Earth's orbit
Believe it or not, even space contains copious amounts of pollution. An estimated 4 million pounds of space debris — nuts, bolts, metal and carbon, even whole spacecraft — currently orbit the Earth, threatening satellites, communication and even the lives of our astronauts.Earth's orbit
Believe it or not, even space contains copious amounts of pollution. An... more
Every so often seems that Italy can wake up from its heavy slumber. These days the story of Stefano Cucchi led to a general awareness on a basic principle in a state of law: that a person should not die in jail without reason. Images of the murder of Camorra in Naples have shown to all the mundane simplicity with which mafia kills in the street in broad daylight. http://inaltreparole.net/en/resistance/risvegliitalia301009.htmlEvery so often seems that Italy can wake up from its heavy slumber. These days the... more
A ship carrying toxic waste sunk off the coast of Madagascar, and thousands of tons of refuse were emptied into the rich marine ecosystem. The wreck has had devastating effects on the sea life and the health of people who live inland--causing whales to mysteriously beach in greater numbers, and afflicting the locals with grave respiratory and skin diseases.
The Gulser Ana, a Turkish shipping vessel, ran aground in the southernmost point of Madagascar. It then slowly leaked its load--39,000 tons of raw phosphates, 568 tons of fuel, and 66 tons of diesel--into the Indian Ocean.
It just so happened that the spot where the accident occurred was a whale reproduction and migratory corridor zone, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. To make maters worse, the accident happened in the smack dab middle of mating season, and the spill was making people ill as well.
Calling the spill an 'ecological disaster', WWF headed down to compile a report on the consequences of the spill--and the results aren't pretty. From the report:
. . . nine whales beached in September alone, and some beach stretches seem to be real death zones, the report found. Villagers suffer from diseases such as respiratory problems, skin diseases and diarrhea.
The report also found that there are oil clumps covering 30 kilometers of beach, and that 20,000 people have been affected by the spill, whether by illness or a loss of livelihood. Fishing has been banned, due to the toxicity of the waters, and many of the local inhabitants depended on fishing for income. Still worse, those working on cleaning up the spill are woefully unprepared--they're doing so without wearing any sort of gear to protect them from the toxic waste, and are using thin plastic bags that burst easily.A ship carrying toxic waste sunk off the coast of Madagascar, and thousands of tons of... more
In a region with many problems, the first of which is its leadership, the demonstration of Amantea is a breath of fresh air. Thousands of people took to the streets yesterday to demand truth and justice on the "ships of poisons", laden with toxic and radioactive waste, sunk by mafia off the coast of Calabria. The scandal in fact is not only about a region of the South, though the usual italian hypocrisy encourages this thinking.In a region with many problems, the first of which is its leadership, the... more
Terrifying pictures of pollution, toxic waste and environmental consequences of China's modern industrial revolution.
This is so dark and so real.
Great work Lu Guang, thank you for denouncing this and bringing it to the world's attention.Terrifying pictures of pollution, toxic waste and environmental consequences of... more
Over the last 24 hours, a lot of self-congratulating hyperbole has appeared on and off line about how the popular short message service Twitter saved free speech in the UK.
This ill-informed back-patting follows the dropping of a secret UK High Court gag order which blocked the reporting of parliamentary questions by Paul Farrelly MP. The questions related to press freedoms and in particular, a leaked WikiLeaks report exposing a Western toxic dumping disaster inflicted on the Ivory Coast &mdash a disater which may have hospitalized as many as 100,000 people.
However, more the substantive earlier secret gag order against the report, which prevents the reporting of its contents remains in effect—and it is not the only one. Last month, the Guardian revealed that it had been served with 10 secrett gag orders—so-called "super-injunctions"— since January. In 2008, it was served with six. In 2007, five. Haven't heard of them? Of course not, they are secret gag orders. The UK press has given up counting regular injunctions.
(...)
Under pressure from legal costs, UK papers have silently removed some of the September 17 investigative articles into the dumping disater. For example, the Independent's "Toxic Shame: Thousands injured in African city" no-longer "exists" except at WikiLeaks.
