Tonight we’ll be exploring local foods with special attention to a campaign of natural food co-ops nationwide called “Eat Local America!” We’ll be talking with Liza Tedesco, the general manager of Chico Natural Foods and Janae Lloyd, marketing and membership manager of what we fondly refer to as “Chico Natty.”  We’ll also give attention to some of the questions raised about the value of eating locally—economic, environmental, and health-wise.

A Debate Over Local Foods

The Eat Local, America! website has established a challenge for people who’d like to try to eat more local food. Here’s the challenge: “If you’re a seasoned locavore – someone who already eats lots of local foods – you’re encouraged to set a goal of eating four out of five meals with local food (or roughly 80 percent of your diet). If you’re starting out, you’re encouraged to begin by eating five meals a week made with local foods. And if you’re somewhere in between, you’re encouraged to create your own goal. After all, it’s all about eating, exploring and enjoying local food – and having fun while you’re at it.”

Not everyone is so enthusiastic about the local foods movement, however. New York Times Op-Ed contributor Stephen Budiansky wrote a piece on August 19 entitled, “Math Lessons for Locavores.” Budiansky argues that “the local food movement now threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas. Arbitrary rules, without any real scientific basis, are repeated as gospel by “locavores,” celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations. Words like “sustainability” and “food-miles” are thrown around without any clear understanding of the larger picture of energy and land use.”

It is Budiansky’s contention that:

The statistics brandished by local-food advocates to support such doctrinaire assertions are always selective, usually misleading and often bogus. This is particularly the case with respect to the energy costs of transporting food. One popular and oft-repeated statistic is that it takes 36 (sometimes it’s 97) calories of fossil fuel energy to bring one calorie of iceberg lettuce from California to the East Coast. That’s an apples and oranges (or maybe apples and rocks) comparison to begin with, because you can’t eat petroleum or burn iceberg lettuce.

It is also an almost complete misrepresentation of reality, as those numbers reflect the entire energy cost of producing lettuce from seed to dinner table, not just transportation. Studies have shown that whether it’s grown in California or Maine, or whether it’s organic or conventional, about 5,000 calories of energy go into one pound of lettuce. Given how efficient trains and tractor-trailers are, shipping a head of lettuce across the country actually adds next to nothing to the total energy bill.

It takes about a tablespoon of diesel fuel to move one pound of freight 3,000 miles by rail; that works out to about 100 calories of energy. If it goes by truck, it’s about 300 calories, still a negligible amount in the overall picture. . . . Overall, transportation accounts for about 14 percent of the total energy consumed by the American food system.

Other favorite targets of sustainability advocates include the fertilizers and chemicals used in modern farming. But their share of the food system’s energy use is even lower, about 8 percent.

The real energy hog, it turns out, is not industrial agriculture at all, but you and me. Home preparation and storage account for 32 percent of all energy use in our food system, the largest component by far.

A single 10-mile round trip by car to the grocery store or the farmers’ market will easily eat up about 14,000 calories of fossil fuel energy. Just running your refrigerator for a week consumes 9,000 calories of energy. That assumes it’s one of the latest high-efficiency models; otherwise, you can double that figure. Cooking and running dishwashers, freezers and second or third refrigerators (more than 25 percent of American households have more than one) all add major hits. Indeed, households make up for 22 percent of all the energy expenditures in the United States.”

Again, that by New York Times blogger Stephen Budiansky, and we’ve posted the link to that controversial essay at ecotopiakzfr.net

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

 It seems to us that one of the glaring flaws of Budiansky’s argument is toting up energy to produce and transport food on one side of the equation and energy to preserve, store and prepare food on the other side of the equation. Whether food is produced locally or shipped from abroad, it will still have to be preserved, stored and prepared. Budiansky’s sleight of hand with numbers makes us immediately suspicious of his ways of calculating and presenting statistical information.

And we’re not the only ones who are skeptical of Budiansky’s arguments. Grist, a magazine of environmental news and commentary with humorous twist, provided a number of responses. In their feature Grist Talk: Food Fight, they write that the debate is over “whether locavores — those who prefer to eat food grown nearby, versus that grown thousands of miles away and trucked or flown in — are misguided in thinking their food choices are helping to save the planet.”

Ten writers—authors, analysts, and activist—weigh in on the topic of local eating. To read their full responses you can go to www.grist.org and click on the Food link and go to the article “Food Fight: Do Locavores Really Need Math Lessons?”

Food editor, Tom Philpott, takes issue with Budiansky’s contention that there “arbitrary rules” posited by “chefs and environmental organizations

Philpott says, “But he fails to spell out even one of those onerous rules, or name a single locavore, celebrity chef, or organization preaching it.

“You know why? Because they don’t really exist; or if they do, they exert no discernible influence on the sustainable food movement. All of the leading lights in the movement who I know think in terms of regional, not strictly local, food economies. Fred Kirschenmann, surely one of the movement’s most influential thinkers, has been advocating for regional food economies, and the importance of mid-sized farms, for at least 15 years.”

Philpott goes on to describe various efforts to work toward regional food systems. And tells Budiansky and those who argue the same line that “No one is going to cajole them — much less force them — to subsist on a 100-mile diet.”

Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America, agrees:

“To begin rebutting this pack of B.S., I must correct his notion of locavory. Despite attempts by national retailers to reduce “local food” to a mere question of miles (i.e. Lay’s potato chips claiming they come from locally grown potatoes), true locavores are after more than just miles. At its heart, the movement is about relationships. When you buy food at the store, your purchasing decision rests mainly on marketing claims. But when I pick up my weekly box of produce from Farmer Phil, I know exactly how and where he grew my food, and that his values are consistent with mine. Organic certification alone does not certify anything other than a minimum bar of standards; by buying from farmers who are part of my community, whose farms I’ve visited, I am contributing to my local economy, supporting my friends’ businesses, and getting great, fresh food. And the farmers from whom I buy are taking care of the land right near where I live.”

 Many of the Grist arguments emphasize other values of the local food movement beyond the issue of food miles. Kerry Trueman, founder of EatingLiberally.org, contends:

“Energy efficiency is only one small part of the equation when you add up the reasons to buy local. Other factors include: flavor and nutrition; support for more ecological farming practices; reduction of excess packaging; avoidance of pesticides and other toxins; more humane treatment of livestock and workers; preservation of local farmland; spending one’s dollars closer to home; the farmers market as community center, and so on.”

Budiansky’s support of industrial agriculture comes under attack by Dave Love, project director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future;

“Mr. Budiansky’s argument runs thin when we take a hard look at what consolidated industrial farming and food animal production “return to our land,” as he puts it. It is difficult to be in favor of a farming approach that relies upon mono-cropping using genetically modified seeds and synthetic fertilizers. Likewise, food animal production facilities make for poor neighbors when their (virtually unregulated) wastes and associated land application and spray-field sites spread allergens and antibiotic-resistant bacteria throughout farming communities.”

Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet, also finds fault with the notion that our current way of farming is efficient or effective. She focuses on the artificiality, indeed, the political manipulation of crop production in industrial farming:

“Budiansky argues that we should be advocating for raising crops in “places where they grow best and with the most efficient technologies” . . . .

In principle, all reasonable people — and I put most locavores in this category even if Budiansky doesn’t — would agree that choices farmers make about what foods to grow, and what time of year to grow them, should be informed by place. I haven’t heard of any locavores advocating for Hudson Valley pineapples.

But a food system based on a simplistic notion of “comparative advantage” is far from the reality of industrial agriculture that Budiansky seems to be defending, and much closer to the one we locavores are fighting for.

In the real world, here’s what happens — and what the sustainable food movement, locavores among them, is working to change: North Carolina becomes the second-largest home of pork in the country, not because pigs have some particular penchant for the Outer Banks, but because the state’s lax labor laws appealed to pork producers and so did the government’s incentives to lure companies like Smithfield.

Another example: The United States comes to dominate the global market for corn (we control 71 percent of the market) not because corn is the best crop we could be growing, either for the ecological health of the Midwest or the physical health of consumers, since most of it is used for high-fat feedlot meat, high-fructose corn syrup, exports, or ethanol. No, corn’s “success” in those uses was made possible in large measure by U.S. government policies propping up the biggest industrial corn growers with $73.8 billion in subsidies from 1995 to 2009.

The reality of our food system has never been, and will probably never be, the result of this mythological “comparative advantage” in a free market. And agribusiness insiders know this. Referring to grain, an Archer Daniels Midland executive once said, “The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians.”

What we grow and where we grow it is the predictable result of massive public subsidies to the largest industrial producers. In this context, the question that we locavores are asking is what kind of support and subsidies should we have, directed at which outcomes, and in whose interest? Do we want a food system that subsidizes chemical farming and feedlot meat production — the kind that has given rise to foodborne illnesses sickening hundreds of thousands every year and spreading salmonella causing a 380 million egg recall? Or one that fosters sustainable practices, fairly paid farmers and food workers, clean water and healthy soils, all while bringing us affordable good-tasting food?”

Eleanor Starmer, Western Region Director at Food & Water Watch, a national consumer advocacy group, takes up the issue of food safety in her essay and is critical of how little choice consumers are given in our current system of farming:

“As it happens, I was already doing some food calculations the day Budiansky’s piece ran — but not of the sort he discussed.

My numbers included the following: As of Friday, 450 million eggs originating from two Iowa egg operations — both of which buy feed and chicks from the same company — had been recalled from stores in 14 states for salmonella contamination. These days, record-breaking food recalls are happening with disturbing frequency. We won’t soon forget the 2009 peanut recall that affected nearly 4,000 products; the 2008 recall of 143 million pounds of ground beef, the largest of its kind in history and which included beef distributed through the National School Lunch Program; or the 2006 recall of E. coli-contaminated bagged spinach that sickened hundreds in 26 states.”

. . . [V]irtually our entire meat supply is controlled by four — soon to be three — companies: Tyson, Cargill, Smithfield, and the Brazilian powerhouse JBS, which is vying for a Smithfield takeover. (Grist’s Tom Philpott does the meat math here.) Cargill and two other companies process more than 70 percent of U.S. soybeans, which are in turn fed to livestock and added to processed food products as soy lecithin and other ingredients. And most of our corn — a staple in livestock feed and present in virtually all processed food — is grown from seed developed by one of two companies.

 What does it mean when so few companies control so much of our food? It means that unless we happen to live in a place with a lot of local farmers and the infrastructure to process and distribute their products, we have virtually no control over what we’re eating or feeding to our kids. If these companies choose to raise meat using hormones and antibiotics (and they do), or grow corn from genetically-modified seed (and they do), then that’s what we’ll have access to. And if one thing goes wrong at one of those companies, we all risk being affected.

So here’s my message to Mr. Budiansky: The local foods movement is not so much about choosing between what’s grown here and what’s grown elsewhere. It’s about having any sort of choice at all.”

 The rest of her piece argues eloquently for farm policies and a farm bill that would give more power and control to smaller growers and to consumers.

 http://www.grist.org/article/food-fight-do-locavores-really-need-math-lessons/#mcwilliams

For a detailed and scholarly examination of food miles, we recommend that you visit National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service website, a project of the National Center for Appropriate Technology….The site explains that:

Recent studies have shown that this distance has been steadily increasing over the last fifty years. Studies estimate that processed food in the United States travels over 1,300 miles, and fresh produce travels over 1,500 miles, before being consumed.” The publication of food miles “addresses how food miles are calculated, investigates how food miles affect producers and consumers, and evaluates methods for curbing the energy intensiveness of our food transportation system.”

Another of the concerns addressed by National Center for Appropriate Techology is nutrition:

“The ability to enjoy consistent produce and exotic ingredients at all times of the year is a luxury that, according to many food system analysts, has its price. The farther food travels and the longer it takes en route to the consumer, the more freshness declines and the more nutrients are lost. Many fruits and vegetables are engineered for a long shelf life, sacrificing taste and nutrition for preservation.”

 The site also addresses the carbon footprint of food:

“While studies vary, a typical estimate is that the food industry accounts for 10% of all fossil fuel use in the United States.(5) Of all the energy consumed by the food system, only about 20% goes towards production; the remaining 80% is associated with processing, transport, home refrigeration and preparation.”

The site explores how far various foods travel and the modes of transportation used to transport food. They conclude that local foods use less energy and site a number of ways producers can get their food to markets more efficiently, including farmers’ markets, CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), direct marketing, and Farm-to-Institution programs.

