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Consider this central paradox of U.S. environmentalism: In much of popular and political culture, the movement is dismissed as the pet cause of white, well-off Americans — people who can afford to buy organic arugula, vacation in Lake Tahoe, and worry about the fate of the Pacific pocket mouse. And yet, the population most affected by environmental problems is the poor.

This is a reality most of us recognize in the developing world, and it’s true that the confluence of economic and environmental injustice can be particularly extensive and devastating in poor nations. But it is also true — and far less remarked-upon — that poverty and environmental degradation go hand and hand in the United States as well. The lower your income in this country, the higher the likelihood that you will be exposed to toxics at home and on the job. The greater the risk that you will suffer from diseases — ranging from asthma to cancer — caused or exacerbated by environmental factors. The harder it will be for you to find and afford healthy food to put on your table. The less likely you are to live in a community that provides safe outdoor spaces for you and your family to enjoy. And, as recent history tragically exposed, the more vulnerable you are to environmental catastrophes, whether they are natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina or human-made tragedies like the Exxon Valdez.

In short, the worst consequences of environmental degradation are visited on the homes, workplaces, families, and bodies of the poor.

In the United States today — that is, at a time and in a nation touted for prosperity — 12.7 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. In this special seven-week series, Grist will focus on the environmental realities facing those 37 million people, as well as the many additional millions of Americans who struggle to make ends meet. Our coverage includes investigative reports, opinion pieces, interviews, and profiles. And we will debut a series of multimedia [list url=http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/13/wiltenburg/]”virtual walking tours” of poverty-stricken regions around the country, led by the community members who are fighting to transform them.

It is our hope that this special series will help shed light on some frequently hidden environmental problems and expose the connections between economic and ecological survival. Ultimately, we hope to challenge and change the received wisdom about what counts as an environmental issue, what we mean when we refer to “the environment,” and where, how, and for whom environmentally minded movements, organizations, and people should dedicate their energies.

Click here to see a list (updated daily) of new articles and features added to this series.

This piece first appeared in Grist. For more environmental news and humor sign up for Grist‘s free e-mail service.

The government of Brazil has unveiled a plan to slow deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by more than 70 percent between 2008 and 2018—a move that will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly.

The plan, announced December 1, 2008 by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Environment Minister Carlos Minc, is the first time Brazil has set specific goals to reduce or slow down deforestation due to farming, ranching and illegal logging in the largest expanse of tropical rainforest on Earth.

“Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won’t be emitted up to 2018—which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries,” Minc said.

Deforestation Increases Global Warming, Destroys Medicinal Plants
Amazon deforestation releases an estimated 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year—whether from farmers and ranchers burning trees to clear more land or from rotting wood that is part of the natural forest cycle—making Brazil the world’s sixth largest emitter of the greenhouse gas.

Tropical rainforests are sometimes called the “lungs of the Earth,” because they play such a vital role in absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing the oxygen that humans and animals must have to live.

The Amazon rainforest is also a rich source of medicinal plants and home to thousands of unique plant and animal species. According to some estimates, tropical rainforests may contain half of all known plant species. Scientists have used the specialized properties in native rainforest plants to create drugs that now treat cancer, heart disease, hypertension and many other diseases. Deforestation destroys wildlife habitat and pushes native plants species to extinction.

Brazil Takes Multi-faceted Approach to Slowing Deforestation
According to Minc, the new plan will slow the rate of rainforest destruction by 72 percent as compared to the 7,330 square miles on average that were lost each year between 1996 and 2005.

Brazil succeeded in slowing deforestation in the Amazon by about 60 percent between 2005 and 2007, but deforestation accelerated again in 2008 as rising soy and beef prices encouraged Brazilian farmers to create more fields and pastures by slashing and burning rainforest land.

Brazil’s anti-deforestation plan would increase federal patrols in the rainforest, replant trees to replace those that have been lost, and finance sustainable development projects to offer viable work alternatives in areas where illegal logging is currently a major source of income.

“We need to offer to help them with one hand, but with the other we have to tell them there will be punishment if they don’t pay attention to environmental preservation,” Lula said. He didn’t explain the type of penalties he envisioned, nor did he say how much the rainforest preservation plan would cost.

