Today’s tales from the place when humans meet the world that gave us life begins with the latest from a drought-stricken Golden State, via the Guardian:
State of emergency in California as wildfires spread from Oregon
Governor Jerry Brown declare state of emergency
Lightning, high temperatures and drought increase threat
More than a dozen wildfires in California, some of which destroyed homes, forced evacuations and damaged infrastructure and prompted Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency on Saturday.
The move came as fires in other West Coast states chewed through parched forests, brush and terrain, destroying some homes and threatening many others. In California, dry lightning, high temperatures and severe drought conditions exacerbated the fire danger.
Brown’s emergency proclamation said that the circumstances and magnitude of the wildfires are beyond the control of any single local government and will require the combined forces of regions to combat. To that end, he secured a federal grant on Saturday to cover 75% of the cost to fight a wildfire that started in Oregon and crossed into California.
Next up, for our first item on the plague that has the world worrying we turn to BBC News:
Ebola crisis: Virus spreading too fast, says WHO
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is spreading faster than efforts to control it, World Health Organization (WHO) head Margaret Chan has said.
She told a summit of regional leaders that failure to contain Ebola could be “catastrophic” in terms of lives lost.
But she said the virus, which has claimed 729 lives in four West African countries since February, could be stopped if well managed.
Ebola kills up to 90% of those infected.
More from Deutsche Welle:
Ebola spiraling out of control: WHO
The deadly Ebola virus is moving faster than efforts to control it, the World Health Organization says. The warning came at the launch of a $100 million response plan to the epidemic.
The leaders of the three countries hardest hit by the recent Ebola epidemic – Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – met on Friday in the Guinean capital, Conakry, along with the head of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan. Also at the meeting was the President of Ivory Coast.
The group came together to launch a $100 million (74.5 million euro) response plan to counter the rapidly spreading virus. The largest-ever recorded outbreak of Ebola has killed at least 729 people since the beginning of the year, including a number of doctors and other health workers.
The leaders discussed the deployment of hundreds of medical personnel to help overstretched workers and facilities, as well as better prevention methods – including better detection of cases and improved border surveillance.
The London Daily Mail raises hopes prematurely:
Experimental Ebola vaccine will be tested on people NEXT MONTH as U.S. pushes clinical trial of possible life-saving drug
First Ebola vaccine clinical trials involving humans scheduled for September
Current Ebola outbreak is worst since disease was discovered in 1976
So far there have been more than 1,200 cases and 672 people have died
There is no cure and no vaccine available to treat or prevent the disease
Around four drugs are in the development stage in the U.S.
But researchers say it is difficult to generate funding to progress vaccines
First drug to prevent the vicious virus is two to six years off, scientists say
The Wire adds a dash of cold water:
Why There May Never Be A Cure for Ebola
Many pharmaceutical companies and researchers have been testing possible cures for years.
So what’s stopping them? To begin with, antiviral therapy is an especially challenging field compared to bacterial diseases, because viruses have fewer targets for treatment (read: proteins, which drugs can work with), and they evolve quickly. If a vaccine is developed today that works, it might not make a dent in future outbreaks. And with five known species of Ebola virus, there’s plenty of room for further viral evolution.
More important, Ebola is—and this should be obvious by now—an incredibly dangerous virus to handle. It requires high-level safety equipment and special facilities, deemed “biosafety level 4″ or the highest level of protection, to keep labs in check. It’s costly, hard to control, and a major roadblock to progress.
More cold water via Defense One:
There’s Really No Way To Screen for Ebola at Airports
The bad news is that thermal screenings of the international flying population at airports are not likely to yield much by way of improved safety.
Here’s why: fever can be a sign of a lot of different illnesses, not just Ebola. And thermal scanning proved to be a poor method of catching bird flu carriers in 2009 as well. So presenting with an elevated temperature at an airport checkpoint does not indicate clearly enough that the fevered person is carrying the deadly virus. More importantly, the incubation period for Ebola is two days. As many as 20 days can pass before symptoms show up. That means that an individual could be carrying the virus for two weeks or longer and not even know it, much less have it show up via thermal scan. So what good are these scanners?
