We begin with another African outbreak, via the Guardian:
Plague kills 40 people in Madagascar
World Health Organisation is concerned about risk of disease spreading in the capital where two cases have been recorded
An outbreak of the plague has killed 40 people out of 119 confirmed cases in Madagascar since late August and there is a risk of the disease spreading rapidly in the capital, the World Health Organisation has said.
So far two cases and one death have been recorded in the capital Antananarivo but those figures could climb quickly due to “the city’s high population density and the weakness of the healthcare system,” WHO warned.
“The situation is further complicated by the high level of resistance to deltamethrin (an insecticide used to control fleas) that has been observed in the country,” it added.
And another one in Europe, from DutchNews.nl:
More cases of bird flu in the Netherlands, poultry farmers fear the worst
Three more cases of avian flu have been identified at Dutch poultry farms, this time near Kamperveen in Overijssel, the economic affairs ministry said on Friday.
The first farm, which rears broiler chickens and has around 10,000 birds on site, was identified on Friday morning. One of the other two farms had some 15,000 ducks. All three farms are being cleared.
On Thursday avian flu was found at a farm in Ter Aar. That has now been confirmed the same infectious type as on the first farm last weekend. A nationwide ban on the movement of eggs, poultry and poultry manure will remain in force, the ministry said.
While the Guardian covers taxation as an instrument of public health:
Largest American Indian reservation approves junk-food tax to fight obesity
A 2% increase on sales tax for food with little to no nutritional value
One-third of Navajos are diabetic or prediabetic
Obesity rate in some age groups is as high as 60%
The sales tax on cookies, chips, sodas and other junk food sold on the country’s largest American Indian reservation is going up.
Navajo nation president Ben Shelly signed legislation Friday to increase by 2% the sales tax on food with little to no nutritional value, starting next year. No other sales tax on the Navajo nation specifically targets the spending habits of consumers. It will remain in effect until 2020, but it can be extended by the Navajo nation council.
Navajos advocating for a junk-food tax said they wanted to pass a bill that could serve as a model for Indian country to improve the rates of diabetes and obesity among tribal members. Proposals targeting sugary drinks with proposed bans, size limits, tax hikes and warning labels haven’t gained widespread traction across the country.
And from AllAfrica, when one epidemic displaces another:
Liberia: Ebola Hampers HIV/Aids Care
Ebola has crippled the provision of treatment and care to people living with HIV/AIDS in Liberia, according to health workers and patients.
“We cannot get treatment normally now because of the outbreak of the Ebola disease in Liberia,” said 36-year-old Jeff Thompson, from Monrovia’s Jallah Town, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2011. “Our care centres are closed and all the health workers are scared to come to work.”
There are an estimated 30,000 people living with HIV in Liberia, according to UNAIDS.
Before the Ebola outbreak, more than 70 percent of them had access treatment via 144 HIV/AIDS care centres scattered across the country. But now, due to a shortage of health workers and fear about Ebola transmission, more than 60 percent these facilities have shut their doors, according to the National AIDS Control Program (NACP)
From Al Jazeera America, water rustlers:
California love: Water thieves just can’t get enough
In northern areas of the state, counties report illegal diversions from tanks, wells and streams
Something rare quickly becomes valuable. So it should come as no surprise that the latest target of thieves in a state suffering a historic drought is water.
California thieves are cutting pipes and taking water from fire hydrants, storage tanks, creeks and rivers to get their hands on several hundred gallons of the precious commodity.
They drive in the thick of night with a 1,000-gallon tank on the back of a pickup and go after the liquid gold wherever they can find it. Some have hit the same target twice in one night, filling up their tank, unloading it into storage and returning for a second fill-up.
And from CBC News, another kind of contagion:
Jelly-covered plankton multiplying in Canadian lakes
Low calcium levels from acid rain, logging blamed
Jelly-covered plankton that look like tapioca are multiplying in many Canadian lakes, clogging up water pipes and potentially disrupting the food chain.
The population of freshwater plankton called Holopedium has doubled in Ontario lakes between the mid-1980s and the mid-2000s, reports a study published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The plankton are thriving in lakes that are low in calcium — and the calcium levels of many lakes have fallen in recent decades because of acid rain and logging.
From the New York Times, a global warming identity crisis:
Climate Change Threatens to Strip the Identity of Glacier National Park
A century ago, this sweep of mountains on the Canadian border boasted some 150 ice sheets, many of them scores of feet thick, plastered across summits and tucked into rocky fissures high above parabolic valleys. Today, perhaps 25 survive.