Earth Day is the name given to two different annual observances that are intended to raise awareness about a wide range of environmental issues and problems, and to inspire people to take personal action to address them.

Except for that general goal, the two events are unrelated, even though both were founded about a month apart in 1970 and both have gained wider acceptance and popularity ever since.

The First Earth Day
In the United States, Earth Day is celebrated by most people on April 22, but there is another celebration that predates that one by approximately a month and is celebrated internationally.

The first Earth Day celebration took place on March 21, 1970, the vernal equinox that year. It was the brainchild of John McConnell, a newspaper publisher and influential community activist, who proposed the idea of a global holiday called Earth Day at a UNESCO Conference on the Environment in 1969.

McConnell suggested an annual observance to remind the people of Earth of their shared responsibility as environmental stewards. He chose the vernal equinox—the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, the first day of autumn in the southern hemisphere—because it is a day of renewal.

At the vernal equinox (always March 20 or March 21), night and day are the same length everywhere on Earth. McConnell believed that Earth Day should be a time of equilibrium when people could put aside their differences and recognize their common need to preserve Earth’s resources.

On February 26, 1971, U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signed a proclamation saying that the United Nations would celebrate Earth Day annually on the vernal equinox, thereby officially establishing the March date as the international Earth Day.

In his Earth Day statement on March 21, 1971, U Thant said, “May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life.” The United Nations continues to celebrate Earth Day each year by ringing the Peace Bell at U.N. headquarters in New York at the precise moment of the vernal equinox.

Earth Day in America
On April 22, 1970, the Environmental Teach-In held a nationwide day of environmental education and activism that it called Earth Day. The event was inspired and organized by environmental activist and U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin. Nelson wanted to show other U.S. politicians that there was widespread public support for a political agenda centered on environmental issues.

Nelson began organizing the event from his Senate office, assigning two staff members to work on it, but soon more space and more people were needed. John Gardner, founder of Common Cause, donated office space. Nelson selected Denis Hayes, a Harvard University student, to coordinate Earth Day activities and gave him a staff of volunteer college students to help.

The event was wildly successful, sparking Earth Day celebrations at thousands of colleges, universities, schools and communities all across the United States. An October 1993 article in American Heritage Magazine proclaimed, “…April 22, 1970, Earth Day was…one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy… 20 million people demonstrated their support… American politics and public policy would never be the same again.”

Following the Earth Day celebration inspired by Nelson, which demonstrated widespread grassroots support for environmental legislation, Congress passed many important environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, as well as laws to protect wilderness areas. The Environmental Protection Agency was created within three years after Earth Day 1970.

In 1995, Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton for his role in founding Earth Day, raising awareness of environmental issues, and promoting environmental action.

The Importance of Earth Day Now
No matter when you celebrate Earth Day, its message about the personal responsibility we all share to “think globally and act locally” as environmental stewards of planet Earth has never been more timely or important.

Our planet is in crisis due to global warming, overpopulation, and other critical environmental issues. Every person on Earth shares the responsibility to do as much as they can to preserve the planet’s finite natural resources today and for future generations.

Dear EarthTalk: What is the issue with the Gulf Stream in relation to global warming? Could it really stop or disappear altogether? If so, what are the ramifications of this? – Lynn Eytel, Clark Summit, PA

Part of the Ocean Conveyor Belt—a great river of ocean water that traverses the saltwater sections of the globe—the Gulf Stream stretches from the Gulf of Mexico up the eastern seaboard of the United States, where it splits, one stream heading for Canada’s Atlantic coast and the other for northern Europe and Greenland. By taking warm water from the equatorial Pacific Ocean and carrying it into the colder North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream warms up the eastern United States and northwestern Europe by about five degrees Celsius (roughly nine degrees Fahrenheit), making those regions much more hospitable than they would be otherwise.

Melting Glaciers Could Disrupt Warm Gulf Stream Currents
Among the greatest fears scientists have about global warming is that it will cause the massive ice fields of Greenland and other locales at the northern end of the Gulf Stream to melt rapidly, sending surges of cold water into the ocean system and interrupting the flow of the Ocean Conveyor Belt. One doomsday scenario is that such an event would stop or disrupt the whole Ocean Conveyor Belt system, plunging Western Europe into a new ice age without the benefit of the warmth delivered by the Gulf Stream.