“I think that thermal screeners help people feel safe,” Dr. Noreen Hynes with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health told Defense One.
Deutsche Welle adds context:
Ebola virus a serious threat to urban areas
The Ebola virus continues to spread in West Africa. As national and international health organizations intensify their fight against the disease, people in big cities are starting to fear a worst case scenario.
Lagos: Africa’s largest city, a metropolis of more than 20 million people. West Africa’s economic hub. This megacity can not be thrown off balance by the recent Ebola outbreak. Or can it?
“One should be in a panic mood,” says Chris Obiake, a paralegal in Lagos. He is one of the innumerable pedestrians passing newspaper stands in Lagos every morning. The headlines scream: ‘Ebola is killing more and more people.’ Obiake is clearly worried, “given the wide spread of the disease in the West African region”, he told a Reuters reporter,”coupled with the fact that doctors are on strike”.
The fact that many doctors employed at public hospitals have been on strike since July 1 has not helped to put minds at rest in Lagos where the first Ebola case was reported last week. A Liberian man who had flown into the country died shortly afterwards. The disease is contagious, the incubation period can last up to three weeks and diagnosis is difficult: A recipe for disaster for the millions commuting in crammed mini-buses every day.
From the Guardian, a pullback:
US Peace Corps evacuates hundreds from west Africa over Ebola outbreak
State Department said hundreds evacuated as two volunteers under isolation after having contact with infected person
The largest recorded Ebola outbreak in history has led the US Peace Corps to evacuate hundreds of volunteers from three affected west African countries, and a State Department official says two volunteers are under isolation after having contact with a person who later died of the virus.
The Peace Corps said on Wednesday it was evacuating 340 volunteers from Liberia as well as neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The State Department official said the two volunteers were not symptomatic and were under observation. The official was not authorized to discuss the cases for attribution, and declined to say where the volunteers were serving or when they were exposed.
United Press International sounds an alarm:
CDC issues Level 3 travel warning, citing Ebola outbreak
The two Americans that have been infected with the Ebola virus are coming back to the United States for treatment under controlled environments. The first of the two Americans is expected to arrive in the U.S. on Saturday, CNN reports.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued a Level 3 travel warning for Americans traveling to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia due to the Ebola outbreak.
In addition to having specialists on the ground in the countries, the CDC is screening and educating travelers to prevent infected people from boarding planes. If they do board planes and leave the region, the CDC will enact protocols to investigate and possibly quarantine all ill travelers to prevent spread of the disease. Airlines have been notified of procedures in the case of sick passengers and all healthcare workers have been instructed on how to prevent the spread of the disease should it reach the United States.
The CDC and its foreign counterparts are not screening all travelers at the point of entry if they are travelling from one of the countries impacted. The U.S, along with the World Health Organization and other partners, are working to contain the outbreak in West Africa.
BBC News brings it home:
Ebola crisis: Infected doctor Kent Brantly lands in US
A US doctor infected with the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia has arrived in the US for treatment at a specialised unit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr Kent Brantly arrived in a specially equipped private plane at a military base before being whisked away to Emory University Hospital.
Fellow infected US aid worker Nancy Writebol is expected to follow shortly.
Ebola has claimed 728 lives in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year, killing up to 90% of sufferers.
From Al Jazeera America, in the eye of the storm:
Liberia’s Ebola nightmare
Country contends with attacks on aid workers, slow government response and a weak health system
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf unveiled new measures to stem the spread of the illness that many health experts are now calling a humanitarian crisis. The country’s security forces will oversee the closure of all of Liberia’s schools as well as provide surveillance at borders and airports and possible testing of passengers suspected of carrying the disease. All government employees except heads of ministries and agencies, deputies and other essential staff will be put on mandatory leave, and state buildings will be disinfected. Johnson Sirleaf’s administration is also advising people to stay away from public places and entertainment centers, and prohibiting large public gatherings and demonstrations. Three communities in Lofa, in northern Liberia, have been put under quarantine; only police and health workers are permitted to enter or leave. On Thursday, neighboring Sierra Leone declared a national emergency and instituted similar measures.
