"The Traveler" Returns to Pakistan

The Urdu poet Mustafa Zaidi died today in 1970. What might he have written had he lived to witness the floods that have devastated his homeland?

Today in 1970, Pakistan lost one of their great modern Urdu poets when Mustafa Zaidi passed away. He was just 39 years old.

The year before he died, Zaidi wrote the poem "The Traveler" in Singapore as he made his way back to Pakistan by traveling west. "He had just spent some months in London on a fellowship given to members of the Civil Service of Pakistan," writes Laurel Steele of the University of Chicago in the Annual of Urdu Studies.

"'The Traveler' is a tour de force of longing -- a longing for place, for recognition, and for love," Steele writes.

"As he returns, the poet addresses his 'homeland' (vatan) giving impressions of other countries. Yet, the imprint of art and culture that he has within him and that he has received from foreign places is met by the rude trappings of consumerism and the market."

If Zaidi returned today, what might he see?

He might see more than 21 million in his homeland injured or homeless due to the floods that began in July. He might see the estimated 10 million people that the World Health Organization reports have been forced to drink unsafe water.

He might see that Pakistan had received only about 20% of the U.N.'s international appeal for $460 million for emergency relief (as of August 15).

He might see destroyed standing crops. He might see the loss of billions of dollars worth of food storages. He might see what Pakistani prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called a "colossal loss to national economy."

He might also see aid being delivered. He might see the food rations that the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) has supplied for more than 6 million flood victims. And he might have seen the daily peak of 440,000 individuals fed on September 27.

He might see 30,000 children from worst affected districts of Sindh given high-energy biscuits and milk through Plan International's child-friendly spaces program.

He might see, at any one time, at least 600 WFP trucks moving food around the country.

If he returned today, he might say the same thing he wrote in "The Traveler":

My homeland, there is nothing in my luggage
Just a dream and the ramparts of a dream
Accept the gift of my dirty shirt
For in its dirt are the lands of prayers.

Translation by Laurel Steele.

image: Mustafa Zaidi, his wife and their children (source: "Six Poems by Mustafa Zaidi With an Elegy by Salam Machhli-shahri," Laurel Steele, The Annual of Urdu Studies)

Fracking Up the Delaware

It is a symbol of the American Revolution. Now the Delaware is the nation's most endangered river

Around 17 million people get their water from the Upper Delaware River, which snakes through the boundaries between New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

But it is being threatened by energy companies who believe that the Marcellus Shale -- 95,000 square miles of dense, 400-million-year-old marine sedimentary rock that lies beneath New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio -- contains enough natural gas to power the entire East coast region for the next 50 years.

The method used to extract all this gas is called hydraulic fracturing (or simply, "fracking"), which creates fractures in the rock to get to the sweet stuff. In 2005, Congress deemed that it was not necessary for the government to regulate this process, which environmentalists say is extremely dangerous, citing potential air quality degradation, groundwater contamination, unintended gas migration and even seismic events.

On June 3, a well in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, experienced a blowout, sending 35,000 gallons of fracking fluids into the air and the surrounding forested landscape. Some of the ingredients in this fluid can be toxic and include gels, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and in some cases, radioactive material. These fluids can also enter the groundwater, turning it into untreatable toxic wastewater.

Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) secretary John Hanger declared the June 3 blowout a "serious incident," saying, "The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident that endangered life and property."

In their 2010 report on America's endangered rivers, the non-profit river conservation group American Rivers declared that the Upper Delaware River was the nation's most endangered, citing the threat from natural gas extraction.

"Until a thorough study of these critical impacts is completed, the Delaware River Basin Commission must not issue permits that will allow gas drilling in this watershed," the group urges on their website.

"In addition, Congress must pass the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 to help protect all rivers within the Marcellus Shale region."

The EPA recently announced a $1.9 million study to re-examine hydraulic fracturing. But the oil and gas industry has been vigorously defending the safety of the process. Studies have "consistently shown that the risks are managed, it's safe, it's a technology that's essential ... it's also a technology that's well-regulated," said Lee Fuller, director of the industry coalition Energy In Depth, in an AP story.

But since the BP oil spill in the Gulf, the drilling companies have lost quite a bit of credibility with the public. "People no longer trust the oil and gas industry to say, 'Trust us, we're not cutting corners,'" said Cathy Carlson, a policy adviser for Earthworks, which supports federal regulation and a moratorium on fracking in the Marcellus Shale, in the AP article.

On the evening of Christmas Day in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, George Washington famously led his troops across the Delaware River from Pennsylvania to New Jersey in a planned surprise attack against the Hessian forces in Trenton.

As regulators and environmentalists consider the future of both fracking and the Delaware River, they would do well to note the password to get past the sentry that Washington's troops set up along the New Jersey landing line: "Victory or Death."

And as the members of Congress consider the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act -- in the face of intense pressure from the energy industry lobbying groups -- they should remember something else Washington said: "Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

image: "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutze, 1851, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Crossing the River Jordan

Symbolically, it flows powerfully through Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But today, the Lower Jordan River is a mess

According to the Canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus Christ was baptized in the Jordan River.

Elijah crossed it and rode a chariot of fire into Heaven. Elisha used the river's water to cure lepers. Joshua crossed it into Canaan. It was a prominent part of the Prophet Muhammad's nighttime journey from Mecca to al-Quds (Jerusalem). The Qur’an says that God blessed the land of the Jordan River Valley "for all beings."

"The Lower Jordan River is arguably the most famous river in the world, of international significance to more than half of humanity due to its rich natural and cultural heritage and its symbolic value and importance to the three monotheistic religions," Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) said in a statement from Tel Aviv.

In a May 2010 trilateral FoEME report entitled "Towards a Living Jordan River: An Environmental Flows Report on the Rehabilitation of the Lower Jordan River," researchers from Israel's Ruppin Academic Center, Palestine's Al Quds University and Jordan's University of Science and Technology found that:

• The Lower Jordan River (LJR) today is a highly degraded system due to severe flow reduction and water quality decline.
• Over 98% of the historic flow of the LJR is diverted by Israel, Syria and Jordan for domestic and agricultural uses and are discharging untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent into it.
  
