This week in class, we've discussed Amartys Sen's "entitlement systems" which is a concept that the increase of population is not the cause of famine as Malthus argued, but social structure which takes away people's right to food is.
I thought that this article on China is an adaptive example.
China's farmers are not allowed to own the land they till. Recently in Jiangsu province, more than 250 households were bundled out of their homes without thier land, their homes and properties.
Such expropriation of the land - or in other words, denying "entitlement" of the land - by corrupt local government officials, is common in China where decades of frantic economic growth have generated an equally frantic desire to cash in by developers, often aided or partnered by corrupt local government officials. (This could be an example of "the treadmill of production theory", too.)
However, the good news is that these farmers are voicing out and are fighting to claim what they belive is rightfully theirs.
I hope that the Chinese government breaks away from the Communist mindset and grants full rights to these peasants of "their" land. That way, poverty, which still remains serious in most rural areas of China despite its rapid economic growth will be solved.
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The farmers of Zhuhai village knew they were courting trouble. With the help of a Beijing lawyer discovered through the Internet, they filed a suit against local authorities to try to stop what they said was the illegal expropriation of their land for a tourism complex. Sure enough, as the case dragged through the courts over the past year, the remaining residents of what was once a picturesque village set amid the bamboo-forested hills of Jiangsu province about 125 miles (200 km) west of Shanghai say they were subject to intimidation ranging from officials pressuring their employers to downright murder threats. One stubborn farmer was sent a text message last June that concluded: "Your life hangs by a thread. If you don't come around immediately. I will make sure you get run over by a car!" Many of the 250 households gave up and left. But the 15 or so holdout families were still unprepared for the appearance of a hundred or more police and demolition workers in hard hats on Dec. 12. They were bundled out of their homes and those who resisted were beaten with clubs and iron bars. Then, as they watched from a nearby hilltop, demolition backhoes clanked up and began attacking the walls of their houses like huge, mechanized woodpeckers. By the end of the day, nothing but rubble remained. "They beat me all over," says a 52-year-old farmer whose voice is still shaky weeks later. He rolls up a leg of his pants to show a three-inch gash on his calf. "They didn't give us a chance to take anything. Not even a pair of chopsticks. Now my wife and I are sleeping on a table in an old folks' home and begging for meals. We have nothing. No land, no house, no money."
Such violent confrontations are increasingly common in China, where decades of frantic growth have generated an equally frantic desire to cash in by developers, often aided or partnered by corrupt local government officials. But the Zhuhai case is different in one critical respect: after their claims were twice denied by the courts, the villagers issued a proclamation rejecting the land seizures as illegal and asserting their rights over ancestral plots for them and succeeding generations — rights they said they were prepared to "defend to the death." (Officials of Yicheng, the county seat with jurisdiction over Zhuhai, did not respond to a request by TIME for comment on the case.)
China's farmers can work their land through 30-year, renewable leases, but they cannot buy or sell it (all land belongs to the state). Regulations do exist governing expropriation, but they are often not followed. Many farmers are increasingly angry with this — particularly when they believe that the land their families have tilled, often for generations, has been taken away without regard for the law. The declaration by the Zhuhai villagers is the latest in a series of such actions that now involve tens of thousands of farmers all over China. While it is too early to describe this as an organized national movement, there's little doubt that such manifestos — which often use similar vocabulary and phrasing — are part of a new effort by activists and farmers to focus the government's attention on the country's 700 million peasants and the restricted claim they have on the land they work. "This is just the beginning," says a Beijing-based rural-rights activist who says he is one of the main organizers behind the drive to give farmers full legal ownership of their land. "You'll see [many] declarations like these coming out before the Olympics."
Yu Jianrong, a director of the Institute of Rural Development at Beijing's most prestigious think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, or CASS, acknowledges that the recent assertions of rights over land by peasants are potentially transformational. "They're not widespread now but they could become symbolic ... of peasants ceasing to depend on the law and instead depending on 'natural law.'" Journalist and author Chen Guidi is more blunt: "If word of these declarations starts to spread to peasants around the countryside, it could become uncontrollable." Chen, with his wife Wu Chuntao, is the author of Will the Boat Sink the Water? — a widely praised investigation into conditions in rural China. (The book is banned in China.)
The Communist Party is aware of the farmers' anger but seems limited in what it can do. Yu of CASS notes that although there is "widespread recognition in both political and academic circles that the existing rural land system faces extremely grave problems, an extremely large gap also exists over the nature of the problem and how to solve it." Given that the party rose to power as an agrarian movement, conservative forces are blocking attempts to grant private ownership of farmland, which they believe would destroy one of the party's most fundamental socialist tenets. The answer, say Yu and some other academics and lawyers, is gradual reform that gives farmers more control over their land and cracks down on corruption and illegal land seizure. But with local governments earning as much as half of their income from land sales by some calculations, resistance is fierce.
Even when the authorities do act, stiff opposition from local representatives usually succeeds in frustrating those efforts. In Anhui province, for example, officials issued a rule that any project involving the expropriation of more than 20 mu (about three acres or 1.3 hectares) had to be approved by the provincial authorities. But, as Chen notes, in 10 years since its implementation the law hasn't been enforced once. "The central government has issued lots of good policies," Chen says, "but the local governments need help to implement them." That's why he and others such as the rural activist (who asked not to be identified for his protection) say that only by granting full rights to peasants to buy and sell land will these problems be solved from the grass roots up. "I believe if the farmers are given land and freedom to migrate, the change in China would be unrecognizable. A small number of farmers would sell their land once they own it, but the majority of farmers would use their land wisely. The experts should stop worrying and learn to trust the farmers."
Back in a dank, freezing room in Yicheng city, the displaced residents of Zhuhai village are lining up to tell their stories. Some tell of being beaten. One man recounts how he was detained four times — once for 15 days — in a vain attempt to get him to sign a document giving approval for the demolition. They are afraid but also determined to continue fighting until they win their land back. "All we want is the land we have farmed for hundreds of years," says He Fuwei, one of two brothers who signed the original declaration.
In a forthcoming paper in the China Quarterly, Professor Kevin O'Brien of the University of California, Berkeley, describes how repression can often backfire and actually make activists more respected by their communities. If that happened in China, its rural population could be further radicalized. It was Mao Zedong who famously said a "single spark can light a prairie fire." Men like He may not know it, but they are holding burning brands in their hands.
2. Title : Population and the Environment - The Global Challenge
3. According to the article, world population will be increasing by the middle of the century. Thus , our aim is making it stabilize to consume proper amount of resources and conserve global environment. As the Malthusian's argument shows, population and demand for natural resources will bring about the environmental limits such as water shortage. The serious situation expected is not only environmental limits and crises but also its severe pollution. Now in this industrialized world, continuously increasing population will help both the shortage of resources and deterioration of the environment.
Therefore, this article suggest that solution for our future generation and our survival is to stabilize the population with the way of family planning programs. The ironical situation of this is that in developing countries and poor countries, they hope to prevent the increase of population. However, in the developed countries they encourages people to get birth babies for the maintenance of the state's future generation. At the first glance, it seems to oppose a little bit with our argument of stabilizing population.
However, when we talk about the world population and its downsizing, we cannot give certain directions to achieve in each countries, rather in public we just suggest the slogan, which is the downsizing of the world population.