The National Center for Appropriate Technology site includes with a list of recommendations from for individuals to reduce food miles, adapted from Brian Halweil’s Home Grown: the Case for Local Food in a Global Market.

* Learn what foods are in season in your area and try to build your diet around them.

* Shop at a local farmers’ market. People living in areas without a farmers’ market might try to start one themselves, linking up with interested neighbors and friends and contacting nearby farmers and agricultural officials for help. People can do the same with CSA subscription schemes.

* Eat minimally processed, packaged and marketed food. Generally speaking, the less processing and packaging you see, the less energy went into production and marketing, the less global warming pollution was created.

* Ask the manager or chef of your favorite restaurant how much of the food on the menu is locally grown, and then encourage him or her to source food locally. Urge that the share be increased. People can do the same at their local supermarket or school cafeteria.

* Consolidate trips when grocery shopping. Consider carpooling, public transportation, or a bike trailer for hauling groceries to reduce your personal contribution to food miles.

* Take a trip to a local farm to learn what it produces.

* Limit the amount of meat you consume and when you do buy meat, look for organic or free-range meat produced on sustainable farms.

* Produce a local food directory that lists all the local food sources in your area, including CSA arrangements, farmers’ markets, food co–ops, restaurants emphasizing seasonal cuisine and local produce, and farmers willing to sell direct to consumers year-round.

* Buy extra quantities of your favorite fruit or vegetable when it is in season and experiment with drying, canning, jamming, or otherwise preserving it for a later date.

* Plant a garden and grow as much of your own food as possible.

* Speak to your local politician about forming a local food policy council to help guide decisions that affect the local foodshed.

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/foodmiles.html

 Our Interview with Liza Tedesco and Janae Lloyd.

Northstate Local Food Resources

We’re lucky here in California to have access to great food sources. In addition to stores that carry local foods, we have a number of farmers’ markets and Community Supported Agriculture (known as CSAs), in addition to some local food networks that give attention to how we can take advantage of local foods. Some of them will be familiar to our listeners. Some may be new.

Local Organic Food
Farmer’s Markets

Chico

Saturdays Year-Round

2nd & Wall, Downtown Chico

7:30 AM-1:00 PM, Rain or Shine

Wednesdays

North Valley Plaza Mall

(at the corner of East Ave & Pillsbury Rd)

June – October • 7:30 AM

Tuesdays

Enloe Market

North Parking Lot, 1528 Esplanade (at 5th Avenue.)

June 2-September 2-6 PM

Wednesdays

University Market

Outside Miriam Library

Year round (weather permitting) 3-5 PM

(Student vendors coming)

Saturdays and Sundays

Butte Community College

Chico Center Campus

2320 Forest

April 10-October 31 9AM-2PM

Wednesdays

Gardeners Swap Meet Free

6 – 8 p.m

(Locations vary in Chico; look for announcements/posters)

cCHAOS

(collaboratively Creating health access opportunities & services)

16th & C Street, Chico CA (in the park)

Fridays

When School is in session–2:00 PM to 6:00 PM

Summer Hours (When School is not in session)– 5-8 PM

Our mission is to facilitate, improve and maintain healthy lifestyles by increasing access to fresh fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts, and opportunities for physical activities and using the consumer safe food shopping environments created by certified farmers markets to develop grassroots community leadership to maximize human health.

www.cchaos.org

Oroville

Saturdays

Municipal Building on Montgomery St.

(between Huntoon & Myers)

May 10th – September • 7:30 AM-12 noon

Paradise

Tuesday Mornings

Paradise Alliance Church

6491 Clark Road (next to P.O.)

June – October

7:30 AM-Noon, Rain or Shine

CSAs—Community Supported Agriculture

(From edible Shasta-Butte)

Barbarosa Ranchers

Year-round Pastured Meat

http://barbarosaranchers.com/

Chaffin Family Orchards

Winter Pasture-Raised Meat and Eggs

http://chaffinfamilyorchards.com/

Churn Creek Meadow Organic Farm

Year-round Organic Fruit and Vegetables

http://ccmof.com/

Freshies—Local Food Gone Wild

Fruit and Vegetables

http://www.freshies530.com/

GRUB

Vegetables (and gleaned fruit)

http://grubchico.org

Little Folks Produce and Meats

Fruit and Vegetables

www.midnightowllivestockranch.com

Pyramid Farms

Summer through Harvest Vegetables

Pyramidfarms2000@yahoo.com

Sawmill Creek Farms

Vegetables

530-877-5734

TurkeyTail Farm

Meat (and more)

cheetah@turkeytailfarm.net

Twining Tree Farm

Winter Fruit and Vegetables

http://twiningtreefarm.wordpress.com/

Windmill Farm

Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

windmillfarmofgridley.blogspot.com/

Windborne Farm

Vegetable, Grain, and Eggs

windbornecas@yahoo.com

Food Networks

Slow Food Movement—Shasta Cascade

http://www.slowfoodshastacascade.org/

Mission: Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic organization that supports a biodiverse, sustainable food supply, local producers, heritage foodways, and rediscovery of the pleasures of the table. www.slowfoodusa.org

Chico Food Network

Mission Statement:

The purpose of the Chico Food Network is to foster a local food system that contributes to the long-term viability of farms in our region, provides Chico-area residents with fresh, healthy food choices, provides education regarding local food systems, and creates an awareness and interdependence between Chico consumers, food businesses, and local farmers.

http://www.chicofoodnetwork.org/

Weston A. Price

The Chico-Butte Valley Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation was formed to:

1. Provide a place for members to learn about and access nutrient dense foods.

2. Promote a healthy local food economy

3. Teach about the work and research of Dr. Weston A. Price

4. Promote Sustainable and Grass Based Farming

5. Help members access support and services to facilitate a traditional foods diet.

This chapter meets the 3rd Monday of each month, 6 pm at the Chico Grange.

http://www.meetup.com/Chico-ButteValleyWAPFChapter/

Food Not Bombs

Food Not Bombs . . . [has] hundreds of autonomous chapters sharing free vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty. Food Not Bombs is not a charity. . . . For nearly 30 years the movement has worked to end hunger and has supported actions to stop the globalization of the economy, restrictions to the movements of people, end exploitation and the destruction of the earth.

http://www.foodnotbombs.net

Depot Park (W 3rd St & Cedar).

Food share every Sunday Noon

Other Resources

GRUB

Community Gardens: The goal of the Community Garden project is to establish a sustainable food network in Chico. We are achieving this by creating a network of neighborhood gardens that are supported by our community. In order to do this we have two staff members who help match garden space requests with available lots and help establish the gardens and offer ongoing support. We need community members to work the gardens.

Fruit Tree Registry: The goal is to create a registry of trees that are producing fruit that is not used.

GRUB also keeps a binder of food producers–Local, Seasonal, Organic and Bulk.

http://grubchico.org

Miller’s Bakehouse

Natural fermentation

Certified organic grains from Black Ranch, located near Etna, CA

Grains milled on site the day before baking

Whole grains

Wood-fired oven for baking

Whole-grain pastas

www.millersbakehouse.com

Edible Shasta-Butte

“Celebrating the Abundance of Local Foods, Season by Season”

www.edibleshastabutte.com

Our guest is Bill Ryerson, who is President of the Population Media Center. His organization takes a unique approach to education: They create soap operas and melodramas in many languages for myriad countries around the world. They have evidence that soap operas can be a very effective way to inform and influence people on such issues as population, AIDS/HIV, women’s roles, and family planning.

Listen to the program.

Background on Population and Social Justice

Back in February of this year, we talked with Laurie Mazur, author the book, A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge. We were impressed by the connections that Laurie made between population and issues ranging from poverty to religion to agriculture to education to technological fixes to the world’s problems. As background for tonight’s guest, we’d like to read a section of the introduction to Laurie’s book. She wrote:

 We are living in a pivotal moment.Even a casual glance at the headlines reveals this to be a pivotal moment environmentally,… from acidifying oceans to depleted aquifers, the natural systems we depend upon are nearing “tipping points,” beyond which they may not recover.But it is less well known that this is a pivotal moment demographically. While the rate of population growth has slowed in most parts of the world,…our numbers still increase by 75 to 80 million every year….[T]he ultimate size of the human population will be decided in the next decade or so. [She calls for an approach to "population justice" that takes] a nuanced understanding of the relationship between human numbers and environmental harm, and the inequitable patterns of consumption that mediate that relationship….Of each proposed action we must ask, Does it uphold and enhance established human rights? Does it advance the cause of social justice; will it reduce inequality? Will it promote human well-being and protect the environment?

 A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge. Laurie Mazur, ed. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2010.

 Our Discussion with Bill Ryerson

Our guest tonight, Bill Ryerson, shares that belief in the centrality of population to a host of global issues. And his approach to educating people is unique: His nonprofit, Population Media Center, produces soap operas that run for months, even years, in dozens of countries around the world. Through these melodramas, they provide information as well as role models for people of all ages.

[We play an excerpt from Coconut Bay--distributed in the Eastern Caribbean]

Please tell us a little about what we just heard from Coconut Bay and how this illustrates your project.

• You have produced soaps all over the world–please tell us some of the countries where you’ve worked. [For our reference: Brazil, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Mali, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Vietnam.]
• Do you seek or need governmental cooperation? theirs or ours?
• How do you go about launching a project–including writing, recruiting actors, production, airing the programs?
• What kinds of cultural or cross-cultural precautions do you and your staff take before launching a project in another country?
• Who pays for this and how costly is it?
• We’ll talk about your central issue of population a little later in the program. What are some of the other issues you’ve addressed in these dramas? [Our reference: Environmental preservation, HIV Aids, Reproductive Health, Gender Issues, Women's Education, Child Protection.]
• You use something called the Sabido methodology for creating your programs, which you candidly say are highly melodramatic. Where did this method originate and how does it work?
• What kinds of evidence have you collected that this approach works? WHY does it work? Do people really emulate soap opera role models? Do people sometimes find it “preachy”? Or do people identify with the wrong character [the Archie Bunker effect]? How many people do you think your broadcasts have reached?
• What additional media projects have you developed–TV? other media? your worldwide game? [From the press release: a transmedia program aimed at teens here in the U.S. to help prevent teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. This cutting edge approach of using multi-platform storytelling (the story’s content is seamlessly delivered through multiple devices including TV, mobile phones and video games), has been proven to strengthen bonds between audience members and the characters, especially youth ages 18-24.]

 [We'll take a short break and listen to part of another episode of Coconut Bay, then ask our guest Bill Ryerson, about the broader issue of population impact.]

• You argue that population is “the multiplier of everything else.” Please explain that position.
• If we look at birth rates and population change over the past century, it sometimes seems as if change just happens and that the consequences are unpredictable. [The birth rate falls in the UK, and suddenly England is importing workers for the jobs Brits don't want to do.] What are the most important trends (and consequences if the world doesn’t act)?
• You have argued that that contraception-as-a solution is a myth. Please explain. What are some of the other myths about population solutions?
• And what are your best hopes for solutions? [An impossibly broad question, we realize.]
• Population and abortion are still inflammatory issues in this country, and we’ve seen policy changes between the Bush and Obama administrations. What are “we” doing constructively at the moment? What should the U.S. be doing?
• What other groups or organizations are taking action around the world?
• How can concerned listeners become involved with or show support for constructive population programs and solutions?

 Our guest has been Bill Ryerson, President of Population Media, you can learn a great deal more about their work by visiting their website populationmedia.org. We’ll also post links on our website to several related articles by Bill or about the population issue.

 How Soap Operas Might Save Us from Overpopulation
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/147131

 Population: The Last Taboo
http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2010/05/population-last-taboo

Population: The Multiplier of Everythinghttp://www.populationmedia.org/2010/08/19/population-the-multiplier-of-everything/#more-4535

Playlist for Ecotopia #101

1. Stay Human (All The Freaky People) 4:27 Michael Franti & Spearhead   Stay Human

2. Worldwide Connected 5:06 The Herbaliser Something Wicked This Way Comes

3. People (Single Version) 3:43 Barbra Streisand People

4. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary The Very Best of   Peter, Paul and Mary

5. The Road to Utopia 4:54 Utopia Adventures In Utopia

Listen to the program

About Ecotopia

The book was published and 1975 and became an instant classic in the science fiction and utopian genres. It is set in the future and is based on the premise that Northern California, Oregon, and Washington have seceded from the United States in order to form a more perfect union.

