Greenpeace wants to Protect Urban Development...

Environmentalists are urgently calling for early warning systems and infrastructure improvements in vulnerable Asian coastal regions to save people from the worst effects of future tidal waves like that of Sunday.

OK - help me out here. We have a goup - Greenpeace - which is ostensibly dedicated to preserving the environment from the perils of human activity.

On the other hand, we have a completely natural earthly (albeit tragic) event.

Where would you expect Greenpeace to end up? Ready? "Steve Sawyer, Climate Director of Greenpeace International in Amsterdam, said a warning system like that already operating in the Pacific would give threatened areas time to react in an emergency.

It would provide "a substantial number of minutes and lessen the loss of life if not the loss of property."

So - it's OK to protect the environment as long as it doesn't impact on urban development? Or is it OK to build heavily polluting urban environments as long as proper safeguards are in place to protect them from the perils of nature?

Am I the only one seeing the hypocrisy here?

Border stays open, Meat Group wants it open even sooner...

This ought to help keep the border open...

A U.S. meat industry group has filed a federal lawsuitin an attempt to force the Department of Agriculture to allow imports of Canadian cattle.

Meanwhile, US D of A officials still intend on opening the border by March, in spite of a recent test showing another cow may have had BSE.

Mad Cows, Part Two???

Just when you think the worst is over... the Canadian Cattle industry, fresh on the heels of an announcement that the long reviled ban on Canadian beef products would be lifted in March, learns that a Canadian Dairy Cow may have tested positive for Mad Cow disease.

The reaction to the news has been swift, but tentative... no mainstream media outlets are predicting the 're-closure' of the border.

The Canadian Cattle industry says they expect the border to reopen on schedule because the finding, if positive for BSE, would still fall within U.S. guidelines maintaining Canada as a minimal risk country. Points to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association for being quick to shut down any rumours otherwise.

Reaction will be sure to follow within the next few days as further tests on the animal are conducted, and political/regulatory officials find their way to a beckoning microphone.

Developing...

The mainstream media is catching on...

Stories coming from a number of different sources (which makes sense, since it's an AP story) are detailing the myriad of ways that technology helps manage chores on farms.

Gee - maybe next they'll start treating farming like any other business... with the associated degree of public accountability and activist pressure normally associated with it.

Activists, Infighting and Wind Farms...

I'm not sure what it is with environmental activists and wind farms, but they just don't seem to mix.

The driving force behind the Waterkeeper Alliance, Robert Kennedy Jr, was one of the lead players attempting to stop the development of an offshore windfarm near Martha's Vineyard a year ago. Then again, he had a very noble cause - it upset the sightlines from his family estate.

Now, a lead Maryland official in the Sierra Club is being pursued for his resignation, over blatant suppression of scientific data that likely shows a wind farm in western Maryland poses no threat whatsoever to migratory bird populations.

Dan Boone, long opposed to wind power for it's "visual impacts" and thread to birds was able to handpick a team of ornithologists to show what impact a wind-farm was having on the bird population... only the ornithologists apparently disagreed. Boone won't release the information, and now fellow members of the Sierra Club are pressing for his resignation.

Maybe wind electricity production is to environmental groups as Kryptonite is to Superman. I think we may be on to something here...

Clean Power from Turkey Droppings

Turkey leftovers will take on a whole new use after a Minnesota company finishes construction of a power plant fired by the birds' droppings.

Turkey dung is prized over pig excrement and cow chips.

"Poultry litter is drier material, so it burns better, and there's a lot of it," said Charles Grecco, of HH Media, LLC, an investment bank that helped arrange $202 million in financing for the plant.

The 55-megawatt plant will burn 700,000 tons of dung a year and produce fertilizer as a by-product.

Bath Could Give Earthquake Warnings

A tin bath on the cliffs of northern Iceland, where locals take a dip to treat skin complaints, could help scientists give an early warning of big earthquakes and save thousands of lives.

Scientists hope that measuring the changes in its chemical balance will provide a countdown to a quake, something thought impossible until now.