Now is not the time to be distracted from this reality, or to see the unravelling of a gache attack on parliamentary reporting a step forward; it is a return to last week. We are back at the UK censorship status quo, which may be described, without irony, as privatized feudalism.
So take your hand from your backs, find your swords—and get to work.
Read the whole story at wikileaks!!!Over the last 24 hours, a lot of self-congratulating hyperbole has appeared on and off... more
"Concern is growing that failure to manage this waste is exposing Kenya to long-term and costly environmental damage whose impact will be felt in the emergence of new diseases, change in weather patterns and food insecurity and will take many decades to reverse.
Often left to rot in informal dumping sites, electronic gadgets are made up of some of the most lethal toxins such as cadmium, mercury and lead that are known to contaminate water sources, reduce fertility of land, and damage human tissues and organs.
In Nairobi, the impact of this carefree disposal of e-waste is already beginning to be felt in Dandora estate where contact with dumpsite material has seen a steep rise in the number of children diagnosed with lead poisoning.
Dandora is the host of Nairobi’s biggest dumpsite that takes most of the 4,000 tonnes of garbage that the city residents generate daily."
All this electronic material, when burned, is mostly housed in a plastic casing that releases toxic and carcinogenic substances like dioxins and polyaromatic hydrocarbons making it worse.
These companies should be responsible for this e-waste, they should use material that is eco-friendly and make these products last longer as well.
What do you think?Excerpt:
"Concern is growing that failure to manage this waste is exposing Kenya to... more
Indigenous people from south-east Peru are suing Repsol-YPF and US company Hunt Oil over their plans to explore for oil on their land.
Local indigenous organisation FENAMAD has filed a lawsuit asking for an injunction to be placed on both the companies’ activities. The suit argues that the government did not consult with local people before giving the companies permission to work there, as is required under international law, and oil exploration would violate local peoples’ fundamental human rights to ‘enjoy a balanced environment’.
Hunt and Repsol-YPF own the rights to explore in an area known as ‘Lot 76’, which includes land belonging to the Yine, Matsigenka and Harakmbut tribes. At the heart of the Lot is the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, used by many villages in the region and the source of six rivers that are the only fresh water supply for an estimated ten thousand people.
‘FENAMAD hopes that this legal action will paralyze any activity inside the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, as otherwise the very existence of Madre de Dios’s indigenous peoples would be put at risk,’ said FENAMAD spokesperson Jaime Corisepa.
Watch a film of the meeting with Hunt http://fenamad-indigenas.blogspot.com/ (in Spanish), entitled ‘See how the Peruvian Amazon’s indigenous peoples say ‘NO’ to Hunt Oil company’.Survival International
Indigenous people from south-east Peru are suing Repsol-YPF... more
Many ministers of the Berlusconi government do everything to be bad, up to the point of insulting the opposition. It's a typical sign of the states that are sliding towards dictatorship to see people with institutional responsibilities that seek to intimidate and threaten half the country, the half that didn't voted them. It's also a typical sign of guilty conscience. These ministers know that their policies are weak, and try to deflect attention with verbal violence.Many ministers of the Berlusconi government do everything to be bad, up to the point... more
Unfortunately in a country like Italy where every day is an emergency it's difficult for every news to get the space adequate to their importance. Add to that the tendency to censor the bad news in tv stations and many newspapers. These days we read, but not enough, of toxic waste sunk at sea by N'drangheta (the local mafia) off the coast of Calabria, and even used to build schools. And many more toxic and radioactive waste have been sunk over the years off the African coast.Unfortunately in a country like Italy where every day is an emergency it's difficult... more
International Eco-Mafia and an Ecological Catastrophe
By MICHAEL LEONARDI
Now being overshadowed by the deaths of 6 Italian soldiers in the growingly unpopular war in Afghanistan, another deadly and sinister Tragedy is brewing. In the beckoning blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea that surround the Italian Peninsula and its islands, and which laps at the coasts of 22 countries in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, a hidden legacy of the Sea being used as a disposal site for radioactive and other toxic wastes for over 20 years is beginning to come to light. What some inside the halls of government are calling an international catastrophe, runs the risk of being swept under the table once again by an Italian Government that has been colluding and embroiled in this ecological and public health disaster from its beginnings.