The Ecotopians have tackled a wide range of social, environmental, and economic problems, from food and sewage to energy and pollution to recycling to transportation to education to equality of sex and race.

The novel is told from the point of view of William Weston, a newspaper writer, who is the first American permitted into Ecotopia in over twenty years, and the book consists of his journal entries and his dispatches back to his newspaper in the U.S.

Initially skeptical, Weston becomes more and more convinced of the validity and vitality of Ecotopian thinking, and at the end of the novel, he faces a difficult decision, whether to return to the United States or to remain in Ecotopia. (You’ll have to read the book for yourselves to find out the answer!)

Our  Questions for Ernest Callenbach

Part I:  Ecotopia the Novel

 –Ecotopia has been a best selling novel since it first appeared in 1975. Please tell us about how you came to conceive and write the book. What were the social, environmental, or political conditions that inspired or motivated you? Who were the major thinkers and writers who influenced you?

–Why did you choose the genre of the utopian novel rather, than, say a collection of essays? What did the novel allow you to do that might not have been possible in essay or editorial form?

–Perhaps you could illustrate Ecotopian thinking for our listeners with one or several examples from the book, e.g.

“Food, Sewage, and Stable States”
“Their Plastic and Ours”
“Work and Play Among the Ecotopians”
“Ecotopian Television”

–As readers, we were puzzled by your chapter on Ritual War Games in Ecotopia, where young men participate in primitive warfare with spears that actually results in injury or death. Do you personally believe that humankind has this dark and savage side that needs to be vented?

–Ecotopia touches on just about every aspect of human life. How did this comprehensive social vision form in your mind? Did it come all at once, in bits and pieces, perhaps even as you wrote?

 II. Ecotopia and the World Today

–What progress (if any) has the world made toward your Ecotopian vision since 1975? What problems have deepened or worsened during that time?

–In the novel, change comes about all at once through secession from the Union. The Ecotopians wipe the slate clean and start over. Do you think a slower or partial transition might be possible or desirable?

–You have written about an intentional living community in Japan that is based on Ecotopian principles, and there are a number of small, sustainable communities around the world and here in California. Please tell us about Ecotopian communities you have visited. What kinds of problems do they encounter and solve?

–Can Ecotopian ideas be implemented in larger communities? Is there hope for some of the cities included in the original borders of Ecotopia such as San Francisco or Portland or Seattle or Berkeley or Chico?

–Could there be a global Ecotopia? The United Nations and the European Union have provided models for progressive social, political, and environmental policies on a large scale. What is your assessment of their efforts?

–A question regularly ask on this program: If wholesale change is to take place, will/can it come about through:

governmental regulation and mandates?
incentives?
common sense and good will of people?
desperation at the edge of the cliff?
all or none of the above?

–What can our listeners do to help nudge the planet in Ecotopian directions? Can you recommend other books, organizations, or resources to guide them?

Playlist for Ecotopia #100

1. Clear Blue Skies (LP Version)        3:07        Crosby, Still, Nash & Young        
American Dream       
2. Utopia        4:58        Alanis Morissette        Under Rug Swept       
3. Weave Me the Sunshine        4:28        Peter, Paul And Mary        The Very Best of 
Peter, Paul and Mary       
4. Supernova        4:42        Liquid Blue        Supernova       
5. Big Yellow Taxi (LP Version)        2:15        Joni Mitchell        Ladies Of The Canyon

Our guest tonight is Douglas Carlton Abrams author of a new novel called, The Eye of the Whale. It is a “eco adventure” story that focuses on the dangers to the whale population through hunting and through ocean pollution. In researching the novel, Doug investigated problems facing the whale population, and we’ll talk with him about what he discovered.

Listen to the program.

Background on Whale Issues

We’ll begin with some alarming headlines compiled by Ashley Anderson, publicist for Doug Abrams, with whom we’ll be talking:

• A beached whale in Seattle garnered headlines in April 2010 because its stomach was full of plastic and beach towels.• Beluga whales in the remote Hudson Bay are so filled with industrial chemicals, including plasticizers, that they must be treated like toxic waste when their dead bodies wash up on shore.• Congressman Jim Moran of Northern Virginia and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts introduced The Endocrine Disruption Prevention Act in December 2009 to explore linkages between hormone disrupting chemicals in the environment and everyday goods and the dramatic increase of autism, hyperactivity, diabetes, obesity, breast cancer, prostate cancer and other hormone related disorders.• Childhood cancer is up by 26 percent, making cancer the greatest threat to children.• 1 in 3 women will develop cancer. 1 in 2 men will develop cancer. • Male fish across the country are developing eggs.• Time Magazine recently published a feature article, “The Perils of Plastic,” investigating endocrine disrupting chemicals found in everyday products.

 The connections among those various headlines about whales and people will become clear later in the show.

In more positive news: The National Resources Defense Council reported in late June that efforts to rescind the 1986 ban on commercial whaling have been thwarted, at least temporarily:

 In a move welcomed by conservationists and pro-whale countries around the world, the International Whaling Commission [...] announced that it would postpone a compromise proposal that would have legalized commercial whaling. This move is a dramatic turnaround from years of secret, closed-door negotiations that led to the compromise proposal — a proposal that would have sacrificed the quarter-century old ban on commercial whaling in an attempt to rein in Japan, Iceland and Norway’s annual killings.[The National Resources Defense Council] believes the whaling moratorium to be one of the 20th century’s most iconic conservation victories. It has saved hundreds of thousands of whales since it took effect in 1986. [...]

Taryn Kiekow, staff attorney with NRDC’s marine mammal protection program, said:

 “I’m cautiously optimistic. If the pro-whaling compromise is indeed off the table, that will be a huge victory for the whales against terrific odds. The Commission tasked with protecting these mammals has shown great leadership by refusing to adopt a proposal that could have led to the extinction of some already endangered and threatened species.”

“Still, it is not enough that the decision is delayed. The International Whaling Commission must reaffirm its dedication to the preservation and protection of whales around the world. Now is the time to push for the conservation of whales — without trading away the moratorium. Every day marine mammals face new attacks from entanglement, ship strikes, and pollution. It was reckless for the Commission to even consider sanctioning their slaughter at this time.”

 [Even so, NRDC reports that ] Japan, Iceland and Norway have killed roughly 35,000 whales since the moratorium was introduced in 1986. In Japan’s case, the killings have been justified under the guise of “scientific research.” Prior to the 1986 whaling moratorium, roughly 38,000 whales were killed annually (between 1945 and 1986), compared with an average of 1,240 whales killed per year after the moratorium (1987 onwards).

 http://www.nrdc.org/media/2010/100623.asp

 Our Conversation with Douglas Carlton Abrams

 Listeners may recall that two weeks ago, we talked with Skipper Jo Royle of the Plastiki about her concern for plastic pollution in the seas. And some months back, we talked with Simon Avery, who is a pilot on the Sea Shepherd efforts to harass illegal Japanese whaling.

 Our guest tonight offers insights into those concerns and more. He’s Douglas Carlton Abrams, and he has written a novel called Eye of the Whale. It’s a suspense novel centered on saving a stranded whale in the Sacramento Delta; it’s also research-based and serves as a serious warning not only about the whales, but about human health in an increasingly polluted world.

 We asked Doug to set the scene for us a read from the novel to give readers a sense of the book. He reads from Chapter 2, where the heroine, Elizabth McKay is able to swim with the whales and observe the birth of a humpback whale.

Our Questions for Doug Abrams:

–The Eye of the Whale is what you call “fact-based fiction.” Please tell us what that is and how you came to write a novel about whales and their plight.

–We DON’T want to ask you which parts of the book are “true” and which are “false,” but rather, let’s focus on what you learned as you did your research for the book.

• You swam with the whales and looked one in the eye. Please tell us about that.

Part of Elizabeth McKay’s work centers on the songs of whales, so before we ask Doug Abrams about that, let’s listen to a short piece from Songs of the Humpback Whale.

• You did a great deal of research into whale songs and communication, and this plays a major role in the novel. Who are some of the researchers that you talked with and what did you learn?
• It seems like an unlikely theme for a novel, but this book is about endocrine disruption. What is that, and what did you learn? [Pete Myers, with whom you spoke, also appeared here in Chico last year at the sustainability conference, and we were enlightened his discussion how small quantities of toxic chemicals have effects that have been previously ignored.]
• In one of the subplots of your novel, activists go to Japan to dramatically protest Japanese whaling practices. Please tell us how that became a part of your book.

–You are an environmentalist as well as a writer. What do you see as the greatest threats to the environment right now? Are threats such as ocean pollution and global warming reversible? or at least controllable to the level that some of the threats you describe can be neutralized?

–Your heroine, Elizabeth McKay, winds up testifying before Congress, and you acknowledge the work of Senator Boxer and others in “trying to address the environmental crises we face.” What did you learn about Congressional efforts to take action?

–We’ve done several programs on international efforts at saving the environment, including the Copenhagen Climate Change conference. Do you think these efforts are likely to make a significant impact? Are the Obama administration’s goals strong enough to make a difference? Do you think our Congress can pass significant climate change legislation?

–A question we often ask on this show: Do you think threats to the environment can be eliminated through:  government mandates?  government incentives?  the good will of people doing the right thing?  humankind being pushed to the edge of the cliff?

–How can our listeners become involved in the issues discussed in Eye of the Whale? Are there some watchdog organizations you can recommend?

–What’s your next project?

 We’ve been talking with Douglas Carlton Abrams, author of The Eye of the Whale. It’s published by Atria Books, which is a division of Simon and Schuster. You can learn more about Doug and his work at his website http://www.douglascarltonabrams.com and at simonandschuster.com.

Two Resources for Learning More About Saving the WhalesThe National Resources Defense Council has been fighting efforts to compromise the international whale hunting ban. NRDC also has a broader aim of saving the world’s ocean health, and their web site is a great resource for information on myriad threats to the seas and sea creatures. They also have an excellent action page which makes it easy for you to send your opinions to legislators on a wide range of environmental issues. They’re at nrdc.org, .

 We also encourage you to check out the Save the Whales site, which includes a great deal of basic information on various whales and their nature and habitat, plus action links, additional media resources, and excellent activities for kids. www.savethewhales.org.

Playlist for Ecotopia #99 –The Eye of the Whale

1.  The Whale Song      2:25    Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagy Carmichael: The First Of The Singer-Songwriters
2.  Song Of The Whale – Part One: From Dawn … 8:20    Tangerine
Dream   Underwater Sunlight
3.  Song of the World’s Last Whale      2:39    Pete Seeger   At 89
4.  Solo Whale          9:29    Humpback Whales  Songs of the Humpback Whale
5.  Who Is She / Song For The Whales    5:12    Petra Haden and Woody Jackson  Ten Years
6.  Weave Me the Sunshine       4:28    Peter, Paul And Mary  The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary
7.  Calypso     3:49    John Denver  Earth Songs

Tonight we are going to discuss Gardening—Summer into Autumn—in the Northstate. We’ll be interviewing two guests tonight. First, David Grau is joining us in the studio. David Grau is the owner of Valley Oak Tool Company and organizer of the Organic Gardening Classes that have been conducted at the Chico Grange for the past two years  The newsletters from that class are filled with gardening tips, really, practically a whole course on organic farming and gardening. You can find issues of the newsletter by going to the website: ValleyOakTools.com. Click on the link on the left “Organic Gardening Newsletter.”

In the second half of the show, we have an interview with Jennifer Jewel. Jennifer is a Northstate garden writer, and her radio program on KCHO—In a Northstate Garden—can be heard on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We talked with her last week in her garden here in Chico. Jennifer Jewel’s website includes many excellent resources for those interesting in knowing about and creating gardens. Her “Regional Resources” include information on:
–Botanic, Teaching and Open Gardens
–National & State Garden Club Organizations
–Regional Garden Clubs
–Plant Societies
–Master Gardener Programs
–Independent Nurseries
–Horticulture Libraries & Bookstores
–Regional Gardening Publications

She also has a list of websites and blogs that are related to gardening, farming, landscape and food, including some of our favorites, The Chico Permaculture Guild, GRUB, Local Harvest, River Partners, and the Shasta Slow Food Cascade.

Conducting our interviews tonight are Jef Inslee, a new programmer here at KZFR, and Susan Tchudi, co-host of Ecotopia.

Listen to Jef Inslee’s interview with Jennifer Jewel.

