Navy gets approval for whale
'harassment'
Gray whales use their hearing to follow migratory
routes, locate one another, find food and care for their young.
Photo courtesy NOAA.
Washington, DC, July 17 (ENS)-- The US
Navy has been given permission to "harass marine mammals"
in the course of operating low frequency sonar used to detect
submarines while remaining outside the range of their onboard
weapons. The Navy has been approved to deploy two ships that
use the sonar system in spite of continuing controversy over
whether the loud signals it emits injure whales, dolphins, seals
and turtles.
For full story please go to http://www.ens-news.com
Secret US biopharms growing
experimental drugs
Washington, DC, July 16, (ENS)— Experimental
plants engineered to produce pharmaceuticals are being grown
at over 300 secret locations nationwide, a new report has revealed.
Biotechnology firms are conducting experiments with corn, soy,
rice and tobacco that are genetically manipulated to produce
drugs designed to act as vaccines or contraceptives, induce
abortions, generate growth hormones, create blood clots, produce
industrial enzymes, and propagate allergenic enzymes.
For full story please go to http://www.ens-news.com
Hunger strikes target Dow,
Union Carbide
Seadrift, Texas, July 19, (ENS)— Diane
Wilson is sitting in the back of her pickup truck outside a
chemical plant, wearing a cowboy hat and refusing to eat to
draw attention to pollution in San Antonio Bay.
Full full story please go to http://www.ens-news.com
ENVIRO
BRIEFS
State officials, Bush admin.
lock horns on renewable energy
In a letter that attacks what it says is the Bush administration’s
failure to address the looming crisis of global warming, the
attorneys general of 11 states have written to the president
pressing for strong federal measures to limit emissions of greenhouse
gases.
The state officials argue in the letter, sent
on July 17 to Bush, that his administration’s “regulatory void”
has left it to the states to piece together a patchwork of inconsistent
regulations on the environment and that a strong federal policy
would be far more effective.
At the same time, the Bush administration and
several utilities are opposing a provision of the Senate energy
bill that would require utilities to increase the amount of
renewable energy they produce.
The Senate energy bill includes a renewable electricity
standard that requires major electric companies to increase
sales of electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources
from two percent today to about 10 percent in 2020. This would
result in 74,000 megawatts of renewable energy – enough to power
about 53 million homes, and a quadrupling of the amount of clean,
renewable energy produced today. (ENS)
GM genes found in human intestine
Research commissioned by Britain’s Food Standards Agency has
demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA
material from crops is finding its way into human intestinal
bacteria, raising potentially serious health questions.
Researchers at the University of Newcastle gave
seven volunteers, who had had their lower bowel removed, a single
meal containing gene-spliced soy. Samples of intestinal bacteria
were taken from each subject and low levels of an herbicide-resistance
gene from the GM soy were detected in three of the seven cases.
The researchers also fed the same meal to 12 other human volunteers,
whose stomachs were intact, but no GM material or bacteria containing
herbicide-resistance genes were detected in their feces.
Genetically modified material in most GM foods
poses no risk to human health, but many GM crops have antibiotic-resistant
marker genes inserted in them, raising concerns that the ability
to fight infection could be compromised if such material passes
to humans. (Reuters, The Guardian)
Highway project could harm
Great Smokies
The US Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Valley Authority
have approved a road widening project that would alter a stream
in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, despite massive public
opposition. The road project is in an area known as the Southeast
Rivers and Streams Ecoregion and is home to more freshwater
aquatic species than any other terrestrial area on Earth.
The agencies have approved plans to widen 2.6
miles of Highway 321, roughly doubling the size of the road
and moving it closer to Dudley Creek, portions of which lie
within the borders of the park.
According to Judy Takats of the World Wildlife
Fund, all but one of the 11,646 comments submitted by the public
to the Corps was in opposition to the project. (ENS)
|