Dozens of ships, reportedly carrying cargos of what could be thousands of barrels of radioactive and toxic wastes have been intentionally sunk off the shores of Italy, Spain, Greece and as far away as Africa and Asia, by the International Ecomafia led by Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate. This has taken place for over twenty years and insiders in the Italian government and secret service have been involved in covering it up. The first of these ships to be found, thought to be called the Cunsky, has been photographed by a robot off the coast of Cetraro, a medium sized town on the Tyrrheinan coast of Calabria. Cancerous tumors and thyroid problems are highly prevalent here and a growing epidemic all along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Certraro is a town known for its port by tourists all over the world. Fish caught by the hundreds of fishemen that make their livelihoods there are eaten throughout Italy and sold on the International market.
The setting for this story is putting the spotlight on the south of Italy and the regions of Calabria in the toe of the boot, Basilicata above Calabria, Puglia in the heel, but also Greece and Spain with repercussions for the entire Mediterranean basin. The facts of this unfolding disaster have been documented by Greenpeace and Italy’s leading environmental organization Legambiente dating back to the late 90’s. Greenpeace has worked to trace the trail of large Cargo Ships that have disappeared from international circulation. Between 32 and 41 such ships are thought to have been sunk in international waters between Italy, Greece and Spain, but mostly along the Italian coastlines. Then, in 2005, a mafia “pentito” (one who repents) named Franceso Fonti testified of his involvement in the sinking of three specific ships called the Cunsky, off Cetraro, the Yvonne A off the coast of Maratea in Basilicata, and the Voriais Sporadais, said to be off the coast of Metaponto in Basilicata on the Ionian Sea. All are international tourist destinations with large fishing industries.
Last week a robot was sent down into the depths 11 kilometers off the coast of Cetraro. There, the robot shot photos of the ship thought to be the Cunsky, confirming the story of the ‘Ndrangheta “pentito” and striking a chord of alarm throughout Italy and the world. In the photos drums like those used to transport and store radioactive and toxic wastes can be distinguished.
Reports of up to 41 boats have now surfaced in the international media. It is hoped that many of the barrels are still intact, but no one knows for sure and it is still unclear what they contain. Traces of Mercury and Cesnium 137 have recently been found near the town of Amantea in Calabria further south of Cetraro by about 50 kilometers. Cesnium 137 is a radioactive byproduct of fission reactions that is highly soluble in water and highly toxic, with a half-life of 30 years. This contamination is believed to have come from another ship called the Jolly Rosso that beached along the Calabrian shore in 1990. The cargo of the Jolly Rosso was illegally dumped near Amantea on a hill along the Oliva River. cont'd:International Eco-Mafia and an Ecological Catastrophe
By MICHAEL LEONARDI
Now... more
Trafigura, the oil-trading company at the centre of the scandal caused by the dumping of tons of toxic waste in one of the world's poorest countries, could be prosecuted for murder after a dossier of evidence was submitted to a court in the Netherlands yesterday, alleging that the sludge caused deaths and serious injuries.
A complaint filed by Greenpeace Netherlands calls for a Dutch prosecution arising from Trafigura's actions in July 2006 – when a chartered tanker carrying the contaminated waste arrived in Amsterdam – to be widened to include events in Ivory Coast a month later which caused thousands of people to fall ill after tons of the foul-smelling slurry was dumped in the port of Abidjan.
The campaigning group wants Dutch courts to order public prosecutors to bring charges of murder, manslaughter, negligence and conspiracy against the London-based commodities giant, which has vigorously denied any knowledge of the fly-tipping of the waste by an Ivorian sub-contractor in August 2006.
Emails between Trafigura employees submitted to the court in The Hague are claimed by Greenpeace to show that the company knew the waste – described in one internal memo as "the shit" – was potentially hazardous and could not be exported outside the European Union. Trafigura insists that its managers sought at all times to dispose lawfully of the "slops" on board its chartered tanker, the Probo Koala.