• The remaining flow consists primarily of sewage, fish pond waters, agricultural run-off, and saline water diverted from the LJR from salt springs around the Sea of Galilee.
• The river has lost over 50% of its biodiversity primarily due to a total loss of fast flow habitats and floods and the high salinity of the water.
• Long stretches of the LJR are expected to be completely dry unless urgent action is taken by the parties to return fresh water to the river.

The water of the LJR poses a health risk to the tourists and pilgrims bathing at the river's holy baptism site, FoEME says. The group has urged Israel to close the site to the public until the water quality is improved. Approximately 100,000 tourists visit every year.

FoEME recommends that Israel undertake an experimental flood of the LJR developed by Yale University, citing that "floods are essential to healthy river ecology." They also recommend the development of a master plan for the LJR, the establishment of an international commission to manage the basin and that Palestine receive a fair share of the river's water resources "as part of the Middle East peace negotiations."

The Gospel of Mark notes that the people of Judea and Jerusalem were all baptized by John the Baptist "in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins." The governments of Israel, Syria and Jordan should remember this Biblical story, confess the sins they have committed on this critical water source and make plans to rehabilitate it.

image: Christophe Unterberger, "Crossing the Jordan River," 1780s (Hermitage Museum)

Nothing Sunny About Sunny-side Up

Concealing price-fixing and animal cruelty with an "animal welfare program"? Just another day of duplicity at the egg factory

PLUS: Governor Schwarzenegger signs landmark California egg bill, affecting nation's egg producers

Land O'Lakes has agreed pay $25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that the multi-billion dollar agricultural cooperative conspired with farmers to fix egg prices, according to Reuters, covering a period of egg industry abuse that dates back to at least 2000.

According to United Egg Producers (UEP), the nation's biggest egg trade association, every year about 80 billion eggs are produced in the United States, with the average American consuming 246 of them.

Ninety-seven percent of America's hens spend their entire, miserable lives in 7"x7" wired battery cages. And those that aren't in cages aren't faring much better. Unfortunately, the term "cage-free" has no legal meaning. It's merely a euphemism for "high-density floor confinement."

The term "free-range," on the other hand, is regulated by the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA). But the term is almost meaningless. All farmers have to do to put that label on their eggs is to abide by one simple, open-ended and non-descript USDA rule: "Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside."

The USDA doesn't stipulate anything more. No minimum size for the outside space. No minimum time spent outside. No actual time outside is necessary -- just "access." No specification for the kind of surface that the birds can access in this vague "outside" area.

In 2008, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission (FTP) alleging that the member corporations of the UEP created an animal welfare program to cover up "what strongly appears to be a national price-fixing scheme that drove the price of eggs to historic highs, inflating agribusiness company profits to never-before-seen levels. In the state of Ohio alone, egg prices shot up 77 percent in 2007."

Animal welfare program? Apparently the UEP members are nothing if not ironic.

Following the HSUS filing, egg buyers filed 21 class action lawsuits alleging federal antitrust law violations against UEP and its members, including 13 of America’s largest egg factory farmers: Rose Acre Farms, Cal-Maine, Ohio Fresh Eggs, Michael Foods, Land O’Lakes, NuCal and Moark.

According to an HSUS statement, "egg industry leaders squeeze birds into small cages, and then squeeze American consumers through anti-competitive practices, while falsely and brazenly representing themselves as defenders of American consumers against the modest reform efforts of animal advocates. That’s the very definition of duplicity."

On July 6, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a landmark egg bill (A.B 1437) that affects egg producers across the country. The new law stipulates that all eggs sold in California must come from "hens able to stand up, fully extend their limbs, lie down and fully extend their wings without touching each other or the sides of cages," according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Californians have made it clear that they don't want unsafe eggs from hens crammed into cages, and we applaud the Legislature and governor for heeding this call," Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle said in a statement.

Between the settlements and the new legislation, positive changes in the lives of hens -- albeit modest -- reveal that more and more Americans aren't content to go easy on just how that over-easy got to their plates.

image: industrial chicken coop with battery cages (ITamar K.)

Highway to the Endangered Zone

Tanzania is planning to build a road through the Serengeti. That would be a colossal mistake

"Roads are catastrophic for wildlife," writes Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist and research fellow at Imperial College London, in the New York Times.

"Roads allow the easy spread of invasive plant species, as car tires often carry their seeds. Roads also allow the rapid spread of animal diseases, and lead to an increase in poaching, building and other human activities. But by far the biggest problem is that roads fragment habitats and disrupt animal movements. Many animals are reluctant to cross roads, even those with little traffic."

Tanzania is planning to build a road that will do irrevocable damage to one of the world's most celebrated ecosystems -- the Serengeti. This plan is not just ill-conceived, but also baffling, considering the nation's excellent record on conservation. Together with its northern neighbor Kenya, Tanzania has safeguarded over 80% of the Serengeti through protected parks and reserves.

The proposed road from Arusha to Musoma (the red line in the image), scheduled for construction in 2012, would traverse the Serengeti and bisect the Earth's last Great Migration, an annual 500-kilometer (310-mile) migration of over 2.2 million herbivores (about 200,000 zebra, 500,000 Thompson's gazelle and 1.5 million wildebeest). To get a sense of the scale of this spectacular endeavor, try to imagine the population of Houston running to New Orleans.

The Serengeti Migration, which takes place in October, is the longest and largest active overland migration on the planet. Unsurprisingly, it is also one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world.

According to Judson, the fence that will likely be used to protect the cars on the road from all the wildlife "would likely end the migration, cause the collapse of the wildebeest population -- and destroy the Serengeti as we know it."

The East African reports that, according to Arusha Regional Commissioner Isidori Shirima, "the government deemed the proposed 480km Arusha-Musoma tarmac road to be of great socioeconomic significance for Tanapa," the Tanzania Parks Authority.

The Frankfurt Zoological Society has offered an alternative proposal: a different east-west road in the southern part of Tanzania that would avoid the Serengeti altogether. "This alternative road system has been surveyed by the government already and would serve five times as many people as the planned Northern road and fulfill the same needs for linking major regional centers," argues the society.

Ranging over 30,000 square kilometers (12,000 square miles), the Serengeti is about the size of Belgium. It is an extremely biodiverse ecosystem that is home to about 70 large mammal species and 500 avifauna species. It is also the location of the "Cradle of Mankind" -- the Olduvai Gorge, where some of the oldest hominid fossils have been found.