Gulf Stream May Affect Climate Change Worldwide
“The possibility exists that a disruption of the Atlantic currents might have implications far beyond a colder northwest Europe, perhaps bringing dramatic climatic changes to the entire planet,” says Bill McGuire, a geophysical hazards professor at University College London’s Benfield Hazard Research Centre.

Gulf Stream Disruption Could Freeze Europe and North America
Computer models simulating ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics indicate that the North Atlantic region would cool between three and five degrees Celsius if Conveyor circulation were totally disrupted. “It would produce winters twice as cold as the worst winters on record in the eastern United States in the past century,” says Robert Gagosian of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Gulf Stream Linked to Previous Temperature Changes
The slowing of the Gulf Stream has been directly linked with dramatic regional cooling before, says McGuire. “Just 10,000 years ago, during a climatic cold snap known as the Younger Dryas, the current was severely weakened, causing northern European temperatures to fall by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit,” he says. And 10,000 years earlier—at the height of the last ice age when most of northwestern Europe was a frozen wasteland—the Gulf Stream had just two-thirds of the strength it has now.

Could Weakened Gulf Stream Help Offset Global Warming?
A less dramatic prediction sees the Gulf Stream slowing down but not stopping entirely, causing the east coast of North America and northwestern Europe to suffer only minor winter temperature dips. And some scientists even put forth the optimistic hypothesis that the cooling effects of a weakened Gulf Stream could actually help offset the higher temperatures otherwise caused by global warming.

Global Warming: A Planetary Experiment
To McGuire, these uncertainties underscore that fact that human-induced global warming is “nothing more nor less than a great planetary experiment, many of the outcomes of which we cannot predict.” Whether or not we can trim our addiction to fossil fuels might just be the determining factor in whether global warming wreaks havoc around the world, or just causes us minor annoyances.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

EarthTalk is a regular feature of E/The Environmental Magazine. Selected EarthTalk columns are reprinted on About Environmental Issues by permission of the editors of E.

Air pollution in Britain – and particularly in London – is a disgrace. Mayor Boris Johnson disclosed today that early results of a new study  to be published later this year show just one form of  it – tiny particles called PM10s, mainly emitted from vehicle exhausts – cause 4,300 deaths in the capital alone every year, the highest total yet officially admitted . Nationwide, the House of Commons Environment Audit Committee reported last week, the toll could be 50,000 – nearly twenty times the 2,600 people killed annually in road accidents. And London is the most polluted capital in Europe when it comes to nitrogen dioxide, which is increasingly believed to be a cause of the asthma epidemic which now affects one in seven children in Britain.

Ironically, the high pollution levels are largely due to a rapid rise in the number of diesel cars – they have increased from about 8 per cent of new ones two decades ago to around 30 per cent now – which have been heavily marketed as relatively clean because they emit less carbon dioxide than ones that run on petrol. Switching fuels in this way has proved to be no more suitable a solution than introducing biofuels, which often soak up grain supplies or cause the felling of rainforest. Much better answers to both pollution problems are to produce more efficient vehicles and to boost public transport.

Britain now faces prosecution by the European Commission, and possibly fines running into hundreds of  millions of pounds, for failing to meet standards for PM10s in London  that came into force five years ago:  ministers applied for a period of grace, but the Commission has refused to grant it. And, since more than 100 towns and cities, besides the capital, will fall foul of new legal limits for nitrogen dioxide, trouble is almost certainly on its way over that pollutant too.

The Mayor today unveiled a new Air Quality Strategy, which has gone out for public consultation, but is short on new measures and long on wishful thinking that pollution levels will come down. In fairness, there is not a great deal he can do. Most measures need to be taken nationally by ministers – and there is little sign that they are yet improving their lamentable act.

The orca (killer whale) was in party of a pod of about eight whales which
targeted a larger number of smaller dolphins, known as false killer whales
or pseudo orcas.

Tommy Hatwell, a wildlife photographer, watched as one of the whales, a
female, attacked one of the dolphins, a female with her young pup,
eventually tossing her into the air and snapping her back.

She died almost immediately and the rest of the whales then closed in to
devour her and her helpless youngster

The attack happened at a seaside beauty spot called Black Rocks, in the Bay of
Islands, New Zealand.

