Toronto Star : Greens claim TV debate spot

Greens claim TV debate spot

Bruce Campion-Smith | Ottawa Bureau Chief | August 31, 2008

OTTAWA -- Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has raised the stakes in the expected fall election with a dramatic move that gives the party its first-ever MP.

In a key strategic move yesterday, May announced that Independent MP Blair Wilson was joining the party's ranks.

But more importantly for May, it dramatically boosts her chances of getting a spot in the televised leaders' debates in a possible fall election and a shot at nationwide exposure.

"With a Green MP sitting in the House of Commons, it will now be impossible to exclude the Green Party from the televised leaders' debates in the next election," May said. While a place in the debates isn't guaranteed, May said the broadcast media consortium that sets the ground rules for the French and English debates has no choice but to ensure she is included now that the party has an MP.

"We believe that under all the criteria that have been put forward ... we now have made thoroughly the case that I must be included," May said.

That includes fielding candidates nationwide, receiving federal funding and now having a seat in the Commons.

"We have established ourselves as a party that cannot be described as fringe," said May. "We are a party whose ideas and policies are now in the mainstream."

With its 664,068 votes, the party garnered 4.5 per cent of voter support in the 2006 election. A Toronto Star poll put the Greens at about 9 per cent and May herself came second in a November 2006 by-election in London, Ont.

If successful, May's participation would mark the first time in 11 years that a woman political leader was in the televised debates. Then NDP leader Alexa McDonough took part in 1997.

Already, May is promising to put the heat on the other leaders – especially Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government's stance on the environment – if she's allowed on stage.

May acknowledged that participating in the debates would give the party a huge boost with nationwide exposure to French and English audiences.

"If they decide not to allow me in the debates, what they're really doing is telling voters: `Don't take that party seriously,'" she said.

Yesterday, Harper spokesperson Kory Teneycke said the overtures of co-operation between May and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion should mean only one of them gets to participate in the debates.

"Ms May and Mr. Dion have an agreement for electoral co-operation ... you can't have two candidates from essentially the same party in the debate," Teneycke said.

The media consortium is due to meet Tuesday and May's fate in the debates could be discussed then.

A beaming May called it an historic day as she pinned a Green Party button on the lapel of Wilson's suit jacket at an Ottawa news conference yesterday.

Wilson, the MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, resigned from the Liberal party under a cloud almost a year ago after questions were raised about his personal finances. He has sat as an Independent since then.

He said he has been cleared of improprieties after an eight-month Elections Canada probe, which did highlight oversights made by the rookie MP during his campaign.

Wilson, first elected in 2006, said he has written Commons Speaker Peter Milliken requesting that he be officially recognized as a Green Party MP.

Wilson said the environment is the most important issue in his sprawling riding and predicted his move to the Greens would be well-received by constituents.

After Harper's meeting yesterday with NDP Leader Jack Layton and Friday with Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, Teneycke said a fall election was "more likely." There's speculation that Harper will visit Governor General Michaëlle Jean a week from today, seeking her approval to dissolve Parliament for an Oct. 14 election.

WaPo : Cheney Aides Altered CDC Testimony, Agency Official Says

Cheney Aides Altered CDC Testimony, Agency Official Says

Ex-Administrator Says Official From Vice President's Office Edited Out Six Pages

By Juliet Eilperin | Washington Post Staff Writer | July 8, 2008

Members of Vice President Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said today.

In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett said an official from Cheney's office edited out six pages from the testimony of Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last October.

Several media outlets, including The Washington Post, reported at the time that Gerberding had planned to say that "CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern," among other passages.

Boxer said the administration feared that Gerberding's testimony would force it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. The White House has opposed mandatory limits and insisted that voluntary measures and increased research are the best way to address the problem.

"The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony," Burnett, a 31-year old Stanford-trained economist and a Democrat, wrote in response to an inquiry from Boxer's committee. "CEQ requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change."

Burnett, a member of the wealthy Packard family, has given more than $100,000 to Democratic campaigns in recent years, including $3,600 to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (Ill.). He did not identify who in the vice president's office called him.
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"I'm not interested in pointing fingers at any individual," he said at a news conference with Boxer this morning, adding he was focused on seeing how the federal government will address climate change in response to last year's Supreme Court decision requiring EPA to deal with the issue of rising carbon dioxide emissions. "I'm interested in helping inform the next administration to help make those decisions, while recognizing Congress could act to pass a better law."

Boxer demanded that, in light of Burnett's allegations, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson turn over "every document related to the agency's finding that global warming poses a danger to the public" -- a determination the EPA reached late last year -- and issue a rule finding that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare. The White House has refused to open the e-mail making that finding, which Burnett sent over on Dec. 5, thereby leaving the recommendation in limbo.

"I'm calling on Mr. Johnson to act now, and if he doesn't have the courage or the strength or determination to act, he should resign," Boxer said.

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride declined to comment in detail on Burnett's allegations, saying, "We don't comment on internal deliberations."

However, White House spokesman Tony Fratto noted that White House officials in past administrations have vetted congressional testimony from agency officials.

"There's absolutely nothing unusual here in terms of the interagency review process, whether it's testimony, rules or anything else," Fratto said in an interview. "The process exists so that other offices and departments have the opportunity to comment and offer their views. There's nothing unusual about that, there's nothing nefarious about that, and there's nothing different here from previous administrations."

Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said the latest revelations confirm that the vice president has been steering the nation's environmental policy during President Bush's tenure.

"For years, we've suspected that Cheney was the puppeteer for administration policy on global warming," O'Donnell said. "This kiss-and-tell account appears to confirm the worst."

NYT : Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal

Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal

By SOMINI SENGUPTA | July 7, 2008

BHOPAL, India — Hundreds of tons of waste still languish inside a tin-roofed warehouse in a corner of the old grounds of the Union Carbide pesticide factory here, nearly a quarter-century after a poison gas leak killed thousands and turned this ancient city into a notorious symbol of industrial disaster.

The toxic remains have yet to be carted away. No one has examined to what extent, over more than two decades, they have seeped into the soil and water, except in desultory checks by a state environmental agency, which turned up pesticide residues in the neighborhood wells far exceeding permissible levels.

Nor has anyone bothered to address the concerns of those who have drunk that water and tended kitchen gardens on this soil and who now present a wide range of ailments, including cleft palates and mental retardation, among their children as evidence of a second generation of Bhopal victims, though it is impossible to say with any certainty what is the source of the afflictions.

Why it has taken so long to deal with the disaster is an epic tale of the ineffectiveness and seeming apathy of India’s bureaucracy and of the government’s failure to make the factory owners do anything about the mess they left. But the question of who will pay for the cleanup of the 11-acre site has assumed new urgency in a country that today is increasingly keen to attract foreign investment.

It was here that on Dec. 3, 1984, a tank inside the factory released 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas, killing those who inhaled it while they slept. At the time, it was called the world’s worst industrial accident. At least 3,000 people were killed immediately. Thousands more may have died later from the aftereffects, though the exact death toll remains unclear.

More than 500,000 people were declared to be affected by the gas and awarded compensation, an average of $550. Some victims say they have yet to receive any money. Efforts to extradite Warren M. Anderson, the chief executive of Union Carbide at the time, from the United States continue, though apparently with little energy behind them.

Advocates for those who live near the site continue to hound the company and their government. They chain themselves to the prime minister’s residence one day and dog shareholder meetings on another, refusing to let Bhopal become the tragedy that India forgot. They insist that Dow Chemical Company, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, also bought its liabilities and should pay for the cleanup.

“Had the toxic waste been cleaned up, the contaminated groundwater would not have happened,” says Mira Shiva, a doctor who heads the Voluntary Health Association, one of many groups pressing for Dow to take responsibility for the cleanup. “Dow was the first crime. The second crime was government negligence.”

Dow, based in Michigan, says it bears no responsibility to clean up a mess it did not make. “As there was never any ownership, there is no responsibility and no liability — for the Bhopal tragedy or its aftermath,” Scot Wheeler, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail message.

Mr. Wheeler pointed out that the former factory property, along with the waste it contained, had been turned over to the Madhya Pradesh State government in June 1998, and that “for whatever reason most of us do not know or fully understand, the site remains unremediated.”

He went on to say that Dow could not finance remediation efforts, even if it wanted to, because it could potentially open up the company to further liabilities.

In a letter to the Indian ambassador to the United States in 2006, the Dow chairman, Andrew N. Liveris, sought assurance from the government that it would not be held liable for the mess on the old factory site, “in your efforts to ensure that we have the appropriate investment climate.”

The claims have divided the government itself. It is now in the throes of a debate over who will pay — a debate that might have taken place behind closed doors were it not for a series of public information requests by advocates for Bhopal residents that turned up revealing government correspondence.

It showed that one arm of the government, the Chemicals and Petrochemicals Ministry, entrusted with the cleanup of the site, has wanted Dow to put down a $25 million deposit toward the cost of remediation, while other senior officials warned that forcing Dow’s hand could endanger future investments in the country.

A senior government official, prohibited from speaking publicly on such a contentious issue, described the quandary. “Do you want $1 billion in investment, or do you want this sticky situation to continue?” the official said, calling it a stalemate.

The government is expected to make a final decision later this year.

Beyond who will pay for the cleanup here, the question is why 425 tons of hazardous waste — some local advocates allege there is a great deal more, buried in the factory grounds — remain here 24 years after the leak?

There are many answers. The company was allowed to dump the land on the government before it was cleaned up. Lawsuits by advocacy groups are still winding their way through the courts. And a network of often lethargic, seemingly apathetic government agencies do not always coordinate with one another.

The result is a wasteland in the city’s heart. The old factory grounds, frozen in time, are an overgrown 11-acre forest of corroded tanks and pipes buzzing with cicadas, where cattle graze and women forage for twigs to cook their evening meal.

Since the disaster, ill-considered decisions on the part of local residents have only compounded the problems and heightened their health risks. Just beyond the factory wall is a blue-black open pit. Once the repository of chemical sludge from the pesticide plant, it is now a pond where slum children and dogs dive on hot afternoons. Its banks are an open toilet. In the rainy season, it overflows through the slum’s muddy alleys.

The slum rose up shortly after the gas leak. Poor people flocked here, seeking cheap land, and put up homes right up to the edge of the sludge pond. Once, the pond was sealed with concrete and plastic. But in the searing heat, the concrete cover eventually collapsed.

The first tests of groundwater began, inexplicably, 12 years after the gas leak. The state pollution control board turned up traces of pesticides, including endosulfan, lindane, trichlorobenzene and DDT. Soil sediments were not tested. The water was never compared with water in other city neighborhoods. The pollution board saw no cause for alarm.

Nevertheless, in 2004, complaints from residents led the Supreme Court to order the state to supply clean drinking water to the people living around the factory. By then, nearly 20 years had gone by.

“It is a scandal that the hazardous wastes left behind by Union Carbide unattended for 20 years have now migrated below ground and contaminated the groundwater below the factory and in its neighborhood,” wrote Claude Alvares, a monitor for India’s Supreme Court, who visited here in March 2005.

He tasted the water from one well. “I had to spit out everything,” he wrote in his report. The water “had an appalling chemical taste.” Neighborhood women brought out their utensils to show how the water had corroded them.

As his report went on to point out, the government was long ago made aware of the likelihood of contamination. A government research center warned more than 10 years ago that, if left untreated, the toxic residue on the factory grounds would seep into the soil and water.

Around the same time, under public pressure, state authorities finally scooped up the toxic waste that had lain in clumps around the factory grounds, and stored it inside the tin-roofed warehouse. The warehouse was padlocked only about four years ago.

The waste was supposed to be taken to an incinerator in neighboring Gujarat, but the government has yet to find a contractor willing to pack it into small, transportable parcels. There have been delays in acquiring transport permits, too, with citizens groups raising new questions about the hazards of transporting the waste.

Ajay Vishoni, the state gas and health minister, said he was confident that none of the waste was hazardous anymore, nor had anyone proved to his satisfaction that it had ever caused the contamination of the groundwater. “There is hype,” he said.

In 2005, a state-financed study called for long-term epidemiological studies to determine the impact of contaminated drinking water, concluding that while the levels of toxic contaminants were not very high, water and soil contamination had caused an increase in respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments.

In the Shiv Nagar slum about half a mile from the factory, there is a boy, Akash, who was born with an empty socket for a left eye. Now 6, he cannot see properly or speak. He is a cheerful child who plays in the lanes near his house.

His father, Shobha Ram, a maker of sweets who bought land here many years after the gas leak and built himself a two-room house, said the boy’s afflictions were caused by the hand-pumped well from where his family drew water on the edge of the sludge pond for years. He said it had not occurred to him that the water could be laced with pesticides.

“We knew the gas incident took place,” he said. “We never thought the contaminated water would come all the way to our house.”

The stories repeat themselves in the nearby slums. In Blue Moon, Muskan, a 2-year-old girl, cannot walk, speak or understand what is happening around her. Her father, Anwar, blames the water.

In Arif Nagar, Nawab and Hassan Mian, brothers who are 8 and 12, move through their house like newly hatched birds, barely able to stand. They have no control over their muscles. Their mother, Fareeda Bi, is unsure of exactly what caused their ailment, but she, too, blames the water.

“There are more children like this in the neighborhood,” she said, “who cannot walk, who cannot see.”

To compound the tragedy, there is no way to know to what extent the water is to blame. The government suspended long-term public health studies many years ago.

NYT : Logging Is Part of a Plan to Preserve Adirondacks

Logging Is Part of a Plan to Preserve Adirondacks

By ANTHONY DePALMA | October 29, 2007

ADIRONDACK FOREST PRESERVE — Late in the year, when the campers are gone but the hunters have not yet arrived, timber trucks rule Boreas Road in the heart of the Adirondacks, barging through the morning mists with 70,000 pounds of fresh-cut fir and spruce strapped to their backs.

“That’s one of ours,” said Michael T. Carr, a 44-year-old bear of a man driving a green S.U.V. headed west on Boreas Road as one of the timber trucks barreled eastward.

That is a jarring statement coming from Mr. Carr, who is not a lumber man, or paper company executive, but executive director of the Adirondack chapter of the Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s biggest environmental groups and, since June, the owner of 161,000 acres of highly prized Adirondack wild lands.

The conservancy entered the timber business when it purchased the land from Finch, Pruyn & Company, which had held it since the Civil War. As part of that $110 million deal, the conservancy agreed to continue logging to supply wood to the Finch Paper mill in Glens Falls, N.Y., for the next 20 years.

The Finch, Pruyn (pronounced Prine) lands, considered the last remaining large privately owned parcels in Adirondack Park, are an ecological marvel, containing 144 miles of river, 70 lakes and ponds, more than 80 mountains and a vast unbroken wilderness that only loggers and a few hunters have ever seen. The property also contains unmatched natural features like the blue ledges of the Hudson River Gorge, OK Slip Falls and Boreas Pond, with its stunning views of the Adirondack high peaks, which naturalists have dreamed of protecting for decades.

The Adirondack Explorer, a local newspaper, called the transaction “the deal of the young century.” Peter Bauer, executive director of the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, said the conservancy’s handling of the land “will have a huge impact on what kind of park we have in the future.”

Environmentalists cheered when the conservancy swooped in to buy the Finch holdings, but a stark reality is now setting in. Not all 161,000 acres will be preserved as public wilderness. The terms of the pulp supply agreement are confidential, but foresters with knowledge of the deal said the conservancy could cut at least 65,000 tons of pulpwood trees a year for the mill — which is about 15 percent less than Finch cut in the Adirondacks last year. In addition, maples and other hardwoods could be cut under strict certified forest management guidelines.

The conservancy expects eventually to sell much of the land to the state. But to pay the enormous debt it incurred and the $1 million in annual property taxes, the group will, in the near term, have to sell some portion of the property to private owners. While those buyers will not be allowed to build on the land, they will be able to keep out the public. Some small parcels near existing hamlets might even be sold for housing or commercial development, Mr. Carr said.

Mr. Carr expects his decisions about which parcels to sell and to whom will anger as many people as they excite.

“This is not a throw-the-gates-open-to-the-public kind of acquisition,” Mr. Carr said. A team of scientists is now conducting a rapid ecological assessment of the land. Final decisions will not be announced until next fall, Mr. Carr said, and they will be driven not by concerns about recreational opportunities, or economic development, but “by science.”

“We have no intention of making everyone happy,” he said.

He also said that he realizes that people might be confused by a conservation organization being in the timber business.

“Right now, people are not sure if we’re going to cut trees or hug them,” Mr. Carr said. He pointed out that in recent years wood supply deals have become accepted aspects of land preservation efforts, and the economics of this deal make logging — according to high standards of forest sustainability — absolutely essential.

Overcoming the perception that the conservancy has no business cutting trees is just one challenge Mr. Carr faces in managing one of the most complicated land deals ever attempted in the Northeast. Dealing with close public scrutiny is another. The conservancy came under criticism after The Washington Post published a series of articles in 2003 that focused on the group’s transactions, particularly a deal in Texas, where it drilled for natural gas on sensitive lands it had purchased.

But the most intense pressure is coming from local communities, environmental organizations and special interest groups, all clamoring to stake their interest in the property. Mr. Carr’s list of petitioners is long: raft guides, float plane pilots, hunting clubs, loggers, hikers, school superintendents, buffalo ranchers and municipal golf course operators looking to expand. “Mike Carr has created a five-year nightmare for himself in trying to decide how to unload this property,” said John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council, a nonprofit environmental organization. The impact of those decisions on the Adirondacks and the people who live, work and play there, he said, will be immeasurable.

But overlapping regulations and competing interests abound within the Adirondack Park, the six million-acre Vermont-size slab of New York State that is a century-old experiment in conservation.

Created by the State Legislature in the late 19th century, the park is an unusual mix of public and private lands designed to preserve exquisite mountain wilderness and a rugged way of life. As state purchases added up, the conflict between conservation and economic development intensified, with some local officials arguing that enough property had already been protected.