Trafigura, which last year had a turnover of $73bn (£44bn, equivalent to twice the GDP of Ivory Coast), has agreed to a multimillion-pound payout to settle Britain's largest group lawsuit, brought by 30,000 Abidjan residents who fell ill after breathing in fumes from the sludge.
The settlement of the High Court case, expected to be finalised within weeks, concerns claims by victims who suffered short-term illnesses. But it does not apply to allegations, which will now not be tested in the British courts, that the dumped waste caused more serious problems, including deaths, miscarriages and birth defects.
Trafigura has fought a three-year battle, engaging PR consultants and libel lawyers to dispute critical reporting of the incident, and insists that the waste could not have caused the serious injuries alleged. A United Nations report this week stated that there seemed to be "prima facie evidence" that up to a dozen deaths in Abidjan were linked to the sludge.
The oil trader, the third-largest of its kind in the world, is already being prosecuted in the Netherlands over claims that it breached Dutch and European laws by misdeclaring the nature of the sludge on the Probo Koala when it arrived in Amsterdam, and by subsequently taking the waste outside EU borders. A Greenpeace spokesman said: "The emails show that Trafigura employees knew the waste would be difficult to deal with and were desperate to find someone who would take it off their hands.
"There are now no legal proceedings which will test the claims that as well as making thousands of people in Ivory Coast sick, the waste was also responsible for deaths and other serious injuries of innocent people. We are asking the Dutch courts to change that."
The contaminated sludge – its composition is disputed by Trafigura and opponents – was the by-product of deals struck by the company's traders in 2005 and 2006 to buy a cheap and dirty oil known as "coker naptha" from a Mexican refinery and extract clean fuel from it by adding a mixture of caustic soda and a catalyst. Emails show Trafigura expected to make a profit of $7m (£4m) from each cargo, despite the fact that "caustic washes are banned in most countries due to the hazardous nature of the waste". This do-it-yourself process was performed in or about April 2006 on board the Probo Koala while it was anchored off Gibraltar.
end of excerpt.Trafigura, the oil-trading company at the centre of the scandal caused by the dumping... more
Trafigura, the oil-trading company at the centre of the scandal caused by the dumping of tons of toxic waste in one of the world's poorest countries, could be prosecuted for murder after a dossier of evidence was submitted to a court in the Netherlands yesterday, alleging that the sludge caused deaths and serious injuries.
A complaint filed by Greenpeace Netherlands calls for a Dutch prosecution arising from Trafigura's actions in July 2006 – when a chartered tanker carrying the contaminated waste arrived in Amsterdam – to be widened to include events in Ivory Coast a month later which caused thousands of people to fall ill after tons of the foul-smelling slurry was dumped in the port of Abidjan.
The campaigning group wants Dutch courts to order public prosecutors to bring charges of murder, manslaughter, negligence and conspiracy against the London-based commodities giant, which has vigorously denied any knowledge of the fly-tipping of the waste by an Ivorian sub-contractor in August 2006.Trafigura, the oil-trading company at the centre of the scandal caused by the dumping... more
Trafigura has prepared an offer for 31,000 locals in the Ivory Coast who claimed the dump caused a range of illnesses. But a victim's association said the concerns of the wider community needed to be addressed.
"Now they are talking about over 30,000 victims. But for us there are more than that," said Denis Titira Yao, President of the National Federation of Victims of Toxic Waste. "We also need a long-term resolution because there is still waste in Abidjan that has not been removed and there are zones that still need cleaning up."Trafigura has prepared an offer for 31,000 locals in the Ivory Coast who claimed the... more
Italian authorities have found the wreck of a ship sunk by the mafia with 180 barrels of toxic waste on board, one of more than 30 such vessels believed to lie off Italy's southern coast, officials said on Tuesday.Italian authorities have found the wreck of a ship sunk by the mafia with 180 barrels... more
Dumping of toxic wastes is contributing to cancer among wildlife, a new report says.