Hatwell works for New Zealand company Explore Images which arranges nature
tours and takes photos to help tourists enjoy their experience. He was with
them on a dolphin and whale watching boat

Rob Hunt, a company boss, said the event was a “one in a million”
chance.

He added: “The boat was just 50 to 100m away while the killing occurred,
as the other pseudo orcas fled.”

He said markings showed it was a female killer whale that chased the doomed
dolphin after apparently singling it out.

“It chased it for several minutes, playing with it before flicking the
unfortunate creature about 10 metres into the air, then breaking its back on
her nose.

“We have been in operation for a little over two years and take on
average 400 photos of wildlife a day in addition to tourists interacting
with nature.

“I have never known anything like this before to be captured on film. This
is mother nature at its most brutal, a rare occurrence that it was seen by
humans, and even more rare that it was captured on camera.

“It is very real when you see these photos of just how fierce killer
whales are. Pseudo orcas are a very rare species of dolphin and there is
only one known pod in New Zealand.

“They have only been sighted in the Bay of Islands twice this year. After
showing the photos to a selection of scientists, all had not seen this
before.”

Rochelle Constantine, a marine mammal scientist, who was shown the pictures by
Mr Hunt said the sight of killer whales hunting a large marine mammal like
this was “almost unheard of.”

She added: “In New Zealand, for two species to be in the same place at
the same time is very rare.

“Pseudo orca, or false killer whales, are dolphins with all the
characteristics of an orca – except a lot smaller, and no match for the real
thing.”

Posted by Lisa Carey

Is it possible for hospitals and other medical providers to go even more “green?” Here are some recent innovations at hospitals in the US to cut down on hospital waste. Some would say that medical supplies could even be sterilized and then used again. What do you think?

With the current healthcare crisis and health coverage debates, anything that could cut hospital cost should certainly be on the operating table. Fortunately many ideas for saving money in the healthcare system will also make a healthier impact on the environment.

Did you know that hospitals are the second largest waste producers, beaten out for the gluttonous title only by the food industry?

-Healthcare facilities produce 6,600 tons of waste per day.

-As much as 80% of healthcare wastes are solids, including plastics, glass, metals and paper.

Breakdown of Hospital Solid Waste:

53% is paper

3% is metals

15% is plastics

17% if food or organics

-That number has been rising as many more “disposable” products are being used.

-Did you know that often health care facilities toss out the scissors used to remove stitches once? Can you imagine? Three snips and into the landfill they go.

-Did you know that recycled medical devices cost only half as much as new ones?

-Did you know that only a quarter of hospitals are using recycled devices?

John Hopkins University School of Medicine journal, Academic Medicine, recently published the results of a study investigating hospital waste. The findings:

-Many new instruments are used just once and thrown away.

-These same instruments would be perfectly safe to use if sterilized properly.

-Often a tool from the operating room is tossed simply because the package was opened, even if the tool was never used.

Dr. Martin Makary of John Hopkins says that items from towels and gowns to cutting devices could be sterilized or recalibrated and reused safely. He also says that pulse sensors like those worn on the finger, compression sleeves and drills for example, can be sent to reprocessing companies and recycled instead of being trashed.

Taking greener steps like these in hospitals would cut down on landfill waste as well as cutting healthcare cost.

Obviously it would be more eco-friendly to recycle hospital tools and items, but would it be safe?

The U.S. Government Accountability Office says that recycled medical devices are no riskier than new devices.

Health care facilities in Phoenix, Arizona taut a 15 million dollar savings annually by reusing recyclable medical devices that were previously thrown out.

The Worst Offender Award: Packaging

-Packaging accounts for up to 43% of all hospital trash.

Green Ideas in Hospitals:

That’s why idea innovative and eco-friendly ideas like those from nurses in the maternal and child health unit at the hospital in Santa Cruz, California are so crucial. Nurses realized that every time a baby was delivered that they were opening up three packages of supplies. Connie Gabriel-Wilson, RN and others convinced the suppliers to reduce those three packages into one. Eco-friendly hospital solutions like these can significantly reduce hospital waste.