In 30 years, there may be none.
A warming climate is melting Glacier’s glaciers, an icy retreat that promises to change not just tourists’ vistas, but also the mountains and everything around them.
Streams fed by snowmelt are reaching peak spring flows weeks earlier than in the past, and low summer flows weeks before they used to. Some farmers who depend on irrigation in the parched days of late summer are no longer sure that enough water will be there. Bull trout, once pan-fried over anglers’ campfires, are now caught and released to protect a population that is shrinking as water temperatures rise.
From the Los Angeles Times, combinatorial crises:
‘Looming environmental crisis’ at Salton Sea prompts plea for help
The Imperial Irrigation District has sent a plea to a state water board to help avert a “looming environmental and public health crisis” at the Salton Sea.
In a letter this week to officials at the State Water Resources Control Board, the irrigation district asked that the board sponsor negotiations to get the state to fulfill its obligation to stop the deterioration of the sea caused by the sale of Imperial Valley water to San Diego County.
After a six-month negotiation period, the irrigation district wants the control board “to condition water [sales] on the state satisfying its unmet restoration obligation at the Salton Sea.”
And from the Guardian, forestalling crises?:
Polar code agreed to prevent Arctic environmental disasters
International Maritime Organisation committee adopts measures to protect the environment in face of predicted polar shipping rush
The international body in charge of sea safety adopted measures on Friday to protect people and the environment during a predicted shipping rush in the Arctic.
But environment groups and insurers said the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Maritime Safety Committee had failed to address key issues including a proposed ban on heavy fuel oil and how to safeguard against cowboy operators.
The committee, which met in London this week, signed off on the Polar Code and various amendments to the Safety of Life at Sea (Solas) convention. These changes, which include mandatory requirements for ship design, crew training and search and rescue protocols, are expected to be ratified by the full IMO next year and come into force in 2017.
After the jump, a wildlife crisis in Kenya, tourism threatening indigenous cultures, boosting tools to fight environmental crime, Big Coal buys Fabebook Likes, then on to Fukushimapocalypse Now! with a radioactive water freeze trap foiled and a more concrete solution, and removal of more hot fuel commences along with exclusion zone landlocked shipwrecks, plus a radiation release in Scotland. . .
From the Guardian, a park — and more — in peril:
Kenya’s iconic Nairobi national park is under threat, conservationists warn
Wildlife including giraffe, rhino and zebra are under pressure from roads, railways, factories and houses
Home to more than 550 species of birds and attracting some 150,000 visitors a year, activists say the park also acts as the lungs of the city, bringing in fresh air to an increasingly crowded capital. But the challenges and threats are huge.
New homes and fences block ancient wildebeest migration routes, and so many cheetahs have been killed on the increasingly busy roads there are none left in the park, said Kahumbu. “Roads are fragmenting the ecosystem and preventing animals from moving,” she said.
From Al Jazeera America “anthro tourism”?:
‘Human safaris’ and illegal fishing threaten world’s most isolated tribes
New report: Recently contacted group in India’s Andaman Islands face exploitation; uncontacted tribe faces annihilation
“Human safaris” taking tourists through the territory of a tribe that first made contact with outsiders only in the late 1990s threaten the vulnerable Jarawa people, who live in remote areas of India’s Andaman Islands, activists warned in a report released this week.
Meanwhile, the North Sentinelese — a tribe that has remained uncontacted on a nearby island — face threats from illegal fishermen targeting their waters despite an Indian government ban on travel within two miles of the island. The tribes of the Andaman Islands — the Jarawa, North Sentinelese, Great Andamanese and Onge — are believed to have lived on the islands for up to 60,000 years but are now vastly outnumbered by hundreds of thousands of Indians who began settling there in recent decades.
The Jarawa people live deep in the forests of Middle Andaman Island, but a highway constructed through their reserve in the 1970s brought outsiders in for the first time, and members of the tribe made contact with nearby towns in 1998, according to indigenous rights group Survival International, who published a report on threats to the Andaman tribes this week.
Despite a 2002 Supreme Court ban on the highway, it remains open and even encourages “human safaris” that bring tourist buses along the road daily hoping to spot members of the tribe. Outsiders have also brought in alcohol and drugs in an effort to sexually exploit Jarawa women, the group said.
From the Guardian, reasonable measures:
EU wants stiff penalties and wiretaps to fight environmental crime
Light punishment of Norfolk buzzard poisoner will not dissuade offenders or help enforcement efforts, says head of EU environmental crimes unit
Lenient penalties for environment crimes, such as the suspended sentence handed down to a former gamekeeper who poisoned buzzards, hamper law enforcement and obstruct police efforts to get authorisation for vital wiretaps, the head of an EU environmental crimes unit has told the Guardian.