The new measures in Liberia were announced a day after a tense meeting of a task force of government and foreign donors. At the meeting, a top official for the aid group Doctors Without Borders told Liberian officials that the outbreak required immediate attention five weeks ago, according to one attendee who declined to be identified. At that same meeting, Samaritan’s Purse, a large international aid group, announced it would halt management of treatment centers in Monrovia and Foya, Liberia, because of an attack on the charity’s workers last weekend after they tried to collect the body of a person suspected to have died of Ebola. Policemen are currently deployed outside many health facilities to protect staff from attacks, which have grown increasingly common amid mounting fears that health employees are spreading the disease.
From the Guardian, another epidemic:
State of emergency declared as Toledo tells residents: don’t drink the water
Tests reveal toxin possibly from Lake Erie algae
Governor John Kasich declares state of emergency
Toxins possibly from algae on Lake Erie fouled the water supply of Ohio’s fourth-largest city Saturday, forcing officials to issue warnings not to drink the water and the governor to declare a state of emergency.
Worried residents descended on stores, quickly clearing shelves of bottled water.
“It looked like Black Friday,” said Aundrea Simmons, who stood in a line of about 50 people at a pharmacy before buying four cases of water. “I have children and elderly parents. They take their medication with water.”
The Guardian again, this time with the cause:
Farming practices and climate change at root of Toledo water pollution
Toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie caused by phosphorus runoff
400,000 affected by unsafe water supply in Ohio city
The main cause for such algal blooms is an overload of phosphorus, which washes into lakes from commercial fertiliser used by farming operations as well as urban water-treatment centres. Hotter and longer summers also promote the spread of the blue-green scum.
The US government banned phosphorus in laundry detergents in 1988. That stopped the algal blooms for some time. But they came back to the Great Lakes in force in 2011 – forming a green scum that covered 5,000 square kilometres (1,900 sq miles) of water at its biggest extent – in the worst algal bloom in recorded history.
Scientists attribute the comeback in large part to changes in farming practices, including larger farms and different fertiliser practices, which send heavier loads of phosphorus into the lakes.
From MintPress News, another environmental danger, entirely of our won [corporate] making:
San Bruno Pipeline Indictment Begs Safety Questions About The Nation’s Fuel Pipelines
Top California regulators communicated often and enthusiastically with executives at Pacific Gas & Electric Co., even offering unsolicited advice on handling the media while they presided over a case to decide how much the utility should pay for a deadly explosion in a San Francisco Bay Area suburb.
On Sept. 9, 2010, a Pacific Gas & Electric natural gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno, California, just two miles west of the San Francisco International Airport, creating a wall of fire witnesses estimated was more than 1,000 feet high and registering a shockwave the U.S. Geological Survey recorded as a magnitude 1.1 earthquake. The blast killed eight people, excavated a 173,000 cubic feet crater on Glenview Drive and destroyed 38 homes.
On Tuesday, the U.S.Attorney for the Northern District of California accused PG&E of knowingly lying to the National Transportation Safety Board about the company’s pipeline testing policy during the initial investigation of the explosion. According to the indictment, PG&E provided the NTSB with a version of the policy that addresses how the company deals with manufacturing defects with its pipelines. The explosion was found to be caused by a seam blowout, which failed under a full pressure load. PG&E would later withdraw the policy from evidence, calling it “an unapproved draft,” while, in reality, PG&E was operating under the submitted policy from 2009 to 2011. The policy failed to prioritize the company’s older natural gas pipelines — which tend to run through urban or residential areas — for repair or replacement.
Additionally, the U.S. attorney has brought 27 related charges against PG&E, alleging repeated violations of the Pipeline Safety Act of 1968. Among these charges are allegations that PG&E failed to keep accurate or complete records for its major pipelines, failed to identify or remedy threats to the pipeline network’s integrity, and failed to assess the safety of the pipeline network after the system was overpressurized. In the days prior to the explosion, local residents complained about the strong smell of gas in the area — an issue that was not adequately addressed.