----------------------------------- As the century begins, natural resources are under increasing pressure, threatening public health and development. Water shortages, soil exhaustion, loss of forests, air and water pollution, and degradation of coastlines afflict many areas. As the world’s population grows, improving living standards without destroying the environment is a global challenge.
Most developed economies currently consume resources much faster than they can regenerate. Most developing countries with rapid population growth face the urgent need to improve living standards. As we humans exploit nature to meet present needs, are we destroying resources needed for the future?
Environment getting worse In the past decade in every environmental sector, conditions have either failed to improve, or they are worsening:
Public health: Unclean water, along with poor sanitation, kills over 12 million people each year, most in developing countries. Air pollution kills nearly 3 million more. Heavy metals and other contaminants also cause widespread health problems.
Food supply: Will there be enough food to go around? In 64 of 105 developing countries studied by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the population has been growing faster than food supplies. Population pressures have degraded some 2 billion hectares of arable land — an area the size of Canada and the U.S.
Freshwater: The supply of freshwater is finite, but demand is soaring as population grows and use per capita rises. By 2025, when world population is projected to be 8 billion, 48 countries containing 3 billion people will face shortages.
Coastlines and oceans: Half of all coastal ecosystems are pressured by high population densities and urban development. A tide of pollution is rising in the world’s seas. Ocean fisheries are being overexploited, and fish catches are down.
Forests: Nearly half of the world’s original forest cover has been lost, and each year another 16 million hectares are cut, bulldozed, or burned. Forests provide over US$400 billion to the world economy annually and are vital to maintaining healthy ecosystems. Yet, current demand for forest products may exceed the limit of sustainable consumption by 25%.
Biodiversity: The earth’s biological diversity is crucial to the continued vitality of agriculture and medicine — and perhaps even to life on earth itself. Yet human activities are pushing many thousands of plant and animal species into extinction. Two of every three species is estimated to be in decline.
Global climate change: The earth’s surface is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, largely from burning fossil fuels. If the global temperature rises as projected, sea levels would rise by several meters, causing widespread flooding. Global warming also could cause droughts and disrupt agriculture.
Toward a livable future How people preserve or abuse the environment could largely determine whether living standards improve or deteriorate. Growing human numbers, urban expansion, and resource exploitation do not bode well for the future. Without practicing sustainable development, humanity faces a deteriorating environment and may even invite ecological disaster.
Taking action: Many steps toward sustainability can be taken today. These include: using energy more efficiently, managing cities better, phasing out subsidies that encourage waste, [etc.]
Stabilizing population: While population growth has slowed, the absolute number of people continues to increase — by about 1 billion every 13 years. Slowing population growth would help improve living standards and would buy time to protect natural resources. In the long run, to sustain higher living standards, world population size must stabilize.
Population and sustainable development Environmentalists and economists increasingly agree that efforts to protect the environment and to achieve better living standards can be closely linked and are mutually reinforcing. Slowing the increase in population, especially in the face of rising per capita demand for natural resources, can take pressure off the environment and buy time to improve living standards on a sustainable basis.3,8,11,12
As population growth slows, countries can invest more in education, health care, job creation, and other improvements that help boost living standards.11 In turn, as individual income, savings, and investment rise, more resources become available that can boost productivity. This dynamic process has been identified as one of the key reasons that the economies of many Asian countries grew rapidly between 1960 and 1990.5 In recent years fertility has been falling in many developing countries and, as a result, annual world population growth has fallen to about 1.4% in 2000 compared with about 2% in 1960. The UN estimated recently that population is growing by about 78 million per year, down from about 90 million estimated early in the 1990s.10 Still, at the current pace world population increases by about 1 billion every 13 years. World population surpassed 6 billion in 1999 and is projected to rise to over 8 billion by 2025.
Globally, fertility has fallen by half since the 1960s, to about three children per woman.10 In 65 countries, including 9 in the developing world, fertility rates have fallen below replacement level of about two children per woman.9 Nonetheless, fertility is above replacement level in 123 countries, and in some countries it is substantially above replacement level. In these countries the population continues to increase rapidly. About 1.7 billion people live in 47 countries where the fertility rate averages between three and five children per woman. Another 730 million people live in 44 countries where the average woman has five children or more.7
Almost all population growth is in the developing world. As a result of differences in population growth, Europe’s population will decline from 13% to 7% of world population over the next quarter century, while that of sub-Saharan Africa will rise from 10% to 17%. The shares of other regions are projected to remain about the same as today.6
As population and demand for natural resources continue to grow, environmental limits will become increasingly apparent.6 Water shortages are expected to affect nearly 3 billion people in 2025, with sub-Saharan Africa worst affected.2 Many countries could avoid environmental crises if they took steps now to conserve and manage supplies and demand better, while slowing population growth by providing families and individuals with information and services needed to make informed choices about reproductive health.
Family planning programs play a key role. When family planning information and services are widely available and accessible, couples are better able to achieve their fertility desires.4 “Even in adverse circumstance — low incomes, limited education, and few opportunities for women — family planning programs have meant slower population growth and improved family welfare,” the World Bank has noted.1 Conclusion
If every country made a commitment to population stabilization and resource conservation, the world would be better able to meet the challenges of sustainable development. Practicing sustainable development requires a combination of wise public investment, effective natural resource management, cleaner agricultural and industrial technologies, less pollution, and slower population growth.
Worries about a “population bomb” may have lessened as fertility rates have fallen, but the world’s population is projected to continue expanding until the middle of the century. Just when it stabilizes and thus the level at which it stabilizes will have a powerful effect on living standards and the global environment. As population size continues to reach levels never before experienced, and per capita consumption rises, the environment hangs in the balance.
------------------------ http://www.actionbioscience.org/environment/hinrichsen_robey.html Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:08:00 AM
Global Warming Could Radically Change Lake Tahoe In Ten Years
The death of water is not because of direct cause, human's waste but also because of indirect cause, climate change. If climate changes, many people only worry about air pollution and destroy of ozone layer. However, climate change affects water; "What we expect is that deep mixing of Lake Tahoe's water layers will become less frequent, even non-existent, depleting the bottom waters of oxygen. This will result in major, permanent disruption to the entire lake food web." We have to remember how serious many ecological changes in the world have and affect to human and the earth. Changes can be happened to us even though we are not expected. -------------------------------------- ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2008) — A new UC Davis study predicts that climate change will irreversibly alter water circulation in Lake Tahoe, radically changing the conditions for plants and fish in the lake -- and it could happen in 10 years.
One likely result would be a warmer lake overall, with fewer cold-water native fish, and more invasive species, such as large-mouth bass, bluegill and carp.
Still unclear is how the changes would affect the lake's phenomenal clarity and cobalt-blue color, which have helped to make the Tahoe Basin an international vacation destination.
The new findings were announced March 18 at a Tahoe scientific conference by three lake experts from the Tahoe Environmental Research Center at UC Davis -- Director Geoffrey Schladow, Associate Director John Reuter and postdoctoral researcher Goloka Sahoo.
"What we expect is that deep mixing of Lake Tahoe's water layers will become less frequent, even non-existent, depleting the bottom waters of oxygen. This will result in major, permanent disruption to the entire lake food web," Schladow said.
