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Overview
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction–the figurative midnight–and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences and nanotechnology that could inflict irrevocable harm.
For four decades, the United States’ and the Soviet Union’s overt hostility coupled with their enormous nuclear arsenals defined the nuclear threat. The equation for nuclear holocaust was simple: Heightened tensions between the two jittery superpowers would lead to an all-out nuclear exchange. Today, the potential for an accidental or inadvertent nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia remains, with both countries anachronistically maintaining more than 1,000 warheads on high alert, ready to launch within tens of minutes. But a deliberate attack by Russia or the United States on the other is unthinkable.Unfortunately, however, the possibility of a nuclear exchange between countries remains. In 1999 and again in 2001, India and Pakistan threatened each other with nuclear arms. And despite past successes in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons to countries around the world, nuclear proliferation seems to present a great danger today, with countries such as North Korea and Iran actively pursuing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. Nuclear terrorism also poses a new risk, as fissile materials remain unsecured in many parts of the world, making them more available to groups that seek destructive means.
Fossil-fuel technologies such as coal-burning plants powered the industrial revolution, bringing unparalleled economic prosperity to many parts of the world. In the 1950s, however, scientists began measuring year-to-year changes in the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that they could relate to fossil fuel combustion, and they began to develop the implications for Earth’s temperature and for climate change.Fifty years later, leading scientists agree that carbon-burning technologies continue to make Earth warmer at an unprecedented rate. They warn that the consequences could drastically alter both the planet and human life. Already, ice packs in Greenland are rapidly disappearing, which, in turn, threatens the existence of hundreds of species such as polar bears and the traditions of whole societies such as the Inuit. The future looks even bleaker, as scientists continue to observe cascading effects on Earth’s complex ecosystems.
Advances in genetics and biology over the last five decades have inspired a host of new possibilities–both positive and troubling. With greater understanding of genetic material and of how physiological systems interact, biologists can fight disease better and improve overall human health. But this knowledge may also afford opportunities to program organisms to do our bidding for malign purposes by manipulating brain functions, compromising bioregulation, and even by altering our reproductive capabilities. Complicating matters further, more groups and more individuals possess these high-consequence technologies than in the past–and more and more people will acquire them in the future. The emergence of nanotechnology–manufacturing at the molecular or atomic level–presents similar concerns, especially if coupled with chemical and biological weapons, explosives, or missiles. Such combinations could result in highly destructive missiles the size of an insect and microscopic delivery systems for dangerous pathogens.Source: http://www.thebulletin.org/minutes-to-midnight/
Superfund is both an actual fund and a shorthand term for the list of America’s nastiest toxic waste sites. One in two Americans lives within ten miles of a Superfund site. Currently, there are about 1,300 sites on the list, although it fluctuates. New Jersey has the most Superfund sites, with over a hundred. Nevada and the District of Columbia have one apiece. Here’s a closer look at some of the notable ones.
Love Canal
Love Canal is the granddaddy of Superfund sites. It started out as a gleam in the eye of a developer named William Love. In 1892, Love proposed a seven-mile canal around Niagara Falls. Like any good developer, he named the project after himself.
Love had to abandon his plan after digging only one mile of the canal. Locals swam and fished in the canal while chemical manufacturers used it as a landfill. In 1953, with the canal full of toxic waste, it was capped. But later developers ignored warnings and eventually built houses, schools and playing fields over the abandoned canal. Predictably, residents started getting sick, and in 1978, Love Canal was declared the first federal disaster area created by a man-made disaster. The government ultimately bought out the homes of 278 families.
Spurred by Love Canal, Congress levied a special tax on oil and chemical companies to clean up such sites. It raised $1.8 billion—plenty, they assumed, to clean up all the toxic waste in the country. But as more and more toxic sites were identified—at one point, 30,000 were nominated—and as Love Canal recedes into memory, funds have dwindled.
Picher, Oklahoma
One present-day Love Canal is in Picher, Oklahoma, which was once a boomtown for mining lead and zinc. Pollution has killed off many of the trees, and huge piles of mine debris create a stark, lunar landscape in the Oklahoma countryside. With the entire town on the verge of collapse due to unstable mineshafts, Uncle Sam has offered to buy out the homes of all Picher’s residents. Still, some are staying out of loyalty to their hometown. [Photo courtesy of Red Fork State of Mind.]
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor contains a Superfund site. Actually, it contains 30 hazardous waste sites where stuff has been dumped or spilled over the years: mercury-contaminated sediments dredged from the harbor, waste oil, leaking landfills, you name it.
Anniston, Alabama
Though New Jersey has the most Superfund sites, the most polluted place in the nation may be Anniston, Alabama, where Monsanto ran a huge chemical manufacturing plant. The company paid out $700 million to residents in 2003.
