Monday, 20 Aug 2007

Unable to Flush With Success

Sanitation a big problem worldwide, says U.N.

The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation, but we won't wait until then to ply you with depressing statistics: One-third of the global population has no access to a toilet. In 38 African countries, more children under the age of 5 die from diarrhea than HIV/AIDS. The World Health Organization estimates that 80 percent of all sickness in the world is attributable to unsafe water and sanitation. But tackling the sanitation problem is a dang good investment. According to the U.N., $1 spent on improving sanitation would save between $3 and $34 in the areas of education, health, and socioeconomic development. All we're saying is, don't be so quick to pooh-pooh sanitation.

Back to Mystery Meat

Organic-lunch project pulled out of Chicago elementary school

A school-lunch chef has pulled his Organic School Project out of a Chicago elementary school after district officials balked at his plans to expand the program to more schools. The first and only organic meal program in the nation's third-largest school district had also provided Alcott Elementary with a pesticide-free garden, wellness classes, and composting; it failed in part thanks to long-standing prepackaged-food contracts and labor-union rules that prevented OSP volunteers from helping prepare the more labor-intensive organic lunches alongside paid cafeteria workers. Price was also a factor: Not including labor and overhead, an OSP lunch cost about $2.32, compared to a traditional school lunch cost of -- gulp -- about 55 cents. The district claimed that school-lunch sales dropped 3 percent during the program, but the OSP contends sales rose 8 percent. Says OSP founder Greg Christian of leaving Alcott, "I realized there was no buy-in from [the district]. They value unions and milk contracts above the health of our kids."

There's Cash in Them There Fires

Oil fires in Nigeria can be source of cash for impoverished residents

Some residents in Nigeria's oil-rich river delta have resorted to setting fires to an oil pipeline to force companies like Shell to pay citizens to enter the area to put out the fire. One of the most recent blazes, which was extinguished only about two weeks ago, raged for 45 days, sickening nearby residents and polluting the area with thick black smoke before Shell finally agreed to pay some $800 to locals to be allowed in to extinguish it. The tactic and others like it, including draining oil from the pipeline to sell, as well as outright sabotage, stem from desperation and resentment. Nigeria is the United States' fifth-largest oil supplier; exports to the U.S. rose by $20 billion in the last five years. Yet little of the oil money actually reaches the poor residents of the oil-rich region where most of the crude is produced. Says local activist Ledum Mitee, "Our people are dying, it's only when oil stops that they take notice."


If you'd like to support your local farmers, but you don't know where to start -- and to be totally honest, you don't even know if you have local farmers -- you'll want to tuck in to today's column from advice maven Umbra Fisk. Feeding the curiosity of her readers, she offers a rundown of community-supported agriculture programs, fondly known as CSAs. What are they, where can you find one, and how much will it cost to get fresh farm-picked food every week? Read on.

If at First You Don't Succeed, Keep It Pretty Much the Same

U.S. Forest Service re-revises forest-management rules

In March, a federal judge put the kibosh on the U.S. Forest Service's revision of forest-management rules that had directed local managers to give economic concerns as high a priority as ecological health and removed requirements that managers ensure viable populations of native wildlife. Having not succeeded, the agency try, tried again, offering up a revised revision late last week. Enviros see the new pro-business rules as essentially the old pro-business rules with an allowance for more public review; if the plan remains unchanged, chances are decent that greens will sue again.

That's One Way to Highlight Shrinkage

Some 600 nudes pose on receding Swiss glacier

Giving climate-change awareness an infusion of sex appeal and highlighting the issue of glacial melt, Greenpeace teamed up with photographer Spencer Tunick over the weekend to bring together 600 volunteers for a nude photo shoot on Switzerland's Aletsch Glacier. "People posing on the glacier, it's like they show their vulnerability, free of any protection," said Marcus Allerman of Greenpeace. "It's actually what happens with our nature, it's free of any protection and it's kind of sick, the glacier is like bleeding out or sweating." The glacier, part of a United Nations World Heritage site, shrunk by about 377 feet between 2005 and 2006. Greenpeace stressed that most Swiss glaciers will disappear by 2080 if climate change continues at its current pace. Organizers were happy that so many volunteers braved the 50-degree temperatures and were especially relieved that Al Gore wasn't mentioned in connection with the event.