"This is not unheard of," he continued. "Anoxia (oxygen depletion) occurs annually in most lakes and reservoirs in California in the summer. But Tahoe has always been special. It's been above and beyond such things.
"A permanently stratified Lake Tahoe becomes just like any other lake or pond. It is no longer this unique, effervescent jewel, the finest example of nature's grandeur."
Schladow said research is ongoing to determine if lowered global greenhouse-gas emissions would significantly slow the lake's decline, or even prevent it.
UC Davis researchers are in their 50th year of teasing apart the intertwining threads of biology, chemistry and physics that determine what Lake Tahoe looks like and what organisms live in it.
One of their chief objectives has been to understand the clarity-clouding effects of pollution from population growth and development, so that policymakers can devise solutions. Then, in December 2004, they reported that the lake was showing a new influence: Its water was warming up, probably because of global climate change.
The new study combined 40 years of weather data in the basin with mathematical models of global climate to create likely scenarios of future climate conditions at Lake Tahoe. Using those scenarios, the team employed a lake physics model to see how various combinations of probable air temperatures, cloudiness and wind speed would affect the mixing of water layers in the lake.
Currently, Lake Tahoe water mixes, on average, every four years. The deepest mixing typically occurs in late February. This winter -- a particularly cold and snowy one -- Lake Tahoe experienced mixing throughout its entire 1,644-foot depth.
This mixing has profound ecological and water-quality impacts. Deep mixing moves nutrients from the lake bottom to the water surface, where they promote the growth of algae. And it takes oxygen from the surface and distributes it throughout the lake, which supports aquatic life.
The new study showed that, if global greenhouse-gas emissions continue at current levels, mixing could become less frequent and less deep -- even stop altogether as soon as 2019.
Schladow said that was quite a shock. "While we expected that the lake would mix less in the future, learning that we may be only a decade or two from the complete shutdown of deep mixing was very surprising.
"If mixing shuts down, then no new oxygen gets to the bottom of the lake, and creatures that need it, such as lake trout, will have a large part of their range excluded," Schladow said.
Equally worrying, he said, is the likelihood that when the oxygen is gone, phosphorus that is currently locked up in the lake-floor sediments will get released. This phosphorus will eventually reach the lake's surface, where it will fuel algal growth. Algae blooms can cause many problems, including reduced lake clarity, unpleasant odors and bad-tasting drinking water.
The climatic changes that are expected to affect Lake Tahoe are also impacting lakes around the world. These widespread concerns have been the topic of a science workshop at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center that runs through March 25. Researchers from Japan, New Zealand, Chile and the United States will discuss strategies to pool and analyze data from many of the lakes in the Pacific Rim region. Their goal is to learn more about the security of drinking-water supplies and the ecological sustainability of these lake systems. -------------------------------------- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080325141202.htm
I found another article about the connection between EPA and Bush administration. This shows that EPA's condition is usually under government's control. I also think that EPA's behavior is against environmental protection and it only cares about the political power of influence. It is one of the structural problems of the society.
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It might be a sign of how deeply environmentalists have come to distrust the Bush Administration that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could announce that he was actually tightening standards on air pollution — and still get hammered by green groups. That's exactly what happened Wednesday, when EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson limited the allowable level of ozone — the air pollutant that triggers smog — to 75 parts per billion. That's tighter than the current limit of effectively 84 parts per billion, but it's still much higher than the level recommended by the EPA's own scientific advisers, who suggested limiting ozone in the air to an average of between 60 and 70 parts per billion over an eight-hour period. Johnson told reporters that he had "made the most health-protective eight-hour ozone decision in the nation's history." Technically true, but environmental and health groups focused on the fact that Johnson had given no justification for ignoring scientific consensus for a lower limit. "Stephen Johnson is the only person right now who believes this level is adequate to protect human health," says John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Clean Air Program. "He hasn't offered any coherent explanation for why this happened."
The byproduct of nitrogen oxides and other chemicals released into the air by vehicles and power plants, ozone is one of the most pernicious pollutants in the air — and one of the hardest to get rid of. Even today, tens of millions of Americans live in areas that can't meet the current limit of 84 parts per billion, and suffer from the effects of ground-level ozone: an inflamed respiratory tract, worsened cardiovascular disease, asthma, even premature death. "It's an irritant, and it literally burns the inside of your lungs," says Dr. John Balbus, chief health scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, who notes that children will suffer the most. Balbus says that the EPA's own studies say that bringing down the ozone limit to 65 parts per billion — the halfway point of the range suggested by science — would prevent 2,330 deaths, 4,600 emergency room visits and 1,300,000 lost school days by the year 2020, compared to the current regulation. Nor is a limit of 65 parts per billion unachievable. The European Commission mandates ozone levels at no more than 61 parts per billion, and even Canada has lower limits than those the EPA will adapt. "Smog levels have to be a lot lower before we'll be able to breathe easily in the U.S.," says Walke.
So why did the EPA decide to ignore its own scientific advisers? Politics may have played a role — as did economics. The Washington Post reported that White House officials wanted to take the costs of tightening the ozone regulations into consideration when drafting new limits — something that's expressly forbidden by the Clean Air Act, which says that public health can be the only base for new regulations. The Supreme Court affirmed that fact in 2001, but in issuing the new rule, the EPA's Johnson called on Congress to rewrite the law to allow regulators to take the cost of controlling pollution into consideration. The Clean Air Act "is not a relic to be displayed in the Smithsonian but a living document that must be modernized to continue realizing the results," said Johnson.
Controlling pollution isn't cheap. Nearly 350 counties in the U.S. currently violate the new standard of 75 parts per billion, and reaching that standard will take $8.8 billion a year according to the EPA, though that number doesn't factor in the health savings that result from reduced pollution. But green groups and Democrats in Congress were livid at Johnson's suggestion, viewing it as a thinly veiled effort by the Bush Administration to weaken the country's environmental regulations. "The Bush Administration would have us replace clean air standards driven by science with standards based on the interests of polluters," Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in a statement. "It is outrageous."
Democratic control of Congress means that any change in the Clean Air Act is very unlikely, and environmental groups have already said that they will sue the EPA to fight for stronger regulations in court. But many worry that Johnson's decision is a sign that the Bush Administration will use its final year in office to gut environmental protection whenever possible. Johnson is already under investigation for his decision in December to refuse California's routine request to impose tighter greenhouse gas regulations on its auto industry, and the EPA has come under intense criticism for failing to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant — despite a Supreme Court decision last year giving the agency the authority to do so. Even when new regulations are issued, like the ozone limits, they tend to be delayed — the revision of the ozone standard is more than five years overdue. "It's hard to see these decisions as anything other than politically motivated," says Walke. "They can do a lot of damage in a year." For environmentalists — and those who just want to breathe easily — that's a scary thought.
This article is about the United Kingdom enabling standards to decrease greenhouse gases. The government switched their natural use of resources from coal to natural gas for electricity and are aiming to decrease the emission of CO2. The policies made by countries that have a high influence in the environment.
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Britain cut greenhouse gas by 2pc in 2007: official
AFP - Thursday, March 27 08:50 pmLONDON (AFP) - Greenhouse gas emissions, thought to be the main culprit for global warming, fell by two percent in Britain last year, according to official figures published Thursday.
For carbon dioxide, net emissions were provisionally down from 554.5 million tonnes in 2006 to 543.7 million tonnes last year -- a two percent fall.
