comment period on the rule that will start once it is published in the Federal Register "will be even more important than usual."
"Most people thought the lead issue had been solved, and it's only recently that people have begun to focus on it," he said in an interview. "They're really taking comment on a broad range here."
The agency is also soliciting comments on setting the standard higher or lower than the proposed range, up to 0.50 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Wildclickers, have you all seen the movie "I Am Legend"? Intense!
{thought phnemonia was bad!}
Wondering if the planet will sustain life by the year 2050. At the rate the EPA and Congress set enviornmental standards...
http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674
Hi all. Clicked
Good articles sumac - interesting reading
alex - you can get three clicks for your name. Do what you are doing to get the two clicks - then after you logout - click the URL to bring up the main Race page again - don't login or anything, just WAIT 60 seconds and click on the Rain Forest icon again. You should be able to get three clicks for one name. I usually play minesweeper to fill the minutes wait in between those particular clicks.
Friday night clicking while dinner sizzles and simmers on the stovetop.
Love those herons - they are mrs. hamburger's particular favourites.
You and your 300 friends have supported 2,887,554.3 square feet!
Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 207,621.1 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 300 friends have supported: (207,621.1)
American Prairie habitat supported: 65,898.3 square feet.
You have supported: (16,270.6)
Your 300 friends have supported: (49,627.7)
Rainforest habitat supported: 2,614,034.8 square feet.
You have supported: (186,993.2)
Your 300 friends have supported: (2,427,041.7)
Wow! I'm all clicked, too! :wink:
