3. This week, I decided to pick an article about one of the endangered species of life that is well known to us and along with tuna, I found out that honeybees, which are apparently vital to the environmental flora and fauna as well as pollinating crops, were in a great amount of danger too. Honeybees’ population seems to be increasingly declining, especially after the very cold winter we had this year, according to the AP. Like what the Professor said about Beck’s argument of the “crisis society” the new problems of these kinds issues, especially concerning extinctions of life, is that it has no one defined certain reason or victims and is not known how to be solved within a limited range. Who are killing the polar bears, if they are in fact drowning of climate change, and who is responsible for the killing of electric cars? As the movie indicated, there were many suspects. Likewise in this case, the disappearing of honeybees does not have spatial boundaries. It is likely to be a combination of many causes, including parasites, viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition and pesticides, according to the article. Furthermore what we learned in class such as pesticides being ok separately, but the collaborative use being detrimental is also mentioned in this article. The results are also unpredictable and unable to calculate as the consequences for almond farms which rely heavily on bees for their produce are bleak but unpredictable as well as other unforeseen environmental side effects. Another issue Beck talks about, that these problems are not realized until later when the damage is done, also applies to the honeybees’ case.
4. Bees in more trouble than ever after bad winter By GARANCE BURKE and SETH BORENSTEIN (AP) – Mar 24, 2010
MERCED, Calif. — The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides.
Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the market.
... Scientists are concerned because of the vital role bees play in our food supply. About one-third of the human diet is from plants that require pollination from honeybees, which means everything from apples to zucchini.
... This year bees seem to be in bigger trouble than normal after a bad winter, according to an informal survey of commercial bee brokers cited in an internal USDA document. One-third of those surveyed had trouble finding enough hives to pollinate California's blossoming nut trees, which grow the bulk of the world's almonds. A more formal survey will be done in April.
... Among all the stresses to bee health, it's the pesticides that are attracting scrutiny now. A study published Friday in the scientific journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) One found about three out of five pollen and wax samples from 23 states had at least one systemic pesticide — a chemical designed to spread throughout all parts of a plant.
... Bayer Crop Science started petitioning the agency to approve a new pesticide for sale in 2006. After reviewing the company's studies of its effects on bees, the EPA gave Bayer conditional approval to sell the product two years later, but said it had to carry a label warning that it was "potentially toxic to honey bee larvae through residues in pollen and nectar."
...
Berenbaum's research shows pesticides are not the only problem. She said multiple viruses also are attacking the bees, making it tough to propose a single solution. --------------------------------------------- http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLcEJ2u2muP2NWdQP7-m3JxSxWQAD9EKRMRG2
3. ‘Who killed the electronic car?’ was very interesting, and I was very sad. When I was watching the film, I hoped that the case would not happen again. I believe that the reason to exist the government is to protect people, not to be manipulated by capitals. But people can’t live without economical activities, I also admit the point that the government receives some influences from capitals. The monopoly capital takes all power, and sometimes it controls the government with huge money and strong influence. The below article shows another case, ‘who killed the electronic car’. It is not about the product (like electronic car), but about the law. California climate law which sets the 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal into law is in danger. Large oil companies attempt to suspend the law. These firms threaten people to point out the possibility that people may loose their jobs or have some economical disadvantages when the law enforces. Capitals never talk about people’s health, always highlight economical crisis. Who care about the cost from getting diseases caused by environment pollution? If the law fails due to large capitals, it will be a good case to prove the Schnaiberg’s explanation. But it is a difference between the case and Schnaiberg’s explanation in that California government tries to change the current situation and protect the environment, not waits and sees.
--------- 4. Texas Oil Firms Oppose California Climate Law
Several Texas oil companies are bankrolling a petition drive to suspend California’s path-breaking climate change law in a move that may prove a bellwether for national efforts to address global warming.
The Valero Energy Corporation…has contributed $500,000 to a ballot initiative that would halt the carrying out of the California climate law known as Assembly Bill 32, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, signed in 2006. At least one other Texas oil company, Tesoro, with operations in California and a prominent antitax group are helping to finance the petition drive to place the initiative on the November general election ballot.
The California law, the first of its kind in the nation, is intended to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases by 15 percent below current levels by 2020 through a variety of means, including a regional cap-and-trade system. The bill also calls for greater efficiencies in buildings and transportation, more use of renewable sources of energy and greater reliance on clean-burning fuels. These are all major elements of climate change proposals now being discussed in Washington.
… Mr. Schwarzenegger has said he considers the climate change law one of the signal achievements of his administration and wants to see it put in place. He said recently he believed the petition drive was fueled by the “greed” of out-of-state energy companies. “I think that the California people are outraged about the fact that Texas oil companies, Texas oil companies, are coming to California and trying to change laws and policies in California,” he said at a green technology exhibition in Sacramento last month. “I mean, it’s outrageous.”
But the governor has also expressed concern that the new law, scheduled to take effect in 2012, not harm the state’s crippled economy and cause additional job losses.
The California Jobs Initiative, the group collecting petition signatures to upend the California law, has raised just under $1 million, according to a spokeswoman for the group. Most of the money came from oil companies, but the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, founded by the father of California’s antitax movement, contributed $100,000.
A Valero spokesman, Bill Day, said costs would rise at the company’s two large refineries in California under the new emissions law because refineries use a lot of electricity and natural gas to heat and refine crude oil. Electricity prices would go up under the law, he said, and the consumption of natural gas produces carbon emissions that would be penalized under the legislation.
“Like the national cap-and-trade legislation, it does nothing at all to alleviate the problem of climate change, but it would have tremendously bad impacts on the California economy,” Mr. Day said. “This is exactly the wrong time to be implementing a cap and trade program that will further hurt consumers and cause more job loses. We are supporting a measure that would give California voters the chance to express their opinion on whether this legislation should be implemented now.”
Valero has also been active in opposing federal cap-and-trade regulations. In response to the climate bill passed by the House last June, Valero organized a “Voices for Energy” campaign against the bill and placed signs at its gas stations around the country depicting Uncle Sam warning drivers that the legislation would increase gasoline prices.
Steven Maviglio, spokesman for Californians for Clean Energy & Jobs, an alliance supporting the climate bill, said he had little doubt the organizers of the initiative would collect the required 434,000 signatures by mid-April to win a spot on the November ballot. He said his organization, representing technology firms, environmental advocates and public health groups, had raised nearly $1 million to defend the law. But he said both sides in the fight would probably raise tens of millions of dollars for what he called an environmental “battle royal” in the fall.
“Valero has been very outspoken on the national level against climate change regulation,” said Mr. Maviglio, who served as spokesman for Gray Davis, the Democratic governor whom Mr. Schwarzenegger succeeded in a lively recall election in 2003. “This is a strategic effort by the oil companies to try to unravel this law before it spreads throughout the country. The theory is if they can kill it here, they can kill it everywhere.”
There are already signs of economic and political unease in state capitals about climate change legislation. Arizona announced this year that it was pulling out of an embryonic regional greenhouse gas emissions trading group, and more than a dozen state attorneys general have challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to regulate global warming gases.
John M. Broder reported from Washington, and Clifford Krauss from Houston.
3. Samsung Eletronics is refusing to admit the direct relationship between leukemia and X-Rays used in their semiconductor factories. This reminds me of Ulrich Beck that we talked about in class. New technologies create problems, which we have no scientific tools to prove the direct cause-effect relationships of, and even if we do, we're not sure if we can trust it (or the company refuses to trust it). Also, even if we do find out clear relationship, who are we going to ask responsibilty for this woman's death?! (she's gone already) It's also sad to notice that less educated people are the ones who have to deal with these "dangerous" jobs.
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Samsung denies responsibility for cancer cluster of 23 workers
Park Ji-yeon marks the eighth victim of the occupational hazards at Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor factories
Hankyoreh April 1, 2010
During a light rainy morning on March 31, another female worker of a Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor factory who fell ill with acute leukemia passed away. As far as related groups have determined, she is the eighth victim.
The group “Banollim,” which concerns itself with the health and human rights of people in the semiconductor industry, announced that at 11 a.m. that morning, Park Ji-yeon, 23, who had been suffering from acute leukemia she contracted while working at the Onyang factory of Samsung Electronics, passed away. Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital’s Professor Min Woo-sung, Park’s chief physician, told the Hankyoreh during a telephone interview that she died of an infection brought on by pneumorrhagia, a hemorrhage of the lungs.
Park joined Samsung Electronics in December 2004, during her third year in high school. Because of her family’s financial situation, she had to find work early, and was tasked with inspecting semiconductors. She would use tweezers to place the semiconductors in a hot lead solution and other chemicals, remove them and use an x-ray machine to inspect them. In July 2007, she began to feel unwell. She began to throb inside, and was diagnosed at a hospital with acute leukemia.
In September of the same year, she fortunately received a bone marrow transplant and briefly recovered, but last year the disease returned. She traveled to Seoul from her home in Buyeo, Chungcheongnam Province, on March 26, and began vomiting blood and her face grew highly swollen. She was admitted to Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, but died six days later.
Banollim has determined that the number of workers at the Giheung and Onyang plants of Samsung Electronics who have come down with acute leukemia, lymphoma and other blood-related cancers alone total 20. Lee Jong-lan, an official with the group, said of eight of the 20 including Park, Hwang Yu-mi and Hwang Min-ung have died, while the others are still combating their illnesses.
Civic and social groups have claimed that the continued occurrence of leukemia patients at Samsung Electronics factories is due to the factory’s occupational environment, but Samsung has continued to deny this. Early last year, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency conducted an epidemiological investigation, but judged the causal relationship between the work environment and disease occurrence to be low.
In October of last year, the Seoul National University R&DB Foundation detected the carcinogen benzine during an epidemiological investigation conducted of South Korea‘s three semiconductor factories, which include Samsung Electronics, Hynix and Amkor Technology, but the companies do not recognize the credibility of the investigation.
Based on this, Banollim filed a suit on Jan. 11 with three of the sick workers, including Park, and the families of three who had already succumbed to the illnesses against the Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service demanding recognition of an industrial disaster and the payment of medical subsidies.
1.Hyo Jin,CHO 2.What if the governemnt not supporting corporations' green efforts?/ Green extension of monopoly capital 3. By watching the film, ‘who killed the electric cars’, I thought the role of government and monopoly capital is the foremost important. Though the role citizens or consumers taking is valuable and important as they can raise problem, it seemed there is limitation in efforts merely made by people, especially when the issue is not spread out publicly. Bureaucratic structures of monopoly capital and also of government make citizens hardly approach to the solution directly. The most effect-maximizing solution in time and in finance can be planned by government and monopoly capital. The article I found,'Is Corporate America Our Best Hope Against Climate Change?’showed corporation's ongoing efforts to develop green technology. It said that major corporations set their own plans for greenhouse gas emissions reductions that far greener than targets nations throw about at U.N. climate change summits. And the article referred that corporations’ suggesting solutions will sputter without the right government policy in place, and in this term, Washington government cannot be believed. It is because Washington congress is not participating in funding for green technology, and it is being busy trapped in health care hell. The point I want to raise in this article is in the theory of ‘treadmill of production’, and especially triangle relations professor drew in the lecture, what will happen if the government is not participating although monopoly capitals now endeavor to be green by recognizing problem of environment. I surely think it can happen because the environment is also the big factor of production, so like Ostrom’s idea, if the environment problem seems really getting worse affecting production, corporations gather and design solutions. Corporations’ trials can be abandoned if there is no support by government because corporations’ main purpose is yielding as much as profits. But at the same time, there are lots of ongoing issue that government are dealing with, and when the issue is highly related to political competition, government can less focus on environment issue. Therefore, I think we should think about when the government role is not supporting and moral. And in terms of extension of monopoly, I come up with the idea, what will happen if the extension of monopoly capital is green extension. For example, companies run business in green way and make green demand. Though it needs to specify the term green extension and green demand, I think it can be possible. For the green extension of economy, I think the mutual agreement among corporations, especially ‘major, big’ corporations, monopoly capital. ------------------------- 4. To traditional greens, business was the enemy, polluting with impunity and government was the hero, ready to restrain. (..). Major corporations set their own plans for greenhouse gas emissions reductions that far greener than targets that nations throw about at U.N. climate change summits.(...) That was the overriding theme at the 2010 World Energy Technologies Summit (WETN) held in New York City on Mar. 12. Speaker after speaker came to the podium to map out the technologies that could lead to a clean energy future: solar farms in the desert, wind turbines on a capital scale, the resurgence of nuclear power, even the recycling of energy we use today. But those solutions will sputter without the right government policy in place — especially without a firm price on carbon, according to most of the experts at the summit — and Washington can no longer be trusted. (...)While Washington dithers, trapped in health care hell, other countries like China and Germany are forging ahead, seizing the reins of the clean-energy economy. 5. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972936_1973104_1973861,00.html
3. When dealing with climate change, many say cars and factories are the major factors of this problem. It is true and a drastic way to solve climate change would be no cars (not hybrid cars) and stop building factories. However, this would cause damage to the economy. This article is viewing climate change as climate economies not climate science. Climate economy is about the scale and the complexibity of the problem should be based on market-based solution.
--------------------------------------- Like the debate over climate change itself, the debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades.
So the immediate prospects for climate action do not look promising, despite an ongoing effort by three senators — John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham — to come up with a compromise proposal. (They plan to introduce legislation later this month.) Yet the issue isn’t going away. There’s a pretty good chance that the record temperatures the world outside Washington has seen so far this year will continue, depriving climate skeptics of one of their main talking points. And in a more general sense, given the twists and turns of American politics in recent years — since 2005 the conventional wisdom has gone from permanent Republican domination to permanent Democratic domination to God knows what — there has to be a real chance that political support for action on climate change will revive.
1.Dingyuan Hou 2.Have we got it right on meat and greenhouse gas emissions? 3.A new report from FAO says livestock production is one of the major causes of the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Using a methodology that considers the entire commodity chain, it estimates that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport. However, the report says, the livestock sector's potential contribution to solving environmental problems is equally large, and major improvements could be achieved at reasonable cost.
The problem is, as I see it, that we humans have forgotten our connection to all other species on this planet and think we can bio and genetically engineer ourselves out of the mess we have created. We can't -without causing even greater problems because we do not know enough about the intricacies of the biodiversity needs for a healthy planet. Cows are natural grazers; not machines on a production line. They are mammals and when treated with respect and dignity, given what they naturally need, they do not produce massive amounts of methane gas, produce toxic run-off into our soils and waterways nor do we need to load them up with antibiotics and stuff which we then ingest. We need to stop making excuses to justify our disconnect from our life sources and return balance, and natural living to the planet so that we humans can once again be part of the whole eco systems, not separate from it.
------------------------------------ 4.When it comes to livestock, meat production and climate change the dominating argument amongst environmentalists has been that intensive, factory-style farming is bad for animal welfare and has a bigger negative environmental impact than extensive alternatives.
Why? Because it relies on a global feed system that is driving deforestation, destroying biodiversity and wasting energy when compared to an extensive grazing based system.
The argument was only reinforced by the publication of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) report, ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ back in 2006. It said livestock accounted for 18 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions: more than the transport sector.
Campaign groups were quick to jump on that comparison. Our appetite for cheap meat, they said, was bad for animals and climate change. Oxfam has argued that each person who replaces red meat and dairy with vegetables for one day a week for a year cuts their GHG emissions as much as if they skipped a 1,160-mile car trip.
The ‘Meat-free Mondays’ campaign turned this argument into action by urging people to reduce their meat consumption, starting with a commitment not to eat meat at least one day each week.
Emissions overplayed
However, the argument has taken some heavy criticism in recent weeks following the publication of a report by Dr Frank Mitloehner from the University of California. Appropriately title, ‘Clearing the air: livestock’s contribution to climate change’, it claims that the impact of meat and dairy production has been overstated.
Mitloehner says the UN’s report unfairly compared a full life-cycle calculation of livestock - including emissions from growing feed and the processing of consumer products - with a calculation for the transport sector that only included direct emissions, omitting, for example, the greenhouse gases produced during the manufacture of the car.
As such, he concludes that the UN has helped others to overplay the impact of meat and dairy production on the environment.
Mitloehner makes two other points. First, he argues that a global comparison figure does not take account of regional differences.
'In Paraguay, the contribution of livestock may be as high as 50 percent because they are clear-cutting a lot of forest, and that basically takes a unit of [greenhouse-gas] sequestration away and puts cattle, which is an emissions source, there instead. In the U.S. the contribution from livestock is only around 3 percent of the total,’ he says.
Although Mitloehner himself has admitted to underestimating US livestock emissions by up to 1 per cent, and being part-funded by the beef industry, the UN has accepted his comparison critique.
Global meat trade
However, other campaign groups have questioned the idea that livestock emissions from each region can be thought of in isolation and that, for example, US meat production could have no impact on land-use decisions and deforestation elsewhere in the world. ‘In a globalised trading system purchasing decisions and markets in one part of the world can have direct and indirect effects on land use. Unless the US is an economic island then it cannot be seen to be separate from the global pattern of land use,’ says Tara Garnett from the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN).
What is the 'best' system?
The second issue raised by Mitloehner’s report will be more difficult for environmentalists to stomach. He acknowledges that livestock’s emissions need to be reduced but believes that more efficient production methods, rather than necessarily cutting consumption, are the way forward.
He adds that less industrialised countries should be helped to satisfy their populations' growing demand for meat and dairy by adopting western-style factory farming.
‘My concern is not to feed more meat to people in the developed world but to make nutrition available to people who are undernourished.
‘The current systems in Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are very land-hungry because they are so extensive. We have the tools to show them how to do it using less resources,’ says Mitloehner.
I agree it runs contrary to animal welfare concerns surrounding industrial-style farms but animals that are starving or infected with parasites - they are suffering too and no-one talks about them, or the suffering of undernourished humans,’ he adds.
New FAO analysis
Mitloehner’s point looks likely to be backed up by more analysis from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The FAO is working on a major update to their livestock report from 2006, which will break down greenhouse gas emissions by farming system, sector and region.