International flights -- considered by environmental groups as a major source of pollution -- were not included because of a lack of agreement on recording methods.
The government put the decrease in CO2 emissions down to a switch from coal to natural gas for electricity plus a cut in fossil fuel consumption by households and industry.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said in a statement: "These figures show we are making progress in cutting emissions and are on target to go beyond our Kyoto targets.
"But there's much to do at home and abroad if we are to going to avert dangerous climate change."
Britain has pledged to introduce the world's first legally-binding targets to cut carbon emissions, setting a goal of at least a 60 percent reduction in emissions by 2050.
3. I don't understand why government don't control plastic industry. I see a little after read this article. Last class we learned industry, state and labor( customer). the industry lelated with the state. So untill one policy decide many industry fight. So plastic bag prohibition is very difficult. But I think this dispute become known plastic's danger.
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How the plastics industry uses lobbying and legal threats to turn plastic bag prohibitions into voluntary recycling drives.
When San Francisco became the first U.S. city to prohibit large grocery stores and pharmacies from distributing disposable plastic bags in March 2007, it appeared to have sparked a trend. At least a dozen other cities, counties and states were soon considering proposals to ban or severely restrict distribution of what many environmentalists consider a wasteful and harmful product.
The plastics industry had no intention of allowing the San Francisco model to spread without a fight, though. It quickly and quietly joined with retailers and other business interests and launched a successful counterattack, using lobbying muscle to quash proposed bans. In the face of the onslaught, the cities have instituted voluntary recycling programs that proponents of the bans say are ineffective and likely to remain so.
And in at least two instances, plastics interests have turned the tables on their green adversaries by filing lawsuits on environmental grounds in an effort to prevent bans from taking effect.
"The plastic industry … will try to win local battle by local battle," says Marc Mihaly, director of the environmental law center at Vermont Law School. "They will intimidate where they can. If they can't intimidate … they will try to influence legislators."
Plastics industry representatives attribute their successes to a growing realization that plastic bans are misguided.
"The trend is that cities who are taking a look at what San Francisco did … are all taking a step back and going toward recycling," said Donna Dempsey, a spokeswoman for Progressive Bag Affiliates, which represents plastic bag makers.
The so-far scattered skirmishes are part of a grander battle over bags, a conflict in which plastic and paper industries are fighting for supermarket supremacy while fending off an ecological newcomer: the reusable fabric bag.
Plastic bags winning in marketplace Plastic bags have established the clear upper hand. Nationwide, grocery stores and pharmacies go through about 92 billion plastic bags a year, compared with about 5 billion paper sacks, according to paper and plastic industry estimates.
That success also has made the light, strong polyethylene sacks a prominent target for critics. Their manufacture requires large quantities of petroleum. And, once discarded, they tend to take flight in a puff of wind, snagging in trees and fences or floating in bodies of water, where they can choke marine life and birds. As litter, a plastic bag's life expectancy is far greater than a human's — 1,000 years or more.
In Philadelphia, one of the cities that drafted legislation to ban plastic bag distribution by large retailers, they also have a habit of choking the city's antiquated sewer system.
"It was a common-sense issue," said Brian Abernathy, a legislative aide to the proposal's sponsor, City Councilman Frank DiCicco.
But while the ban had popular support, Abernathy said, proponents were ill-prepared for the industry opposition they encountered at the first public hearing on the plan in October. Among those who spoke out against the proposal were the Philadelphia-based petroleum and chemical company Sunoco; the state's food merchants association; bag wholesalers and distributors; the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic and chemical companies; and the Progressive Bag Alliance, as the plastic bag makers trade group was formerly known.
----- By Kari Huus | MSNBC Mar 13, 2008 | Updated: 1:35 p.m. ET Mar 13, 2008
(I’m in the central library now, staying awake to do some team-project works with my classmates. Since yesterday, I had to deal with a kind of unpredictable situation; I had no time to posting. I’m really sorry for lateness.)
Water is a basic resource for human life and a fundamental source for industry. So, it could be major commons which is not only invaluable but also vulnerable. According to this short article, India has to decide pay more when use more... I think it is very meaningful because India, as home to 1.002 billion people, key aquifers are being over-pumped, soil is growing saltier through contamination with irrigation water, and already facing a severe water shortage and an epidemic which is can wipe out 40% of the population.
In Korea, water charges are also applicable to cumulative system. And many other countries are applying this system such as U.S.A., Canada, and Japan. Added to this, purifying the used water on golf courses and in ponds is the law in Singapore. Through these ways, they can save a great deal of water on a regular basis. Most importantly, these countries have been carrying out public education related to saving the water for many years. I think Korea really needs this kind of education and public relations, since the right education changes people’s minds. The Government and civic groups also have to promote long term education about water, before it is too late.
According to the UN’s announcement, Korea has been designated as a water shortage-nation which means annual usage of the water is less the 1700m3 for each person. Although we aren’t suffering directly from the shortage and pollution of the water, someday we’ll face these kinds of concerns as do many people living in Africa, where it can mean the difference between life and death. It is hard to believe, but the 25,000 thousand people have die yearly because of the polluted water, and this number is equal to the total population of Canada.
And the things related Commons and Capitalism… Not only water shortage but also in contamination problems, we can easily guess too often profit overcomes conscience and ruthless people simply neglect the environment in favor of monetary gain. Moreover, recently the price of bottled water is more expensive than that of gasoline. It ranges from about a thousand Won to more than a few tens of thousands of Won per liter of water, depending on the brand names. Is water that precious? No way. Some people, however, want to drink quality water. So, the water industry has become one of the fastest rising markets. The French multinational, Veolia, has many branches around the world, even in our country. They already have more than a 60% share of the water market in China. K-Water (formerly, Korea Water Resources Cooperation) and Kolon have recently declared a new vision for the water industry. There is no doubt that water will be a lot more profitable to the company but more expensive to us. Sooner or later, however, we will need to wait or to pay a lot more for our water. The saying, "spend it like water," is not valid any more.
------------------------------ MUMBAI: Get set to pay more for water if you consume more than the BMC-estimated daily average.
In a long overdue move to conserve water in a metropolis whose demands have long outstripped supply, the municipality has decided to introduce a "telescopic rate structure" from April 1. According to the new rate card, those who consume water above the stipulated limit will have to pay a higher rate.
The current water charges are heavily subsidized—domestic users in residential buildings pay Rs 3.50 for every 1,000 liters and slum residents pay a lower fee of Rs 2.25. Commercial and industrial users pay much more (between Rs 10.50 and Rs 38). But for no group is the cost of water linked to the quantum of consumption. This is going to change.
The World Health Organization pegs the daily per capita water consumption at 135 liters but the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will follow the more generous Indian standard of 150 liters for its new tariff.
The BMC has pegged the average household size at five members and has thus calculated that a family should consume 750 liters a day. Once the 750-liter mark is crossed, the charges will increase in proportion to the extra consumption. (28 Mar 2008, 0215 hrs IST , Clara Lewis , TNN)
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
8 comments:
Jee-Hyun Song
China's Fighting Farmers
This week in class, we've discussed Amartys Sen's "entitlement systems" which is a concept that the increase of population is not the cause of famine as Malthus argued, but social structure which takes away people's right to food is.
