=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #471
—December 7, 1995—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@rachel.clark.net
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THE FOUR HORSEMEN–PART 1
There are dozens or hundreds of small environmental problems, but
there are only four really big ones that we know of today. If we
could solve these four, we might lick more than 90% of the
world’s known environmental threats. The four are:
(1) burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), leading
to global warming and the creation of killer air pollution (fine
particles; see REHW #440, #373);
(2) use of chlorine as an industrial feedstock, leading to
destruction of the earth’s ozone shield and the widespread
poisoning of humans and wildlife by reproductive toxins and
hormone-mimicking, gender-bending chemicals, plus widespread
damage to the immune systems and nervous systems of humans and
other species by a host of solvents, pesticides, and other
chlorinated industrial compounds;
(3) the mining and distribution of uranium and its byproducts,
leading to an unsolvable problem of long-lived radioactive waste,
and an ever-growing likelihood of enormous violence–acts of
terrorism causing 100,000 or more deaths in one instant;
(4) so-called “development” that degrades and diminishes
biodiversity, leading to major, irreversible loss of species,
destabilizing all life. These are the four horsemen [1]of the
environment, and as 1995 slouches to a close, all four are upon
us. This week we’ll discuss the first two.
Fossil Fuels and Global Warming
** The world’s scientific community this year acknowledged that
global warming has begun and that humans are an important
cause. [2] Later this month, the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to release its new
2000-page report, which circulated in draft form this summer.
(Copies of the final report will be available from Sandra
Vaughn-Cook at the U.S. Global Change Research Program in
Washington, D.C.; phone (202) 651-8250.) As CHEMICAL &
ENGINEERING NEWS (C&EN) describes it, the IPCC final report says:
** Average air temperature of the earth has increased somewhere
between 0.5 and 1.0 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880; during the
same period, the level of the world’s oceans has risen 3.9 to 9.8
inches; glaciers are melting, especially glaciers in the southern
hemisphere where some have disappeared completely during the past
20 years; moreover, the shrinking of glaciers has accelerated in
recent years. Coral reefs are blanching (turning white) and some
are dying because of unusually high ocean temperatures. And if
this year’s trend continues, 1995 will stack up as the hottest
year since record-keeping began in this country in 1860.
“There is also a general consensus that higher temperatures
projected for the next century will cause more frequent and
intense heat waves, wide-scale ecological disruptions, a decline
of agricultural production in the tropics and subtropics, and
continued acceleration of sea-level rise,” reports CHEMICAL &
ENGINEERING NEWS.
In sum, there is now a scientific consensus that global warming
is occurring, and that its future effects will be significant;
“wide-scale ecological disruptions” are going to be uncomfortable
and expensive. What’s agreed-upon is bad. But what’s being
discussed credibly is catastrophic. CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS
–a publication of the American Chemical Society, not known for
wild-eyed environmentalism –discusses the possible
disintegration of the Antarctic ice pack. [3]If the ice pack
should slide into the ocean, the oceans would rise 74 meters (240
feet) in short order. Coastal cities would drown, and vast areas
of agricultural land would disappear.
As we go to press, Congress is haggling over budget cuts
–ranging from 25% to 41% –that will greatly diminish the U.S.’s
ability to conduct scientific studies of global warming, perhaps
on the theory that no news is good news –or perhaps because the
oil and coal corporations pumped $1.2 million dollars into
Congressional re-election war chests in the first 6 months of
1995, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in
Washington, D.C.
Chlorinated Chemicals
During 1995, bad news continued to accumulate about the ill
effects of chlorinated chemicals on wildlife and humans, and on
global ecosystems such as the earth’s protective ozone layer.
Unfortunately, corporate producers and users of such chemicals
seem incapable of restraining themselves; therefore with help
from their indentured government they continue to resist the
obvious need for a phase-out of chlorine as an industrial
feedstock.
Example: propiconazole. “Modern” farmers use this chlorinated
compound as a fungicide (i.e., it kills fungus). It is a member
of a class of chemicals called imidazole derivatives. One of the
characteristics of imidazole derivatives is that, in mammals,
they suppress the production of certain sex hormones. [4] This
effect is so powerful that some imidazole derivatives have been
considered for use as male contraceptives in humans because they
sterilize men. [5]
In wildlife, propiconazole greatly enhances the toxic action of
organophosphate pesticides such as malathion, chlorpyrifos, and
diazinon. In birds (partridge, Japanese quail, house sparrows,
and tree sparrows, among others) and in honey bees, the presence
of propiconazole increases the potency of organophosphate
pesticides six-fold to 18-fold. [6] Because birds and honey bees
move from place to place, they can encounter organophosphate
pesticides in one locale and imidazole-derivative fungicides in a
different locale. Even though no government “standards” may have
been violated at either locale, the combined effects on the birds
and the bees may be lethal. (This is one reason why “risk
assessments” give false and misleading assurances of “safety” for
individual chemicals, because they can never take into
consideration the combined effects of multiple chemicals. See
REHW #470.)