The Cleanup
What does it take to clean up a Superfund site? It involves removing a lot of dirt—contaminated dirt, that is. It’s often trickier than it sounds, though. Sometimes the dirt you have to remove is at the bottom of a river, for instance. That’s the case at the Kalamazoo River Superfund site in Michigan. The project has a cool website where you can look at pictures of the work in progress.
If you think those yellow haz-mat suits are very fashion forward, then working at a Superfund site might be a perfect job for you. The EPA compiled a photograph archive of some of the chicest rubber suits ever, modeled at some world-class dumps. There’s also a picture of a fish with a tumor (above).
To find sites near you by zip code, use the Pollution Locator.
The Canadian Press
Huntingdon, Que. — Heavy rains and unseasonably warm weather caused water levels to rise in several Quebec rivers on Tuesday, sparking fears of widespread flooding and evacuations. The rain forced the closure of some roads southwest of Montreal.
Oxford Analytica 04.13.07, 6:00 AM ET
Working Group Two of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on April 6 released its Summary for Policymakers (SPM-2), which details observed effects of climate change and likely future effects on society and ecosystems. SPM-2 concludes that continued climate change probably will have an increasingly negative impact.
The United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization formed the IPCC in 1988. Its mandate was to synthesize current understanding of climate change and its relationship to society.
The IPCC is divided into three Working Groups:
–Working Group One reports on the physical science of climate change.
–Working Group Two assesses the effects of climate change and options for adapting to it.
–Working Group Three examines options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and other mitigation strategies.
SPM-2 describes current knowledge about observed effects of climate change:
–It finds that regional climate changes, and temperature increases, are affecting all continents and most ocean areas.
–It argues that human-caused warming has “likely … had a discernible influence” on physical and biological systems.
IPCC notes that:
–89% of observed changes within 29,000 data sets are consistent with the direction of change expected as a response to warming; and
–there is strong consistency between regions of significant warming and locations of observed systemic changes.
Other effects of climate changes are emerging but are harder to identify because of human adaptation. Here, the IPCC notes with “medium confidence” that observed changes seem to have affected:
–agricultural and forestry management at northern hemisphere higher latitudes;
–human health; and
–human activities in the Arctic and lower-elevation alpine areas.
SPM-2 describes expected future effects, and how these can be assessed:
– Freshwater resources. By 2050, annual average river run-off and water availability are projected to increase by 10% to 40% at high latitudes and in wet tropical areas, and decrease by 10% 30% over dry regions at mid-latitudes and in the dry tropics.
– Ecosystems. The report argues that climate change will add to an “unprecedented combination” of disturbances that will stress many ecosystems “beyond their resilience.”
– Food, fiber and forest products. Crop productivity is projected to increase slightly at mid to high latitudes, after which it will probably fall. At lower latitudes, crop productivity is projected to decrease even for small local temperature increases. Similarly, timber productivity might rise modestly in the short to medium term. Regional changes in distribution and production of fish species are expected.
– Coastal systems. Coastal systems and low-lying areas will be exposed to coastal erosion, flooding, changes in storms and sea-level rise.
– Industry, settlement and society. Overall costs and benefits of climate change will vary, but net effects will tend to be more negative the larger the change in climate.
– Health. Projected climate change-related exposures are likely to affect the health of millions of people.
The report adds that more specific information has become available about regionally specific effects. It notes that major climate events could cause “very large” disruptions, especially after 2100.
SPM-2 discusses current knowledge about how people are responding to climate change, and what might be done in future:
–The IPCC argues that some adaptation will be necessary, probably more than would happen independently.
–The development pathway for many countries thus becomes essential to reducing future vulnerabilities.
Reducing emissions will help, but the summary argues that drawing from a portfolio of measures can help diminish risks. SPM-2 concludes that the effects of future climate change will be mixed–but, in aggregate, negative–and will get worse in absence of policy measures for adaptation or mitigation.
SPM-2 provides a relatively comprehensive list of observed climate change effects, as well as effects that may be expected. Climate change will affect each region and resource sector differently. As such, governments and private-sector actors will need to assess their risk exposures and strategies for managing expected changes. The report provides an overview of risk factors that makes a case for policy to help actors adapt to climate change; echoes earlier findings; and provides a basis for initial stages of strategic planning for climate change risk management.
To read an extended version of this article, log on to Oxford Analytica’s Web site.
Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on a network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading universities and research institutions around the world. For more information, please visit www.oxan.com. To find out how to subscribe to the firm’s Daily Brief Service, click here.