I thought that this article on China is an adaptive example.
China's farmers are not allowed to own the land they till. Recently in Jiangsu province, more than 250 households were bundled out of their homes without thier land, their homes and properties.
Such expropriation of the land - or in other words, denying "entitlement" of the land - by corrupt local government officials, is common in China where decades of frantic economic growth have generated an equally frantic desire to cash in by developers, often aided or partnered by corrupt local government officials. (This could be an example of "the treadmill of production theory", too.)
However, the good news is that these farmers are voicing out and are fighting to claim what they belive is rightfully theirs.
I hope that the Chinese government breaks away from the Communist mindset and grants full rights to these peasants of "their" land. That way, poverty, which still remains serious in most rural areas of China despite its rapid economic growth will be solved.
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The farmers of Zhuhai village knew they were courting trouble. With the help of a Beijing lawyer discovered through the Internet, they filed a suit against local authorities to try to stop what they said was the illegal expropriation of their land for a tourism complex. Sure enough, as the case dragged through the courts over the past year, the remaining residents of what was once a picturesque village set amid the bamboo-forested hills of Jiangsu province about 125 miles (200 km) west of Shanghai say they were subject to intimidation ranging from officials pressuring their employers to downright murder threats. One stubborn farmer was sent a text message last June that concluded: "Your life hangs by a thread. If you don't come around immediately. I will make sure you get run over by a car!"
Many of the 250 households gave up and left. But the 15 or so holdout families were still unprepared for the appearance of a hundred or more police and demolition workers in hard hats on Dec. 12. They were bundled out of their homes and those who resisted were beaten with clubs and iron bars. Then, as they watched from a nearby hilltop, demolition backhoes clanked up and began attacking the walls of their houses like huge, mechanized woodpeckers. By the end of the day, nothing but rubble remained. "They beat me all over," says a 52-year-old farmer whose voice is still shaky weeks later. He rolls up a leg of his pants to show a three-inch gash on his calf. "They didn't give us a chance to take anything. Not even a pair of chopsticks. Now my wife and I are sleeping on a table in an old folks' home and begging for meals. We have nothing. No land, no house, no money."
Such violent confrontations are increasingly common in China, where decades of frantic growth have generated an equally frantic desire to cash in by developers, often aided or partnered by corrupt local government officials. But the Zhuhai case is different in one critical respect: after their claims were twice denied by the courts, the villagers issued a proclamation rejecting the land seizures as illegal and asserting their rights over ancestral plots for them and succeeding generations — rights they said they were prepared to "defend to the death." (Officials of Yicheng, the county seat with jurisdiction over Zhuhai, did not respond to a request by TIME for comment on the case.)
China's farmers can work their land through 30-year, renewable leases, but they cannot buy or sell it (all land belongs to the state). Regulations do exist governing expropriation, but they are often not followed. Many farmers are increasingly angry with this — particularly when they believe that the land their families have tilled, often for generations, has been taken away without regard for the law. The declaration by the Zhuhai villagers is the latest in a series of such actions that now involve tens of thousands of farmers all over China. While it is too early to describe this as an organized national movement, there's little doubt that such manifestos — which often use similar vocabulary and phrasing — are part of a new effort by activists and farmers to focus the government's attention on the country's 700 million peasants and the restricted claim they have on the land they work. "This is just the beginning," says a Beijing-based rural-rights activist who says he is one of the main organizers behind the drive to give farmers full legal ownership of their land. "You'll see [many] declarations like these coming out before the Olympics."
Yu Jianrong, a director of the Institute of Rural Development at Beijing's most prestigious think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, or CASS, acknowledges that the recent assertions of rights over land by peasants are potentially transformational. "They're not widespread now but they could become symbolic ... of peasants ceasing to depend on the law and instead depending on 'natural law.'" Journalist and author Chen Guidi is more blunt: "If word of these declarations starts to spread to peasants around the countryside, it could become uncontrollable." Chen, with his wife Wu Chuntao, is the author of Will the Boat Sink the Water? — a widely praised investigation into conditions in rural China. (The book is banned in China.)
The Communist Party is aware of the farmers' anger but seems limited in what it can do. Yu of CASS notes that although there is "widespread recognition in both political and academic circles that the existing rural land system faces extremely grave problems, an extremely large gap also exists over the nature of the problem and how to solve it." Given that the party rose to power as an agrarian movement, conservative forces are blocking attempts to grant private ownership of farmland, which they believe would destroy one of the party's most fundamental socialist tenets. The answer, say Yu and some other academics and lawyers, is gradual reform that gives farmers more control over their land and cracks down on corruption and illegal land seizure. But with local governments earning as much as half of their income from land sales by some calculations, resistance is fierce.
Even when the authorities do act, stiff opposition from local representatives usually succeeds in frustrating those efforts. In Anhui province, for example, officials issued a rule that any project involving the expropriation of more than 20 mu (about three acres or 1.3 hectares) had to be approved by the provincial authorities. But, as Chen notes, in 10 years since its implementation the law hasn't been enforced once. "The central government has issued lots of good policies," Chen says, "but the local governments need help to implement them." That's why he and others such as the rural activist (who asked not to be identified for his protection) say that only by granting full rights to peasants to buy and sell land will these problems be solved from the grass roots up. "I believe if the farmers are given land and freedom to migrate, the change in China would be unrecognizable. A small number of farmers would sell their land once they own it, but the majority of farmers would use their land wisely. The experts should stop worrying and learn to trust the farmers."
Back in a dank, freezing room in Yicheng city, the displaced residents of Zhuhai village are lining up to tell their stories. Some tell of being beaten. One man recounts how he was detained four times — once for 15 days — in a vain attempt to get him to sign a document giving approval for the demolition. They are afraid but also determined to continue fighting until they win their land back. "All we want is the land we have farmed for hundreds of years," says He Fuwei, one of two brothers who signed the original declaration.
In a forthcoming paper in the China Quarterly, Professor Kevin O'Brien of the University of California, Berkeley, describes how repression can often backfire and actually make activists more respected by their communities. If that happened in China, its rural population could be further radicalized. It was Mao Zedong who famously said a "single spark can light a prairie fire." Men like He may not know it, but they are holding burning brands in their hands.
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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1719892,00.html
1. Name : Gowoon JUNG
2. Title : Population and the Environment - The Global Challenge
3. According to the article, world population will be increasing by the middle of the century. Thus , our aim is making it stabilize to consume proper amount of resources and conserve global environment. As the Malthusian's argument shows, population and demand for natural resources will bring about the environmental limits such as water shortage. The serious situation expected is not only environmental limits and crises but also its severe pollution. Now in this industrialized world, continuously increasing population will help both the shortage of resources and deterioration of the environment.
Therefore, this article suggest that solution for our future generation and our survival is to stabilize the population with the way of family planning programs. The ironical situation of this is that in developing countries and poor countries, they hope to prevent the increase of population. However, in the developed countries they encourages people to get birth babies for the maintenance of the state's future generation. At the first glance, it seems to oppose a little bit with our argument of stabilizing population.
However, when we talk about the world population and its downsizing, we cannot give certain directions to achieve in each countries, rather in public we just suggest the slogan, which is the downsizing of the world population.
