We begin with a gripper from the Independent:
Humanity’s ‘inexorable’ population growth is so rapid that even a global catastrophe wouldn’t stop it
The global human population is “locked in” to an inexorable rise this century and will not be easily shifted, even by apocalyptic events such as a third world war or lethal pandemic, a study has found.
There is no “quick fix” to the population time-bomb, because there are now so many people even unimaginable global disasters won’t stop growth, scientists have concluded.
Although measures designed to reduce human fertility in the parts of the world where the population growth is fastest will eventually have a long-term impact on numbers, this has to go hand-in-hand with policies aimed at reducing the consumption of natural resources, they said.
“The inexorable demographic momentum of the global human population is rapidly eroding Earth’s life-support system,” say Professor Corey Bradshaw of the University of Adelaide and Professor Barry Brook of the University of Tasmania in their study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Side effects anticipated from BBC News:
Fears that Ebola crisis will set back malaria fight
A leading malaria control expert has said efforts to contain the disease may be jeopardised by the Ebola crisis.
Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, who heads the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, said after visiting west Africa: “Understandably, all the health workers’ attention is on Ebola.” Children’s wards which used to be full of malaria patients were becoming “ghost areas,” she added.
In 2012, malaria killed 7,000 people in the three countries worst hit by Ebola. Most of these will have been young children – although malaria is curable. The disease caused almost 4,000 deaths in Sierra Leone in 2012 – as well as around 2,000 deaths in Liberia and approximately 1,000 in Guinea.
Now the three countries are wrestling with the Ebola virus and Dr Nafo-Traoré said she feared that recent gains in preventing malaria could be threatened by the crisis.
Another outbreak from Reuters:
Rise in MERS cases prompts Saudi warning to residents
Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry on Monday urged residents of the world’s top oil exporter to renew precautions against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) after a rise in new cases of the disease since early September.
The Health Ministry has announced a total of 23 confirmed new cases this month of the virus, which causes coughing, fever and sometimes fatal pneumonia. In addition to the 12 cases detected in September, this brings the total number in the kingdom to 777 since it was identified in 2012, of which 331 died.
Other cases have been found elsewhere in the Middle East, in European countries, the Far East and in the United States, but many of those were found in people who had travelled in Saudi Arabia.
Neglect in the Pakistani polio outbreak from Reuters:
“Disastrous” health campaign feeds Pakistan’s worrying polio spike
Taliban militants have long been the scourge of Pakistan’s polio vaccination campaign, attacking aid workers and the police who protect them as they distribute doses to children.
But experts say there is another reason for the sharp spike in cases of the crippling disease in Pakistan this year – government mismanagement.
“Pakistan’s polio programme is a disaster. It continues to flounder hopelessly, as its virus flourishes,” the Independent Monitoring Board, which advises agencies fighting polio, will say in a report to be released this week.
The prime minister’s polio cell was disbanded during 2013 elections, the new government delayed reconstituting it, and in recent months the prime minister has been consumed with protests in the capital that have only just ended.
More from the Express Tribune in Karachi:
PM Nawaz took six months to appoint official responsible for polio
Despite an alarming rise in the number of polio cases reported in Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took six months to appoint an official responsible for the epidemic while a funding plan for the eradication was only approved last month.
Protests in the capital city in recent months have kept the PM consumed resulting in his government delaying the reconstitution of the polio cell which was disbanded during the 2013 elections.
That meant provinces did not pay workers their stipends of $2.50 a day on time, said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, a polio adviser to Sindh province.
“We had a loss of about nine to 10 months, which is a very big setback,” Ali said.
Climactic concerns from Deutsche Welle:
Climate experts meet in Copenhagen amid fresh warnings
The UN climate chief has urged world leaders not to lose hope in tackling the issue of global warming. Hundreds of researchers and government delegates are taking part in a five-day climate conference in Copenhagen.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said at the opening session of the Copenhagen conference that policymakers should “avoid being overcome by the seeming hopelessness of addressing climate change.”
“It is not hopeless,” Pachauri said in a speech relayed on the IPCC website.
The IPCC meeting is seeking to adopt a concise report – encapsulating the three documents released over the past 13 months – on how to tackle and mitigate climate change.
The 100-page document “will provide the road map by which policymakers will hopefully find their way to a global agreement to finally reverse course on climate change,” said Pachauri.
Chinese GMO complications for Big Agra from MintPress News:
Syngenta Facing Legal Blitz Over Genetically Modified Corn
Biotech giant Syngenta’s fact sheet on a genetically modified corn urges farmers to “plant with confidence,” yet when China rejected this corn because the country hadn’t approved that particular product for its market, the entire U.S. corn industry suffered
An unusual cluster of legal filings in recent weeks has capped a tumultuous year for the Swiss biotechnology giant Syngenta Corp., and highlights ongoing concerns over the inability of the United States to keep genetically modified crops separate from conventional crops.