The Guardian covers yet another environmental crime of our own manufacture:
Businessmen bribed foreign officials to import poisonous chemical
Bribes were paid by Innospec executives to secure orders to sell tetraethyl lead in Indonesia and Iraq, sentencing hearing told
Four businessmen channelled multi-million-pound bribes to foreign officials to induce them to buy huge quantities of a toxic chemical outlawed in the west, a court heard on Friday.
A sentencing hearing of the men was told the bribes were used to sell a fuel additive which was known to damage children’s brains, reducing their IQs and increasing mental illness.
Andrew Mitchell, QC for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), told the court that the executives had “deliberately” organised the bribes to prolong the sales of the leaded petrol, which was used in cars and aircraft.
And another one, this time from New Europe:
Rosneft, Exxon, Duck US, EU Sanctions in Arctic
Russian oil major Rosneft can continue drilling in harsh offshore areas like the Arctic despite EU and US sanctions after signing a $4.25 billion deal for drilling rigs from North Atlantic Drilling Ltd on July 29.
The Norwegian drill rig owner is supplying Rosneft and Exxon Mobil Corp with the kind of high technology that will be barred under US and EU sanctions.
Specifically, the EU sanctions target certain technologies needed for deep-sea drilling. However, Rosneft signed the deal before the sanctions were finalised, so the leases are probably still valid. The sanctions were expected to be possibly valid from August 1 and apply to future contracts.
National Geographic covers yet another crisis up north:
16-foot Waves Measured in Arctic Ocean Where There Was Once Only Ice
Reduced sea ice allowed the buildup of huge waves in the Beaufort Sea.
Sixteen-foot waves are buffeting an area of the Arctic Ocean that until recently was permanently covered in sea ice—another sign of a warming climate, scientists say.
Because wave action breaks up sea ice, allowing more sunlight to warm the ocean, it can trigger a cycle that leads to even less ice, more wind, and higher waves.
Scientists had never measured waves in the Beaufort Sea, an area north of Alaska, until recently. Permanent sea ice cover prevented their formation. But much of the region is now ice-free by September, and researchers were able to anchor a sensor to measure wave heights in the central Beaufort Sea in 2012.
The Independent covers yet another:
Mystery of the Siberian holes at the end of the world ‘solved’: Scientists offer explanation
Three mysterious giant craters that appeared suddenly in northern Siberia could actually be a previously unseen type of sinkhole, experts have said.
Explanations for the three enormous cavities, one of which was up to 300ft (70 metres) deep, have included everything from meteorites to aliens with some conspiracy theorists suggesting they could be connected to fracking.
A more plausible explanation for their existence has now begun to emerge. According to the website LiveScience, some experts now believe the strange cavities may be a type of permafrost sinkhole.
From MIT Technology Review, another alarm sounds:
Chinese GMO Research Outpaces Approvals
The fact that China hasn’t approved any commercial GMO planting since 2009 reflects public fears.
Despite recent research advances, such as a new strain of wheat that resists destructive mildew, commercial planting of genetically modified food crops has stalled in China, the world’s most populous nation and one with a fast-tightening food supply.
In 2009, the nation’s Ministry of Agriculture issued a so-called safety certificate to two strains of insect-resistant rice, known as Bt rice, pioneered by Qifa Zhang, a scientist at Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan. The ministry also approved a type of corn that helps livestock digest phosphates.
Before that, a few minor crop varieties were approved for commercial planting. But to date only an insect-resistant cotton and a virus-resistant papaya have been commercially planted on a large scale in China.
After the jump, the latest [extensive] edition of Fukushimapocalypse Now! and research pointing toward a healthier alternative. . .
Next up, Japan, and the latest installment of Fukushimapocalypse Now!, starting with this from NHK WORLD:
Coalition parties form recovery proposals
Members of parties in Japan’s ruling coalition want the government to do more to get people from no-entry zones around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant back to their homes within 5 years.
They have a new set of proposals on clearing up problems in the zones. The package is the fourth by a working group of the main governing Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner New Komeito.