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As the century begins, natural resources are under increasing pressure, threatening public health and development. Water shortages, soil exhaustion, loss of forests, air and water pollution, and degradation of coastlines afflict many areas. As the world’s population grows, improving living standards without destroying the environment is a global challenge.
Most developed economies currently consume resources much faster than they can regenerate. Most developing countries with rapid population growth face the urgent need to improve living standards. As we humans exploit nature to meet present needs, are we destroying resources needed for the future?
Environment getting worse
In the past decade in every environmental sector, conditions have either failed to improve, or they are worsening:
Public health:
Unclean water, along with poor sanitation, kills over 12 million people each year, most in developing countries. Air pollution kills nearly 3 million more. Heavy metals and other contaminants also cause widespread health problems.
Food supply:
Will there be enough food to go around? In 64 of 105 developing countries studied by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the population has been growing faster than food supplies. Population pressures have degraded some 2 billion hectares of arable land — an area the size of Canada and the U.S.
Freshwater:
The supply of freshwater is finite, but demand is soaring as population grows and use per capita rises. By 2025, when world population is projected to be 8 billion, 48 countries containing 3 billion people will face shortages.
Coastlines and oceans:
Half of all coastal ecosystems are pressured by high population densities and urban development. A tide of pollution is rising in the world’s seas. Ocean fisheries are being overexploited, and fish catches are down.
Forests:
Nearly half of the world’s original forest cover has been lost, and each year another 16 million hectares are cut, bulldozed, or burned. Forests provide over US$400 billion to the world economy annually and are vital to maintaining healthy ecosystems. Yet, current demand for forest products may exceed the limit of sustainable consumption by 25%.
Biodiversity:
The earth’s biological diversity is crucial to the continued vitality of agriculture and medicine — and perhaps even to life on earth itself. Yet human activities are pushing many thousands of plant and animal species into extinction. Two of every three species is estimated to be in decline.
Global climate change:
The earth’s surface is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, largely from burning fossil fuels. If the global temperature rises as projected, sea levels would rise by several meters, causing widespread flooding. Global warming also could cause droughts and disrupt agriculture.
Toward a livable future
How people preserve or abuse the environment could largely determine whether living standards improve or deteriorate. Growing human numbers, urban expansion, and resource exploitation do not bode well for the future. Without practicing sustainable development, humanity faces a deteriorating environment and may even invite ecological disaster.
Taking action:
Many steps toward sustainability can be taken today. These include: using energy more efficiently, managing cities better, phasing out subsidies that encourage waste, [etc.]
Stabilizing population:
While population growth has slowed, the absolute number of people continues to increase — by about 1 billion every 13 years. Slowing population growth would help improve living standards and would buy time to protect natural resources. In the long run, to sustain higher living standards, world population size must stabilize.
Population and sustainable development
Environmentalists and economists increasingly agree that efforts to protect the environment and to achieve better living standards can be closely linked and are mutually reinforcing. Slowing the increase in population, especially in the face of rising per capita demand for natural resources, can take pressure off the environment and buy time to improve living standards on a sustainable basis.3,8,11,12
As population growth slows, countries can invest more in education, health care, job creation, and other improvements that help boost living standards.11 In turn, as individual income, savings, and investment rise, more resources become available that can boost productivity. This dynamic process has been identified as one of the key reasons that the economies of many Asian countries grew rapidly between 1960 and 1990.5
In recent years fertility has been falling in many developing countries and, as a result, annual world population growth has fallen to about 1.4% in 2000 compared with about 2% in 1960. The UN estimated recently that population is growing by about 78 million per year, down from about 90 million estimated early in the 1990s.10 Still, at the current pace world population increases by about 1 billion every 13 years. World population surpassed 6 billion in 1999 and is projected to rise to over 8 billion by 2025.
Globally, fertility has fallen by half since the 1960s, to about three children per woman.10 In 65 countries, including 9 in the developing world, fertility rates have fallen below replacement level of about two children per woman.9 Nonetheless, fertility is above replacement level in 123 countries, and in some countries it is substantially above replacement level. In these countries the population continues to increase rapidly. About 1.7 billion people live in 47 countries where the fertility rate averages between three and five children per woman. Another 730 million people live in 44 countries where the average woman has five children or more.7
Almost all population growth is in the developing world. As a result of differences in population growth, Europe’s population will decline from 13% to 7% of world population over the next quarter century, while that of sub-Saharan Africa will rise from 10% to 17%. The shares of other regions are projected to remain about the same as today.6
As population and demand for natural resources continue to grow, environmental limits will become increasingly apparent.6 Water shortages are expected to affect nearly 3 billion people in 2025, with sub-Saharan Africa worst affected.2 Many countries could avoid environmental crises if they took steps now to conserve and manage supplies and demand better, while slowing population growth by providing families and individuals with information and services needed to make informed choices about reproductive health.
Family planning programs play a key role. When family planning information and services are widely available and accessible, couples are better able to achieve their fertility desires.4 “Even in adverse circumstance — low incomes, limited education, and few opportunities for women — family planning programs have meant slower population growth and improved family welfare,” the World Bank has noted.1
Conclusion
If every country made a commitment to population stabilization and resource conservation, the world would be better able to meet the challenges of sustainable development. Practicing sustainable development requires a combination of wise public investment, effective natural resource management, cleaner agricultural and industrial technologies, less pollution, and slower population growth.
Worries about a “population bomb” may have lessened as fertility rates have fallen, but the world’s population is projected to continue expanding until the middle of the century. Just when it stabilizes and thus the level at which it stabilizes will have a powerful effect on living standards and the global environment. As population size continues to reach levels never before experienced, and per capita consumption rises, the environment hangs in the balance.
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http://www.actionbioscience.org/environment/hinrichsen_robey.html
Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:08:00 AM
Keonhwa Sung
Global Warming Could Radically Change Lake Tahoe In Ten Years
The death of water is not because of direct cause, human's waste but also because of indirect cause, climate change. If climate changes, many people only worry about air pollution and destroy of ozone layer. However, climate change affects water; "What we expect is that deep mixing of Lake Tahoe's water layers will become less frequent, even non-existent, depleting the bottom waters of oxygen. This will result in major, permanent disruption to the entire lake food web." We have to remember how serious many ecological changes in the world have and affect to human and the earth. Changes can be happened to us even though we are not expected.
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ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2008) — A new UC Davis study predicts that climate change will irreversibly alter water circulation in Lake Tahoe, radically changing the conditions for plants and fish in the lake -- and it could happen in 10 years.
One likely result would be a warmer lake overall, with fewer cold-water native fish, and more invasive species, such as large-mouth bass, bluegill and carp.
Still unclear is how the changes would affect the lake's phenomenal clarity and cobalt-blue color, which have helped to make the Tahoe Basin an international vacation destination.
The new findings were announced March 18 at a Tahoe scientific conference by three lake experts from the Tahoe Environmental Research Center at UC Davis -- Director Geoffrey Schladow, Associate Director John Reuter and postdoctoral researcher Goloka Sahoo.
"What we expect is that deep mixing of Lake Tahoe's water layers will become less frequent, even non-existent, depleting the bottom waters of oxygen. This will result in major, permanent disruption to the entire lake food web," Schladow said.
"This is not unheard of," he continued. "Anoxia (oxygen depletion) occurs annually in most lakes and reservoirs in California in the summer. But Tahoe has always been special. It's been above and beyond such things.