This month, three class action proposals were filed on behalf of farmers in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, with the potential to include almost anyone who grew or sold corn commercially across the country over the past year. The moves came just weeks after similar lawsuits were filed by two of the country’s largest grain exporters, Cargill and Trans Coastal Supply.
All of these legal actions revolve around genetically modified corn hybrids that Syngenta began selling in 2009. While those products have been approved for general use in the U.S., they have not been approved in China, and there is no formal indication as to whether they will be.
The problem for U.S. corn farmers and exporters is that the current commodities system in this country makes it almost impossible to compartmentalize the country’s massive corn production. Instead, corn from different farmers, fields and states is all consolidated as a single product.
Last November, Chinese authorities found traces of Syngenta’s hybrid – known as MIR162, under the brand name Agrisure Viptera – in massive shipments from the U.S. So, they rejected the entire sale, and have taken similar actions since then.
But that opposition doesn’t mean China does like GMOS, via MIT Technology Review:
China’s Growing Bets on GMOs
New technology and large government research initiatives in -genetically modified crops are giving China a storehouse for a more populous future.
How will China get enough to eat? More than 1.3 billion people live in the world’s most populous nation, and another 100 million will join them by 2030. China is already a net food importer, and people are eating more meat, putting further demands on land used to grow food. Meanwhile, climate change could cut yields of crucial crops—rice, wheat, and corn—by 13 percent over the next 35 years. Mindful of these trends, China’s government spends more than any other on research into genetically modified crops. It’s searching for varieties with higher yields and resistance to pests, disease, drought, and heat. The results are showing up in the nation’s hundreds of plant biotech labs.
Environmental devastation in China from Want China Times:
Over 50% of China’s coastal wetlands gone due to land reclamation
Unregulated land reclamation has caused serious coastal erosion across the intertidal zones of the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, threatening flocks of migratory birds and local environmental conditions, not to mention local residents’ daily lives, Shangahi’s China Business News reports.
Thus far, an total area of about 2,000sq km has been reclaimed from the Bohai Sea over the past two decades and the area is still expanding.
The coast of Bohai Bay and the northwestern Yellow Sea are critical for water birds migrating along the East Asia-Australasian flyway. Three major migratory bird sites are located in the reclaimed area.
Faced with the challenge of coping with a growing population and seeking economic development, the provinces and municipalities of the Bohai Economic Rim have sought to develop the coastal areas and reclaim land for industrial expansion, which has become an integral part of local authorities’ growth strategy, the report said.
And a violent protest in France from VICE News:
Protester Killed After Clash With Riot Police at Disputed Dam Site in France
A 21-year-old activist died Saturday night after a violent clash between police and demonstrators at the site of a controversial dam project in the Sivens Forest in southwest France. More than 2,000 environmental activists gathered in the woodlands for a rally that turned violent when militants attacked security forces.
Speaking to radio station France Info, local prosecutor Claude Derens said that the initial results of a post-mortem examination confirmed that the man died as a result of an explosion. Derens also stated that it was too early to know yet if the death was caused by a grenade blast, a hypothesis put forward by several witness statements. Investigations are still underway, and further results are expected tomorrow.
Body found near disputed dam site in France’s Sivens Forest. Read more here.
The timing of the autopsy coincides with the publication of a report commissioned by the French Ministry of Ecology that criticizes the decision by local officials to proceed with the construction of the controversial dam. Eco-activists argue that the dam, which would provide irrigation to surrounding farms, poses a huge environmental threat to the biodiverse Sivens wetland.
From ABC Australia via Journeyman Pictures, Down Under coal questions:
Catalyst: Coal Dust – How the consequences of Australia’s coal boom are choking the population of Newcastle, New South Wales
Program notes:
Australia is among the world’s largest coal producers and exporters – not something to brag about when you account for the worrying health consequences in port cities such as Newcastle. Since the mining boom in the late 1990s, respiratory diseases such as asthma have been climbing sharply, largely attributed to dust particulates given off in the extraction and transportation of coal. Mark Horstman heads to Newcastle, New South Wales, and investigates the efforts that are underway to identify harmful concentrations of coal dust particulates.
After the jump, avian slaughter in the Balkans, a seal hunting subsidy slashed, China’s flagrant disregard of oceanic fishing rules, a swan population clash in Britain, a remarkable viral resurrection, another American news medium slashes environmental coverage, an Asian partnership for the spoils of oceanic oil, asbestos in Japanese schools, and the latest Fukushimapocalypse Now!. . .