Paul R. Epstein and Evan Mills 11.16.05, 9:00 AM ET
Public attention has focused on the devastating aftermath and global dimensions of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, but climate change is already having a less conspicuous, but just as dangerous, impact on humans and the natural systems upon which we depend. Efficient use of energy coupled with alternative sources can help stabilize the climate.
Of immediate concern are the implications for human health. For example, asthma rates have quadrupled in the U.S. since 1980. Recent research reveals that rising carbon dioxide–itself, the driver of photosynthesis–stimulates ragweed and some flowering trees to produce an inordinate amount of pollen. Some soil fungi produce many more spores when grown under conditions of elevated CO2. These “aeroallergens” are carried deep inside our lungs by diesel particles common in urban areas. This unwelcome synergy may be contributing to acute and chronic lung disease. And this factor will grow stronger in a world with increasing levels of CO2.
Another cause of respiratory disease: Dust clouds emanating from Africa’s expanding deserts. Drought in Africa exacerbates this factor, and the clouds are propelled across the Atlantic Ocean by the pressure contrasts between warmer, saltier tropical seas and cooler, fresher water from Arctic and Greenland ice melting into the North Atlantic. The particles (and microbes) in these dust clouds then settle into the lungs of children in Florida and on Caribbean islands in which asthma rates have risen some twentyfold in the past several decades. A rise in wildfires with climate-change-exacerbated droughts are also projected to adversely affect respiratory health.
Some diseases, such as West Nile virus, threaten birds and occasionally jump to humans. West Nile is amplified in spring droughts (as the mosquitoes breed in foul, shallow drops of water that remain in city drains). If birds of prey die in large numbers, their control of rodents is weakened; and rodents carry Lyme-infected ticks and many viruses. Meanwhile, warming is projected to expand the range of ticks that carry Lyme disease as well as malaria-bearing mosquitoes and is projected to do so even more in a warmer regime.
Finally, food and water security are also threatened from changes in Earth’s climate. Crops in wealthy and poor countries alike face the growing threats of less predictable and more extreme weather, depleted soils, disease and disappearing pollinators and predators of pests. One fungal disease, soybean rust–which appears to have been carried into the U.S. on the wings of Hurricane Ivan in 2004–alighted in 11 states, and warm, wet weather will hasten its spread. Water, with stores already overdrawn and underfed in many regions (including the southwest U.S.), will become scarcer and more contaminated in many areas, as alpine glaciers disappear and weather patterns shift.
The consequences of climate change are being felt in the boardrooms of corporations and on the trading floors of Wall Street. The inflation-adjusted economic damages from severe weather rose to $80 billion per year in the U.S. in the 1990s, from an average of about $5 billion per year during the 1950s, and surpassed $200 billion this year. The majority of these losses come from smaller-scale events rather than mega-catastrophes. Over this time period, the percentage of insured losses has grown to over 30% from negligible levels, as more extreme events hit the U.S., Europe and Japan. Yes, more of us are living near the coast, insurance penetration has increased and real-estate prices have risen; and more intense weather extremes are occurring across the globe. Heat is accumulating in the deep ocean and an energized climate superimposed on patterns of natural variability helps explain the new, more volatile weather patterns we are experiencing today.
The escalating impacts encouraged Swiss Re and the U.N. Development Program to co-sponsor the Climate Change Futures project at Harvard Medical School aimed at raising awareness regarding the health, ecological and economic dimensions of climate change. Leading insurers, economists, bankers, rating agencies, asset managers and coal-based utilities were among the panelists expressing concern about rising risks at the launch of the report in New York at the American Museum of Natural History on Nov. 1. The prospects of increasing climate instability are daunting, and panelists expressed their concerns as to how to insure the future.
A well-funded, well-insured public-private partnership on a grand scale could fortify the world’s settlements with better building codes and the like, apply efficient technologies to reduce the need for carbon-emitting energy supplies, and jump-start an overdue clean-energy transition. A diversified suite of clean, efficient and safe energy technologies includes efficient end uses and solar, wind, tidal and geothermal means of distributed energy generation. Together with hybrid, cogeneration and “smart” technologies for the grid, they can provide the best insurance in the face of storms and reduce destabilizing oil dependencies.
Aligning incentives for individuals, large investors, banks, insurance companies, nongovernmental groups and public and international bodies–via procurement policies, tax credits, rearranged subsidies and funds–can create the right market signals. A substantial investment in our common future would have enormous returns on investment in terms of public health, ecological integrity, global security and the international economy–including energy bill reductions for individuals, companies and nations–while helping to stabilize the climate.
Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H. is associate director of the Center for Health and Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Evan Mills, Ph.D. is with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They are lead authors of the just-released Climate Change Futures report, sponsored by Swiss Re and the United Nations Development Program.
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