"A permanently stratified Lake Tahoe becomes just like any other lake or pond. It is no longer this unique, effervescent jewel, the finest example of nature's grandeur."
Schladow said research is ongoing to determine if lowered global greenhouse-gas emissions would significantly slow the lake's decline, or even prevent it.
UC Davis researchers are in their 50th year of teasing apart the intertwining threads of biology, chemistry and physics that determine what Lake Tahoe looks like and what organisms live in it.
One of their chief objectives has been to understand the clarity-clouding effects of pollution from population growth and development, so that policymakers can devise solutions. Then, in December 2004, they reported that the lake was showing a new influence: Its water was warming up, probably because of global climate change.
The new study combined 40 years of weather data in the basin with mathematical models of global climate to create likely scenarios of future climate conditions at Lake Tahoe. Using those scenarios, the team employed a lake physics model to see how various combinations of probable air temperatures, cloudiness and wind speed would affect the mixing of water layers in the lake.
Currently, Lake Tahoe water mixes, on average, every four years. The deepest mixing typically occurs in late February. This winter -- a particularly cold and snowy one -- Lake Tahoe experienced mixing throughout its entire 1,644-foot depth.
This mixing has profound ecological and water-quality impacts. Deep mixing moves nutrients from the lake bottom to the water surface, where they promote the growth of algae. And it takes oxygen from the surface and distributes it throughout the lake, which supports aquatic life.
The new study showed that, if global greenhouse-gas emissions continue at current levels, mixing could become less frequent and less deep -- even stop altogether as soon as 2019.
Schladow said that was quite a shock. "While we expected that the lake would mix less in the future, learning that we may be only a decade or two from the complete shutdown of deep mixing was very surprising.
"If mixing shuts down, then no new oxygen gets to the bottom of the lake, and creatures that need it, such as lake trout, will have a large part of their range excluded," Schladow said.
Equally worrying, he said, is the likelihood that when the oxygen is gone, phosphorus that is currently locked up in the lake-floor sediments will get released. This phosphorus will eventually reach the lake's surface, where it will fuel algal growth. Algae blooms can cause many problems, including reduced lake clarity, unpleasant odors and bad-tasting drinking water.
The climatic changes that are expected to affect Lake Tahoe are also impacting lakes around the world. These widespread concerns have been the topic of a science workshop at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center that runs through March 25. Researchers from Japan, New Zealand, Chile and the United States will discuss strategies to pool and analyze data from many of the lakes in the Pacific Rim region. Their goal is to learn more about the security of drinking-water supplies and the ecological sustainability of these lake systems.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080325141202.htm
Nuri Na
EPA's New Ozone Limit: Not Enough?
I found another article about the connection between EPA and Bush administration. This shows that EPA's condition is usually under government's control. I also think that EPA's behavior is against environmental protection and it only cares about the political power of influence. It is one of the structural problems of the society.
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It might be a sign of how deeply environmentalists have come to distrust the Bush Administration that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could announce that he was actually tightening standards on air pollution — and still get hammered by green groups. That's exactly what happened Wednesday, when EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson limited the allowable level of ozone — the air pollutant that triggers smog — to 75 parts per billion. That's tighter than the current limit of effectively 84 parts per billion, but it's still much higher than the level recommended by the EPA's own scientific advisers, who suggested limiting ozone in the air to an average of between 60 and 70 parts per billion over an eight-hour period. Johnson told reporters that he had "made the most health-protective eight-hour ozone decision in the nation's history." Technically true, but environmental and health groups focused on the fact that Johnson had given no justification for ignoring scientific consensus for a lower limit. "Stephen Johnson is the only person right now who believes this level is adequate to protect human health," says John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Clean Air Program. "He hasn't offered any coherent explanation for why this happened."
The byproduct of nitrogen oxides and other chemicals released into the air by vehicles and power plants, ozone is one of the most pernicious pollutants in the air — and one of the hardest to get rid of. Even today, tens of millions of Americans live in areas that can't meet the current limit of 84 parts per billion, and suffer from the effects of ground-level ozone: an inflamed respiratory tract, worsened cardiovascular disease, asthma, even premature death. "It's an irritant, and it literally burns the inside of your lungs," says Dr. John Balbus, chief health scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, who notes that children will suffer the most. Balbus says that the EPA's own studies say that bringing down the ozone limit to 65 parts per billion — the halfway point of the range suggested by science — would prevent 2,330 deaths, 4,600 emergency room visits and 1,300,000 lost school days by the year 2020, compared to the current regulation. Nor is a limit of 65 parts per billion unachievable. The European Commission mandates ozone levels at no more than 61 parts per billion, and even Canada has lower limits than those the EPA will adapt. "Smog levels have to be a lot lower before we'll be able to breathe easily in the U.S.," says Walke.
So why did the EPA decide to ignore its own scientific advisers? Politics may have played a role — as did economics. The Washington Post reported that White House officials wanted to take the costs of tightening the ozone regulations into consideration when drafting new limits — something that's expressly forbidden by the Clean Air Act, which says that public health can be the only base for new regulations. The Supreme Court affirmed that fact in 2001, but in issuing the new rule, the EPA's Johnson called on Congress to rewrite the law to allow regulators to take the cost of controlling pollution into consideration. The Clean Air Act "is not a relic to be displayed in the Smithsonian but a living document that must be modernized to continue realizing the results," said Johnson.
Controlling pollution isn't cheap. Nearly 350 counties in the U.S. currently violate the new standard of 75 parts per billion, and reaching that standard will take $8.8 billion a year according to the EPA, though that number doesn't factor in the health savings that result from reduced pollution. But green groups and Democrats in Congress were livid at Johnson's suggestion, viewing it as a thinly veiled effort by the Bush Administration to weaken the country's environmental regulations. "The Bush Administration would have us replace clean air standards driven by science with standards based on the interests of polluters," Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in a statement. "It is outrageous."
Democratic control of Congress means that any change in the Clean Air Act is very unlikely, and environmental groups have already said that they will sue the EPA to fight for stronger regulations in court. But many worry that Johnson's decision is a sign that the Bush Administration will use its final year in office to gut environmental protection whenever possible. Johnson is already under investigation for his decision in December to refuse California's routine request to impose tighter greenhouse gas regulations on its auto industry, and the EPA has come under intense criticism for failing to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant — despite a Supreme Court decision last year giving the agency the authority to do so. Even when new regulations are issued, like the ozone limits, they tend to be delayed — the revision of the ozone standard is more than five years overdue. "It's hard to see these decisions as anything other than politically motivated," says Walke. "They can do a lot of damage in a year." For environmentalists — and those who just want to breathe easily — that's a scary thought.
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http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1722343,00.html
GOEUN KIM
This article is about the United Kingdom enabling standards to decrease greenhouse gases. The government switched their natural use of resources from coal to natural gas for electricity and are aiming to decrease the emission of CO2. The policies made by countries that have a high influence in the environment.
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Britain cut greenhouse gas by 2pc in 2007: official
AFP - Thursday, March 27 08:50 pmLONDON (AFP) - Greenhouse gas emissions, thought to be the main culprit for global warming, fell by two percent in Britain last year, according to official figures published Thursday.
For carbon dioxide, net emissions were provisionally down from 554.5 million tonnes in 2006 to 543.7 million tonnes last year -- a two percent fall.