"It defines Africa in a unique way, perhaps, as some scientists argue, because it's the landscape where we became human," writes Duke University conservation ecologist Stuart L. Pimm in National Geographic. "If a planned road cuts it in half, it may be a landscape our children will watch only as history."

Judson notes that Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, who has expressed a deep interest in nature, sometimes quotes his country’s first president, Julius Nyerere: "The survival of our wildlife is a matter of grave concern to all of us in Africa. These wild creatures amid the wild places they inhabit are not only important as a resource of wonder and inspiration but are an integral part of our natural resources and our future livelihood and well-being. In accepting the trusteeship of our wildlife we solemnly declare that we will do everything in our power to make sure that our children’s grandchildren will be able to enjoy this rich and precious heritage."

The name "Serengeti" comes from the Massai word serengit, which means "endless plains." If Tanzania's plan goes through, Mr. Kikwete should consider renaming the Serengeti, because its plains will end where the road begins.

And he should probably stop quoting President Nyerere, too.

image: the proposed road (in red) would cross a substantial part of the Serengeti and associated ecosystems (credit: Frankfurt Zoological Society)

Shantih Shantih Shantih

Global warming suggests future waste lands around the world

In the first line of his 1922 poem "The Waste Land," American poet T. S. Eliot famously declared that "April is the cruellest month."

That may be so, but May 2010 will go down as the warmest, so far.

"The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for May was the warmest on record, at 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average of 58.6°F (14.8°C)," according to press release issued by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"Worldwide average land surface temperature for May and March-May was the warmest on record while the global ocean surface temperatures for both May and March-May were second warmest on record, behind 1998."

As the world heats up, the race -- and perhaps the political will -- to find solutions to anthropogenic global warming is cooling off. The recent United Nations climate change negotiations in Bonn produced little but continued inaction and growing frustration.

"The U.N. talks made limited progress overall, but plenty of conflicts remain," said Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental Defense Fund, in an EDF press release.

"The discouraging news is that even as the BP oil disaster continued to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, some oil-exporting countries -- including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar -- were so desperate to protect the oil industry that they blocked efforts to expand studies of the climate change problem," Petsonk said.

According to Climate-L.org, "Many parties and civil society representatives expressed 'deep disappointment' at the outcome."

One of the most important poems of the 20th century, "The Waste Land" is a far-reaching exploration of the universal sense of disillusionment and despair that followed World War I. Its final line is "Shantih shantih shantih."

In Sanskrit, shantih means peace -- a word that is uttered three times at the end of every Shantih mantra. Each utterance, according to the scriptures of Hinduism, is an attempt to eliminate the barrier that exists in each of the three realms where trouble lie -- the physical, the internal and the divine, in order to achieve a sense of calm before a task is accomplished.

Perhaps the 2,900 Bonn participants might consider these three words before their next climate change meeting. Because if global temperatures continue their seemingly inexorable rise, the world will become a waste land, and it won't be just April that's the cruellest of the months.

image: T.S. Eliot photographed one Sunday afternoon in 1923 by Lady Ottoline Morrell, 16 June 1873 – 21 April 1938 (National Portrait Gallery)

Jimmy Carter Was Right

Barely two weeks into his presidency, Jimmy Carter called for a comprehensive, long-range energy policy that emphasized conservation. Too bad no one listened

"One of our most urgent projects is to develop a national energy policy," said President Jimmy Carter in a televised Oval Office address on February 2, 1977. It was his Report to the American People on Energy. He had been president for just 13 days.

Noting that America was "only major industrial country without a comprehensive, long-range energy policy," Carter championed a program that would "emphasize conservation."

"The amount of energy being wasted which could be saved is greater than the total energy that we are importing from foreign countries," Carter said. "We will also stress development of our rich coal reserves in an environmentally sound way; we will emphasize research on solar energy and other renewable energy sources; and we will maintain strict safeguards on necessary atomic energy production."

Just think for a moment where we might be today if Americans had answered Carter's call to action. But alas, for the ensuing three decades, at least when it came to energy -- our policy, our usage, our investments, our waste -- we were asleep at the wheel. And for a good lot of us, that wheel happened to be connected to a gas-guzzling SUV.

And all the while, oil companies kept drilling for more of the stuff to which we became so addicted. Profits were huge. Thanks to our unchecked addiction, ExxonMobil posted a staggering, record-breaking net income of $40.61 billion in 2007. (That's more than the nominal GDP of over 100 countries, including Tunisia, Guatemala and Kenya.) Now, that addiction (and all the other addictions that oil fed so well) has led us directly to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill -- the greatest ecological catastrophe to befall the nation in its 233-year history. And it was man-made.

"Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," said President Obama during his Oval Office address last night. "And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it's not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years."

An addiction that led to an epidemic? Sounds positively Caligulan.

Obama pointed out that "for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked, not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor."

Democratic senators are planning to meet tomorrow to discuss the agenda that will cover the remaining time of the 111th Congress, which will come to a close on January 3, 2011. Will they show the political courage to vote for comprehensive legislation to address climate change?

Worryingly, some of them have said they will hold their vote unless such legislation caters to some offshore drilling interests. In the meantime, anthropogenic climate change -- tied closely to America's fossil fuel usage (Obama noted that "we consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil") -- continues to take a devastating toll on the global environment.

In 2004, a group of international researchers published a bleak study entitled "Extinction Risk from Climate Change" in the journal Nature. The authors predicted that millions of species will become extinct due to climate change by 2050 -- a quarter of animals and plants living on land alone. Up to 37% of the species in the biodiverse regions they studied could be wiped out, primarily because of the effects of all the carbon dioxide we're releasing into the atmosphere. These aren't just numbers. These are living creatures, and the vast majority of them have been around -- and doing perfectly fine, thank you very much -- long before Homo sapiens turned up. Now they are disappearing at a rapid clip, while humans reproduce at an unsustainable rate.

"Polar bears drowning as the sea ice they need to survive melts away," writes Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen in a recent email. "Sea turtles, pelicans and other wildlife coated in oil, poisoned in their homes as the result of America’s addiction to oil...Last year, Big Oil spent millions of dollars lobbying against climate change legislation and for more drilling off our coasts."

"I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party -- as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels," Obama said last night.

"Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development -- and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development. All of these approaches have merit and deserve a fair hearing in the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is inaction."

Well, unless the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the wake-up call that environmentalists are hoping will end up being the disaster's silver lining, Obama may have no choice but to accept that last approach. Inaction is exactly what followed Carter's call for an environmentally sound, long-range energy policy over 33 years ago. "There is no way that I, or anyone else in the government, can solve our energy problems if you are not willing to help," Carter warned Americans in his address. But no one listened to him.

We weren't willing to help back then. What about now? Are we addicted to oil, and if so, can we admit it and change our daily behavior. Will we consider more seriously the things we choose to do and buy and the size of our carbon footprint? If we wait another 33 years to do something, what will be left of our environment? What species can survive three more decades of humans sleeping at the wheel?

image: screenshot from President Carter's Report to the American People on Energy, February 2, 1977 (Jimmy Carter Presidential Library)

A Desert Grows Where an Emperor Once Hid

Centuries ago, a young Chinese emperor fled to Guangdong to escape the Mongols. Now the residents of China's most populous province are facing a different sort of enemy -- themselves

On June 14, 1276, as Mongol invaders approached Fuzhou -- China's "City of Banyan Trees" located along the southeastern coast in Fujian province -- an 8-year-old prince named Zhao Shi was hurriedly crowned the Emperor Duanzong of Song by the remaining exiled members of the Song Dynasty. Two years later, as the Mongols were about to cross the emperor's last line of defense, the child ruler fled south by boat to Guangdong.

Today, this coastal mega-city bursts with over 95 million inhabitants -- about the same population as Mexico. Economically speaking, it's the same size as Turkey. The intense human activity has put a strain on the region's fertile land. Much of it is turning into desert.

"When talking about desertification, what appear in one’s brain are desert scenes in arid and semi-arid regions in [the] northwest of China," according to the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research in Beijing. The institute notes that in Guangdong, "vegetation has been destroyed by irrational human activities...running water erosion is terribly fierce on purple sandstone here, which does not hold much anti-erodibility."

One of these newly arid places in Guangdong's Nanxiong district is known as the "red desert." The surface soil is gone. It is a barren, rocky landscape completely devoid of plant life.

"According to the Guangdong Province-based newspaper Southern Weekend, while the ecological systems of some pastoral areas were recovering, grassland degradation and desertification were still serious," writes Li Li in the Beijing Review. "The paper was quoted as saying that 13.33 million hectares of China's protected natural grasslands suffer from soil erosion."

According to James Estrin of the New York Times, an estimated 1.74 million square kilometers of China's land is now classified as desert. That's about four times the size of California. Worldwide, desertification claims 6 million hectares a year, notes Colin Dunn in a GreenerIdeal.com article. That's an area almost the size of West Virginia.

But while desertification is a global issue, it is of particular concern in China, which is home to one out of every five human beings on Earth. Li notes that the anti-desertification branch of China's State Forestry Administration is undertaking several initiatives, including "prohibitions on overgrazing, excessive farming and mining, reconverting farmland to forests or pastures, and building water-conservation irrigation facilities."

"China’s problems are particularly pressing because of its trade-oriented growth strategy which favors development along the coast," note Kiyana Allen and Kayly Ober of American University in a 2009 paper. "More concerning is that the problem is only getting worse -- the population in China’s low-lying coastal region grew at three times the rate of the national population growth rate between 1990 and 2000...This kind of rapid urbanization incites coastal degradation, which in turn leaves an inadequate infrastructure open to flooding and other weather-related disasters spurred by climate change."

Duanzong was the penultimate emperor of Southern Song Dynasty. He reigned for just two years and died at the age of 10. His flight to Guangdong did not save him. And perhaps, the scores of Chinese migrating to coastal communities like Guangdong will also find that "irrational human activities" will ultimately tip the ecological balance into permanent unsustainability. As officials tackle the nation's desertification problems, they might take Duanzong's ill-fated story as a bit of a warning. After all, his temple name means "Final Ancestor."

image: desertification near Datang Town, Nanxiong County, Guangdong Province (credit: Chen Zhiqing)

Waste Land: Death Watch for Minke Whales in Norway

Norway is poised to overtake Japan as the world's biggest whale-killer

"April is the cruellest month," wrote T.S. Eliot in his famous 1922 poem "The Waste Land."

For almost 2,000 minke whales currently in Norwegian waters, that statement has particular relevance: Norway's whaling season officially began on April 1.

Norway is only one of three countries -- along with Iceland and Japan -- that have defied the international ban on commercial whaling, put in place in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Now, Norway is set to overtake Japan as the world's biggest whaling nation, with a goal of killing 1,286 whales this year, compared to Japan's target of 1,280.

However, this reality flies in the face of a 2009 opinion poll which found that the majority of Norwegians believe that the suffering inflicted by whaling is unacceptable.

"Norway's own data shows that at least one in five hunted whales suffers a long, agonizing death," said Claire Bass, the Marine Mammals Program Manager for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), in an email. "Some take over an hour to succumb to their injuries."

The poll also found that only 1% of the population regularly eats whale meat. So where will all the meat go?

The whaling industry supplies a black market that is international in scope, with illegal whale meat recently identified in restaurants in the United States and South Korea.

According to Nature, scientists have identified several different whale species in sashimi at restaurants in Santa Monica, California, and Seoul, South Korea, including fin whale, sei whale and Antarctic minke whale.

These three species are listed with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an agreement by the members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) prohibiting the international trade of endangered species.

Instead of whaling, WSPA recommends that Norway pursue whale watching, a lucrative $2.1 billion industry that includes 119 countries.

Incredibly, the IWC is currently considering a ten-year plan to lift the moratorium and legalize commercial whaling, a plan hatched in closed-door meetings with pro-whaling members of the regulating body. In a horribly ironic public relations plan, they will announce their decision on April 22, which happens to be Earth Day.

As the IWC ponders the fate of the whaling ban -- and the lives of thousands of whales -- they would do well take into consideration something else Mr. Eliot wrote:

"It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long stroke of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both."