The documents say it is important for the central government to take the initiative in bringing Fukushima Prefecture back from the 2011 nuclear accident.
The Mainichi stumbles:
Plan to complete radioactive water purification at Fukushima plant hits snag
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is unlikely to reach its target of completing purification of radiation-contaminated water stored at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant by the end of fiscal 2014, it has been learned.
The anticipated failure is attributed to the malfunction of ALPS, the multi-nuclide removal equipment installed at the plant. While the apparatus is supposed to remove radioactive materials from contaminated water, the device has not worked properly as planned. TEPCO has admitted to the dim prospects of not reaching the target deadline at this rate.
With the utility’s work to build ice walls to prevent an influx of groundwater into reactor buildings at the plant also hitting a snag, the latest development once again underscores the difficulties in reducing the amount of contaminated water.
The Mainichi again, with a near-myth:
Citizen panel pins blame on ex-TEPCO execs for accepting nuclear safety myth
A July 31 judgment by the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution that three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) merit indictment over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster not only prods prosecutors to review their decision not to indict for their criminal responsibility, but is also a sharp rebuke to TEPCO and regulatory authorities for neglecting safety.
The committee composed of regular citizens voted in favor of indicting former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro. The recommendation made clear the perception gap between experts and ordinary citizens about nuclear safety as well as the double standards vis-a-vis prosecution concerning decisions to indict nor not.
‘’This kind of judgment was possible,’‘ a senior prosecutor said.
NHK WORLD calls for revision:
Tsunami projections for nuclear plant to be redone
The operator of a nuclear power plant in central Japan has been found to have miscalculated the simulated maximum height of a tsunami that could hit the complex.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority once approved tsunami projections submitted by Kansai Electric Power Company for the now-offline Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture.
The estimates include tsunami heights and tremor intensity associated with earthquakes of the largest conceivable magnitude in the area.
And Jiji Press covers disaster fraud:
4 Arrested for Cheating TEPCO for 12 M. Yen in Damages
Japanese police arrested four people on Saturday on suspicion of defrauding Tokyo Electric Power Co. of 12 million yen in nuclear compensation.
The four included a 42-year-old former official of a Tokyo nonprofit organization that does paperwork on behalf of clients for claiming damages from TEPCO from harmful rumors related to the March 2011 nuclear accident at the company’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
They are suspected of filing false claims in April-May 2012 that an event company, based in Koriyama in the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima, faced a raft of cancellations from its customers due to concerns over radiation exposure.
From the Mainichi, yet another dubious accommodation:
Environment Ministry to focus decontamination work on individual exposure amounts
The Ministry of the Environment said that its efforts to remove radioactive contamination from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster will shift focus to case-by-case exposure amounts rather than a universal goal, according to a midterm report it released on Aug. 1.
The change was prompted by data showing that despite many local municipalities aiming to lower air radiation levels to within 0.23 microsieverts per hour, there have been numerous cases where even with air radiation levels at between 0.3 and 0.6 microsieverts per hour, people’s yearly exposure to radiation caused by the disaster has stayed below a limit of 1 millisievert of extra radiation exposure per year.
The data, introduced in the report, came from a survey on around 70,000 people by the cities of Date and Soma in Fukushima Prefecture, where people living in areas with 0.3 to 0.6 microsieverts of radiation per hour were still under 1 millisievert of extra radiation exposure per year. The ministry suggested to local municipalities that they supply personal dosimeters and base decontamination off of gathered readings, and that they announce information on areas with high radiation levels.
While the Asahi Shimbun serves it up:
Fukushima farm ships 1st produce cultivated in evacuation zone
Forty kilograms of fresh strawberries were shipped from Iitate Ichigo Land farm on July 31, the first produce dispatched from an area designated as an evacuation zone since the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“The fruit has a nice, sweet aroma,” said Hiroshi Sato, 62, who runs Iitate Ichigo Land farm with his wife, Yoko. “We can ship the produce with confidence.”
The Raiho strawberries were cultivated in a greenhouse. Tests conducted by the Fukushima prefectural government did not detect any radioactive material in the fruit.
