Thursday, 27 Jul 2006

Cotton a Trap

GM cotton doesn't cut pesticide use long term, new research indicates

Biotech giant Monsanto touts its genetically modified cotton seed -- spliced with the bollworm-killing Bt toxin -- as money- and earth-saving, because it lowers the need for pesticide use. Funny story about that: a new study found that cotton farmers using the seed soon fell back into heavier pesticide use. Researchers from Cornell University followed 481 cotton growers in China who had been using Monsanto's Bt seed, which is two to three times more expensive than conventional cotton seed. They found that for the first three years the farmers grew GM cotton, they used 70 percent less pesticides, thus earning 36 percent more income than non-GM growers. But then other bugs popped up that would normally have been killed by bollworm pesticides; after seven years, the GM-ers were using nearly as much pesticide as non-GMers, and had an income 8 percent lower. More than a third of the world's cotton is grown from Monsanto's Bt seeds, with over 105 million acres in the U.S. alone.


All we are is dust in the wind -- but too many of us end up as corpses embalmed in chemicals, sealed up in steel boxes. A handful of people are beginning to seek out a different path, through eco-friendly burials. But in this unfamiliar realm, how is one supposed to know what qualifies as green? By looking for the brand-new Green Burial Council certification, that's how. Gregory Dicum reports on the new standards and how the man behind them thinks they'll change the international landscape.

And the Wind Cries Scary

Pacific Northwest ocean dead zone getting larger

Researchers believe global warming is behind a recurring low-oxygen "dead zone" in the Pacific Northwest ocean. Triggered by north winds, a process called upwelling encourages the growth of phytoplankton blooms; when the water calms, the phytoplankton die for lack of nutrients, sink to the bottom, and rot, using up oxygen in the water. Another round of upwelling then brings the low-oxygen water toward shore, killing fishies and crabs that aren't quick enough to escape. "We are seeing wild swings from year to year in the timing and duration of the winds that are favorable for upwelling," says marine specialist Jane Lubchenco. "This increased variability in the winds is consistent with what we would expect under climate change." Not to be outdone, an agricultural-runoff-caused dead zone off the Louisiana coast is likely to be 40 percent larger than average this year, or about 6,700 square miles. Soon we'll be looking around in vain for the live zones.

The Air of Their Ways

EPA falling short on clean-air protection, GAO says

The Government Accountability Office is on the U.S. EPA's case again, reporting that the agency has, and we quote, "not reduced human health risks from air toxics to the extent and in the time frames envisioned in the [Clean Air] Act." The EPA has largely failed to regulate pollution from small sources like dry cleaners and trucks, says the GAO; in fact, the agency has failed to meet 239 of the Clean Air Act's requirements -- a full 30 percent of them -- even though they're, like, the law. "This report confirms that EPA has abdicated its responsibility to protect our citizens from dangerous, cancer-causing pollutants," said Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.), who requested the GAO report along with 14 other congressfolk. An EPA spokesflack responded to the GAO report with a confused analogy: "Environmental progress is similar to a relay race with each administration passing the baton to the next. The Bush administration completed one leg of the race, while accelerating environmental progress for future generations." Uh.

Docket Science

Global warming likely to spur litigation against polluters

As global warming's effects reverberate across the planet, expect an uptick in litigation against governments and companies. Pacific Islanders whose homes are being swallowed by the ocean, African farmers with withered crops, and ski-resort owners resigned to offering mountaintop waterskiing may seek redress. "If the evidence [of anthropogenic warming] hardens up ... it has all the ingredients of the tobacco case," said Myles Allen of Oxford University. It won't be easy to prove that a specific company or country is liable for making global warming worse -- but that doesn't mean enterprising lawyers won't try. "There have been no large awards of damages, but there are an increasing number of cases," says Roda Verhaugen of the group Climate Justice, which advises plaintiffs in climate cases. Most global-warming-related litigation thus far has been directed at the greenhouse gassiest of them all, the U.S., which produces a quarter of the world's emissions.