BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

Disturbing Story of Fallujah’s Birth Defects.

xxxxxxx                             WAR IS TOXIC                        xxxxxxx

Written By: John Simpson
Source: BBC News, Fallujah
Posted By: Elizabeth Fiend

Six years after the intense fighting began in the Iraqi town of Fallujah between US forces and Sunni insurgents, there is a disturbingly large number of cases of birth defects in the town.

Fallujah is less than 40 miles (65km) from Baghdad, but it can still be dangerous to get to. As a result, there has been no authoritative medical investigation, certainly by any Western team, into the allegations that the weapons used by the Americans are still causing serious problems.

The Iraqi government line is that there are only one or two extra cases of birth defects per year in Fallujah, compared with the national average.

‘Daily cases’

But in the impressive new Fallujah General Hospital, built with American aid, we found a paediatric specialist, Dr Samira al-Ani, who told us that she saw two or three new cases every day. Most of them, she said, exhibited cardiac problems. “ I have nothing documented. But I can tell you that year by year the number [is] increasing ”

When asked what the cause was, she said: “I am a doctor. I have to be scientific in my talk. I have nothing documented. But I can tell you that year by year, the number [is] increasing.”

The specialist, like other medical staff at the hospital, seemed nervous about talking too openly about the problem. They were well aware that what they said went against the government version, and we were told privately that the Iraqi authorities are anxious not to embarrass the Americans over the issue.

There are no official figures for the incidence of birth defects in Fallujah.

The US military authorities are absolutely correct when they say they are not aware of any official reports indicating an increase in birth defects in Fallujah - no official reports exist.

Mothers Warned

But it is impossible, as a visitor, not to be struck by the terrible number of cases of birth defects there.

We heard many times that officials in Fallujah had warned women that they should not have children. We went to a clinic for the disabled, and were given details of dozens upon dozens of cases of children with serious birth defects.

One photograph I saw showed a newborn baby with three heads.

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Henry David Thoreau, Your Own Back Yard, and Global Warming

[Photo By: Elizabeth Fiend. Baby cardinal taking first flight, in my own backyard!]

Article Written By ELIZABETH FIEND

I’ve been reading Wild Fruits, an unfinished, recently published manuscript by American naturalist Henry David Thoreau. The book is a combination of diary and essay, chronicling the ways Thoreau spent his days and what he learned during the final years of his brief life. With each page I get more jealous, wishing I too could spend my day stalking a bee to find its hive and to learn what type of flower the bee drinks nectar from and how that affects the flavor of the honey.

Of all the things I love to do (and I love to do a LOT of things) observing nature is on the top of my list. Fantasizing how I could manage to spend my days doing what Thoreau did, I realized my main stumbling block is that I’m just not as big of a mooch as Thoreau. Sure, he worked some in his family’s pencil factory (in fact, he “invented” the modern clay-and-graphite pencil). But he also spent quite a lot of time not working, crashing at his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house and living on, and off of, Emerson’s land.

I work full time at a library, not some of the time at a pencil factory. But still, I manage to spend quite a lot of time observing nature, especially the ecology of my South Philly back yard. There’s a lot going on outside, even in the midst of a large city. I actually start my observing while I’m still lying in bed each morning — If you listen to the sounds of the outdoors you can learn quite a lot, especially about the birds. In fact, I think I know more about what the birds in my ‘hood are up to than my human neighbors, whom I never see and don’t particularly want to hear.

Phenology — derived from the Greek word phainomai, to appear or come into view — is the study of the seasonal timing of life-cycle events. As the seasons change, so do the actions and characteristics of living things. Phenology is mostly concerned with firsts: the first day the maple trees bud-out in spring, or the first day they begin to show fall color. It is a very, very old science, older than the word science.

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Genetically Modified Eucalyptus Trees Threaten Southern U.S.

Source: Towards Freedom

Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

The U.S. government is set to approve [1] a request from ArborGen, the genetically engineered (GE) tree research and development giant, for permission to plant 260,000 GE cold tolerant eucalyptus trees in 29 “field trials” across seven southern U.S. states.   Approval of such a large-scale planting of these dangerous flowering GE forest trees in the U.S. is completely unprecedented.  The GE eucalyptus, to be planted in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, would be allowed to flower and produce seeds, enabling them to potentially escape into native ecosystems and forests.

The STOP GE Trees Campaign, an international alliance of organizations that has banded together with the goal of globally banning the open-air release of genetically engineered trees, issued an “Urgent Action Alert” about ArborGen’s potentially disastrous plans, with information about how the public can make comments to the government to help stop this large-scale release of GE trees.

“This is absolutely unprecedented–the government wants to approve the mass release of 260,000 flowering GE forest trees in so-called “field trials,” stated Dr. Neil Carman who works with the Sierra Club in Texas.  “You cannot call over a quarter of a million trees over 330 acres “field trials.”  These are experimental forests being planted outdoors under the disguise of “field trials” as a loophole.  The government must produce an Environmental Impact Statement to carefully review all of the potential environmental threats from this large-scale GE tree release,” Dr. Carman continued.

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Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells
Source New York Times   Written By CHARLES DUHIGG    Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

MORRISON, Wis. — All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe.

There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.

In measured amounts, that waste acts as fertilizer. But if the amounts are excessive, bacteria and chemicals can flow into the ground and contaminate residents’ tap water.

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

“Sometimes it smells like a barn coming out of the faucet,” said Lisa Barnard, who lives a few towns over, and just 15 miles from the city of Green Bay.

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Climate change causes 315,000 deaths a year

Unfortunately it doesn’t matter how thrifty WE are, how much we recycle, cut down on energy consumption, eat less meat – if industry doesn’t do the same we’re doomed. Climate change will not be fixed unless industry changes. Industry has failed at self regulation, government intervention is the only way. What can you do? People-power will be needed to force governments to enact the necessary regulations.

Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

Source: Reuters.com  Written By Megan Rowling 

Climate change kills about 315,000 people a year through hunger, sickness and weather disasters, and the annual death toll is expected to rise to half a million by 2030, a report said on Friday. The first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.

LONDON (Reuters) -The study, commissioned by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), estimates that climate change seriously affects 325 million people every year, a number that will more than double in 20 years to 10 percent of the world’s population (now about 6.7 billion).

Economic losses due to global warming amount to over $125 billion annually — more than the flow of aid from rich to poor nations — and are expected to rise to $340 billion each year by 2030, according to the report.

“Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” Kofi Annan, former U.N. secretary-general and GHF president, said in a statement.

“The first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.”

The report says developing countries bear more than nine-tenths of the human and economic burden of climate change, while the 50 poorest countries contribute less than 1 percent of the carbon emissions that are heating up the planet.

Annan urged governments due to meet at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December to agree on an effective, fair and binding global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s main mechanism for tackling global warming.

“Copenhagen needs to be the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated,” he wrote in an introduction to the report. “The alternative is mass starvation, mass migration and mass sickness.”

The study warns that the true human impact of global warming is likely to be far more severe than it predicts, because it uses conservative U.N. scenarios. New scientific evidence points to greater and more rapid climate change.

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