Our Conversation with David Grau

 Thank you for joining us in the studio this evening. As you know, tonight we also will be including a pre-recorded interview that we did last week with Jennifer Jewell about what to think about this time of year in your ornamental or mixed garden. Given your expertise and experience with vegetable gardens, we’d like to hear your advise on what we should or could be doing in our vegetable gardens. Of course, that discussion could span several hours, so maybe you can talk to us about  some of the general themes that we should be focusing on right now. It’s early August in California’s North State region, so even though we may be at the peak of summer, we have several more months of potential growing season.

 1. We’ve just retired some of my tomato plants and replaced them with new cherry tomato plants. How do we know when to remove zucchini, bean,  and tomato plants? Any of the plants that are indeterminate producers.

2. Do you think we can still plant potatoes? And if so, what are the varieties that work well for layering. And by layering we mean adding soil vertically as the potato plants grow in order to increase the potato yield.

3. Early this spring we planted several raspberry plants and built an inadequate trellis system. Now that part of the garden is just chaos and we have no idea what to do. Is there any way  to regain some control? And what kind of maintenance is required for plants like this, including grapes.

4. Tell us about some of the reliable fall favorites to plant. And maybe some unusual and unique vegetables or fruits that we might want to experiment with.

5. As our vegetable plants come to the end of their usefulness, what should we do with all of that empty garden space? Is there anything that we can do to improve or protect the soil over the fall and winter

6. Tell us about the Organic Gardening Class for the coming year. Who do you have on tap so far?

7. Susan and Steve participated in your first class, but were out of the country for the second class, so we followed it via the newsletters. We know it’s probably hard to choose but: What have been some of the most engaging surprising and/or interesting sessions you’ve had. (We remember one report about soil science with Carl Rosato and the Organic Flower Farm owner . . . )

8. Are there some newsletters that you’ve gotten particularly positive response to? What are some highlights people might find there?

We’ve been talking with David Grau, owner of Valley Oak Tools and organizer of the Winter/Spring Organic Gardening classes at the Chico Grange. His website is www.valleyoaktools.com where you can read newsletters from past organic gardening classes.

Playlist for Ecotopia #98: Gardening–Summer Into Fall 

1. Seed 6:25 Afro Celt Sound System Seed

2. Lean In 5:15 MaMuse All The Way

3. Poor Old Dirt Farmer 3:53 Levon Helm Dirt Farmer

4. Mr. Soil’s Song 1:45 Singin’ Steve Billy the Bean

5. Zemelya-Chernozem. Black Soil. (Variations ) 3:35 Andrei Krylov Russian Classical Guitar Music. Vol 2. Romance, Folk Songs.

6. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

7. Plant a Radish 2:34 Hugh Thomas & William Larsen The Fantasticks (Soundtrack from the Musical)

8. Food Food Food (Oh How I Love my Food) 2:10 The Wiggles Toot Toot

As many listeners know, for the past several months, we’ve been following the voyage of the Plastiki, a catamaran constructed principally from recycled plastic water and soft drink bottles. Last week, the Plastiki landed in Sydney, Australia, after a 8000 nautical mile voyage that started in San Francisco. We have twice interviewed the Plastiki skipper, Jo Royle, and we’ll talk with again her tonight from dry land in Sydney.

Listen to the program.

Background on the Plastiki and Ocean Plastics

Here’s a news release that came out from the Plastiki project: 11.10am – Monday 26 July 2010 – Sydney time.  The headline reads: “Message in a bottle to beat waste has global impact to create change”

 After sailing more than 8,000 nautical miles and spending 128 days crossing the Pacific [...]in a boat made of 12,500 plastic PET bottles [--PET stands for Polyethylene terephthalate, the stuff plastic soda bottles are made of], the Plastiki expedition and her crew have safely and successfully reached their planned destination of Sydney to cheers of welcome and support.

Arriving at Sydney Heads at 11.10am local time with a 12 knot south south easterly breeze, the Plastiki triumphantly sailed into Sydney Harbour to cheers of welcome and support from a small spectator flotilla.[...]The historic expedition was completed in four legs : San Francisco – Kiribati – Western Samoa – New Caledonia before reaching the Australian Coast (Mooloolaba) on Monday 19 July and continuing on to Sydney.

[Expedition leader David de Rothschild said,] “It’s an incredible feeling to finally arrive in Sydney. We had great faith in the design and construction of Plastiki and while many people doubted we’d make it, we have proved that a boat made from plastic bottles can stand up to the harsh conditions of the Pacific.” [...]

[De Rothschild also] paid tribute to his fellow adventurers, Jo Royle (Skipper), David Thomson (Co-Skipper), Graham Hill (Founder of Treehugger.com), Olav Heyerdahl [grandson of Kon Tiki rafter Thor Heyerdahl], Matthew Grey, Luca Babini (Photographer), Vern Moen (Myoo Media Film maker), Max Jourdan and Singeli Agnew (National Geographic Film makers) for their skill and commitment during the voyage.

“Jo and the rest of the crew did a remarkable job sailing the Plastiki safely across the Pacific and it is due to their collective efforts that we’ve been able to raise global awareness of the issue of plastic waste in the world’s oceans.

 To give us further perspective on the problem of plastic in the oceans, we’ll quote from another source, Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. He has written that “Plastic is Drastic.”

There is a large part of the central Pacific Ocean that no one ever visits and only a few ever pass through. Sailors avoid it like the plague for it lacks the wind they need to sail. Fisherman leave it alone because its lack of nutrients makes it an oceanic desert. This area includes the “horse latitudes,” where stock transporters in the age of sail got stuck, ran out of food and water and had to jettison their horses and other livestock. Surprisingly, this is the largest ocean realm on our planet, being about the size of Africa- over ten million square miles. [...]

Because of the stability of this gentle maelstrom, the largest uniform climatic feature on earth is also an accumulator of the debris of civilization. Anything that floats, no matter where it comes from on the north Pacific Rim or ocean, ends up here, sometimes after drifting around the periphery for twelve years or more. Historically, this debris did not accumulate because it was eventually broken down by microorganisms into carbon dioxide and water.

 [The place Captain Moore is describing is the called the Pacific Garbage Patch, where huge quanities of throwaway plastics accumulate, and the Plastiki expedition sailed quite close to it.]

Captain Charles Moore continues:

 Now, however, in our battle to store goods against natural deterioration, we have created a class of products that defeats even the most creative and insidious bacteria. They are plastics. Plastics are now virtually everywhere in our modern society. We drink out of them, eat off of them, sit on them, and even drive in them. They’re durable, lightweight, cheap, and can be made into virtually anything. But it is these useful properties of plastics, which make them so harmful when they end up in the environment. Plastics, like diamonds, are forever!

If plastic doesn’t biodegrade, what does it do? It “photo-degrades” – a process in which it is broken down by sunlight into smaller and smaller pieces, all of which are still plastic polymers, eventually becoming individual molecules of plastic, still too tough for anything to digest. [...] [In our research voyage out from Santa Barbara, we found] Everything from huge hawsers to tiny fragments [,forming into windrows that are] miles long[...].. We picked up hundreds of pounds of netting of all types bailed together in this system along with every type and size of debris imaginable.

Sometimes, windrows [...] drift down over the Hawaiian Islands. That is when Waimanalo Beach on Oahu gets coated with blue green plastic sand, along with staggering amounts of larger debris. Farther to the northwest, at the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, monk seals, the most endangered mammal species in the United States, get entangled in debris, especially cheap plastic nets lost or discarded by the fishing industry. Ninety percent of Hawaiian green sea turtles nest here and eat the debris, mistaking it for their natural food, as do Laysan and Black Footed Albatross. Indeed, the stomach contents of Laysan Albatross look like the cigarette lighter shelf at a convenience store they contain so many of them.

It’s not just entanglement and indigestion that are problems caused by plastic debris, however. There is a darker side to pollution of the ocean by ubiquitous plastic fragments. As these fragments float around, they accumulate the poisons we manufacture for various purposes that are not water-soluble. It turns out that plastic polymers are sponges for DDT, PCBs and nonylphenols -oily toxics that don’t dissolve in seawater. Plastic pellets have been found to accumulate up to one million times the level of these poisons that are floating in the water itself. These are not like heavy metal poisons which affect the animal that ingests them directly. Rather, they are what might be called “second generation “ toxics [, and] they have been shown to have a number of negative effects in everything from birds and fish to humans. The whole issue of hormone disruption is becoming one of, if not the biggest environmental issue of the 21st Century.

He concludes:

I know that when people think of the deep blue ocean, they see images of pure, clean, unpolluted water. After we sample the surface water in the central Pacific, I often dive over with a snorkel and a small aquarium net. I have yet to come back after a fifteen minute swim without plastic fragments for my collection. I can no longer see pristine images when I think of the briny deep.

There is much more to the article.  Read it at www.alalita.org

Our Discussion with Jo Royle

Jo Royle is an incredibly accomplished ocean sailor, including skippering the only all female team in a two person transAtlantic Race, but she is also an environmentalist, with graduate work in Environmental Science and Society at the University of Central London.

• In the first part of the interview, we’d like you to tell us all about your trip. Was it fantastic, or what?
• How well did the Plastiki perform? both as a sailing vessel and as home for the crew?
• What was your route across the Pacific?
• We read that you went near, but did not venture into, the Pacific Garbage Patch. Please tell us about that?
• There must have been some scary moments. Please give us a vicarious thrill by telling about them?
• How do you cope with claustrophobia on a trip like this? Where do you go when you want to get away from the crew? How do you pass the time in the boring stretches?
• What was your reception like in your ports of call?
• You had filmmakers on board? When will the movie be out?
• Where is the Plastiki now, and what will become of it? 

  You have studied environmental science and are concerned about the intersection of science and society.

• Let’s start with the science. What are some of the things you learned about the condition of the oceans from the Plastiki voyage. How bad are things? What was the evidence you saw or collected?

• And the social aspects: What, if anything, can be done to keep plastic out of the ocean? Is this a reversible process?
• We’re assuming you and the crew monitored the Gulf Oil Spill, which was taking place concurrently. Are there observations you can make that relate to your primary concern for plastics at sea? [We note that just two weeks after the oil flow was stopped, specialists are talking about how the oil is dissipating, evaporating, biodegrading. It's not the same with plastics, is it?]
• Are plastics-at-sea something that can be controlled through regulation? international agreements? Alternatively, are we possibly dependent on humans’ good will and sense of responsibility to cut down on plastic pollution?
• What are the next steps, either for you personally or for the Plastiki campaign?
• Are there other organizations that share you concern? How can listeners learn more and become involved?
• Where will you sail next?

 Be sure to check out the Plastiki web site, which includes photos and videos of the expedition, Jo’s own blog, and information on how you can contribute to the campaign. http://www.theplastiki.com/

Additional Resources on Plastics in the OceanIn doing research for this program we discovered another daunting voyage that is taking place to publicize the problem. Go to http://www.plasticfreeocean.org/ to learn of the voyage of a man named Tom Jones, who is paddling from Key West, Florida, to New York City. He started May 12 and expects to finish August 28. The web site reads:

[For Tom] To accomplish this feat, the land mass between Key West and New York City is broken down into daily “legs” of paddling. Because of the continual unpredictability of weather and especially high winds, Tom has the option to paddle each daily leg either North or South depending on what he has to face on the water that day. Every day, starting and ending GPS points are precisely logged so that the distance paddled creates a continuous line that will cover the entire coast from the starting point at the Southernmost Buoy in Key West, Florida, to the world-record finish in Battery Park, New York.

The website has additional information on the plastics problem in the sea and sponsors campaigns to raise public awareness.

We also recommend a website, Ocean conserve.org, which has a portal to other organizations the are concerned with a broad range of ocean issues. http://www.oceanconserve.org/links/Organizations/

Playlist for Ecotopia #97: Plastiki Arrives

 Pollution 4:50 Basskick   Sound Of The Nature – Collection 5

Pacific Ocean Blues 2:37 Dennis Wilson   Pacific Ocean Blue & Bambu

Sail On, Sailor 3:19 The Beach Boys    Greatest Hits Volume 3: The Best Of The Brother Years 1970 – 1986

Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary    The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

 Bali H’ai 3:29 Juanita Hall    South Pacific (Original Broadway Cast)

Calypso 3:49 John Denver  Earth Songs

Tonight’s program is one for the birds. We’ll be talking with author Sy Montgomery about her new book, Birdology, a celebration of the amazing physical and mental characteristics of birds, along with stories of her experiences working with birds and some of the people who love and train them.

Listen to the program.

Birdy Background

Earthlife.net tells us there are about 9,703 species of birds divided up into 23 orders, 142 families and 2,057. They can be found on all major land masses from the poles to the tropics as well as in or over all our seas and oceans and their accompanying islands.

The total number of birds on the planet is very difficult to estimate because their populations fluctuate seasonally, but scientists have suggested that there may be between 100 and 200 trillion adult or near adult birds on the planet at any one time.

Since the 1600s, however, at least 115 species of bird are known to have gone extinct, mostly as a result of human interference of one sort or another. http://www.earthlife.net/birds/intro.html

Tonight’s topic on Ecotopia is the National Park System. We’ll be talking with a former National Park Ranger, Andrea Lankford, who has written a book called Ranger Confidential, with some behind-the-scenes insights into the National Park system works, and some of the problems it and its employees.

Listen to the program.

Background on the National Park System

 We thought it would be helpful to background this discussion with a little history of the National Parks, this by Barry Mackintosh, who the bureau historian for 17 years as bureau historian. He writes:

 The national park concept is generally credited to the artist George Catlin [who did extensive painting of western scenes, including American Indians].. On a trip to the Dakotas in 1832, he worried about the impact of America’s westward expansion on Indian civilization, wildlife, and wilderness. They might be preserved, he wrote, “by some great protecting policy of government… in a magnificent park…. A nation’s park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature’s beauty!”

Catlin’s vision was partly realized in 1864, when Congress donated Yosemite Valley to California for preservation as a state park. Eight years later, in 1872, Congress reserved the spectacular Yellowstone country in the Wyoming and Montana territories “as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” With no state government there yet to receive and manage it, Yellowstone remained in the custody of the U.S. Department of the Interior as a national park-the world’s first area so designated.

Congress followed the Yellowstone precedent with other national parks in the 1890s and early 1900s, including Sequoia, Yosemite (to which California returned Yosemite Valley), Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, and Glacier. The idealistic impulse to preserve nature was often joined by the pragmatic desire to promote tourism: western railroads lobbied for many of the early parks and built grand rustic hotels in them to boost their passenger business.

The late nineteenth century also saw growing interest in preserving prehistoric Indian ruins and artifacts on the public lands. Congress first moved to protect such a feature, Arizona’s Casa Grande Ruin, in 1889. In 1906 it created Mesa Verde National Park, containing dramatic cliff dwellings in southwestern Colorado, and passed the Antiquities Act authorizing presidents to set aside “historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” in federal custody as national monuments. Theodore Roosevelt used the act to proclaim 18 national monuments before he left the presidency. They included not only cultural features like El Morro, New Mexico, site of prehistoric petroglyphs and historic inscriptions, but natural features like Arizona’s Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon. Congress later converted many of these natural monuments to national parks.

By 1916 the Interior Department was responsible for 14 national parks and 21 national monuments but had no organization to manage them. Interior secretaries had asked the Army to detail troops to Yellowstone and the California parks for this purpose. There military engineers and cavalrymen developed park roads and buildings, enforced regulations against hunting, grazing, timber cutting, and vandalism, and did their best to serve the visiting public. [...]

The parks were [...] vulnerable to competing interests, including some within the ascendent conservation movement. Utilitarian conservationists favoring regulated use rather than strict preservation of natural resources advocated the construction of dams by public authorities for water supply, power, and irrigation purposes. When San Francisco sought to dam Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley for a reservoir after the turn of the century, the utilitarian and preservationist wings of the conservation movement came to blows. Over the passionate opposition of John Muir and other park supporters, Congress in 1913 permitted the dam, which historian John Ise later called “the worst disaster ever to come to any national park.”

[... When Franklin] Roosevelt launched his New Deal, the Park Service received another mission: depression relief. Under its supervision the Civilian Conservation Corps employed thousands of young men in numerous conservation, rehabilitation, and construction projects in both the national and state parks. .[...]

The postwar era brought new pressures on the parks as the nation’s energies were redirected to domestic pursuits. Bureau of Reclamation plans to dam wilderness canyons in Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado and Utah touched off a conservation battle recalling Hetch Hetchy. [...]

We don’t have time to read the entire history of the system, but Barry Mackintosh goes on to cover such topics as overdevelopment of the parks for tourist purposes and exploitation and loss of natural resources even as the parks have developed new attractions for tourists, including interpretive centers, exhibits focusing on environmentalism, living history projects, protection of nationally recognized historic places, and development and servicing of trails such as the Appalachian Trails. Check out the full history at http://www.nps.gov/history/history/hisnps/npshistory/npshisto.htm

  We’ll be asking our guest, Andrea Lankford, about some of the problems facing the system, including a number identified in an online article by Eisla Sebastion on the Yahoo Associated Content site. She writes:

 There are seven main areas of environmental problems that face the U.S. National Park System: overuse, insufficient funds for park operation, threats to wildlife, the concession systems, energy and mineral development, atmospheric pollution, and activities on adjacent lands. The popularity of National Parks especially the crown jewel parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks, have overwhelmed some national parks with visitors. In fact, the amount of visitors to national parks has steadily increased by 10% each year. This massive increase in pedestrian and vehicle traffic has caused trails to become eroded from overuse, vegetation surrounding trails around popular attraction to be trampled by visitors, and litter, noise, water pollution, and smog have all impeded the enjoyability of national parks. This increase in visitors and the need for the few rangers employed by the park to meet the needs of more and more visitors have created a safety issue. Rangers can’t monitor the entire park for criminal activity, and this impacts the safety of national parks. (Kaufman and Franz, 1993, 474).

[...] Wildlife at national parks is also threatened by the increasing popularity of these areas. More visitors means that there are more people approaching wild animals to take pictures and watch their “natural behaviors.” While these observations don’t necessarily harm the animals if done discretely from a distance, there are a few irresponsible individuals who take risks to get close to animals. They harass the animals and provoke them in order to get an action shot or to prove their “manhood.”

The concession system is another issue that is plaguing the national park system. (Kaufman and Franz, 1993, 478). In this case, private companies bid to sell their products in the park to visitors. While they are able to monopolize a market, and they are allowed to operate on national park property, they only return 25% of the money earned to the government. This percentage doesn’t make up for the amount of pollution they create from the tourists littering, or from the environmental impacts of their concession stand and sales.

There’s more to read in this article about problems facing the national parks.  Read the full article at:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/13522/the_problems_facing_the_us_national.html?cat=7

Our Discussion with Andrea Lankford

Our guest tonight is Andrea Lankford. She had a twelve year career as a Ranger in the National Park System, with assignments from Cape Hatteras to Utah to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. She has also trekked the Appalachian trail, kayaked from Miami to Key West, and cycled to the Arctic Ocean. Her book is titled, Ranger Confidential, with a foreboding subtitle: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks.

• Your book is a page turner, with a number of pretty grim and occasionally funny stories about Rangers and the range of humanity that shows up at our National Parks. Before we hear some of those stories, please tell us a little more about yourself. How did you become a National Park Ranger wearing a Smoky Bear hat?
• Why did you become a Ranger? How and why did your expectations change?
• As you say in the book, the public has a variety of images of Rangers, few of them accurate. Please tell us in particular about the public’s misperceptions of Rangers as:
• people with a great job, viewing sunsets.
• cops restricting everybody’s good times.
• public servants who should bow and scrape before the tourists.
• Please tell us about the Park Ranger credo: “Protect the park from the people, the peaople from the park, and the people from themselves.”
• Perhaps we could hear (your choice of) stories about yours (and others’) lives as Rangers. Among our “favorites” are: dumb things that tourists do (especially the Grand Canyon). [Not to treat that topic too lightly, since those dumb things can be fatal.]; Scorpion and Ranger karma; Out-and-out criminals encounter in the parks; suicidal people; Mary the typist/Thanksgiving ledge rescuer
• You write a good deal about discrimination against women in the park service. Please describe some of your experiences here. How did you cope with it?
• [You have had friends and colleagues who died in the Park Service. If you care to discuss this topic, we would like to hear about those experiences and their effect on you.]
• After twelve years, you left the Park Service. Why? 
• The U.S. National Park system is unique in the world. In what ways do you see it as fulfilling and failing to fulfill the dreams of such park advocates as John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt?
• Are there just too many tourists? [In a recent program, we offered the idea that maybe California would be a great place were it not for the Californians!]
• It’s difficult to become a Ranger, and people have to go through a lot to get permanent positions. How could the training/hiring systems be improved?
• What about Rangers’ pay and living conditions?
• You have criticisms of the concession system, which obviously brings in a lot of revenue to support the park system. How could this be corrected?
• You write some about frivolous and wasteful projects that consume the Park Service budget. Please give us an example or two of those and your suggestions about how this could be corrected.
• We’re in hard economic times. How is the Park Service faring? Do you think it has a friend in the current president?
• If you were the Director of the National Park System, what immediate steps might you take?
• In closing: Please tell us something of your current life and your forthcoming projects.

The book is Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks. a Falcon Guide publication of the Globe Pequot Press. Andrea has also done books on bicycling the Arizona trail, biking in the Grand Canyon area, and Haunted Hikes: Spine Tingling Tails and Trails from America’s National Park. You can learn more about them and about Andrea at her website: http://www.andrealankford.com

A Brief History of Smokey Bear

On the cover of her book, Ranger Confidential, is a battered ranger hat, commonly called a “Smokey Bear” hat–flat brim, familiar to us all through his forest fire prevention ads. Smokey Bear is actually not a member of the National Park Service. He represents the National Forest Service, a separate government division, that is actually part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  Nevertheless, we thought it might be interesting to close out tonight’s program with a brief biography of Smokey Bear. Here’s his history from the Pennsylvania Forestry Division:

Smokey Bear, the guardian of our forests, has been a part of the American scene for so many years it is hard for us to remember when he first appeared. Dressed in a ranger’s hat, belted blue jeans, and carrying a shovel, he has been the recognized forest fire prevention symbol for over 50 years. Today, Smokey Bear is one of the most famous advertising symbols in the world and is protected by Federal Law. He has his own private zip code, his own legal council, and his own private committee to insure that his name is used properly. Smokey Bear is much more than a make-believe paper image; he exists as an actual symbol of forest fire prevention.

To understand how Smokey Bear became associated with forest fire prevention, we must go back to World War II. On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. The following spring in 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaced near the coast of Southern California and fired a salvo of shells that exploded on an oil field near Santa Barbara, very close to the Los Padres National Forest. Americans throughout the country were shocked by the news that the war had now been brought directly to the American mainland. There was concern that further attacks could bring a disastrous loss of life and destruction of property. There was also a fear that enemy incendiary shells exploding in the timber stands of the Pacific Coast could easily set off numerous raging forest fires. With experienced firefighters and other able-bodied men engaged in the armed forces, the home communities had to deal with the forest fires as best they could. Protection of these forests became a matter of national importance, and a new idea was born. If people could be urged to be more careful, perhaps some of the fires could be prevented.

With this is mind, the Forest Service organized the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign with the help of the Wartime Advertising Council.

Posters and slogans were created by the Advertising Council, including “Forest Fires Aid the Enemy,” and “Our Carelessness, Their Secret Weapon.” By using catchy phrases, colorful posters and other fire prevention messages, the Advertising Council suggested that people could prevent accidental fires and help win the war.

Walt Disney’s motion picture, “Bambi” was produced in 1944 and Disney let the forest fire prevention campaign use his creation on a poster. The “Bambi” poster was a success and proved that using an animal as a fire prevention symbol would work. A fawn could not be used in subsequent campaigns because “Bambi” was on loan from Walt Disney studios for only one year; the Forest Service would need to find an animal that would belong to the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign. It was finally decided that the Nation’s number one firefighter should be a bear.

On August 9, 1944, the first poster of Smokey Bear was prepared. The poster depicted a bear pouring a bucket of water on a campfire. Smokey Bear soon became popular, and his image began appearing on other posters and cards.

