Crimes Against Earth and Humanity

A Disturbing Report from Rachel’s Democracy & Health News [#930]

- Industry’s Plan for Us
- Dioxins Can Alter Normal Sex Ratios for Births
- Criminal Element
- The Lethal Consequences of Breathing Fire
- Environmental Nasty Surprises as a Window on Precautionary Thinking

- How the Fossil Fuel Corporation intend to “re-engineer” our planet for us!
- How early exposure to dioxins (emitted as far as 25 km away) increase the risk of cancer later in life.
- How could the civilized society systematically poison its children with neurotoxins?
- How incinerating garbage poisons our world.
- When will the next environmental nasty surprise emerge? Read more…

GEO-4: Another ‘Optimistic’ Report

UNEP REPORT: Sixth Major Extinction Is Under Way

The fourth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4), a 570-page report, was released by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) October 25, 2007.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged — and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay…”

“A sixth major extinction is under way, this time caused by human behaviour,” report says. Unfortunately, like all other UN reports, which are distorted by politics and corporate agendas, the timeline for this report is too OPTIMISTIC!

The “experts” are like the “blind elders” who were sent to examine the proverbial giant elephant that was about to enter the town; they could only report what they “felt” as each one of them touched a separate part of the elephant’s anatomy, “it’s rather like a rope,” “nay a curved stick,” “a fan,” “a tree-trunk,” “a wall …” because none of them could actually “see” the whole elephant.

Some Key Points from GEO-4

• Concentrations of the greenhouse gas C02 are roughly a third higher now than they were 20 years ago.

• In 1987, around 15 per cent of global fish stocks were classed as collapsed. GEO-4 says this has roughly doubled to 30 per cent.

• 20 years ago around a fifth of fish stocks were deemed over-exploited this has now risen to about 40 per cent.

• More than one billion people in Asia are now exposed to out door air pollution levels above World Health Organization guidelines linked to the premature death of about 500,000 people a year.

• Globally more than two million people may be dying prematurely as a result of out door and in door air pollution.

• Land use intensity, with links to land degradation, soil erosion, water scarcity, nutrient depletion and pollution, has increased. In 1987, a hectare of cropland yielded 1.8 tonnes. Now the figure is 2.5 tonnes.

• In Latin America and the Caribbean, desertification—caused by deforestation, over grazing and inadequate irrigation—affects a quarter of the region.

• Ecuador’s Antisan glacier retreated eight times faster than in the 1990s than in earlier decades and Bolivia’s Chacaltava glacier has lost over half its entire area since 1990.

• Energy consumption per head in Canada and the United States has grown by 18 per cent since 1987.

• Available freshwater resources are declining; by 2025, close to two billion people are likely to live with ‘absolute’ water scarcity.

• In West Asia, freshwater availability per person per year has fallen from 1,700 cubic metres in the 1980s to around 907 cubic metres—it is expected to decline to 420 cubic metres by 2050.

• Populations of freshwater vertebrates have declined on average by nearly 50 per cent since 1987 as compared with an around 30 per cent decline for terrestrial and marine species.

• About 40 per cent of big estuaries in the United States including those that link to the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay suffer severe eutrophication—which can lead to deoxygenated ‘dead zones’—because of nitrogen enrichment. Farm fertilizers account for about two thirds of the nitrogen entering the Gulf via the Mississippi.

• In the Caribbean, over 60 per cent of coral reefs are threatened by sediments, pollution and over-fishing.

• Exploitation of West Africa’s fish by European Union, Russian and Asian fleets increased six-fold from the 1960s to the 1990s with African countries receiving only 7.5 per cent of the processed value via license fees.

• Canada has three of the top ten most sprawling urban areas—Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver. Sprawl from coastal cities in the United States can stretch up to 80km inland.

• War and conflict has raised the number of refugees and internally displaced people in West Asia to about four million.