Fowl deeds from Yale Environment 360:
Albania’s Coastal Wetlands: Killing Field for Migrating Birds
Millions of birds migrating between Africa and Europe are being illegally hunted on the Balkan Peninsula, with the most egregious poaching occurring in Albania. Conservationists and the European Commission are calling for an end to the carnage.
Each spring, hundreds of thousands of migrating waterbirds flock northward from Africa across the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas. In search of food, they alight briefly on Albania’s Buna Delta — one of the largest remaining wetlands in all of the Balkan Peninsula.
The delta is also one of the most notorious killing grounds for migrating birds in all of Europe.
Environmental groups have estimated that more than two million ducks, geese, songbirds, and raptors are shot along the Adriatic’s eastern shores every year — part of what’s known as the Adriatic Flyway, a key migratory route for birds making their seasonal journeys between the European and African continents. A recent analysis by Wetlands International, a conservation group based in the Netherlands, concluded that as many as one-third of all birds using the Black Sea-Mediterranean Flyway — an area that includes the Adriatic Flyway — are now in decline, in large part due to illegal hunting.
The kindest cut of all, via TheLocal.no:
Norway cuts subsidies to seal hunters
The Norwegian government is set to cut 12 million kroner of economic support for seal hunters, which could see the industry in jeopardy, warned critics of the move on Sunday.
The Centre Party of Norway believes the government has bowed to pressure from the EU and extreme animal rights groups. They also argue the proposed budget cut will have consequences for the seal hunting industry.
State secretary Amund Ringdal of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, said to NTB: “Seal hunting businesses are run by 80 percent subsidies. When they are removed, the consequences will clearly be big. But we cannot say whether it’s the final nail in the coffin for Norwegian seal hunting.”
Reckless disregard from the Guardian:
Tuna firm’s bungled IPO exposes China’s flouting of global fishing rules
Draft IPO sends a reporter down a rabbit hole to find shell companies and shady dealings in the world-wide fishing industry
The failed IPO is the work of China Tuna Industry Group, which from 2011 to 2013 was the largest Chinese supplier of premium tuna to Japan’s hungry sushi market. Over 70% of its $62m in annual sales are made to a single company, Toyo Reizo, a subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. Hoping to raise over $100m to expand this profitable operation, China Tuna filed draft documents for the IPO in June.
But for the IPO to succeed, the company had to convince potential shareholders that chasing after dwindling resources would be a profitable venture. So China Tuna leapfrogged over more recent data to cite a 2011 fisheries assessment that rated Bigeye tuna at a “healthy level of abundance” and “not overfished”.
Despite this claim’s shady appearance, it’s hard to know whether China Tuna’s overly rosy assessment of Bigeye tuna stocks was deliberate. The IPO filing is a draft, so fact-checking is by definition ongoing.
But the company did declare in the draft IPO that it intended to circumvent international conservation limits on tuna – by simply ignoring them. In a series of circular arguments, the document stated that China, which presides over the world’s largest long-distance fishing fleet, would not crack down on companies engaged in illegal fishing because it never had in the past; that the catch limits set by the Regional Fisheries Management Organizations apply only to China the country, not to actual Chinese fishing boats; and that even if the catch limits did apply, the regional fisheries organizations would not enforce them because “there is no sanction for non-compliance with Bigeye catch limits.”
A species in crisis from BBC News:
Rare Bewick’s swan numbers show ‘alarming crash’
The UK’s smallest and rarest swan has suffered an “alarming crash in numbers”, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust has said.
The Slimbridge-based charity said more than a third of Bewick’s swans have disappeared since 1995, when the total population peaked at 29,000.
The latest figures show that, by 2010, there were just 18,000 left.
Scientists believe illegal hunting, power lines and lead poisoning have contributed to the drop in numbers.
A remarkable resurrection from Science:
Virus resurrected from 700-year-old caribou dung
Earlier this year, researchers brought an ancient giant virus back to life. Now, they have recovered more viral genetic material—this time from frozen caribou feces.
For more than 5 millennia, caribou have grazed shrubs and grasses on ice patches atop the Selwyn Mountains in Canada. The animals congregate on the subarctic ice patches during warm summer seasons to escape heat and biting insects, leaving layers of feces on the ground. After drilling ice core containing thousands of years of accumulated caribou dung (shown above), scientists recovered the complete genome of a DNA virus and the partial genome of an RNA virus from frozen feces dated to 700 years old, they report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Genetic sequencing identified the RNA genome as a member of the insect-infecting Cripavirus genus, but the DNA viral genome was more mysterious: It was unlike any sequenced present-day viruses, but distantly related to plant-infecting geminiviruses. So the researchers reconstructed the DNA virus and introduced it to Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of tobacco that’s vulnerable to a diverse range of plant viruses. The resurrected virus successfully infected both new leaves and leaves inoculated with the virus.