In 1952, Smokey Bear had enough public recognition to attract commercial interest. An Act of Congress passed to take Smokey out of the public domain and place him under the control of the Secretary of Agriculture. The Act provided for the use of collected fees and royalties for forest fire prevention. One of the first licensed items was a Smokey Bear stuffed toy. Hundreds of items have been licensed over the years.

 http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/ffp/history.aspx

 And here’s the Smokey Bear Official Web Site http://www.smokeybear.com/

Playlist for Ecotopia #95: Ranger Confidential

1. Carry Me Off 3:54 The Dillards      Roots And Branches/Tribute To The American Duck

2. Nature’s Way 2:40 Spirit   Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus

3. Sunshine On My Shoulders (Digitally Remastered) 5:11 John Denver  Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits

4. Earth Anthem 3:54 The Turtles     Go Green: Songs for Earth Day, Volume 1

5. Haunted by Waters – A River Runs Through It (Reprise) 4:22 Mark Isham    A River Runs Through It

6. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary  The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

7. Clear Blue Skies (LP Version) 3:07 Crosby, Still, Nash & Young  American Dream

8. Black Moon (Album Version) 6:59 Emerson, Lake & Palmer   Black Moon

Tonight’s program is something of an Ecotopian potpourri. Over the past couple of weeks, a number of news items and announcements have come to our attention, and we haven’t been able to include them in the show. So tonight we are going to hopscotch the Ecotopian universe, with stories including a hotel constructed out of recycled trash, a bikeway made from recycled printer cartridges, an announcement concerning a lawsuit affecting northstate water, and editorial responses to the president’s handling of the Gulf oil catastrophe.

Listen to the program.

Northstate Water Issues

Listeners may recall that just a few weeks ago, we interviewed Jimmy Brobeck, a water researcher and analyst for Aqualliance, and he warned of efforts that are being made to bypass thorough environmental reviews by groups that want to transfer huge quantitites of northstate water to quench the insatiable thirst of the south.

 Here’s the Aqualliance press release–it reads:

 Federal Water Transfers Challenged in Court
Sacramento Valley Communities, Farms, and Fish in Jeopardy

AquAlliance, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and the California Water Impact Network have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to protect the economy and the environment of the northern Sacramento Valley.

The Bureau‟s Environmental Assessment and Findings of No Significant Impact for the 2010-2011 Water Transfer Program reveals plans to export 395,000 acre-feet of Central Valley Project and State Water Project water to buyers south of the San Francisco Bay Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. To replace the water sold to San Joaquin Valley growers in low-priority water districts, the plan would permit Sacramento Valley surface water right holders to substitute 154,237 acre-feet of groundwater to continue rice production.

The plaintiff groups allege that the [materials submitted  by the water purveyaors] violates the National Environmental Policy Act  because, among other things, it: …
–Contains a fundamentally flawed alternatives analysis, and
–Inadequately analyzes the impacts from implementing the two years transfer program.

The lawsuit seeks a comprehensive environmental review for the water transfer program. Repeated water transfer projects in the last decade have all occurred without the benefit of thorough federal or state environmental analysis, which would require the establishment of baseline conditions, comprehensive
monitoring, and the disclosure of impacts. 

The Aqualliance web site also includes extensive background material on the case and on other efforts to draw down the water table in the Sacramento River Valley.  There will be a public commentary opportunities, including a July 14 hearing at the Chico Public Library, 1-3 pm.  We encourage listeners to check all this out on the website, aqualliance dot net.

They also provide a link to this fascinating editorial from the Monterey County Herald, which challenges the argument that  farmers in the San Joaquin Valley need all that extra water being proposed for shipment from the northstate and elsewhere. It reads:  [The] Sky hasn’t fallen over water allotment reduction:

Let’s return for a moment to last spring, when doom and gloom descended on the San Joaquin Valley in the form of water-allotment reductions that, we were told, would bankrupt the farmers, idle the workers and turn the region into a modern dust bowl.

Perhaps you remember when TV commentator Sean Hannity, with ample PR help from the huge Westlands Water District, went on the air with a series of heart-tugging stories about how farms and jobs were being lost because wrongheaded environmentalists and federal officials were diverting “valley” water to protect insignificant smelt and salmon.

In western Fresno County, the bedraggled farm town of Mendota provided the perfect backdrop for photo opportunities featuring busloads of sad-eyed field workers supposedly thrown out of work by the likes of the Sierra Club.

Unfortunately for the recreational and commercial fishing industries and others with an interest in keeping the environment in balance, Hannity and other easily misled news operations largely missed the story about the dramatic decline in the salmon population caused, largely, by San Joaquin Delta pumping schedules that traditionally favored field crops over fish.

Well, guess what. Farm income did slip last year in Fresno County. By 75 percent? Fifty percent?

Try 4.5 percent.

The county-by-county annual crop reports came out this week, and Fresno County retained its title as the king of California agriculture, producing $5.4 billion in receipts.

“I don’t know how ag did it, but they did it,” said Fresno County Agricultural Commissioner Carol Hafner. “This is our third year of more than $5 billion in value.”
It really is not a mystery. The growers did it by relying on water allotments that had been hoarded, by turning on their own pumps and by raising prices.

It is significant that the neighboring counties of Kings and Tulare saw much sharper declines in farm income, 25percent and 19percent, respectively, but not because of lost irrigation water. Dairy is a larger factor in those counties, and wholesale milk prices plunged in 2009.

To be fair, it certainly was a tough year for Fresno County agriculture. A small portion of the federally subsidized water was indeed lost to the fisheries, so farmers scrambled to change crops and planting patterns. Some fields were taken out of production in order to protect recent large investments in tree crops, including big water users such as citrus, almonds and pistachios.

Times certainly were tough in dusty Mendota. Times have always been tough in Mendota. Almost assuredly, the income of Fresno County farmworkers dropped more than the 5.4percent overall decline in farm income.

But times are tougher yet along the docks and harbors of California, where the salmon harvest has been wiped out by a water delivery system dominated by ag interests aided and abetted by Hannity and others who wouldn’t want the facts to get in the way of a sad story.

Obviously the Monterey paper is more interested in fishing and sports than in the fate of the water table in the northstate, but the helps to rein in the notion that without northern water, the California Agricultural Economic Engine will grind to a halt.  You can access that editorial through the Aqualliance web site, and here’s the direct link at ecotopiakzfr.net
http://www.montereyherald.com/editorials/ci_15383887?nclick_check=1

Gulf Oil and Global Oil ManagementOf great and continuing concern is the BP Gulf Oil spill, and we want to offer a sampling of editorial opinion.

From the Times-Union, Albany, New York, comes this editorial, dated June 17:  ”Beyond the gulf, a new course” :

“The most telling words spoken Tuesday about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill didn’t come from President Obama but from an oil executive, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
   
“‘When these things happen, we are not well-equipped to deal with them,’ Mr. Tillerson acknowledged at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.

It’s as good an argument for the President’s moratorium on offshore drilling as we’ve heard lately.

Some might say Mr. Tillerson was stating the obvious two months into a disaster that continues to spew upward of 2.5 million gallons of crude into the gulf each day. But many still needed to hear it, particularly those who want to believe, or at least assert, that the disaster could have been stopped by now, if only BP was more committed to plugging the leak or the President was more forceful, as if this was a matter of sheer will.

The reality is, the oil industry is in way over its head on deepwater offshore drilling, and so are we all. For too long, we have allowed the issue of offshore drilling to be reduced to just another political disagreement, as debatable as whether one likes the Yankees or the Red Sox.

What’s leaking out of BP’s well a mile underwater, what’s washing up on beaches and killing fish and other wildlife isn’t an opinion. It is evidence of the current limits of human technology. It’s a matter of fact.

Yet already, even some residents and officials in the gulf region are saying Mr. Obama’s moratorium, which suspends 33 drilling operations and holds off any new well permits, is too onerous, because it will only further damage their economy.

We appreciate how serious it is to shut down a source of livelihood for so many people and stop exploration in an oil-rich region that supplies a third of the nation’s needs. But just imagine how different the world would be today if, on April 19, the federal government had realized how inadequately prepared the industry was to deal with an accident, and shut down drilling. America would not have an environmental catastrophe, one that will take years to clean up, on its hands. The nation cannot risk another.

Mr. Obama was right to order a six-month moratorium. He should extend it for as long as it takes the oil industry to prove it can fix its mistakes and accidents — and to be able to do it in a matter of days, if not hours.

And Congress needs to learn the lesson of the gulf and move forward with a national energy policy that heeds the President’s call — not at all different from other calls we’ve heard for decades — to tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. A policy that redirects our energy, if you will, to more efficient buildings, factories and means of transportation, and to developing and refining sources of energy that don’t cause problems we can’t fix.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=941971&category=MONEDIT#ixzz0r7FbyJF2

And far away, coming from the Anchorage Daily Statesman, is this story concerning British Petroleum by reporter Lisa Demer and printed in the mcClatchy Newspapers:   Is it time to consider barring BP from federal oil leases?

The federal government should consider barring oil giant BP from drilling on federal land or holding onto its existing leases, says a recently retired federal attorney who spent years dogging BP’s operations in Alaska.

“There comes a point in time where we say enough is enough,” said Jeanne Pascal, who worked for 18 years as a Seattle-based attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency. “Because BP has definitely turned into a major serial environmental criminal.”

Pascal said that BP has been convicted of environmental violations three times since 2000 – twice in Alaska – and that the April 20 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that sparked what President Barack Obama calls the biggest environmental disaster in the nation’s history fits a pattern of behavior. She said BP got off too easy when it was allowed to plead guilty in 2007 to a misdemeanor for a record North Slope spill in 2006. No individual was charged.

Scott West agrees. He was the EPA special agent in charge of the criminal investigation division in Seattle that investigated BP Alaska’s operations.

“The people who are making the decisions playing fast and loose on that (Gulf) rig – ‘Hurry up, we are over time, we are over budget, let’s take the shortcut’ – if they’d seen some of their peers go to jail for those kinds of decisions, maybe they would have said, ‘You know, my bonus this year just isn’t worth it,’” West said, referring to congressional allegations that BP cut corners to save money on the Deepwater Horizon project.

Both West and Pascal have been speaking out publicly since their retirements.

“BP keeps saying that they follow safety protocols and safety is their goal and health is their goal and the environment is their goal,” Pascal said. “But look at their record.”

That record includes:

-A felony conviction in 2000 for failing to report immediately illegal dumping of hazardous waste by a contractor at its Endicott oil field in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea. The punishment: Five years’ probation, $7 million in fines and civil penalties and another $15 million to create an environmental management system.

-A misdemeanor conviction in 2007 stemming from the biggest oil spill ever on Alaska’s North Slope. In March 2006, a BP worker discovered crude leaking from a corroded Prudhoe Bay transit pipeline – 200,000 gallons in all. BP, which admitted that its system for monitoring and preventing corrosion was inadequate, was put on three more years’ probation and ordered to pay $20 million in fines and penalties.

-A felony conviction last year for a 2005 Texas City, Texas, refinery explosion that killed 15 people, injured another 170 and devastated a community. BP Products North America Inc. was fined $50 million and put on three years’ probation.

Pascal said there were other ruptures, explosions and near misses over the years, plus a propane price-fixing case in the Midwest that BP settled with a deferred prosecution.

West said he thinks that BP made a conscious decision not to invest in aging infrastructure for North Slope fields with declining oil production.

“We kept hearing a phrase called ‘operate to failure,’” – a reference West said meant that critical systems and equipment were operated until they broke down instead of maintained.

The federal investigators in the Texas City case were “finding the exact same patterns of neglecting worker safety and environmental concerns to save a few dollars,” West said. “That, of course, indicated to us that it was corporate-wide. It wasn’t just isolated to a particular operating unit.”

BP insists that it puts safety first and is following up on what it promised to do after the 2006 Alaska spill.

“As we said at the time, BP holds its environmental responsibility as a core corporate value,” BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said in an e-mailed response to questions. “We made, and continue to make, significant improvements in our integrity management programs.”

Before she retired in March, Pascal specialized in debarment, a process in which companies are prohibited from federal contracts because of environmental crimes or performance issues. It’s time-consuming, complex and even when successful, might not prevent a company from operating, Pascal said.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, BP was debarred in 2008 as a result of the 2007 Alaska conviction, but the action simply meant that it couldn’t get any new federal contracts at Prudhoe Bay. It didn’t lose its state-issued leases or its ability to operate the field. The only contracts that might be affected relate to its sales of fuel to the military, and a different BP company refines the oil and sells the fuel.

“So it did not have any (significant) impact on its business,” Pascal said of the 2008 EPA debarment action.

Because of the Gulf spill, the federal agencies involved with BP – the EPA; the Interior Department, which oversees federal drilling leases; and the Defense Department, which buys the fuel – need to evaluate whether a more sweeping debarment is in order, she said.

Targeting the company’s executives is another possible way to make a tougher legal point, Pascal and West argue.