• Between 2000 and 2003, 13 out of 16 outbreaks of Ebola in Gabon and the Republic of Congo resulted from the handling of gorilla and chimpanzee carcasses. Read report …

Related links:

Earth’s Terminal Energy - ETE
Reality Check: Is a Future Possible?
Only Zero Emissions Would Avert Dangerous Warming

Raging Wildfires: Mother Nature ensuring the cycle of life?

Mother Nature using her defense mechanisms to ensure the cycle of life? Or our lifestyles killing what’s left?

NASA satellites capture images of about 14 massive wildfires raging in Southern California, which have scorched about 1,500 square kilometers from Ventura to Mexico.

The devastating fires, enhanced by Santa Ana winds, have killed eight people and destroyed or damaged about 2,050 homes and 100 businesses. Two 500,000 volt lines and several 230,000 volt lines have gone out of service. More than 500,000 residents have been told to evacuate.

Total monetary cost: $2.2billion

Related Links:

• Dozens of injuries in California Wildfires (VIDEO)
• More than 500,000 people flee blazes across Southern California
• Southeast sees no end to historic drought
• Out-of-control wildfires polluted Southern California skies with acrid smoke and falling ash
• Four major fires ripping across San Diego County

• Nature’s Defense Mechanisms

Should We Be Afraid of MRSA?

MRSA [Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] was discovered in the United Kingdom in 1961, but it is now a global concern. MRSA (also known as CA-MRSA, community-acquired MRSA, and HA-MRSA, hospital-acquired MRSA) is a variation of a common bacterium, which has evolved as a “superbug” with the ability to resist treatment with antibiotics, including methicillin and penicillin.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MRSA is responsible for 94,000 serious infections and nearly 19,000 deaths each year in the United States. [In comparison, the AIDS virus killed about 12,500 Americans  in 2005. ]

Related Links:
CDC - Healthcare-Associated MRSA
MRSA infection

Death by Lethal Pollution

Accumulation of toxic pollution in the environment is one of the dynamics that is driving the ecosystems to the verge of collapse. In the worst case scenario, which could unfold by as early as 2012¹, about 20% the world’s cities become unsustainable and begin to collapse. Massive waves of human migration from the affected areas create domino effect that causes the collapse of most of the remaining population centers. It may be too late to make a significant difference to the final outcome; however, we still have the option to change the worst case scenario! See Collapsing Cities

1. The date “2012” is based on the dynamic model simulations analyzing the impact of excessive energy consumption on the environment. The CASF Committee and its Members do NOT endorse the Mayan Calendar or any New Age, ancient, or bible prophecies whatever.

Legal Limits on Pollution

The idea of having ‘legal limits’ on how much damage you can inflict on nature must surely be a Freudian design. It’s like imposing the death penalty on the victim; and nature isn’t even ‘legally’ represented!

Freud said: “Against the dreaded external world one can only defend oneself by some kind of turning away from it, if one intends to solve the task by oneself. There is, indeed, another and a better path: that of becoming a member of human community, and, with the help of a technique guided by science, going over to attack against nature and subjecting her to human will. [And if the technique guided by science fail to reverse the ‘marsification’ of Earth that it started in the first place, you can always hide behind more abstractions!]” Excerpt from The Death of Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Part 1)

Defendant: Planet Earth (AKA, Blue Marble)
Age: 4.5 billion years
Color: Blue
Verdict: The Defendant stands convicted of the serious felonies of aiding and abetting humanoids by way of providing them with life and material support including air, water, food, land, atmosphere, ecosystems, energy… and majestic splendor.
Sentence: Death by Lethal Pollution [the sentence shall be carried out in the early morning of the Third Millennium, CE.]

“Troubled Waters” by U.S. PRIG

Pollution pouring into nation’s waters far beyond legal limit

San Francisco Chronicle
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Friday, October 12, 2007

More than half of all industrial and municipal facilities across the country dumped more sewage and other pollutants into the nation’s waterways than allowed under the Clean Water Act, according to a report released Thursday by an environmental group. Read more…

Download the full report, Troubled Waters, by U.S. PRIG Education Fund. (1.12 MB, PDF)

Related Links:

• How Much Water?
• Oceans, were life started, are now dying! - March, 2008