Scientists say that tumors on beluga whales, sea lions and other animals are a warning signal. They call these animals “sensitive sentinels of disturbed environments.”
The report, "Wildlife Cancer: a Conservation Perspective," published in the July edition of the cancer research journal Nature Reviews Cancer, cites growing evidence from around the world that pesticides, coolants and other toxic chemicals are causing a variety of severe tumors in animals.
For example, the sea lions that are a major tourist attraction at San Francisco’s Pier 49 are being diagnosed with deadly tumors around their rear flippers and anuses. Frances Gulland, director of veterinary science at the Marine Mammal Center in nearby Sausalito, told Newsweek her center periodically gets calls from the pier reporting sea lions crippled by horrible swellings. Gulland said 17 percent of the sea lions brought to the center from the pier die of renal failure or paralysis caused by tumors that travel up the genital tract and push against the kidney and spine.
According to the journal article, sea lions that died of genital carcinoma had an 85 percent higher concentration of toxic PCBs in their system than other sea lions. PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, are chemicals used in coolants and electrical transformers.
Gulland said that blubber samples of sea lions who died of cancer also show high concentrations of the pesticide DDT. Many sea lions are born near the Channel Islands, where 1,700 tons of DDT were dumped before it was banned in 1972.
In Canada’s St. Lawrence Estuary, cancer was found to be the second leading cause of death among dead beluga whales that were found beached or drifting out to sea. The Saguenay River, which flows into the estuary, is lined with aluminum smelters. The smelters are heavy producers of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), proven carcinogens for humans as well as animals.
Belugas feed from the bottom of the estuary, eating creatures like the blue mussel. Blue mussels in the Sanguenay River area had PAH concentrations 200 times higher than in adjacent areas.
It’s not just the whales. Smelter workers there have shown high rates of lung cancer, while people in the area who drank from taps supplied with surface water developed stomach and intestinal cancer.
"The more we contaminate the environment, the more we will see problems," Gulland told Newsweek. "If you dump a pollutant, it doesn't just go away."
The report’s authors, biologists Denise McAloose and Alisa L. Newton, work for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Health Program.
McAloose, like many other scientists, sees a connection between the environmental role in cancer among wild animals and cancer prevention among humans. "We need collaboration and cooperation across conservation organizations, public-health communities, as well as governments to make changes that have positive outcomes for animals and the planet," she told Newsweek. "Because that will have positive impacts on the human population."Dumping of toxic wastes is contributing to cancer among wildlife, a new report says.... more
Time for a massive worldwide boycott of these polluters. And these companies always refuse comment, so it's time for us to speak with our dollars. If you drink Coke or Pepsi, you condone the toxification of waterways around the globe. Think of that the next time you pick up your Diet Coke.
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The Beijing plants of US soft drink giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have been listed as among the top 12 factories causing major water pollution in China's capital, the city government has announced.
The list issued by the Beijing Development and Reform Commission, the capital's economic planning agency, was published along with the top 15 energy users in the capital, which included the Beijing Benz-DaimlerChrysler plant.
China has set a goal of reducing average energy consumption by 20 percent from 2006 to 2010. This means it has to cut average consumption by four percent annually over the five-year period -- a target it has so far failed to meet.
"2009 is a key year for fulfilling our energy-saving and pollution-reduction goals," the commission said in a statement on its website, cited by the Beijing News on Wednesday.
The 27 entities will be subject to increased supervision and asked to submit plans to reduce energy use and pollution emissions, the commission said.
PepsiCo-Beijing and Coca-Cola-Beijing refused immediate comment on the issue when contacted by AFP on Wednesday.
The Beijing News quoted Beijing Benz-DaimlerChrysler as saying it would this year "step up the scope of reducing energy use and emissions, saving energy and treating waste water and waste through technological upgrading".
The Tsingtao brewery in Beijing, top juice maker Huiyuan and several major Chinese dairy producers made the list of major water polluters.