West said the investigation into BP’s 2006 spill at Prudhoe was at first aimed at bringing felony charges against corporate executives on the theory that they knew pipes were dangerously corroded and didn’t act.

That position seemed to be supported by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Steward in a June 12, 2007, e-mail in which she said that pledges from BP officials that, “They had changed their attitude of aggressive cost cutting in 2005 and that they were changing how they did things” weren’t enough to avoid prosecution.

West is still angry that two months later prosecutors decided to allow BP to plead to a misdemeanor.

“Here we had a case where we had the potential to go way high. Even to the London headquarters of BP … and we’re settling for a corporate misdemeanor?” said West, who said his team had only begun to examine 62 million pages of documents that BP provided.

U.S. Attorney for Alaska Karen Loeffler, who headed the office’s criminal division at the time, defended the decision. “We knew everything that we were going to be able to prove,” she said. The $20 million fine, she said, “sent a very strong message.”

Pascal and West said that for a company the size of BP, whose quarterly profits are measured in the billions of dollars, the fine was minuscule.

“To me the message has been given to BP loud and clear,” West said. “You are protected. You are beyond prosecution.”

 http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/26/v-fullstory/1702386/is-it-time-to-consider-barring.html#ixzz0sCHLDzyN

And finally, as we sample stories and editorials concerning the oil spill, comes this editorial from the Washington Post, urging us to put the spill into a larger context of a national energy policy: “Obama’s TV speech undersells how energy policy must change”

FROM THE Oval Office [...] President Obama argued that the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico underscores the need for America to transition from fossil fuels. But even as he attempted to rally Americans by invoking heroic American achievement in World War II and in space, the president didn’t talk much about what could make such a transition happen.

The answer is that oil, gas and coal have to become more expensive to spur research into cleaner energy and encourage efficiency and switching. This could be achieved with a gradually rising tax on fossil fuels or a “cap-and-trade” system that makes utilities and others pay to pollute. The government could rebate most of the proceeds directly to Americans and invest the rest in energy research and transition assistance. When a price is placed on burning dirty fuels, market forces will drive the sort of transition Mr. Obama proposes.

The president knows this. In other speeches before and after the gulf spill, he has argued for it. Yet on Tuesday he only hinted at this and seemed to suggest he’d be open to energy legislation that doesn’t raise the price of carbon.

For that, Republicans bear considerable blame. To be consistent with both science and their philosophy, they should favor a market-based approach. Most on the national stage instead prefer irresponsibly to pillory the idea as a “job-killing national energy tax”; they propose command-and-control energy programs that they think might be more popular. Democrats with ties to coal or manufacturing interests meanwhile dilute the policy, demand payoffs to support it or shortsightedly oppose it. Legislators in both parties champion more federal spending for their favored technologies.

But the harsh political climate is all the more reason why presidential leadership is essential. Passing comprehensive climate legislation isn’t likely to be easier in the next Congress. As the president begins to push on crafting a compromise energy proposal next week, he’ll have to be more forthright on what true change will require.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/16/AR2010061604665.html?sub=AR

Plastiki and the High Seas

Deep into the southern hemisphere is the Plastiki, the  catamaran constructed from recycled plastic bottles that is wending its way to Sydney, Australia.  At noon,  today, July 6,  in the northstate, it was 6 am tomorrow in the South Pacific, and the Plastiki was nearing Sydney at -22 degrees latitude, 116 degrees longitude.  The temperature was 55 degrees, and the Plastiki was proceeding at zero knots, suggesting the winds were pretty flat.  They’ve been at sea now for 109 days and have logged 6944 nautical miles.

Listeners may recall that we have conducted two interviews with Jo Royle, the skipper of the Plastiki, and we are hoping to have a conversation with her after the Plastiki lands in Sydney in a few days.

Meanwhile, we have been following her blog and want to read a couple of interesting entries–this one about a torn sail, written just a few days ago:

Just as the night really fell in; just as the off watch had finally drifted off to sleep, which is always tricky straight after dinner; just as I had made Mat and Max a yummy hot chocolate, the treasured last jar – bang!

‘Why is the sail flapping?’ Max said immediately, as I asked Mr T to come and help me. The head sail had ripped along one of the seams two-thirds of the way up, leaving us with a ‘flying jib’, flapping in the air.

It was fairly windy with a two meter swell running through, so Max bore down wind to ease the pressure in the sail, as well as limiting the waves over the heads of T and I on the foredeck.

On a normal boat bringing down a ripped sail and swapping it out for another one would not be such a big deal – but the Plastiki keeps us hot on our toes as she will only allow a couple of minutes without flying a head sail before she rounds up into the wind and tacks. Then tacking back is such a big deal. On the way from San Fran to Xmas [Island] it once took us 5 hours to gybe the boat back round! [...]

Last night with Max on the helm – [several of us] ran around preparing the hoist of the new sail before dropping the one now flying in two pieces. The bows are so narrow it is tricky working two sails at a time up there. Smooth manoeuvres and we were off sailing again in no time.

An afternoon of stitching today, and we are now ready in case the same thing happens again.

 Jo Royle’s blog continues the morning after the sail replacement episode:

This morning, as I was cooking up some breakfast – using last night’s left-over rice, to make rice cakes, egg and Bill’s yummy dried Kale. As I was about to serve up, I decided that a sprinkle of cheese on top would do just the job. On reaching into the jars cupboard underneath one of the saloon benches, I was greeted by a whole host of uninvited passengers. Various species of maggots, the whole story of the evolution of maggots all hosted in one cupboard. Sharing the same 20 by 15 foot cabin space as the seven of us.

Ooowwwwwooooo.

I quickly forgot about the cheese, closed the cupboard and served breakfast before sharing the treat with everyone.

We then got to work, boiling pans and pans of hot water, lifting every jar (about 100), out of the cupboard and on deck into the process line of the various buckets to be cleaned. First step to be immersed in boiling hot soapy water, next to be wiped, then scrubbed around the rims with a tooth brush. They were clingy little critters.

One of the jars of beef stew had smashed- there was still some chunks of meat in it, with the remainder of the sauce all over the jars below. My body shivers as I think about reaching in for the broken jar, crawly things all over it!!!

At watch change over Vern stepped in to save the day. He proceeded to spend about three hours ensuring every maggot went swimming. He then cooked dinner!

A tired bird joined us for dinner tonight, circling the boat for about half an hour, before successfully landing on the tri attic, putting any trapeze artists in the cirque de soli to shame.

We’ve posted the link to Jo Royle’s blog on our website, and you can learn more about the voyage at the http://www.plastiki.com.

And Some Good News About Ink Cartridges

Lemery Reyes at Newsdesk, an Australian website, writes that:

 An Australian national park just got a little more green: it built a new bike pathway with recycled printer cartridges.

The Simpsons Gap Bicycle Path stretches 10.5 miles inside the West MacDonnell National Park. The pathway was made with recycled plastics and printer cartridges. The national park is located in the central part of Australia, and is over 1,200 miles away from Melbourne.

According to the Northern Territory government, the project was completed by local contractors for $330,000 and is part of a tourism stimulus package.

“Here at Simpson’s Gap repairs and upgrades to the Bike Path Bridge are now complete, leaving us a safer bridge for riders with a great natural aesthetic,” said Parks and Wildlife Minister Karl Hampton. “In keeping with our government’s commitment to sustainable development, the bridge is made from recycled plastic decking, saving landfill, trees and ensuring a longer life with less maintenance.”

 “Every year more than 120,000 people visit the magnificent West MacDonnell National Park and by investing in our parks we are able to ensure visitors have a unique experience while we protect our environment.”

According to the Australian National University, over 80 percent of used toner cartridges are thrown in landfills. They also report that Australians throw away 18 million cartridges every year. Currently, there is a program called “Cartridges 4 Planet Ark” in Australia. The organization that initiated the recycling program, Planet Ark, released a research study in April about the continent’s recycling habits.

 “The research found more than 90 percent of Australians correctly dispose of everyday household recyclables but when it comes to recycling e-waste (electronic waste) such as printer cartridges, almost 50 percent of people are getting it wrong,” said Planet Ark’s Campaigns Manager, Brad Gray. “It’s really encouraging that most Australians recycle their paper and plastic packaging but when it comes to e-waste recycling we still have a long way to go.”

“Printer cartridges are complex items which are unable to be recycled alongside everyday household waste,” added Gray. “When we put the wrong items in a household recycling bin, we contaminate the entire contents of the bin and reduce the effectiveness of the whole recycling process.”

According to Planet Ark, they can also process and recycle cartridges. Other cartridges are returned to the original equipment manufacturer to process or recycle at a different location. The other materials kept are used to make aluminum cans or park benches.

“Many of the components that make up a printer cartridge, such as steel, plastic and ink, are reused to make new resources such as fridges, park benches, rulers, pens and more,” reported Planet Ark.

 http://newsdesk.org/2010/06/recycled-ink-cartridges-used-for-bike-pathway/

 Next Week on EcotopiaWe’ll be interviewing Dr. Kerry Crofton, who has written a new book about cell phone radiation dangers.  She’ll talk with us about the research that demonstrates those dangers, how to recognize symptoms of radiation effects, and how to protect yourself and your family from them.  She’ll be talking with us from British Columbia via a land line, not a cellphone!

Tonight we will be looking a subject that has generated a good deal of controversy: Whether or not cell phones (and other devices that emit electromagnetic radiation) are harmful to your health. Our guest is Dr. Kerry Crofton, who is a health care specialist and who has published a new book called Wireless Radiation Rescue: safeguarding your family from the risks of electro-pollution

Listen to the program.

Background on ElectroPollution This is a highly controversial topic, and it’s clear that not all the evidence is in on the topic. We’ll ask our guest, Dr. Kerry Crofton, to summarize some of that evidence for us.

Meanwhile, close to home, just last week, the City of San Francisco posted a new ordinance requiring stores to post levels of cell phone radiation. Here’s an article from the Washington Post by Cecilia Kang:

San Francisco [has become] the first U.S. jurisdiction to respond to increased concerns over possible links between cellphone use and cancer, adopting a city ordinance requiring retailers to post the radiation levels of mobile phones.

In a 10-to-1 vote, the city’s board of supervisors passed an ordinance that would require stores to post the specific absorption rates (SAR) of phones. Those rates are the levels at which radio frequencies penetrate body tissue. Mayor Gavin Newsom co-sponsored the measure and is expected to sign off on the ordinance to make it official.San Francisco’s action casts new attention on the potential link between cellphone use and cancer and other illnesses caused by the radiation emitted from phones. The issue hasn’t gained as much attention in the United States as it has overseas, where Israel, Great Britain, France and Germany are among a growing number of countries that have begun warning cellphones users of potential risks those devices pose for long-term users and children.

 The cellphone industry, meanwhile, has successfully fought similar legislation in the California legislature. Its trade groups CTIA and TechAmerica also argued against a bill in Maine this year that would require Maine retailers to brandish warning labels of the effects cellphone radiation might have on children. Both bills were defeated, and the industry argued that both would have caused confusion and gone against some scientific studies that don’t show a link between cellphone use and cancer.But there has also been a growing body of research that shows a potential connection between long-term cellphone use and brain tumors. And the risks are greater for children, according to some scientists who participated in a 13-nation long-term study on cellphone use and cancer called Interphone. Kang quotes Representative Edward Markeyt of Massachusetts, who said:

 “It is my hope that [the] vote in San Francisco will spur more research into the possible health effects of radiation emitted by mobile phones, particularly with respect to potential effects on children.” Markey [is former] chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee. Markey had conducted hearings in the early 1990s into the health impact of cellphones. “No single study is conclusive, and ongoing research is needed to add to the body of knowledge on this important subject. I look forward to following the implementation of the San Francisco ordinance and continuing the work I began in the 1990s when I was chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee, to encourage more scientific studies that advance our understanding in this vital area.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/06/san_francisco_requires_stores.html?hpid=moreheadlines

The Cell Phone industry quickly responded to the San Francisco ordinance. We quote from an article by Kent German in CNET:

Industry groups naturally tend to protect their own, and after playing with San Francisco for several years the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) is now taking its ball and going home.

On Tuesday, the association said in a statement that it would no longer hold its autumn trade show in San Francisco after this year’s event in October. CTIA, which represents the wireless industry in the United States, is not happy that the city’s Board of Supervisors recently voted to require cell phone manufacturers [...] to display the specific absorption rate [...] for each handset sold.

