Wednesday, 15 Dec 2004

For Give and For Get

How to give greenly this holiday season

Not to be all scroogely about it, but Americans -- never slackers in the trash-generating department -- produce and discard an awful lot of rubbish between November and January. Those of you who'd like to buy and give with care will want to check out our gift guide, which contains tips on eco-friendly wrapping, cards, books, kids' gifts, stocking stuffers, charitable gift donations, and more. Remember to put the earth on your list -- in Earthly Possessions, today on the Grist Magazine website.

Counter-Inuitive

Eskimos cast global warming as human-rights issue

The Inuit people of the Arctic are trying to shift the debate on global warming, casting it as a human-rights issue rather than a purely environmental one. They plan to seek a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the U.S., by spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and warming the planet, is threatening their existence. Though the commission -- part of the Organization of American States -- has no enforcement powers, a favorable ruling could establish the basis for a lawsuit, either against the U.S. in international court or against U.S. companies in U.S. federal court. Many observers, even some associated with industry, say the stars are aligning for this sort of legal challenge, or perhaps a stream of challenges like those that still bedevil the tobacco industry.

A Post Whipping

Newmont Mining Corp. accused of environmental misdeeds across the globe

The Denver Post has put together an extensive two-part investigative series on Denver-based precious-metal giant Newmont Mining Corp., detailing questionable environmental practices at a number of the corporation's mining operations worldwide. Among the findings: Newmont violated water-quality standards in Nevada, operated illegally without required environmental permits in Turkey, used faulty equipment that released toxic mercury fumes into the air in Indonesia, and poured contaminant-laden sediment into streams in Peru. Recently, villagers and local governments have begun fighting back. In September, thousands of Peruvian citizens blocked access to Newmont's richest gold mine, forcing the company to helicopter employees in to the site and eventually abandon expansion plans. The company may also face criminal charges in Indonesia for allegedly polluting Buyat Bay and sickening local citizens. "Newmont is just powerful, and so they're more willing to say, 'We don't have to do this if we don't want to,'" said Sandra Ainsworth, a former Newmont employee who says she was fired for reporting environmental problems to managers.

Ay-Yay-Yayurvedic

Imported herbal remedies found to contain lead and other nasties

Ayurvedic herbal supplements imported from South Asia may contain lead, mercury, and arsenic, sometimes at levels high enough to cause serious health problems, including vomiting, convulsions, and seizures. A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 20 percent of the remedies purchased in the U.S. and tested contained unsafe levels of heavy metals. Currently the supplements are not strictly monitored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the study's authors called for sharply increased quality control. No one's quite sure where the heavy metals are coming from -- the preparation of the traditional remedies is shrouded in secrecy -- but it's widely suspected that they are added deliberately, without the controls that would ensure safety. U.S. manufacturers hastened to point out that domestically produced herbal remedies were not tested for the study.

Dude, Where's the After Party?

U.N. negotiators begin talking about post-Kyoto actions

Two months before the Kyoto Protocol even takes effect, representatives meeting in Buenos Aires for the annual U.N. conference on climate change are already discussing plans for reducing emissions post-Kyoto. So far, says Eliot Diringer of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, participants have agreed that any future plans need to include roping in "major emitters." By "major emitters," of course, he means the U.S. -- the biggest contributor to global greenhouse gases -- as well as a number of developing nations including the No. 2 emitter, China, and the fifth- and sixth-ranked emitters, India and Brazil. A Chinese negotiator suggested the U.S. might accept a "bottom-up approach" allowing each country to voluntarily determine what steps to take to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, as opposed to the "top-down" concept of Kyoto's mandatory targets for cutting back emissions of the heat-trapping gases by 2012. Not big fans of forward thinking, Bush administration officials said in response that it is "premature" to be brainstorming on post-2012 plans.