Killing these highly intelligent creatures is not adapting. It is regressing on a grand scale.

image: a minke whale hauled aboard a whaling ship (WSPA)

Obama: Offshore and Off Base

Obama's decision to drill on the outer continental shelf is a bad one on several counts

The U.S. Congress instituted a moratorium on drilling the outer continental shelf in 1981. President H.W. Bush issued a parallel presidential moratorium in 1990. President Clinton extended it. In 2008, President George W. Bush lifted the moratorium.

And on Tuesday, President Obama announced plans to open vast areas of water along the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska to offshore oil and natural gas drilling for the first time.

Oil companies cheered. Environmentalists and renewable energy advocates were stunned.

This decision will further increase the distance between the United States and the many developed nations that are forging the future of renewable energy.

America currently lags behind Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Norway the Netherlands and Austria in solar watts per capita.

In 2006, Sweden's sustainable development minister (yes, they have a sustainable development minister) Mona Sahlin declared her nation’s goal to become the first country in the world to break the self-destructive dependence on fossil fuel. By 2020, Sweden will have no more gasoline-powered cars or oil-heated homes. The country’s energy will be generated solely by renewable sources.

Then there's the issue of wildlife and the marine ecosystem. The drilling that Obama supports will adversely affect a wide variety of marine life, and will take a particularly heavy toll on dolphins and other cetaceans. Research for drilling requires sonar experiments that have been proven to be extremely disruptive to dolphins' ability to communicate.

Offshore drilling also creates mercury and hydrocarbon contamination of both the water, through toxic spills, and the air, through hazardous fumes. Additionally, there is the ever-present danger of tanker spills for all marine life, including fish, turtles and seabirds.

President Obama said that weaning America off imported oil would require "tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development." But there's really only one decision to make, and it’s not a tough one at all: Do you choose the past or do you choose the future? He chose wrong.

In becoming president, Mr. Obama made history. With this decision, he's repeating its mistakes.

image: oil-covered bird (credit: Oceana)

The Real Price of Meat

Eating meat is a costly affair on several levels. The international "Meatout" campaign adds up the total bill

The deleterious effects of meat-eating are being seen on a global level.

"As environmental science delves deeper into the effects of meat production, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the consequences of this unsustainable practice that causes problems including a loss of biodiversity, global warming, deforestation, air and water pollution, diseases and violence," writes Alicia Graef of Care2.

According to a new report by Worldwatch.org, "livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32,564 million tons of CO2 per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions."

The report concludes that the best way to reverse climate change is to replace animal products with soy-based products and other alternatives, stating, "This approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations -- and thus, on the rate the climate is warming -- than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy."

All this C02 can be deadly for humans. In a study published in Environmental Science & Technology, Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson estimated that localized "C02 domes" could cause the premature deaths of 50 to 100 people a year in California and 300 to 1,000 for the continental United States, according to a recent article in Scientific American.

Of course, humans aren't the only ones who can die from the global warming effects of the meat industry (not to mention the direct health problems caused by eating red meat, such as cardiopathy, atherosclerosis, colon cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, endometriosis and even Alzheimers). There are also the billions animals that are killed every year on their way to dinner tables around the world.

"It's also difficult to ignore the intense suffering of innocent animals who are treated as mere commodities with dollar signs attached, but there seems to be a disconnect between neatly wrapped packages on store shelves and their origins," writes Graef.

In an effort to educate the public about the effects of eating meat, the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), which is dedicated to "promoting planetary survival through plant-based eating" and In Defense of Animals (IDA), whose mission is "to end animal exploitation, cruelty, and abuse by protecting and advocating for the rights, welfare, and habitats of animals, as well as to raise their status beyond mere property, commodities, or things," have joined with consumer protection and animal rights advocates, healthcare professionals and public officials around the world for Meatout, an international grassroots diet education campaign that launches on March 20.

It is difficult to comprehend the real price of meat. But starting to tally its true global cost is a step in the right direction.

image: Keith Weller, USDA

The Galileo Affair

Three hundred and seventy-eight years ago today, the father of modern science turned the world right-side up with his Dialogo

At the turn of the 17th century, science was still dominated by the millennia-old ideas of Aristotle and Ptolemy -- ideas that were tightly aligned with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

But in March of 1610, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei published Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), a slender volume containing hefty discoveries that started to shake the scientific method from religious ideology.

Until that point, the moon was thought to have had a smooth surface (after all, the heavens were believed to have been more "perfect" than the Earth). But using a telescope, Galileo discovered that the moon was not smooth at all -- it was covered in mountains up to four miles high.

The book also described another, even more troubling discovery: four objects orbiting Jupiter.

This observation was a difficult one to accept for church leaders, as it threw into question one of the most cherished beliefs of the time: geocentrism. If Earth was at the center of the universe, with all celestial bodies revolving around it, how could Jupiter have its own moons?

In August, after Jesuit astronomers rejected these discoveries (even refusing to look through his telescope), a frustrated Galileo wrote a letter to his fellow astronomer Johannes Kepler:

"My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth."

During a sermon in Florence in 1614, a Dominican friar named Tommaso Caccini publicly denounced Galileo for promoting the radical theory of heliocentrism, which was originally devised by Copernicus in his famous 1543 text De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

On February 22, 1632, Galileo published Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems).

He got permission to publish the text from the Inquisition, provided that he presented heliocentrism as merely a hypothesis and gave equal treatment to geocentrism. He didn't.

The following year, Galileo was summoned to Rome to stand trial for heresy, while his
Dialogo was placed on the church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books").

The aging and ailing scientist was found guilty and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. The publication of any of his past or future books was prohibited.

Still, Dialogo managed to be a bestseller. It was finally taken off the Index in 1835.

In 1966, Pope Paul VI abolished the Index.

In 1989, NASA launched an unmanned spacecraft to study Jupiter and its telltale moons.

The name of the spacecraft? Galileo, of course.

image: Galileo before the Holy Office, 19th-century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

The World's Most Important, Most Destructive Edible Oil

Cookies. Lip gloss. Shampoo. Our taste for products containing palm oil is contributing to climate change, destroying animal habitats and putting millions of people at risk

Indonesia is the world's third biggest greenhouse gas polluter, behind China and the United States. One of the sources of this pollution is deforestation, which represents 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

But climate change isn't the only effect of deforestation. In Indonesia, it has not only destroyed the habitats of orangutans, Sumatran tigers and elephants, but has also put some 20 million of the nation's indigenous and forest-dependent people at risk.