Preliminary findings for the dairy sector have found that GHG emissions per litre of milk are three times as great in India than in Western Europe or North America and seven times as much in Kenya.
A final report is not expected before 2011 but the FAO says the findings could be used to help countries reduce the GHG-impact of their meat production.
‘Developing countries have huge total emissions per unit of output and this could offer a strategy of mitigation for them. The more productive systems could bring the double benefit of lower emissions and more income,’ says FAO chief livestock policy officer Henning Steinfeld.
‘There are lots of people in the world who would appreciate meat and need the protein and I don’t think we should preach to them not to eat these products,’ he adds.
1. Franziska Mittelstädt 2. Uranium Mining in Niger 3. Last week I read this article in German - fortunately I could find it in English,too. I was very shocked about it.
I strongely recommend you to read the whole article - please share it with others!
"For the past 40 years, the French state-owned company Areva has been mining uranium for Europe's nuclear power needs in Niger, one of the poorest countries on Earth. One local activist is taking on the company, claiming that water and dust have been contaminated and workers are dying as a result of its activities"
On Friday we talked about Ulrich Beck and his view Ecological Modernization. When we talked about the characteristics, I was able to recognizes these characteristics in the case of Areva's Uranium Mining in Niger. Therefore I will try to make a kind of case study:
1. New material risks: The haven't been any long-rung test about the risks arising with uranium mining. But the risk is not a naturally one: If there would be no mining, the Uranium would not come into the water or (in form of dust) into the air. Because people cannot register the danger caused by uranium they have to trust people with expertise. Because of this dependence there is a natural mistrust.
2.End of seperation of "nature vs. society": Not only the environment is endangered by the mining. It is more the people themselves.
3. Social construction of risk and false safety: There are some regulation to increase the safety of the mining workers. But it seems there are not very effective. Its main effect is that the worker FEEL more safty. Another aspect is that the whole city, including its facilities, is very dependent on Areva. Therefore the hospital has to follows the "recommondations" of Areva, too. The doctors do not tell the people that they have cancer because of the uranium mining. So they do not have any evidence that there are people dying because of their work. In the same time Avera does not have to pay widow's pension and can save much money.
4. Enivronmental class conflicts, without environmental proletariat consolidated response: Its easy to see that the inhabitans of the city near to the mine are the environmental proletariat. They have to cover all environmental costs (especially in form of health problems). The people who make most money with the trade of uranium do not even get in contact with it and are therefore not harmed by it. Because Avera tries to keep this secrect, the inhabitans are not even fully aware of the danger and the costs they have to cover.
6. Lack of legitimacy: Because there is no strong enough state who can enforce the law (or maybe does not want to enforce it - I can imagine Areva pays many "taxes" and has therefore big influence in Nigerian government) Areva gets no punishment.
9. subpolitics: There is an civil organization "Aghirin Man" fighting for making this circumstances public and to increase safety standards in mine and monetary compensation.
10. Risks is unmanageable and unrationalizable: Because all the cases of cancer are claimed to be another desease, there are no investigations about the real effect of the uranium-dust.
**continued** 4.[..] Areva, which operates uranium mines and build nuclear power plants, has its headquarters in Paris. Its total sales in 2009 were €14 billion ($19 billion). The company is owned almost entirely by the French state, which was the colonial power in Niger until 1960. The French established their first mining company eight years after Niger's independence. Uranium was deposited in sediments in the region millions of years ago, when it was a river delta. Since 1968, excavating machines have dug more than 100,000 tons of the nuclear fuel out of the ground beneath the Sahara. [...] Uranium from Niger has served as a fuel for Europe's energy supply for 40 years. But unlike Saudi Arabia, Niger has arguably reaped little but misery in return. The country in Africa's Sahel zone is one of the world's least-developed nations. One in four children dies before the age of five.
The conditions in Niger are one of the dirty sides of supposedly clean nuclear energy. The activities there are well hidden from the outside world: The uranium mining takes place in the middle of nowhere. There are bandits in the region who kidnap white people and sell them to al-Qaida. The region was long under martial law because of a rebellion by the Tuareg. Today, Arlit is still accessible only by military convoy.
Recently, however, a Greenpeace team went to Arlit. They brought along Geiger counters, which detected levels of radioactivity that were far higher than they should have been. There are two uranium mines in the area, one near Arlit and the other near the nearby town of Akokan. One is an open pit mine and the other reaches about 250 meters (820 feet) underground -- the world's largest underground uranium mine. A total of 80,000 people live in the two cities Areva created in the desert to service the mines. There are no paved roads, but there is plenty of reddish-brown dust, which penetrates into every crack and pore. Well water is radioactively contaminated, and precious fossil groundwater is used in the uranium ore processing plant. The region's nomads are finding fewer and fewer pastures for their cattle, and people are affected by fatal illnesses. Citizens' organizations critical of Areva claim that the little money the company pays to the Niger state remains in the capital or simply ends up in the pockets of family members of the longstanding president. When Alhacen is asked what the mine has done for people, he says: "Nothing -- except radiation, which will be here for thousands of years."
The mines have also contributed to the uprisings, in which the Tuareg rebels use violence in an attempt to get their share of uranium revenues. Niger is a divided country, with the Tuareg living in the north and the dominant Hausa ethnic group in the south. The capital is in the south, and the south controls the country. Uranium revenues from the north are used to buy weapons in the south, which the government then uses to keep the north in check. [...]"They died of diseases that we didn't understand," says Alhacen. He says that when he asked hospital staff what had killed his coworkers, he didn't receive an answer. Sometimes, he says, the doctors said it was AIDS, but this made Alhacen suspicious, because Niger had a low incidence of AIDS. The fact that the hospital belongs to Areva also made him suspicious. It was when Mamadou died that Alhacen decided to set up Aghirin Man.