Among Beijing's top energy users were the Capital Iron and Steel Corporation and the American chemical company Praxair.Time for a massive worldwide boycott of these polluters. And these companies always... more
The Army Corps of Engineers has approved a permit for Coeur Alaska Inc. to use Lower Slate Lake as a dumping site for millions of tons of toxic waste produced at the nearby Kensington gold mine.
“The project has been the subject of a national environmental fight over whether navigable lakes and rivers can be used as repositories for toxic mine tailings,” reported The Los Angeles Times. “The corps last week announced it was extending Coeur Alaska’s permit until 2014 and reiterated that the company could construct a tailings storage facility in Lower Slate Lake, below the mine.
Sen. Mark Begich (D-AL), who has been a proponent of the plan to deposit the toxic mine tailings in the lake, said in a prepared statement that once the project is finished, it will provide an “improved fish habitat.”
Mine tailings are the useless substances left over after a valuable ore has been extracted from the ground. Tailings are usually suspended in waste water, but can also be made into a paste and stacked in layers on dry land.
In January, lawyers for Coeur Alaska argued before the Supreme Court that even while their dumping would kill all the lake’s aquatic life, after 10 years of mining the lake could restocked with live fish.The Army Corps of Engineers has approved a permit for Coeur Alaska Inc. to use Lower... more
Fifty recently filed lawsuits allege Monsanto and related companies are responsible for causing cancer.
Each of the complaints, filed Aug. 3 in Putnam Circuit Court, say Monsanto and its successor companies caused cancer by exposing the plaintiffs to dioxins/furans contamination of the air and property in and around Nitro. The cases mention the "negligent and otherwise unlawful release of dioxin from defendants' waste disposal practices on properties ∑ located in and about Nitro, West Virginia."
These individual cases, filed by Stuart Calwell and The Calwell Firm of Charleston, are not part of an ongoing class action involving thousands of current and former Nitro residents alleging Monsanto polluted the area with dioxin. The class action case specifies no specific damages, and the class-action plaintiffs seek medical monitoring.
The plaintiffs in the new cases, also represented by Calwell, are residents and former residents of Nitro or one or more of several surrounding communities of the now defunct chemical plant located near Nitro. They lived, worked or attended school in Nitro.
Monsanto owned and operated the plant from 1934 to 2000. From 1949 to 1970, the company produced an herbicide that was heavily contaminated with dibenzo dioxins and dibenzo furans. The complaints say the company disposed of the dioxin-contaminated waste in a way which caused dioxins to escape into the air.
The plaintiffs say their property and soil was contaminated.
"During the years that Old Monsanto was operating it's trichlorophenol plant, it adopted an unlawful practice of disposing of dioxin waste materials by a continuous process of open 'pit' burning," the complaints state. "This practice was largely denied by Old Monsanto whose representatives characterized the practice as an 'incineration process' when asked by regulatory authorities.
"Old Monsanto and its successors ∑ failed to adequately control the dioxin contaminated soils and other dioxin contaminated waste materials both on and off the plant site. Dioxins/furans continued to be re-deposited and re-distributed from the plant site and the off-site dumps so as to continue the process of air and property contamination."
The complaints say the defendants knew of the dangers.
The defendants "should have known of the highly toxic properties of dioxin and that dioxin was and is a known promoter of cancer and that dioxin was and is a known human carcinogen," the complaints state. The defendants "knew that the area around the Monsanto plant was populated with permanent residents who would likely live out their lives in the area contaminated."
The complaints also detail the history of Monsanto and the company's knowledge regarding dioxin. The Nitro plant produced herbicides, rubber products and other chemicals, including Agent Orange.
Dioxin has been linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities, endometriosis, infertility and suppressed immune functions.
The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages for medical bills past and future, lost wages, pain and suffering, mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life. They also seek punitive damages for the "willful, wanton and reckless" actions of the defendants "evidencing a callous disregard for the health and wellbeing of the residents of the Nitro area."
Putnam Circuit Court case numbers 09-C-243 through 09-C-282
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And they want to "feed the world." Be afraid, be very afraid.Fifty recently filed lawsuits allege Monsanto and related companies are responsible... more