A primary reasons for this rampant deforestation is the need to create space for palm oil plantations.

Palm oil is derived from the fruit of the oil palms, two species of the Arecaceae (palm family), one native to west Africa, the other native to Central and South America.

"Oil palm is now the world’s most important edible oil when ranked by global production and consumption," according to the Australian environmental group PalmOilAction.org.

"In the 2006/2007 year, it held approximately 32% of the market share of all edible oils by production in comparison to soybean oil, which held approximately 29% of the world market for oils."

One of Indonesia's biggest palm oil purchasers is General Mills, a Fortune 500 corporation that markets some of the most popular consumer food brands and products, including Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Nature Valley, Cheerios, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno's, Green Giant, Old El Paso, Häagen-Dazs, Lucky Charms and Wanchai Ferry.

Palm oil is found in their Betty Crocker and Pillsbury products, as well as Nature Valley Granola Bars and Yogurt Burst Cheerios.

"Palm oil is a globally traded agricultural commodity that is used in 50 percent of all consumer goods, from lipstick and packaged food to body lotion and biofuels," according to non-profit environmental group Rainforest Action Network (RAN).

"Demand for palm oil in the U.S. has tripled in the last five years, pushing palm oil cultivation into the rainforests and making this crop one of the key causes of global rainforest destruction."

"Indonesia's government plans to convert up to 18 million hectares of land into palm oil plantations by 2020," notes RAN campaigner Ashley Schaeffer, adding that, "While General Mills has expressed concern about recent reports of rainforest destruction for palm oil and has begun to engage its suppliers, this leading company must take stronger action to ensure the protection of rainforests, communities and the climate, as other companies have already done."

"The people driving the bulldozers and excavators told Jamaludin and his family that they were going to build a road," wrote Michael Brune, executive director of RAN, in a recent email describing the plight of an individual in Indonesia whose livelihood depends on a healthy rainforest.

"Instead, they burned down the Indonesian rainforest Jamaludin's community had called home for centuries. In its place: a sprawling palm oil plantation that has ravaged the local and global environment."

"The forest provided us with many ways to earn money: fish, honey, pigs, rattan vines," said Jamaludin.

"Now, everything our grandparents left us is gone."

image: oil palm (Elaeis_guineensis)

The Monaco Proposal

In March, nations will vote on Monaco's proposal for an Atlantic bluefin tuna trade ban

The Atlantic bluefin tuna (thunnus thynnus) has seen better days, when it wasn't overfished. But those days are long gone.

It is on the verge of a population collapse as man's appetite for the fish has skyrocketed around the world, driven in large part by the international sushi industry.

According to both the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), all populations of Atlantic bluefin tuna have declined by at least 85% from their unexploited state.

Japanese fishermen have been found selling immature fish, an indication that there are not enough breeding adults left in the ocean to replenish their numbers.

Earlier this year, to support "The End of the Line," the first major documentary about overfishing, Greta Scacchi, Emilia Fox and Terry Gilliam got naked for a photo as they urged consumers to buy only sustainable fish to help fish stocks recover.

In March 2010, nations around the world will have a chance to vote on listing the Atlantic bluefin tuna on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendix I, which will introduce a global trade ban.

This ban, proposed by Monaco, will help curb the decline of this critically endangered species.

The big tuna-eating nations like the U.S. and Japan (which is the biggest, with an annual consumption approaching half-a-million tons) have to get on board and stop eating this majestic fish -- at least until its populations can recover.

image: Tom Puchner

Retreat at Îles Kerguelen

France's largest glacier is quickly disappearing

In Ursula LeGuin's 1966's sci-fi novel Rocannon's World, there is a city called "Kerguelen" on the planet "New South Georgia."

Kerguelen is also a French territory composed of about 300 islands in the southern Indian Ocean named after Breton navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen de Trémarec, who discovered the archipelago in 1772.

Also known as Desolation Island, the Îles Kerguelen is home to feral cats, feral sheep and the Cook Glacier, which is melting at an alarming rate.

"Over the last 40 years, the Cook ice cap has thinned by around 1.5 meters per year, its area has decreased by 20%, and retreat has been twice as rapid since 1991," according to a recent press release by France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

While the scientists admit that human activity may not be the sole cause of the glacier's accelerated melting, it is clear that anthropogenic global warming has played a major role over the last four decades.

In LeGuin's book, a young woman leaves her planet to find a family heirloom, but due to relativistic time dilation, what was a quick trip from her perspective translates to many years back home, where she returns to find her husband dead and her daughter an adult.

If greenhouse gas-emitting human activity is not reduced soon, future generations may have to leave our home planet in search of more than just heirlooms.

image: Christmas Harbour, Kerguelens Land, copper engraving 200mm x 130mm, by George Cooke, dated 1811 (The Maritime Gallery, Kent, England)

America's State Department Turns 220

America's State Department was born today in 1789. Over two centuries old, is it flexible enough to deal with crises that have no state borders?

On May 19, 1789, then Representative James Madison of New York introduced a bill to Congress to create an executive Department of Foreign Affairs headed by a Secretary of Foreign Affairs. It was signed into law on July 27 by President George Washington, who appointed Thomas Jefferson as the department's first secretary. In September, its name was changed to the Department of State. Jefferson would later become America's third president. Madison would become the fourth. It was truly a collaborative effort on the part of the Founding Fathers.

But since the birth of the United States Department of State, something happened that dramatically changed the world and how countries interact: the Industrial Revolution. Reconfiguring the modern world on steam, coal, combustion engines and electrical power generation, this period of explosive technological growth during the late 18th and early 19th centuries saw the development of textile manufacturing, metallurgy, glass production, railways, mining and machine tools. Things would never be the same.

And as an unplanned and unforeseen consequence of all this activity, the world is now dramatically warmer. To be sure, it is the first time in Earth's history that human activity has affected the planet's entire environment. And the effects are interrelated. Climate change, desertification, dwindling food supplies and species extinction are, for example, not only connected to each other but also to the development of new, large-growth and heavy-polluting economies like China and India, and to the poor world as well.