Leif Gorts, who leads a team at Eurojust, was speaking as the cross-border crime-fighting agency launched its first environmental crimes report, showing a dearth of prosecutions in Europe with low penalties, under-reporting, poor cross-border cooperation and corruption all hobbling enforcement efforts.
“We need stronger penalties so we can get wiretapping and other investigative measures authorised to fight organised crime,” Gorts said. “In my country, Sweden, we have four years as a maximum penalty, so we can wiretap people who are conspiring to kill wolves, for example.”
EcoWatch covers Big Coal plays it cute buying Facebook “Likes”:
Big Coal Buys Facebook ‘Likes’ in Lame PR Stunt
The idea of “clicktivism” has been around for a while now, but recently I’ve been seeing a whole other level of this digital phenomenon in the form of what I like to call “pay-per-care marketing.”
While forms of pay-per-care marketing have been around a while, it has really ramped up since Twitter and Facebook both went public. Now under the pressure of quarterly performance reports to shareholders, the two social media giants have turned their networks into what experts call a “pay-to-play” model where the companies with the deepest pockets can buy all the “likes” and followers they can afford.
With pay-per-care, companies can buy large volumes of “likes” and followers and quickly manufacture the appearance of a worldwide outpouring of support for the product or idea they are trying to sell. Companies pay to make it look like people care.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now! with a radioactive water freeze trap foiled, via NHK WORLD:
TEPCO gives up on freezing tainted water
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is drastically changing its plan to remove highly radioactive water from underground tunnels at the facility.
The tunnels have been inundated with water from the plant’s heavily contaminated reactor buildings.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, this year began work to freeze water at the ends of the tunnels to block the inflow. The firm finished the work early this month.
But TEPCO officials found that water levels in the tunnels were still changing in sync with volumes in the reactor buildings.
The officials admitted to the Nuclear Regulation Authority on Friday that the tunnels hadn’t been plugged.
And a more concrete solution from the Asahi Shimbun:
After failures, TEPCO to use special cement to prevent contaminated water leaks
The operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant plans to fill in trenches on the coastline in yet another attempt to prevent highly contaminated water from pouring into the sea.
Under the plan, approved by the Nuclear Regulation Authority on Nov. 21, Tokyo Electric Power Co. will inject a special cement mixture into the seaside trenches of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors while pumping up radioactive water accumulating in them.
The special mixture does not absorb water so it can spread more easily along the bottom of the trenches, displacing the tainted water.
The accompanying graphic:
From the Asahi Shimbun, removal of more hot fuel commences:
TEPCO starts transferring remaining unspent fuel from Fukushima No. 4 reactor
The operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has started removing unspent nuclear fuel from a storage pool at the No. 4 reactor building, which was heavily damaged by an explosion following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Nov. 20 it plans to transfer 180 unspent fuel assemblies stored in the pool to the No. 6 reactor building by the end of December.
On Nov. 18, workers packed 22 such assemblies into a transportation cask and started preparations to transfer it to the site, company officials said.
From the Asahi Shimbun again, shipping out:
Work begins in Fukushima to demolish ships stranded by 2011 tsunami
Work got under way here on Nov. 21 to demolish and remove ships that were wrecked and swept inland by the tsunami generated by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Seventy abandoned ships, mostly fishing boats, still remain in evacuation zones around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Workers were seen Nov. 21 using cranes to remove cabins and structures from the ships’ main decks as the first step in the dismantling process.
The vessels have been left untouched for more than three and a half years since evacuation orders were issued soon after the Fukushima nuclear accident unfolded.
And from the Guardian, a radiation release in Scotland:
Dounreay nuclear plant fire led to ‘unauthorised’ radioactivity release
Investigation identifies ‘unacceptable practices by staff’ relating to 7 October fire at site being decommissioned
A fire at the Dounreay nuclear plant in the north of Scotland resulted in an “unauthorised”release of radioactivity, an investigation has found.
The nuclear plant has been censured by safety regulators after admitting human error led to the release of radioactivity into the atmosphere.
The criticism comes just weeks after another nuclear plant, Sellafield in Cumbria, was also tackled by the safety regulator over its management of asbestos while pictures emerged of badly corroded storage ponds there.
Environmentalists said the problems highlighted dangers from building a new generation of nuclear plants which however well designed would be vulnerable to human fallibility.