The unkindest cut of all from EcoWatch:
NPR Guts Environmental Team, Leaving Only One Reporter
How interested is the public in climate change and other environmental issues? Apparently, National Public Radio (NPR) thinks the answer is “not very.”
Inside Climate News reports that the media outlet generally perceived to provide thoughtful coverage of pressing issues has cut back its environmental staff from three reporters and an editor, working within NPR’s science desk, to a single reporter covering the environment part-time. Of the four working on the beat at the beginning of this year, Richard Harris and Vikki Valentine have moved to new roles at NPR and Elizabeth Shogren has left the media outlet. Only reporter Chris Joyce remains on the beat.
Anne Gudenkauf, the senior supervising director of NPR’s science desk, told Inside Climate News reporter Katherine Bagley that there were other issues of more interest and that she doesn’t feel the environment requires dedicated reporters because other staffers also cover it along with the regular beats. She said she had’t noticed any change in the volume of material, saying “Just as the news about climate changes from week to week, month to month and year to year, so does our coverage.”’
A partnership for the spoils of oceanic oil from Want China Times:
Vietnam and India may explore oil together in S. China Sea
Vietnam and India are teaming up to explore oil in the South China Sea notwithstanding that some of the fields are also claimed by China, reports the Global Times, a tabloid under the auspices of the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily.
Citing Indian media reports, the Global Times said that it is likely that India may accept Vietnam’s invite to exploit oil together in the South China Sea during Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to New Delhi on Oct. 27. It is also believed that the two sides will aim to strengthen economic ties as well as cooperation on security and defense.
Chinese state councilor Yang Jiechi is scheduled to visit Vietnam on the same day.
Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said on Oct. 24 that Vietnam has already provided some oil fields in the South China Sea for India to exploit and that India will consider taking up on the offer if commercial interests are sufficient. In what appears to be a pointed message to China, Akbaruddin added that relations between India and Vietnam do not depend on other countries.
From the Mainichi, the wrong kind of fiber:
Asbestos-coated building materials slipped through inspections at 65 schools
Building materials coated with cancer-causing asbestos have slipped through government-led inspections at 65 schools across Japan or more, according to a study conducted by a nonprofit organization.
The Tokyo Occupational Safety & Health Center studied cases of oversight in asbestos inspections that have been reported by the media since 2008. As a result, at least 41 elementary schools, 10 junior high schools, eight high schools, three special-need education schools and three preschools in 13 prefectures, including Tokyo, Kanagawa and Osaka prefectures, were not aware of the use of asbestos in their school buildings.
Asbestos-coated materials were used in classrooms and school gyms in Japan for sound absorption and fire-resistance. In 1987, the then Education Ministry requested education boards across the country to inspect school buildings, and found asbestos-coated materials were used at one school out of every 30 on average. The schools that found asbestos materials were repaired after the inspections. When asbestos-induced health problems began drawing public attention in 2005, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry carried out studies on public schools and concluded that about 1 percent of the schools faced a risk of asbestos fiber scattering.
On to a short Fukushimapocalyse Now!, first with NHK WORLD:
Chiba governor asks Taiwan to lift import ban
A governor from eastern Japan has called on Taiwan to lift its ban on imports of food and agricultural products from his prefecture. The ban was imposed in the aftermath of the March 2011 nuclear disaster.
Chiba Governor Kensaku Morita made the request to the head of Taiwan’s liaison commission with Japan, Lee Chia-chin, in Taipei on Monday.
Fukushima and Chiba are among the 5 prefectures with food and agricultural products facing a blanket ban in Taiwan.
Morita told Lee that products from Chiba are being screened for radioactive materials before shipment in line with state government standards.
And to close, the Wall Street Journal finds a silver lining:
Fukushima Watch: Decommissioning R&D Could Bear Fruit Elsewhere
From a supply and demand perspective, outside of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant there isn’t currently much need for technology that can perform the highly delicate, possibly dangerous task of removing spent or damaged fuel from reactors that aren’t filled with water.
Likewise, no one has stepped forward to commercialize such technology either as reactors–under normal circumstances–are filled with water that shields radiation and keeps the fuel at low temperatures when they undergo maintenance.
But in keeping with the notion “Si tu id aeficas, ei venient” (If you build it, they will come), one Japanese government-funded organization says that the company that can successfully develop technology to remove melted fuel debris from the three reactors at the Fukushima plant could stand to gain down the road in other parts of the world.