Perhaps this presents a new opportunity for nations to work together and build consensus around shared goals -- like accessible water and stable food production. No longer just for settling national borders and maintaining military security, treaties -- like the Kyoto Protocol -- now must consider larger security issues that go beyond state lines, such as water security, food security, air security and ecosystem security. In some cases, territorial disputes -- especially bloody ones -- should at least be put on hold until the environment is made secure for future generations.

A forward-looking, 21st-century American foreign policy, championed by the internationally respected Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, must look for innovative solutions to the world's thorniest transnational issues. One possible avenue might be to spend some political capital on some non-political aims.

An obvious flashpoint could be tackling anthropogenic climate change. After all, it is something that most scientists agree will likely have globally devastating consequences -- and it is the root of so many other problems. One response is to mitigate its effects. Another is to accept the projected temperature increases and start making contingency plans to help people live on a significantly hotter planet. Either way, it won't matter much how many ballistic missiles a nation has if its people cannot eat.

But though some of the more profound effects of global warming have already been seen on a large scale -- the rapid melting of the Arctic ice, ocean acidification and rising sea levels, for example -- the increase in temperature has a distinct and immediate impact on many local levels. Coastal residents in the South Pacific watch their beachfronts disappear underwater while farmers in China are forced to relocate for greener pastures as farmland turns into desert.

In embattled Kashmir, for example, where more than 47,000 people have been killed in a two-decade-old territorial battle between India, Pakistan and China, something on a deeper level has been happening, and it cares not for human disputes over imaginary map lines. It is the melting of Kolahoi, a critical glacier in the Kashmir Valley that is the region's only source of year-round fresh water.

One thing that Secretary Clinton could pursue is a Kolahoi Accord, which was proposed by 13.7 Billion Years last year. Such an agreement might create a bi- or trilateral research and development committee with members from local governments, green businesses, trade unions and environmental organizations such as The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Pakistan to come up with a sustainable solution to save Kolahoi.

The plan could include trade incentives on goods that depend on a healthy glacier, the development of ecotourism and other market-driven initiatives to improve the livelihood of millions of Kashmiris.

The Center for Global Development, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit think tank has proposed the creation of a Department of Global Development. This is a good way of thinking. But if the State Department would take on such a mandate, it would put global environmental issues at the forefront of foreign policy, which is exactly where they belong. The Secretary of State is the first Cabinet position in the line of presidential succession. Global warming should be high on this person's agenda.

Which cabinet-level department is best suited to address the issues concerning, for example, Atlantis, BP's massive oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico? The non-profit consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch says that more than 6,000 documents concerning the design of the 58-million-metric-ton monster are lacking the required engineer approval.

BP is a multinational company based in London. A spill caused by Atlantis could affect the waters of both the United States and Mexico and have ramifications on the health of several other nations' waters and wildlife. Which of President Obama's cabinet members is best suited to the job of looking after the safety of such a potentially hazardous transnational adventure? The Secretary of Energy? The Secretary of Commerce? The Secretary of State? A new Secretary of Global Development?

According to a July 20 Washington Post story covering Secretary Clinton's recent trip to India, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said, "India's position, let me be clear, is that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions targets."

"No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth that is necessary to lift millions more out of poverty," replied Secretary Clinton. "We also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and develop sustainability that will lower significantly the carbon footprint."

If she makes good on this belief, perhaps a Department of Global Development will not be necessary. Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison would probably have agreed.

image: The Harry S. Truman Department of State building, as seen from the George Washington University's school of international affairs. (credit: Paco8191)

Gone Fishin': Independence Day in Liberia

As Liberia celebrates its 162nd anniversary as an independent nation, how much fish will be on the menu?

Liberia has a history very different from the other 52 nations that together make up modern-day Africa. The West African nation was colonized by freed American slaves, a group of which declared the country's independence today in 1847. Named in honor of the fifth president of the United States James Monroe, the capital city of Monrovia is the only city outside of the U.S. to be named after an American president.

And among the continent's leaders, Ellen-Johnson Sirleaf certainly stands out as well. When she became president of Liberia in 2006, she also became the first democratically-elected female president of an African nation -- and the world's first black female head of state.

But her glow has been tarnished by her recent admittance of -- and apology for -- her past support of the Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who is currently facing war crimes charges in the Hague. Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called for Ms. Sirleaf's resignation.

It is unlikely that the commission's recommendation will significantly hurt Ms. Sirleaf's standing. Indeed, the 70-year-old Monrovian-born Harvard graduate is a transformative figure. In the international community, she is a respected economist: Her past positions include Senior Loan Officer at World Bank, Regional Director of the Africa bureau of the UN Development Programme and Vice President of Citibank.

But she must not forget that a large part of her popularity within Liberia is that her countrymen are still hopeful that she can increase their standard of living. And that standard may well go down if overfishing and illegal fishing result in the collapse of fisheries within the 200 nautical miles of Liberia's waters, including a coastline that stretches 360 miles (579 km) along the Atlantic Ocean. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, fish supplies the Liberian population with 65 percent of its animal protein.

"The overfishing of West African coastal waters, often by large European trawlers and sometimes by 'fishing pirates' who trawl without any authorisation, has largely depleted local fish stocks," writes Hilaire Avril in an August 11 AllAfrica.com article. "This has a direct impact on the rising rate of unemployment and on the ever-increasing flow of West Africans who embark on perilous journeys to Europe, in search of a better life."

According to the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Liberia has yet to ratify the Convention on Fishing and Conservation of Living Resources of the High Seas. Designed to increase international cooperation towards marine conservation, including the critical issue of overfishing, the ratification of this agreement is something that Ms. Sirleaf should give some priority. Not only would it help maintain sustainable fish stocks, it would keep jobs -- and people -- alive. It could also help regain some of her recently lost luster.

As President Sirleaf leads her nation in their celebration of independence, she would do well to remember the ship that graces Liberia's coat of arms. Symbolizing the ships that brought the first freed slaves to Liberia, it is also an apt reminder of the trawlers in the nation's waters that are rapidly removing all the fish.