And the Yomiuri Shimbun adds it up:
TEPCO logs 1st profit in 4 yrs for April-June
Tokyo Electric Power Co. logged a group recurring profit of ¥52.51 billion in April-June, against a loss of ¥29.49 billion a year before, marking the first such profit for the period in four years.
The turnaround chiefly reflects an electricity rate increase TEPCO implemented under a system allowing power firms to pass higher fuel costs for thermal power generation on to customers, the company said Thursday.
Group sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2014 rose 9.1 percent to ¥1.57 trillion.
From EurActiv, a European reliance:
Nuclear remains linchpin of French energy transition
Nuclear energy will gradually decrease but will remain at the centre of France’s energy transition for 2030 and 2050, which was presented on Wednesday (30 July). EurActiv France reports.
The French law on energy transition (30 July) is the “most ambitious in all of the European Union,” claimed Ségolène Royal, the French environment minister who presented the package on Wednesday.
The long-awaited law sets targets to increase the proportion of renewable energy to 32% by 2030, reduce CO2 emissions by 40% between 1990 and 2030, and reduce the consumption of fossil fuels by 30% by 2030.
BuzzFeed covers a hot spot:
Union Workers Locked Out Of Honeywell’s Uranium Processing Plant
The plant has a history of environmental problems.
After negotiations stalled just before midnight on Friday, union-backed workers have been locked out of Honeywell’s uranium processing plant in Metropolis, Ill.
And union representatives say if the past is any indication, the safety of those nearby could be at risk.
After the breakdown in talks, both sides agreed to head back to the bargaining table during the week of Aug. 18. Until then, the union workers will be out of a job.
And The State [Columbia, S.C.] passes judgment:
Court rules against Barnwell nuclear waste dump
South Carolina’s second-highest court took steps Wednesday that could plug leaks from a nuclear waste dump where radioactive groundwater is flowing toward the Savannah River near Barnwell.
In a sharp rebuke to state regulators, the S.C. Court of Appeals said it wants a plan within 90 days on how the landfill’s operator and the state’s environmental department will begin following rules to limit radioactive pollution after years of non-compliance.
The plan is expected to assess how to keep rain from drenching the atomic waste, picking up contaminants and trickling into groundwater beneath unlined burial trenches. Environmentalists who sued for improved disposal methods favor covering open burial pits when it rains and plugging holes in concrete vaults that contain waste in the trenches.
For our final item, from the American Institute of Biological Sciences, hints of another course of action:
Farming for improved ecosystem services seen as economically feasible
Benefits to water and soil quality plus climate stabilization achieved with good crop yields
By changing row-crop management practices in economically and environmentally stable ways, US farms could contribute to improved water quality, biological diversity, pest suppression, and soil fertility while helping to stabilize the climate, according to an article in the May issue of BioScience. The article, based on research conducted over 25 years at the Kellogg Biological Station in southwest Michigan, further reports that Midwest farmers, especially those with large farms, appear willing to change their farming practices to provide these ecosystem services in exchange for payments. And a previously published survey showed that citizens are willing to make such payments for environmental services such as cleaner lakes.
The article is by G. Philip Robertson and six coauthors associated with the Kellogg Biological Station, which is part of the Long Term Ecological Research Network. The research analyzed by Robertson and colleagues investigated the yields and the environmental benefits achievable by growing corn, soybean, and winter wheat under regimes that use one third of the usual amount of fertilizer—or none at all—with “cover crops” fertilizing the fields in winter. The research also examined “no-till” techniques. The regime that used fewer chemicals resulted in more than 50 percent reductions in the amount of nitrogen that escaped into groundwater and rivers, with crop yields close to those of standard management. Nitrogen pollution is a major problem in inland waterways and coastal regions, where it contributes to the formation of “dead zones.”
The no-till and reduced chemical regimes also mitigated greenhouse warming by taking up greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, in contrast to standard management, which produces significant greenhouse warming by emitting nitrous oxide. The zero-chemical regime mitigated greenhouse warming enough to compensate for the emissions produced under standard management. All three regimes also led to more fertile soil compared with conventional management.