In Norway, researchers suspected that propiconazole might disrupt
the natural balance of microscopic organisms in a stream that
received runoff from propiconazole-treated fields. Under
experimental conditions, they showed that propiconazole at 5
parts per billion (ppb) completely eliminated algae from a
stream. Algae provide the first link at the bottom of the food
chain. [7]
U.S. EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] considers
propiconazole a “Class C” carcinogen, in other words a “possible”
carcinogen in humans, based on limited data from laboratory
experiments on animals. [8]
One might think that –knowing facts such as these –rational
people would be working hard to phase out such potent
endocrine-disrupting, carcinogenic poisons. But one would be
wrong. In June, 1995, Ciba-Geigy, the Swiss chemical giant
operating from an office in Greensboro, North Carolina, sought
permission from EPA to leave propiconazole residues on oats at
100 ppb. Mmmmm, good. Ciba-Geigy also has a request pending
before EPA to allow propiconazole residues at the level of 1500
ppb on “stone fruit” crops –peaches, apricots, plums, and
prunes. On November 15 of this year, EPA proposed a new
pesticide rule that would legalize propiconazole residues on mint
leaves and stems, and on mushrooms. In other words, the use of
this poison is expanding, not declining. Some would consider
this clear evidence that government is incapable of acting in the
public interest. Others would conclude from the same evidence
that corporations are inherently incapable of acting in the
public interest and the government they have bought and
refashioned in their own image is merely aping their amoral
behavior. Either way, chances for discussing a phaseout of
chlorinated chemicals seem more remote than they did just a year
ago.
** A study reported in October that major portions of North
America and other continents are experiencing increased levels of
ultraviolet-B light from the sun, because of depletion of the
ozone layer by chlorinated chemicals. [9] The study found that
nearly the entire continental United States (everything north of
Tallahassee, Florida) is experiencing ultraviolet-B light in
greater than natural amounts. Much of the rest of the planet
poleward of 30 degrees is, or soon will be, experiencing
excessive ultraviolet-B radiation from the sun –including large
parts of continental Europe, South America, New Zealand,
Australia, and southern Africa.
The optimistic view is that the Montreal Protocol–the
international treaty designed to get DuPont’s deadly CFCs off the
market by this year –will allow the ozone hole to heal itself
within 50 to 100 years. This view assumes 100 percent compliance
with the Montreal Protocol.
But in September, reliable sources indicated that an enormous
“black market” in CFCs has appeared. According to Ozone Action,
an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., up to 22,000 tons (44
million pounds) of black market CFCs are entering the U.S. each
year as people resist investing in CFC-free equipment.
Furthermore, the black market isn’t the only loophole in the law.
“The real crime is what’s legal,” says John Passacantando,
executive director of Ozone Action. “The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency is preparing to celebrate Ozone Layer Awareness
Week, and assures us that December 31, 1995 is the last day CFCs
can be manufactured in the U.S. Taking into account two Clean
Air Act provisions which allow production after 1995, U.S.
companies may still produce 60,000 tons of CFCs [per year], which
is almost 75 percent of 1993 production levels. That’s a long
way from the public perception of what a ban means,”
Passacantando says. [10] As we go to press, Congress is debating
whether to thumb its nose at the Montreal Protocol by repealing
the sections of the Clean Air Act that ban domestic sales of
CFCs. (Foreign sales of CFCs by U.S. corporations will remain
legal in any case.)
[Next week: The other two horsemen.]
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
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[1] We have used this sexist language because, as a general rule,
the male of the human species seems far more responsible for
creating, and resisting solutions to, these problems than does
the female.
Descriptor terms: fossil fuels; coal; oil; natural gas; global
warming; energy; chlorine; chlorinated hydrocarbons; solvents;
pesticides; chlorofluorocarbons; cfcs; ozone depletion; uranium;
plutonium; nuclear weapons; nuclear war; terrorism;
proliferation; development; loss of biodiversity; loss of
species; un; ipcc; oceans; glaciers; coral reefs; agriculture;
food; agricultural productivity; heatl drought; propiconazole;
fungicides; money in politics; campaign finance; congress;
imidazole derivatives; wildlife; carcinogens; sterilants;
contraceptives; ciba-geigy; endocrine disruptors; endocrine
system; ultraviolet radiation;