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake which struck the Tjornes Fracture Zone near Husavik, Iceland's whale-watching capital, in September 2002 showed just such changes.

"There was a huge peak in the concentration of some chemicals in the water -- some went up 1,000 percent before the earthquake," said Lillemor Claesson from Stockholm University and the Nordic Volcanological Center in Reykjavik.

Other scientists are skeptical, saying it doesn't provide enough specific information about magnitude, location and time.

Getting Burned? Put on a Shirt

Australians have found a new way to protect themselves from the fierce sunlight: laundry detergent with UV protection. With every wash, the sun protection provided by T-shirts and other clothing is increased until it's five to 10 times more effective.

Most people think clothing will protect you from getting a sunburn. It does, but only to a mild extent - "Light, loose-weave fabrics like cottons offer as little sun protection as SPF 5 to 8," said Jon Starr, a dermatologist at Stanford Unversity.

The UV protection from Australia's Radiant 3 in 1 Colour Care laundry detergent comes from a special UV-absorbing chemical compound called Tinosorb FD, which is made by Switzerland's Ciba Specialty Chemicals. Tinosorb FD helps protect against both UVA and UVB radiation.

According to the manufacturer, Radiant can increase the sun protection provided by clothing so the garments block at least 96 percent of UV radiation.

World's Scientists Admit They Just Don't Like Mice

We've suspected it for decades... it's not that doing experiments on mice has any scientific value - the world's scientists admit they just don't like mice.

"As a man of science, I deal with facts, and the fact is that mice are gross," said Dr. Douglas White, chair of the Oxford biogenetics department and lifelong mouse-hater. "They're squirmy, scurrying little vermin, and they make my skin crawl. I speak for all of my assembled colleagues when I say that the horrible little things deserve the worst we can dish out."

Above - A researcher injects dye into a mouse's eye "just for the heck of it."

(I love the Onion)

"That's a LOT of manure!!!"

According to a scientist in Colombia, giant coca plants said to resist herbicides and yield eight times more cocaine may be due to extra fertilizer, not a drug cartel's genetic modification program.

All I have to say - Better Homes and Gardens should find out what that fertilizer is. Do the Miracle-Gro people know about this? Come on - eight times???

Can you name a cash crop which has more to gain from being genetically modified than cocaine? I can't.

Turning Plastic into Dirt...

Scientists Make Phone That Turns Into a Sunflower

Scientists said on Monday they have come up with a cell phone cover that will grow into a sunflower when thrown away. The company Pvaxx, subcontracted through Motorola, has come up with a polymer that looks like any other plastic, but which degrades into soil when discarded.

The issue of electronics recycling is an increasingly tricky one - who doesn't have a box in their closet filled with old cellphones, pagers, game boys or electronic organizers? The problem is the elements contained in those products shouldn't be disposed of in a normal landfill.

This doesn't solve all the problems - yet. But the future of unique biotechnology applications is coming up roses... (or in this case, sunflowers.)

Art meets Biotech...

Next time you hear the words "biotechnology" and think of either food or medicine, consider this.

Art Experts in Venezuala are using biotechnology applications to prevent wood beetles from destroying a historic wood carving of the Virgin Mary. They plan to "vaccinate" the carving with spores of a bacterial toxin which is deadly to insects but harmless to humans, and, they hope, to works of art too.

One of the experts involved claims "The idea is that this biotechnology application could be used massively in the work of art conservation."

The Canuck Kyoto Farce...

Perhaps it was an effort to appease environmentalists, or maybe it was their own unique way of sticking it to the American's. Who knows - if you get really optimistic, you could even go so far as to believe that the Canadian Government thought ratifying the Kyoto Accord was the right thing to do.

The folks in charge of implementation are discovering that not only is the Kyoto protocol a sham, but it's expectations aren't feasible... since they've admitted that they're not going to even come close to meeting the Kyoto targets anyway.

Time to just walk away and admit the whole thing was a mistake.