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
1. Sung Yeon Lee
ReplyDelete2. Bees in danger
3. This week, I decided to pick an article about one of the endangered species of life that is well known to us and along with tuna, I found out that honeybees, which are apparently vital to the environmental flora and fauna as well as pollinating crops, were in a great amount of danger too. Honeybees’ population seems to be increasingly declining, especially after the very cold winter we had this year, according to the AP. Like what the Professor said about Beck’s argument of the “crisis society” the new problems of these kinds issues, especially concerning extinctions of life, is that it has no one defined certain reason or victims and is not known how to be solved within a limited range. Who are killing the polar bears, if they are in fact drowning of climate change, and who is responsible for the killing of electric cars? As the movie indicated, there were many suspects. Likewise in this case, the disappearing of honeybees does not have spatial boundaries. It is likely to be a combination of many causes, including parasites, viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition and pesticides, according to the article. Furthermore what we learned in class such as pesticides being ok separately, but the collaborative use being detrimental is also mentioned in this article. The results are also unpredictable and unable to calculate as the consequences for almond farms which rely heavily on bees for their produce are bleak but unpredictable as well as other unforeseen environmental side effects. Another issue Beck talks about, that these problems are not realized until later when the damage is done, also applies to the honeybees’ case.
4.
Bees in more trouble than ever after bad winter
By GARANCE BURKE and SETH BORENSTEIN (AP) – Mar 24, 2010
MERCED, Calif. — The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides.
Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the market.
...
Scientists are concerned because of the vital role bees play in our food supply. About one-third of the human diet is from plants that require pollination from honeybees, which means everything from apples to zucchini.
...
This year bees seem to be in bigger trouble than normal after a bad winter, according to an informal survey of commercial bee brokers cited in an internal USDA document. One-third of those surveyed had trouble finding enough hives to pollinate California's blossoming nut trees, which grow the bulk of the world's almonds. A more formal survey will be done in April.
...
Among all the stresses to bee health, it's the pesticides that are attracting scrutiny now. A study published Friday in the scientific journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) One found about three out of five pollen and wax samples from 23 states had at least one systemic pesticide — a chemical designed to spread throughout all parts of a plant.
...
Bayer Crop Science started petitioning the agency to approve a new pesticide for sale in 2006. After reviewing the company's studies of its effects on bees, the EPA gave Bayer conditional approval to sell the product two years later, but said it had to carry a label warning that it was "potentially toxic to honey bee larvae through residues in pollen and nectar."
...
Berenbaum's research shows pesticides are not the only problem. She said multiple viruses also are attacking the bees, making it tough to propose a single solution.
---------------------------------------------
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLcEJ2u2muP2NWdQP7-m3JxSxWQAD9EKRMRG2
1. Hye Jung, Choi
ReplyDelete2. Who will kill the law?
3. ‘Who killed the electronic car?’ was very interesting, and I was very sad. When I was watching the film, I hoped that the case would not happen again. I believe that the reason to exist the government is to protect people, not to be manipulated by capitals. But people can’t live without economical activities, I also admit the point that the government receives some influences from capitals. The monopoly capital takes all power, and sometimes it controls the government with huge money and strong influence. The below article shows another case, ‘who killed the electronic car’. It is not about the product (like electronic car), but about the law. California climate law which sets the 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal into law is in danger. Large oil companies attempt to suspend the law. These firms threaten people to point out the possibility that people may loose their jobs or have some economical disadvantages when the law enforces. Capitals never talk about people’s health, always highlight economical crisis. Who care about the cost from getting diseases caused by environment pollution? If the law fails due to large capitals, it will be a good case to prove the Schnaiberg’s explanation. But it is a difference between the case and Schnaiberg’s explanation in that California government tries to change the current situation and protect the environment, not waits and sees.
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4.
Texas Oil Firms Oppose California Climate Law
Several Texas oil companies are bankrolling a petition drive to suspend California’s path-breaking climate change law in a move that may prove a bellwether for national efforts to address global warming.
The Valero Energy Corporation…has contributed $500,000 to a ballot initiative that would halt the carrying out of the California climate law known as Assembly Bill 32, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, signed in 2006. At least one other Texas oil company, Tesoro, with operations in California and a prominent antitax group are helping to finance the petition drive to place the initiative on the November general election ballot.
The California law, the first of its kind in the nation, is intended to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases by 15 percent below current levels by 2020 through a variety of means, including a regional cap-and-trade system. The bill also calls for greater efficiencies in buildings and transportation, more use of renewable sources of energy and greater reliance on clean-burning fuels. These are all major elements of climate change proposals now being discussed in Washington.
…
Mr. Schwarzenegger has said he considers the climate change law one of the signal achievements of his administration and wants to see it put in place. He said recently he believed the petition drive was fueled by the “greed” of out-of-state energy companies.
“I think that the California people are outraged about the fact that Texas oil companies, Texas oil companies, are coming to California and trying to change laws and policies in California,” he said at a green technology exhibition in Sacramento last month. “I mean, it’s outrageous.”
But the governor has also expressed concern that the new law, scheduled to take effect in 2012, not harm the state’s crippled economy and cause additional job losses.
>>continued<<
ReplyDeleteThe California Jobs Initiative, the group collecting petition signatures to upend the California law, has raised just under $1 million, according to a spokeswoman for the group. Most of the money came from oil companies, but the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, founded by the father of California’s antitax movement, contributed $100,000.
A Valero spokesman, Bill Day, said costs would rise at the company’s two large refineries in California under the new emissions law because refineries use a lot of electricity and natural gas to heat and refine crude oil. Electricity prices would go up under the law, he said, and the consumption of natural gas produces carbon emissions that would be penalized under the legislation.
“Like the national cap-and-trade legislation, it does nothing at all to alleviate the problem of climate change, but it would have tremendously bad impacts on the California economy,” Mr. Day said. “This is exactly the wrong time to be implementing a cap and trade program that will further hurt consumers and cause more job loses. We are supporting a measure that would give California voters the chance to express their opinion on whether this legislation should be implemented now.”
Valero has also been active in opposing federal cap-and-trade regulations. In response to the climate bill passed by the House last June, Valero organized a “Voices for Energy” campaign against the bill and placed signs at its gas stations around the country depicting Uncle Sam warning drivers that the legislation would increase gasoline prices.