The True Cost of Megamalls

The global recession has stifled mall culture. That's not a bad thing

In December, the French business management consultancy group Beauvais Consultants released a study entitled "Setting Up Superstores and Climate Change," which examined the environmental impact of shopping in suburban malls -- or "hypermarkets" -- through surveys of 5,000 urban-dwelling consumers.

The 15-page report found that shopping in these megamalls produces four times as much carbon dioxide emissions as shopping locally.

"The question arises as to whether, in the light of sustainable development, this is the right model to export throughout the world," the report states.

This research confirms an obvious assumption -- that shopping locally or online is a much greener option than driving to the nearest megamall.

"As icons of excessive consumption and shortsighted urban planning," asserts Kimberly D. Mok in an article on Treehugger.com, "malls represent everything that has gone wrong with our car-based consumer culture."

Norway is leading the charge. Last year, the country banned the creation of suburban malls bigger than 3,000 square meters.

"The most important fact about our shopping malls," says social scientist Henry Fairlie as quoted in a recent story on TheWeek.com, "is that we do not need most of what they sell."

In 2004, developer Larry Siegel broke ground for Xanadu, a $2.2 billion, 2.4-million-square-foot New Jersey mall that was supposed to open its doors in June. Original plans included an indoor ski slope, a fishing pond, a Ferris wheel and a 30-foot-high chocolate waterfall.

Mr. Siegel has touted Xanadu as the ultimate in "shoppertainment." But the recession has forced a scale-back on this carbon-gushing concept.

If a decadent waterfall must be built, perhaps it might at least spout locally-grown, organic chocolate.

image: Festival Walk Mall, Hong Kong (credit: mischiru)

Dying for a Diet Drink

One hundred and twenty-three years ago today, Americans were introduced to a drink that would change the world, for better or worse

On this day in 1886, those who opened up the pages of the Atlanta Journal were the first to see an advertisement for a product that would eventually become one of the world’s most ubiquitous beverages: Coca-Cola, also known as Coke.

Invented by American chemist John Pemberton, the drink was originally promoted as a “valuable brain tonic” that, among other health benefits, was touted as a cure for opium and morphine addiction. The recipe that gives Coke its unique taste is a closely guarded secret, known only to a handful of executives. It is widely believed to have contained, at least at one time, coca leaf (from which cocaine is made) and kola nut extract, hence the name Coca-Cola.

But there are a couple of ingredients in Diet Coke (Coke's sugar-free version) and many other diet soft drinks that are not secret -- and rather controversial: potassium benzoate and aspartame (also known by its trade name NutraSweet).

Potassium benzoate is used as a preservative to prevent the growth of mold and bacteria. However, according to the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA), "Benzene can form at very low levels (ppb level) in some beverages that contain both benzoate salts and ascorbic acid (vitamin C)." Benzene is a known carcinogen.

In 2007, the Coca-Cola Company settled a lawsuit over two of its drinks -- Fanta Pineapple and Vault Zero -- which contained the benzene-forming mix. These drinks were discontinued.

The other chemical that is under fire, aspartame, is an artificial sweetener developed by G.D. Searle & Company in the mid-1960s. Found in a number of diet soft drinks, many scientists believe that it can cause a number of serious illnesses, including cancer, brain tumors and lymphoma.

In 2006, Natural News published an interview with Russell Blaylock, a leading American neurosurgeon and associate editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, who cited an Italian study that linked aspartame with leukemia.

According to a story by Anthony Wile for Health Freedom Alliance, "The Ramazzini Institute in Bologna...released the results of a very large, long-term animal study into aspartame ingestion. Its study shows that aspartame causes lymphomas and leukemia in female animals fed aspartame at doses around 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, or around half the accepted daily intake for humans. Health problems linked to aspartame reportedly include arthritis, brain cancer, memory loss, hearing loss, hypertension, abdominal pain, headache and migraines."

When asked how the beverage industry "managed to suppress this information and keep this chemical legal in the food supply," Dr. Blaylock replied, "Donald Rumsfeld was the one who pushed a lot of this through, when he was in the chairmanship of the G.D. Searle company...he got it approved through the regulatory process, but once it was approved, the government didn't want to admit that they had made a mistake. They just continued to cover it up, like the fluoride thing and the milk industry."

From 1977 to 1985, former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held three executive positions at Searle -- chief executive officer, president and finally chairman.

In 1974, the use of aspartame was approved by the FDA. But a year later, after the Department of Justice began an investigation of Searle for fraud concerning its aspartame studies, the FDA issued a stay on the chemical's approval.

Then in 1981, FDA Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes approved the use of aspartame. Two years later, he left the FDA to become the senior medical advisor for the large public-relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Among its clients? Searle. Conspiracy theories were born.

"Rumsfeld’s major mission while he was in that job was to get this...approved for release for sale to the public, which he finally managed to do, but only after the Reagan administration came in, whereupon the FDA commissioner was promptly fired, and someone more obedient was put in, who, of course, approved release," said Andrew Cockburn, the author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy, in a DemocracyNow.org interview.

Two years after Rumsfeld left Searle, amid continuing public concern surrounding aspartame, Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate the process that led to the FDA approval. The GAO report found "no evidence of pressure on the former FDA Commissioner to approve aspartame," and that "12 of the 69 scientists responding to its questionnaire expressed major concerns about aspartame safety."

In 2007, New Mexico introduced a bill to ban aspartame. Earlier this year, Hawaiian lawmakers signed a petition calling for the FDA to revoke their approval of aspartame.

As the controversy about aspartame and other additives continues, so does the consumption of beverages that have, in some form or another, been sold to consumers as "valuable brain tonics."

With soft drinks sales approaching $400 billion worldwide, these tonics are valuable indeed, but perhaps not so much for our brains.

photo: Drink Coca-Cola 5¢", an 1890s advertising poster showing a woman in fancy clothes (partially vaguely influenced by 16th- and 17th-century styles) drinking Coke. The card on the table says "Home Office, The Coca-Cola Co. Atlanta Ga. Branches: Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Dallas". Notice the cross-shaped color registration marks near the bottom center and top center (which presumably would have been removed for a production print run). Someone has crudely written on it at lower left (with an apparent leaking fountain pen) "Our Faovrite" [sic]. (U.S. Library of Congress)