Science

The Glaciers Melt

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Martin Leatherman, Newsdesk.org
The melting of the world’s glaciers is bringing new attention to the threat of global climate change. One recent study published in the journal Science found that 87 percent of the 244 marine glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated over the last 50 years. As atmospheric temperatures rose along the peninsula, glaciers moved south toward mainland Antarctica. Now, scientists may have the valuable ocean temperature data — or “smoking gun” — they say will help them predict climate change. According to the Associated Press, the study showed that the Earth is absorbing more energy than it is releasing.

Culture

FOCUS: Peak Oil

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Martin Leatherman, Newsdesk.org
Are the days of cheap oil over? With prices soaring above $50 a barrel, the world is beginning to take the peak oil theory seriously. The Hubbert Peak Theory, developed in 1956 by geophysicist M. King Hubbert, is casually called the peak oil theory. It says oil and fossil-fuel production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline, driving prices up. In 1956 Hubbert predicted that production would peak in the United States in the late 1970s, which it did.

Science

FOCUS: Overfishing — Local to Global

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Jodi Wynn & Newsdesk.org staff
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, overfishing is leading to a humanitarian and ecological crisis. The report finds that over 70 percent of fish species are being caught at a rate faster than they reproduce, leading to the near-depletion of many commercial fish stocks. In the U.S., the National Marine Fisheries Service reported that 92 percent of domestic fish stocks are overexploited, but can recover if well managed. With more than 200 million people worldwide depending on fishing for a living, and 2.5 billion relying on fish for food, the U.N. said that declining fish stocks will affect “food security and economic development” as well as social welfare and underwater ecosystems.
The FAO also predicts that within ten years fish stocks will be further depleted by growing human populations. The New Zealand fisheries minister expressed fears that post-tsunami relief efforts could “create the conditions for overfishing and resource depletion, particularly where these problems were already occurring.”

Science

Focus: Agent Orange Aftermath

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Jodi Wynn, Newsdesk.org
Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, many seriously ill Vietnamese blame their conditions on exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange. The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) filed suit in February 2004 against 37 U.S. companies that produced the substance during the conflict in Vietnam, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto Company. Judge Jack Weinstein dismissed the case on March 10, ruling that there was no expressed rule against the use of herbicides or poisonous gases at the time. Plaintiffs in the suit told the Associated Press they planned to appeal. The drive to appeal was bolstered by a March 11 conference hosted in Paris by the France-Vietnam Friendship Association.

Culture

FOCUS: Regulating Chemicals

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The link between human health and our environment may be obvious, but the devil is in the details. In January, new or forthcoming reports about common industrial chemicals provoked the usual disputes between public health activists and the business community over the need for regulation. -The solvent trichloroethylene has been linked with lymphoma and other diseases. It was dumped “indiscriminately” in the past, and a doctor with Boston University called the EPA “cowardly” for not controlling the substance. If a cancer link is established, the environmental cleanup costs — including groundwater — could run to the billions of dollars.

Science

FOCUS: Tsunami Ecology

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Research by Allison Bloch, Newsdesk.org Intern, and Michael Stoll, Guest Editor 
In response to the question of why stories about nature don’t usually become front-page news in the mainstream media, Frank Allen, a veteran journalist who had written for The Wall Street Journal once said, “Environmental stories don’t break, they ooze.” So it follows that when news does break, it has nothing to do with the environment. Or does it? The day after Christmas, several environmental stories were spun out of a major event — a tsunami that swept the shores of 12 Asian countries and killed as many as 150,000 people. Most readers, naturally, assumed it was a human tragedy unrelated to the ecology.

Culture

Bhopal Anniversary

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By Allison Bloch, Newsdesk.org Intern 
Bhopal, a city in central India, still suffers from a horrific gas leak that occurred twenty years ago. December 3 marks the anniversary for those suffering from breathing troubles and other effects of the deadly methyl isocyanate that seeped out silently into the city late one night. Although the initial death toll was 3,500, more people have died since the leak, and the government and locals are in disagreement over the final amount. Official records state that 15,000 people were killed, while residents double that number. Amnesty International reports that 22,000 to 25,000 people were killed.

Culture

U.S. Courts Tackle Foreign Abuses: Energy corporations question “law of nations”

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By Jennifer Huang | World Power I: Business & Law

A 215-year-old law originally written to address piracy and crimes abroad against American ambassadors is at the heart of litigation targeting some of the world’s largest energy corporations. Plaintiffs allege that ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, Unocal and Royal Dutch/Shell are responsible for atrocities committed by foreign troops guarding their refineries and facilities overseas. The corporations say that the lawsuits are without merit, and that such human rights problems are the domain of U.S. foreign policy, not domestic courts. But a recent Supreme Court ruling may have left the door open for the suits to proceed. Anticipated ruling

The cases were filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, a law giving federal courts jurisdiction over international civil suits brought for violations of “the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”