Steven Maviglio, spokesman for Californians for Clean Energy & Jobs, an alliance supporting the climate bill, said he had little doubt the organizers of the initiative would collect the required 434,000 signatures by mid-April to win a spot on the November ballot. He said his organization, representing technology firms, environmental advocates and public health groups, had raised nearly $1 million to defend the law. But he said both sides in the fight would probably raise tens of millions of dollars for what he called an environmental “battle royal” in the fall.
“Valero has been very outspoken on the national level against climate change regulation,” said Mr. Maviglio, who served as spokesman for Gray Davis, the Democratic governor whom Mr. Schwarzenegger succeeded in a lively recall election in 2003. “This is a strategic effort by the oil companies to try to unravel this law before it spreads throughout the country. The theory is if they can kill it here, they can kill it everywhere.”
There are already signs of economic and political unease in state capitals about climate change legislation. Arizona announced this year that it was pulling out of an embryonic regional greenhouse gas emissions trading group, and more than a dozen state attorneys general have challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to regulate global warming gases.
John M. Broder reported from Washington, and Clifford Krauss from Houston.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/science/earth/08energy.html
1. Wonmi Nam
ReplyDelete2. World Food Crisis, Who to Blame?
3. Samsung Eletronics is refusing to admit the direct relationship between leukemia and X-Rays used in their semiconductor factories. This reminds me of Ulrich Beck that we talked about in class. New technologies create problems, which we have no scientific tools to prove the direct cause-effect relationships of, and even if we do, we're not sure if we can trust it (or the company refuses to trust it). Also, even if we do find out clear relationship, who are we going to ask responsibilty for this woman's death?! (she's gone already) It's also sad to notice that less educated people are the ones who have to deal with these "dangerous" jobs.
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Samsung denies responsibility for cancer cluster of 23 workers
Park Ji-yeon marks the eighth victim of the occupational hazards at Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor factories
Hankyoreh
April 1, 2010
During a light rainy morning on March 31, another female worker of a Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor factory who fell ill with acute leukemia passed away. As far as related groups have determined, she is the eighth victim.
The group “Banollim,” which concerns itself with the health and human rights of people in the semiconductor industry, announced that at 11 a.m. that morning, Park Ji-yeon, 23, who had been suffering from acute leukemia she contracted while working at the Onyang factory of Samsung Electronics, passed away. Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital’s Professor Min Woo-sung, Park’s chief physician, told the Hankyoreh during a telephone interview that she died of an infection brought on by pneumorrhagia, a hemorrhage of the lungs.
Park joined Samsung Electronics in December 2004, during her third year in high school. Because of her family’s financial situation, she had to find work early, and was tasked with inspecting semiconductors. She would use tweezers to place the semiconductors in a hot lead solution and other chemicals, remove them and use an x-ray machine to inspect them. In July 2007, she began to feel unwell. She began to throb inside, and was diagnosed at a hospital with acute leukemia.
In September of the same year, she fortunately received a bone marrow transplant and briefly recovered, but last year the disease returned. She traveled to Seoul from her home in Buyeo, Chungcheongnam Province, on March 26, and began vomiting blood and her face grew highly swollen. She was admitted to Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, but died six days later.
Banollim has determined that the number of workers at the Giheung and Onyang plants of Samsung Electronics who have come down with acute leukemia, lymphoma and other blood-related cancers alone total 20. Lee Jong-lan, an official with the group, said of eight of the 20 including Park, Hwang Yu-mi and Hwang Min-ung have died, while the others are still combating their illnesses.
Civic and social groups have claimed that the continued occurrence of leukemia patients at Samsung Electronics factories is due to the factory’s occupational environment, but Samsung has continued to deny this. Early last year, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency conducted an epidemiological investigation, but judged the causal relationship between the work environment and disease occurrence to be low.
In October of last year, the Seoul National University R&DB Foundation detected the carcinogen benzine during an epidemiological investigation conducted of South Korea‘s three semiconductor factories, which include Samsung Electronics, Hynix and Amkor Technology, but the companies do not recognize the credibility of the investigation.
Based on this, Banollim filed a suit on Jan. 11 with three of the sick workers, including Park, and the families of three who had already succumbed to the illnesses against the Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service demanding recognition of an industrial disaster and the payment of medical subsidies.
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[http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/413715.html]
1.Hyo Jin,CHO
ReplyDelete2.What if the governemnt not supporting corporations' green efforts?/ Green extension of monopoly capital
3. By watching the film, ‘who killed the electric cars’, I thought the role of government and monopoly capital is the foremost important. Though the role citizens or consumers taking is valuable and important as they can raise problem, it seemed there is limitation in efforts merely made by people, especially when the issue is not spread out publicly. Bureaucratic structures of monopoly capital and also of government make citizens hardly approach to the solution directly. The most effect-maximizing solution in time and in finance can be planned by government and monopoly capital.
The article I found,'Is Corporate America Our Best Hope Against Climate Change?’showed corporation's ongoing efforts to develop green technology. It said that major corporations set their own plans for greenhouse gas emissions reductions that far greener than targets nations throw about at U.N. climate change summits. And the article referred that corporations’ suggesting solutions will sputter without the right government policy in place, and in this term, Washington government cannot be believed. It is because Washington congress is not participating in funding for green technology, and it is being busy trapped in health care hell.
The point I want to raise in this article is in the theory of ‘treadmill of production’, and especially triangle relations professor drew in the lecture, what will happen if the government is not participating although monopoly capitals now endeavor to be green by recognizing problem of environment. I surely think it can happen because the environment is also the big factor of production, so like Ostrom’s idea, if the environment problem seems really getting worse affecting production, corporations gather and design solutions. Corporations’ trials can be abandoned if there is no support by government because corporations’ main purpose is yielding as much as profits. But at the same time, there are lots of ongoing issue that government are dealing with, and when the issue is highly related to political competition, government can less focus on environment issue. Therefore, I think we should think about when the government role is not supporting and moral.
And in terms of extension of monopoly, I come up with the idea, what will happen if the extension of monopoly capital is green extension. For example, companies run business in green way and make green demand. Though it needs to specify the term green extension and green demand, I think it can be possible. For the green extension of economy, I think the mutual agreement among corporations, especially ‘major, big’ corporations, monopoly capital.