International flights -- considered by environmental groups as a major source of pollution -- were not included because of a lack of agreement on recording methods.
The government put the decrease in CO2 emissions down to a switch from coal to natural gas for electricity plus a cut in fossil fuel consumption by households and industry.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said in a statement: "These figures show we are making progress in cutting emissions and are on target to go beyond our Kyoto targets.
"But there's much to do at home and abroad if we are to going to avert dangerous climate change."
Britain has pledged to introduce the world's first legally-binding targets to cut carbon emissions, setting a goal of at least a 60 percent reduction in emissions by 2050.
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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080327/tpl-britain-politics-environment-climate-5b839a9.html
1. Lee hea joung
2.Battle of the Bags
3.
I don't understand why government don't control plastic industry. I see a little after read this article. Last class we learned industry, state and labor( customer). the industry lelated with the state. So untill one policy decide many industry fight. So plastic bag prohibition is very difficult. But I think this dispute become known plastic's danger.
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How the plastics industry uses lobbying and legal threats to turn plastic bag prohibitions into voluntary recycling drives.
When San Francisco became the first U.S. city to prohibit large grocery stores and pharmacies from distributing disposable plastic bags in March 2007, it appeared to have sparked a trend. At least a dozen other cities, counties and states were soon considering proposals to ban or severely restrict distribution of what many environmentalists consider a wasteful and harmful product.
The plastics industry had no intention of allowing the San Francisco model to spread without a fight, though. It quickly and quietly joined with retailers and other business interests and launched a successful counterattack, using lobbying muscle to quash proposed bans. In the face of the onslaught, the cities have instituted voluntary recycling programs that proponents of the bans say are ineffective and likely to remain so.
And in at least two instances, plastics interests have turned the tables on their green adversaries by filing lawsuits on environmental grounds in an effort to prevent bans from taking effect.
"The plastic industry … will try to win local battle by local battle," says Marc Mihaly, director of the environmental law center at Vermont Law School. "They will intimidate where they can. If they can't intimidate … they will try to influence legislators."
Plastics industry representatives attribute their successes to a growing realization that plastic bans are misguided.
"The trend is that cities who are taking a look at what San Francisco did … are all taking a step back and going toward recycling," said Donna Dempsey, a spokeswoman for Progressive Bag Affiliates, which represents plastic bag makers.
The so-far scattered skirmishes are part of a grander battle over bags, a conflict in which plastic and paper industries are fighting for supermarket supremacy while fending off an ecological newcomer: the reusable fabric bag.
Plastic bags winning in marketplace
Plastic bags have established the clear upper hand. Nationwide, grocery stores and pharmacies go through about 92 billion plastic bags a year, compared with about 5 billion paper sacks, according to paper and plastic industry estimates.
That success also has made the light, strong polyethylene sacks a prominent target for critics. Their manufacture requires large quantities of petroleum. And, once discarded, they tend to take flight in a puff of wind, snagging in trees and fences or floating in bodies of water, where they can choke marine life and birds. As litter, a plastic bag's life expectancy is far greater than a human's — 1,000 years or more.
In Philadelphia, one of the cities that drafted legislation to ban plastic bag distribution by large retailers, they also have a habit of choking the city's antiquated sewer system.
"It was a common-sense issue," said Brian Abernathy, a legislative aide to the proposal's sponsor, City Councilman Frank DiCicco.
But while the ban had popular support, Abernathy said, proponents were ill-prepared for the industry opposition they encountered at the first public hearing on the plan in October. Among those who spoke out against the proposal were the Philadelphia-based petroleum and chemical company Sunoco; the state's food merchants association; bag wholesalers and distributors; the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic and chemical companies; and the Progressive Bag Alliance, as the plastic bag makers trade group was formerly known.
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By Kari Huus | MSNBC
Mar 13, 2008 | Updated: 1:35 p.m. ET Mar 13, 2008
Hyeseon Jeong
More you use, more you pay for water
(I’m in the central library now, staying awake to do some team-project works with my classmates.
Since yesterday, I had to deal with a kind of unpredictable situation; I had no time to posting. I’m really sorry for lateness.)
Water is a basic resource for human life and a fundamental source for industry. So, it could be major commons which is not only invaluable but also vulnerable.
According to this short article, India has to decide pay more when use more... I think it is very meaningful because India, as home to 1.002 billion people, key aquifers are being over-pumped, soil is growing saltier through contamination with irrigation water, and already facing a severe water shortage and an epidemic which is can wipe out 40% of the population.
In Korea, water charges are also applicable to cumulative system. And many other countries are applying this system such as U.S.A., Canada, and Japan. Added to this, purifying the used water on golf courses and in ponds is the law in Singapore. Through these ways, they can save a great deal of water on a regular basis. Most importantly, these countries have been carrying out public education related to saving the water for many years. I think Korea really needs this kind of education and public relations, since the right education changes people’s minds. The Government and civic groups also have to promote long term education about water, before it is too late.
According to the UN’s announcement, Korea has been designated as a water shortage-nation which means annual usage of the water is less the 1700m3 for each person. Although we aren’t suffering directly from the shortage and pollution of the water, someday we’ll face these kinds of concerns as do many people living in Africa, where it can mean the difference between life and death. It is hard to believe, but the 25,000 thousand people have die yearly because of the polluted water, and this number is equal to the total population of Canada.
And the things related Commons and Capitalism…
Not only water shortage but also in contamination problems, we can easily guess too often profit overcomes conscience and ruthless people simply neglect the environment in favor of monetary gain. Moreover, recently the price of bottled water is more expensive than that of gasoline. It ranges from about a thousand Won to more than a few tens of thousands of Won per liter of water, depending on the brand names. Is water that precious? No way. Some people, however, want to drink quality water. So, the water industry has become one of the fastest rising markets. The French multinational, Veolia, has many branches around the world, even in our country. They already have more than a 60% share of the water market in China. K-Water (formerly, Korea Water Resources Cooperation) and Kolon have recently declared a new vision for the water industry. There is no doubt that water will be a lot more profitable to the company but more expensive to us. Sooner or later, however, we will need to wait or to pay a lot more for our water. The saying, "spend it like water," is not valid any more.
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MUMBAI: Get set to pay more for water if you consume more than the BMC-estimated daily average.
In a long overdue move to conserve water in a metropolis whose demands have long outstripped supply, the municipality has decided to introduce a "telescopic rate structure" from April 1. According to the new rate card, those who consume water above the stipulated limit will have to pay a higher rate.
The current water charges are heavily subsidized—domestic users in residential buildings pay Rs 3.50 for every 1,000 liters and slum residents pay a lower fee of Rs 2.25. Commercial and industrial users pay much more (between Rs 10.50 and Rs 38). But for no group is the cost of water linked to the quantum of consumption. This is going to change.
The World Health Organization pegs the daily per capita water consumption at 135 liters but the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will follow the more generous Indian standard of 150 liters for its new tariff.
The BMC has pegged the average household size at five members and has thus calculated that a family should consume 750 liters a day. Once the 750-liter mark is crossed, the charges will increase in proportion to the extra consumption. (28 Mar 2008, 0215 hrs IST , Clara Lewis , TNN)
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai/More_you_use_more_you_pay_for_water/articleshow/2905394.cms
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