Kent German quotes a statement from CITA:

 “Rather than inform, the ordinance will potentially mislead consumers with point of sale requirements suggesting that some phones are ’safer’ than others based on radiofrequency emissions,” the statement said. “In fact, all phones sold legally in the U.S. must comply with the Federal Communications Commission’s safety standards for RF emissions. According to the FCC, all such compliant phones are safe phones as measured by these standards.”

But, Kent German points out:

 It’s ironic that in the process of accusing San Francisco of oversimplifying the issue, CTIA is doing the exact same thing. Though the group is correct that all phones sold in the United States must conform to FCC standards a[n emission rate] of 1.6 watts per kilogram or lower), there is still no scientific consensus that cell phone radiofrequency is or is not harmful. That’s a fact CTIA should face, whether it likes it or not.

 Even the long-awaited Interphone study, which the cell phone industry partially funded, was largely inconclusive. “Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones,” the study said. “There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation.”

In the lack of scientific evidence CNET has always encouraged readers to stay informed about cell phone radiation and make decisions based on their comfort level. If you are concerned, we offer several recommendations, one of which is choosing a phone with a lower SAR (see CNET’s cell phone radiation charts for more information).

We’ve posted a link to CNET’s cell phone radiation charts on our own website, ecotopiakzfr.net.

http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20008999-85.htmlell phones and brain tumors.  David Gutierrez writes:

Meanwhile, Natural News reports that evidence is mounting between

A growing body of evidence, dating back to the 1960s, suggests that brain tumors may be only one of the many health problems produced by our new wireless society will produce.

Cell-phone technology “could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol,” warned the European Union’s environmental watchdog agency in 2007.

The most ambitious attempt to catalogue the health risks of cell phones to date is the industry-funded Interphone study, carried out by researchers from 13 different countries (not including the United States). Although the study has been criticized for selecting data in a way designed to play down the risks of cell phone use, it continues to turn up alarming findings nonetheless. Among the findings so far are a 40 percent increase in brain tumor risk among adults who use a cell phone for 10 years (especially on the side of the head where the phone is held); a 300 percent increased risk of acoustic nerve tumors; and an increased risk of tumors of the parotid gland. The risk of a brain tumor increases by 400 percent in people who start using a cell phone before the age of 20.

The report in Natural News continues:

Other studies, mostly out of Europe, have linked mobile phone and personal digital assistant (PDA) use to DNA damage, sperm death, and brain damage including early-onset dementia. These findings regularly make big news in the international press, but are by and large played down in U.S. media.

The United States has a long history of hostility toward the claim that the microwave radiation used by microwave ovens, cell phones, cell phone towers and wireless internet (Wi-Fi) can be harmful to human health. U.S. law prohibits challenging the placement of cell phone towers on health grounds, and an industry group (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is highly influential in setting exposure standards.

The first research on the risks of microwave radiation was actually uncovered by a U.S. researcher, Allan Frey, in the 1960s. Frey discovered that “nonionizing” electromagnetic radiation — previously thought to be harmless — could still produce biological effects. For example, radar waves can produce “sound” even in the absence of actual sound waves by interfering with the brain’s own electromagnetic signals. Frey found that microwaves could damage the organs of lab animals, even stopping their hearts completely. [...]

Modern research supports these early findings, with 75 percent of independently funded studies showing health risks from cell phone radiation (in contrast with only 25 percent of industry funded studies). Researchers have also documented dramatic rises in the rate of numerous health problems immediately following the introduction of widespread Wi-Fi and cell phone networks across Europe.

Such concerns have led European governments to consider banning Wi-Fi in government facilities, and to the Austrian Medical Association’s call for a ban on Wi-Fi in schools. The national library of France has already removed all Wi-Fi connections due to health concerns.[...]

http://www.naturalnews.com/029036_cell_phones_brain_tumors.html

Our Discussion with Kerry Crofton

Dr. Kerry Crofton, is author of a new book called Wireless Radiation Rescue: safeguarding your family from the risks of electro-pollution.

Part I: What’s the problem?

• Let’s start with your background. You’re a health care professional and have worked in a number of areas. But about five years ago, you started researching the dangers of electromagnetic radiation from electronic devices. Please tell us about that journey.
• What do you see as the dangers? What risk levels are we talking about? (Let’s talk about the risks for, say:

                   –a teenager addicted to cellphoning and texting.
                   –an office internet addict using wireless.
                   –just plain folks who use cell phones, wireless, etc., but not to “excess”

• What other devices have you studied. (Ans:  PDAs, headsets, cordless phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, fluorescent lights, electric/hybrid cars and more.)
• As you know, the research data on this topic have been debated (especially by the cell phone industry), and just about everything we’ve seen on the topic suggests that “the evidence is still coming in.” What evidence/data will be required to convince people that there is a danger? Is such research under way? Who is conducting and paying for it?
• Last week you were in San Francisco, which has just passed an ordinance requiring stores to post cell phone radiation levels. What’s your view of the value of this ordinance (or is it just one more example of SF overreacting to perceived problems)?

Part II: Symptoms and Solutions

• Please tell us more about the organization publishing your book, Radiation Rescue.
• One section of your book is called “Signs and Symptoms.” How can we know if we are being affected by electronic radiation? Are there warning signs that (in particular) parents can look for? (How do you distinguish EMF problems from, say, normal teenage hyperactivity and totally normal “ADD”?)
• You argue that the government has been slow to recognize this problem and slower to institute regulations that would help solve it. What are the current regulations? (How do they differ from what the European Union has already instituted?) What regulations need to be in force? Is anybody in congress working to create these regulations?
• What precautions/procedures should people take to protect themselves and their children, especially, given that electronic gizmos are obviously here to stay?
• How can concerned listeners take action? Whom can they contact (especially legislators)? Where can they learn more?
• What other projects do you have under way with Radiation Rescue?
• What’s your next writing project?

Our guest has been Dr. Kerry Crofton, author of Wireless Radiation Rescue: safeguarding your family from the risks of electro-pollution. You can learn more about the issue and order a copy of the book at: http://www.radiationrescue.org/

Bibliography (supplied by Kerry Crofton)

Scientific Evidence of Harm — key studies cited by the UK neuroscientist Dr. Sarah Starkey:

Aitken R. J., Bennetts L.E., Sawyer D., Wikiendt A. M. and King B. V., 2005, Impact of radio frequency electromagnetic radiation on DNA integrity in the male germline, Int J Androl, 28(3), 171-179.

Arendt J., Labib M. H., Bojkowski C., Hanson S. and Marks V., 1989, Rapid decrease in melatonin production during successful treatment of delayed puberty, Lancet 1(8650), 1326.

Bio-Initiative Report, 2007, A Rationale for a biologically-based public exposure standard for electromagnetic fields (ELF and RF), http://www.bioinitiative.org/index.htm (accessed August 2008).

Burch J. B., Reif J. S., Noonan C. W., Ichinose T., Bachand A. M., Koleber T. L. and Yost M. G., 2002, Melatonin metabolite excretion among cellular telephone users, International Journal of Radiation Biology 78(11), 1029-1036.

Divan H. A., Kheifets L., Obel C. and Olsen J., 2008, Prenatal and postnatal exposure to cell phone use and behavioural problems in children, Epidemiology 19(4), 523-529.

Johansson, O., 2006, Electrohypersensitivity: Observations in the human skin of a physical impairment, p.107-117, Proceedings of the International Workshop on EMF Hypersensitivity, Prague, 2004, https://www.who.int/peh-emf/publications/reports/EHS_Proceedings_June2006.pdf (accessed August ‘08).

Erogul O., Oztas E., Yildirim I., Kir T., Aydur E., Komesli G., Irkilata H. C., Irmak M. K. and Peker A. F., 2006, Effects of electromagnetic radiation from a cellular phone on human sperm motility: an in vitro study, Arch Med Res 37(7), 840-843.

Huber R., Schuderer J., Graf T., Jatz K., Borbaly A. A., Kuster N. and Achermann P., 2003, Radio frequency electromagnetic field exposure in humans: Estimation of SAR distribution in the brain, effects on sleep and heart rate, Bioelectromagnetics 24(4), 262-267.
Lai, H., 2007, Evidence for effects on neurology and behaviour, Bio-Initiative Report http://www.bioinitiative.org/index.htm (accessed August ‘08).

Landgrebe M., Hauser S., Langguth B., Frick U., Hajak G. and Eichhammer P., 2007, Altered cortical excitability in subjectively electrosensitive patients: results of a pilot study, J. Psychosom Res., 62(3), 283-288.

Lopez-Martin E., Relova-Quinteiro J. L., Gallego-Gomez R., Peleteiro-Fernandez M., Jorge-Barreiro F. J. and Ares-Pena F. J., 2006, GSM radiation triggers seizures and increases cerebral c-fos positivity in rats pretreated with subconvulsive doses of picrotoxin, Neuroscience Letters 398, 139-144.
Maachi M. M., and Bruce J. N., 2004, Human pineal physiology and functional significance of melatonin, Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology 25, 177-195.

Maby E., Le Bouquin R. and Faucon G., 2006, Short-term effects of GSM mobile phones on spectral components of the human electroencephalogram, Proceedings of the 28th IEEE EMBS Annual International Conference 1, 3751-3754.

Maier R., Greter S.-E. and Maier N., 2004, Effects of pulsed electromagnetic fields on cognitive processes – a pilot study on pulsed field interference with cognitive regeneration, Acta Neurol Scand 110, 46-52.

Murcia Garcia J., Munoz Hoyos A., Molina Carballo A., Fernandez Garcia J. M., Narbona Lopezet E. and Fernandez J. U., 2002, Puberty and melatonin, An Esp Pediatr 57(2), 121-126.

Nittby H., Grafstram G., Tian D. P., Malmgren L., Brun A., Persson B. R., Salford L. G., Eberhardt J., 2008, Cognitive impairment in rats after long-term exposure to GSM-900 mobile phone radiation, Bioelectromagnetics 29(3), 219-232.

Pyrpasopoulou A., Kotoula V., Cheva A., Hytiroglou P., Nikolakaki E., Magras I. N., Xenos T.D., Tsiboukis T. D. and Karkavelas G., 2004, Bone morphogenetic protein expression in newborn rat kidneys after prenatal exposure to radiofrequency radiation, Bioelectromagnetics 25(3), 216-227.

Stewart Report, 2000, Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, http://www.iegmp.org.uk/report/index.htm (accessed August ‘08).

Vecchio F., Babiloni C., Ferreri F., Curcio G., Fini R., Del Percio C. and Rossini P. M., 2007, Mobile phone emission modulates interhemispheric functional coupling of EEG alpha rhythms, European Journal of Neuroscience 25, 1908-1913. 

Waldhauser F., Boepple P. A., Schemper M., Mansfield M. J. and Crowley Jr W. F., 1981, Serum melatonin in central precocious puberty is lower than in age-matched prepubertal children, J. Clin Endocrimol. Metab. 73, 793-796.

Wdowiak A., Wdowiak L. and Wiktor H., 2007, Evaluation of the effect of using mobile phones on male fertility, Ann Agric Environ Med 14, 169-172.
Wiart J., Hadjem A., Wong M. F., Bloch I., 2008, Analysis of RF exposure in the head tissues of children and adults, Phys Med Biol 53(13), 3681-3695.

WHO (World Health Organisation), 2006, Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity, Proceedings of the International Workshop on EMF Hypersensitivity, Prague, 2004, https://www.who.int/peh-emf/publications/reports/EHS_Proceedings_June2006.pdf

Playlist for Ecotopia #93: Electromagnetic Pollution

Technology        4:03        Chorus - Silly Classical Songs & Disney Characters
        Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Laws Of Motion        6:40        The Tiptons Sax Quartet
        Laws Of Motion
Cell Phones Ringing (In The Pockets Of The Dead)        5:14        Willie Nile
        Streets of New York
Cell Phones        3:53        Fig.Mutant
        Fight or Die
Health        2:50        Electric Guitars
        Health
Weave Me the Sunshine        4:28        Peter, Paul And Mary
        The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary
Ayusha Sukta - For Health and Long Life        8:31        Inner Splendor Meditation
Music and Yoga Project
        Vedic Mantras for Peace, Health and Protection - With Vedmurti Shri
Narayan Joshi and Vedmurti Shri Dandage Gurugi
Industrial Disease        5:50        Dire Straits
        Love Over Gold