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4. To traditional greens, business was the enemy, polluting with impunity and government was the hero, ready to restrain.
(..). Major corporations set their own plans for greenhouse gas emissions reductions that far greener than targets that nations throw about at U.N. climate change summits.(...)
That was the overriding theme at the 2010 World Energy Technologies Summit (WETN) held in New York City on Mar. 12. Speaker after speaker came to the podium to map out the technologies that could lead to a clean energy future: solar farms in the desert, wind turbines on a capital scale, the resurgence of nuclear power, even the recycling of energy we use today. But those solutions will sputter without the right government policy in place — especially without a firm price on carbon, according to most of the experts at the summit — and Washington can no longer be trusted. (...)While Washington dithers, trapped in health care hell, other countries like China and Germany are forging ahead, seizing the reins of the clean-energy economy.
5. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972936_1973104_1973861,00.html
1. Ye Eun Cho
ReplyDelete2. Building a Green Economy
3. When dealing with climate change, many say cars and factories are the major factors of this problem. It is true and a drastic way to solve climate change would be no cars (not hybrid cars) and stop building factories. However, this would cause damage to the economy. This article is viewing climate change as climate economies not climate science. Climate economy is about the scale and the complexibity of the problem should be based on market-based solution.
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Like the debate over climate change itself, the debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades.
So the immediate prospects for climate action do not look promising, despite an ongoing effort by three senators — John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham — to come up with a compromise proposal. (They plan to introduce legislation later this month.) Yet the issue isn’t going away. There’s a pretty good chance that the record temperatures the world outside Washington has seen so far this year will continue, depriving climate skeptics of one of their main talking points. And in a more general sense, given the twists and turns of American politics in recent years — since 2005 the conventional wisdom has gone from permanent Republican domination to permanent Democratic domination to God knows what — there has to be a real chance that political support for action on climate change will revive.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=earth
1.Dingyuan Hou
ReplyDelete2.Have we got it right on meat and greenhouse gas emissions?
3.A new report from FAO says livestock production is one of the major causes of the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Using a methodology that considers the entire commodity chain, it estimates that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport. However, the report says, the livestock sector's potential contribution to solving environmental problems is equally large, and major improvements could be achieved at reasonable cost.
The problem is, as I see it, that we humans have forgotten our connection to all other species on this planet and think we can bio and genetically engineer ourselves out of the mess we have created. We can't -without causing even greater problems because we do not know enough about the intricacies of the biodiversity needs for a healthy planet. Cows are natural grazers; not machines on a production line. They are mammals and when treated with respect and dignity, given what they naturally need, they do not produce massive amounts of methane gas, produce toxic run-off into our soils and waterways nor do we need to load them up with antibiotics and stuff which we then ingest. We need to stop making excuses to justify our disconnect from our life sources and return balance, and natural living to the planet so that we humans can once again be part of the whole eco systems, not separate from it.
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4.When it comes to livestock, meat production and climate change the dominating argument amongst environmentalists has been that intensive, factory-style farming is bad for animal welfare and has a bigger negative environmental impact than extensive alternatives.
Why? Because it relies on a global feed system that is driving deforestation, destroying biodiversity and wasting energy when compared to an extensive grazing based system.
The argument was only reinforced by the publication of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) report, ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ back in 2006. It said livestock accounted for 18 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions: more than the transport sector.
Campaign groups were quick to jump on that comparison. Our appetite for cheap meat, they said, was bad for animals and climate change. Oxfam has argued that each person who replaces red meat and dairy with vegetables for one day a week for a year cuts their GHG emissions as much as if they skipped a 1,160-mile car trip.
The ‘Meat-free Mondays’ campaign turned this argument into action by urging people to reduce their meat consumption, starting with a commitment not to eat meat at least one day each week.
Emissions overplayed
However, the argument has taken some heavy criticism in recent weeks following the publication of a report by Dr Frank Mitloehner from the University of California. Appropriately title, ‘Clearing the air: livestock’s contribution to climate change’, it claims that the impact of meat and dairy production has been overstated.
Mitloehner says the UN’s report unfairly compared a full life-cycle calculation of livestock - including emissions from growing feed and the processing of consumer products - with a calculation for the transport sector that only included direct emissions, omitting, for example, the greenhouse gases produced during the manufacture of the car.
As such, he concludes that the UN has helped others to overplay the impact of meat and dairy production on the environment.
**continued**
**continued**
ReplyDeleteMitloehner makes two other points. First, he argues that a global comparison figure does not take account of regional differences.
'In Paraguay, the contribution of livestock may be as high as 50 percent because they are clear-cutting a lot of forest, and that basically takes a unit of [greenhouse-gas] sequestration away and puts cattle, which is an emissions source, there instead. In the U.S. the contribution from livestock is only around 3 percent of the total,’ he says.
Although Mitloehner himself has admitted to underestimating US livestock emissions by up to 1 per cent, and being part-funded by the beef industry, the UN has accepted his comparison critique.
Global meat trade
However, other campaign groups have questioned the idea that livestock emissions from each region can be thought of in isolation and that, for example, US meat production could have no impact on land-use decisions and deforestation elsewhere in the world.
‘In a globalised trading system purchasing decisions and markets in one part of the world can have direct and indirect effects on land use. Unless the US is an economic island then it cannot be seen to be separate from the global pattern of land use,’ says Tara Garnett from the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN).
What is the 'best' system?
The second issue raised by Mitloehner’s report will be more difficult for environmentalists to stomach. He acknowledges that livestock’s emissions need to be reduced but believes that more efficient production methods, rather than necessarily cutting consumption, are the way forward.
He adds that less industrialised countries should be helped to satisfy their populations' growing demand for meat and dairy by adopting western-style factory farming.
‘My concern is not to feed more meat to people in the developed world but to make nutrition available to people who are undernourished.
‘The current systems in Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are very land-hungry because they are so extensive. We have the tools to show them how to do it using less resources,’ says Mitloehner.
I agree it runs contrary to animal welfare concerns surrounding industrial-style farms but animals that are starving or infected with parasites - they are suffering too and no-one talks about them, or the suffering of undernourished humans,’ he adds.