Over the last decade, many American paper companies in the Northeast changed the way they operated. They sold off their forestlands, creating historic opportunities for governments or conservation groups to acquire vast tracts of woodlands. During the administration of Gov. George E. Pataki, more than 660,000 acres in the Adirondacks were protected.

The Finch, Pruyn lands, while not the largest parcels to change hands, are in some ways among the most important, said Michelle L. Brown, conservation scientist for the conservancy, because they filled in many missing pieces of one of the largest northern forests left in the world.

“What’s most impressive to me is the connectivity,” Ms. Brown said. “Everything’s intact — the rivers, bogs, wetlands and forest all come together.”

Seen from Tom Helms’s 30-year-old Cessna 206 seaplane, the Finch, Pruyn lands are a mountain-size screen saver, with lines of softwood green surrounding rainbow pixels of autumn-colored hardwoods. Although Finch has cut trees here for 150 years, almost no signs of commercial timber operations are visible from 1,500 feet in the air.

“It’s the nicest piece of land in the Adirondacks that the state doesn’t own,” Mr. Helms said.

Leonard J. Cronin, Adirondack forest manager for Finch, said the company cut 3,533 acres of woodlands in the Adirondacks last year. Of that, 66 acres were clear-cut.

In other Adirondack land deals, the state has purchased easements restricting new construction on timberland. State officials said they are studying the Finch lands now for possible purchases, although some of the Adirondack towns are expected to resist because state-owned land is removed from property tax rolls and they feel the state already owns too much of the Adirondacks. Finch holdings are spread across 31 towns, and money from the state’s Environmental Protection Fund can be used for land acquisitions if local communities do not object.

Existing leases with private hunting clubs that cover 130,000 acres of the 161,000 in the tract are another big issue. One recent morning, Mr. Carr was out surveying the lands when he ran into David Hubert of Queensbury, a member of the Gooley Club, one of the oldest sportsmen’s groups in the Adirondacks. Mr. Hubert, 67, said he was worried about the future of the 16,000 acres the club has leased for the last 50 years.

“Obviously, we’d like to see it put to use in the same fashion as it is now,” Mr. Hubert said. He had just come back from hunting woodcock with his Brittany spaniel. “I’d hate to see it become non-game-producing state land.”

Mr. Carr has spent months listening to leaseholders and community leaders. Both the Adirondack Council and the Adirondack Mountain Club have already made their desires known: They want the state to buy about half of the 161,000 acres for forest preserve, with most of the rest sold with conservation easements to private buyers.

And those groups agree that woodland crews should continue cutting trees for the conservancy. Mr. Carr said he hopes that shows there no longer needs to be a choice between cutting and conservation.

“At this scale, and with this much land,” he said, “there’s room for both.”

Reuters : Earth's "vital signs" in bad shape: report

Earth's "vital signs" in bad shape: report

By Ed Stoddard | September 13, 2007

DALLAS (Reuters) - More wood was removed from forests in 2005 than ever before, one of many troubling environmental signs highlighted on Thursday in the Worldwatch Institute's annual check of the planet's health.

The Washington-based think tank's "Vital Signs 2007-2008" report points to global patterns ranging from rising meat consumption to Asian economic growth it says are linked to the broader problem of climate change.

"I think climate change is the most urgent challenge we have ever faced," said Erik Assadourian, director of the Vital Signs project.

"You see many trends in climate change, whether we are talking about grain production which is affected by droughts and flooding. Or meat production as livestock production makes up about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions," he told Reuters in a telephone interview before the report's release.

Assadourian said the key message of the report was that unsustainable consumption patterns were responsible for climate change linked to carbon emissions and other ecological woes.

He said of the 44 trends tracked by the report, 28 were "pronouncedly bad" and only six were positive.

The trends range from the spread of avian flu to the rise of carbon emissions to the number of violent conflicts. The growing use of wind power is among the few trends seen as positive.

Some of the points highlighted in the report include:

- Meat production hit a record 276 million metric tons (43 kilograms or 95 pounds per person) in 2006.

- Meat consumption is one of several factors driving rising soybean demand. Rapid expansion of soybean plantations in South America could displace 22 million hectares (54 million acres) of tropical forest and savanna in the next 20 years.

- The rise in global seafood consumption comes as many fish species become scarcer. In 2004, people ate 156 million metric tons of seafood, the equivalent of three times as much seafood per person than in 1950.

- While U.S. carbon emissions continue to grow, the fastest rise is occurring in Asia, particularly China and India.

Other analysts and think tanks have focused on different trends they say mean less cause for alarm. For example, they point out that while wood is being removed from forests on a global scale, many parts of Europe and North America have experienced reforestation in recent decades.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.