New FAO analysis
Mitloehner’s point looks likely to be backed up by more analysis from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The FAO is working on a major update to their livestock report from 2006, which will break down greenhouse gas emissions by farming system, sector and region.
Preliminary findings for the dairy sector have found that GHG emissions per litre of milk are three times as great in India than in Western Europe or North America and seven times as much in Kenya.
A final report is not expected before 2011 but the FAO says the findings could be used to help countries reduce the GHG-impact of their meat production.
‘Developing countries have huge total emissions per unit of output and this could offer a strategy of mitigation for them. The more productive systems could bring the double benefit of lower emissions and more income,’ says FAO chief livestock policy officer Henning Steinfeld.
‘There are lots of people in the world who would appreciate meat and need the protein and I don’t think we should preach to them not to eat these products,’ he adds.
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http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/458218/have_we_got_it_right_on_meat_and_greenhouse_gas_emissions.html
1. Franziska Mittelstädt
ReplyDelete2. Uranium Mining in Niger
3. Last week I read this article in German - fortunately I could find it in English,too. I was very shocked about it.
I strongely recommend you to read the whole article - please share it with others!
"For the past 40 years, the French state-owned company Areva has been mining uranium for Europe's nuclear power needs in Niger, one of the poorest countries on Earth. One local activist is taking on the company, claiming that water and dust have been contaminated and workers are dying as a result of its activities"
On Friday we talked about Ulrich Beck and his view Ecological Modernization. When we talked about the characteristics, I was able to recognizes these characteristics in the case of Areva's Uranium Mining in Niger.
Therefore I will try to make a kind of case study:
1. New material risks: The haven't been any long-rung test about the risks arising with uranium mining. But the risk is not a naturally one: If there would be no mining, the Uranium would not come into the water or (in form of dust) into the air. Because people cannot register the danger caused by uranium they have to trust people with expertise. Because of this dependence there is a natural mistrust.
2.End of seperation of "nature vs. society": Not only the environment is endangered by the mining. It is more the people themselves.
3. Social construction of risk and false safety: There are some regulation to increase the safety of the mining workers. But it seems there are not very effective. Its main effect is that the worker FEEL more safty.
Another aspect is that the whole city, including its facilities, is very dependent on Areva. Therefore the hospital has to follows the "recommondations" of Areva, too.
The doctors do not tell the people that they have cancer because of the uranium mining. So they do not have any evidence that there are people dying because of their work. In the same time Avera does not have to pay widow's pension and can save much money.
4. Enivronmental class conflicts, without environmental proletariat consolidated response: Its easy to see that the inhabitans of the city near to the mine are the environmental proletariat. They have to cover all environmental costs (especially in form of health problems). The people who make most money with the trade of uranium do not even get in contact with it and are therefore not harmed by it. Because Avera tries to keep this secrect, the inhabitans are not even fully aware of the danger and the costs they have to cover.
6. Lack of legitimacy: Because there is no strong enough state who can enforce the law (or maybe does not want to enforce it - I can imagine Areva pays many "taxes" and has therefore big influence in Nigerian government) Areva gets no punishment.
9. subpolitics: There is an civil organization "Aghirin Man" fighting for making this circumstances public and to increase safety standards in mine and monetary compensation.
10. Risks is unmanageable and unrationalizable: Because all the cases of cancer are claimed to be another desease, there are no investigations about the real effect of the uranium-dust.
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**continued**
ReplyDelete4.[..] Areva, which operates uranium mines and build nuclear power plants, has its headquarters in Paris. Its total sales in 2009 were €14 billion ($19 billion). The company is owned almost entirely by the French state, which was the colonial power in Niger until 1960. The French established their first mining company eight years after Niger's independence. Uranium was deposited in sediments in the region millions of years ago, when it was a river delta. Since 1968, excavating machines have dug more than 100,000 tons of the nuclear fuel out of the ground beneath the Sahara.
[...]
Uranium from Niger has served as a fuel for Europe's energy supply for 40 years. But unlike Saudi Arabia, Niger has arguably reaped little but misery in return. The country in Africa's Sahel zone is one of the world's least-developed nations. One in four children dies before the age of five.
The conditions in Niger are one of the dirty sides of supposedly clean nuclear energy. The activities there are well hidden from the outside world: The uranium mining takes place in the middle of nowhere. There are bandits in the region who kidnap white people and sell them to al-Qaida. The region was long under martial law because of a rebellion by the Tuareg. Today, Arlit is still accessible only by military convoy.
Recently, however, a Greenpeace team went to Arlit. They brought along Geiger counters, which detected levels of radioactivity that were far higher than they should have been. There are two uranium mines in the area, one near Arlit and the other near the nearby town of Akokan. One is an open pit mine and the other reaches about 250 meters (820 feet) underground -- the world's largest underground uranium mine.
A total of 80,000 people live in the two cities Areva created in the desert to service the mines. There are no paved roads, but there is plenty of reddish-brown dust, which penetrates into every crack and pore. Well water is radioactively contaminated, and precious fossil groundwater is used in the uranium ore processing plant. The region's nomads are finding fewer and fewer pastures for their cattle, and people are affected by fatal illnesses.
Citizens' organizations critical of Areva claim that the little money the company pays to the Niger state remains in the capital or simply ends up in the pockets of family members of the longstanding president. When Alhacen is asked what the mine has done for people, he says: "Nothing -- except radiation, which will be here for thousands of years."
The mines have also contributed to the uprisings, in which the Tuareg rebels use violence in an attempt to get their share of uranium revenues. Niger is a divided country, with the Tuareg living in the north and the dominant Hausa ethnic group in the south. The capital is in the south, and the south controls the country. Uranium revenues from the north are used to buy weapons in the south, which the government then uses to keep the north in check.
[...]"They died of diseases that we didn't understand," says Alhacen. He says that when he asked hospital staff what had killed his coworkers, he didn't receive an answer. Sometimes, he says, the doctors said it was AIDS, but this made Alhacen suspicious, because Niger had a low incidence of AIDS. The fact that the hospital belongs to Areva also made him suspicious. It was when Mamadou died that Alhacen decided to set up Aghirin Man.
And here is the link to the article:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686774,00.html