In Portland, Oregon green conscious nurses were disappointed when gloves started arriving wrapped in plastic that wasn’t recyclable. These nurses collected 60 pounds of the plastic and sent it to the supplier and saying, “You need to change your packaging.” The result? The company started folding the gloves in half and reduced the packaging by half too.

Hospitals in Lowell, Massachusetts convinced a supplier to eliminate items from surgery packets that just weren’t used often enough. This green thinking saved 11,000 pounds of waste and $30,000 in wasted expenses.

As we look for more ways to fix our broken healthcare system, going green is once again a good way to save green too.

Full Web Address: http://www.greenjoyment.com/can-medical-waste-go-green.html
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More than half a million people counted birds in their garden for an hour at
the end of January as part of the Big Garden Birdwatch, which was organised
by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Sparrows, blackbirds and starlings topped the table as usual, but due to the
cold weather there were 20 per cent fewer sightings of small birds like coal
tits.

The UK’s smallest songbird, the goldcrest, also saw their population decimated
with numbers plummeting by three quarters.

The tiny long-tailed tits fell out of the top 10 most spotted garden visitors
altogether this year, with numbers down by more than a quarter since the
2009 survey.

The freezing temperatures have badly affected the small-bodied birds, which
suffer worst from the cold and have to eat almost continuously to stay alive.

Normally found in fields, farmland trees and hedgerows, these countryside
birds will visit gardens when food is scarce in their usual haunts – with
berries, seeds, insects and worms all hard to access under the snow and
frost for weeks at a time this winter.

But a host of new species were spotted in people’s garden for the first time
including blackcaps. Birds normally seen in the countryside like redwings,
fieldfares and mistle thrush also efatured in the count.

Experts believe they were spotted more because they have adjusted their
feeding behaviour to take advantage of food put out on bird tables and
feeders.

Sarah Kelly, Big Garden Birdwatch coordinator, said a lot of the birds only
survived the winter because they were being fed.

“We were particularly concerned for small birds over the winter, asking people
to make sure they kept feeders topped up and supplied fresh water to help
them. These results highlight the importance of feeding and gardening for
wildlife, especially during prolonged cold periods.”

The annual UK count, which took place on the weekend of January 30 and 31,
recorded more than 8.5 million birds of 73 different species in 280,000
gardens across the country.

However the RSPB remain concerned about population numbers over the long term.
In the last five years alone, house sparrows have declined by 17 per cent
and starlings by 14 per cent.

Since 1979, when the survey started, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds and
robins have all seen a decline in part due to habitat loss through
development like concreting over gardens to create parking spaces. Bigger
birds like wood pigeons and collared doves have done well from scraps left
on bird tables.

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI–(Marketwire – March 29, 2010) – Mr. Bill Woolfall, President, Volk Corporation, announced today the introduction of Volk’s patented new Stairglow® brand (www.Stairglow.com) of photoluminescent emergency egress products. These innovative products provide facilities managers, architects, safety and construction companies a permanent, low cost/ high value solution for the 2009 International Fire Code and GSA regulations requiring photoluminescent emergency egress systems in high rise stairwells.

The flagship products in the Stairglow brand are the one piece anti-slip photoluminescent stair nosings and the snap-on photoluminescent hand rail covers. The brand is rounded out by durable low level exit door kick plates, door handle markers, stair risers, egress signage and photoluminescent tapes. 

The Stairglow stair nosing’s unique design incorporates code compliant photoluminescent and anti-slip features which are molded into the tread. This eliminates any possibility of delamination, and does away with the ongoing maintenance, repair and replacement costs of tapes, paints and other products. For venues such as arenas and theaters where aesthetics are critical, Stairglow stair nosings can be produced in any color to provide a striking appeal to the overall interior environment. Stairglow stair nosings are priced substantially below competing brands with similar durability and deliver far greater cost saving and aesthetic benefits.

Mr. Woolfall also announced that Volk Corporation is in the process of partnering with Stairglow Resellers around the country and expects to announce several partnerships within the coming weeks. He said that the Stairglow brand was developed to offer a bolt-on business opportunity to companies in the electrical contracting, lighting, life safety and building security industries. In his release Mr. Woolfall commented, “photoluminescent emergency egress is both an opportunity and potential threat to several industries. As a supplement to current electrical lighting systems it is a value-added fail-safe egress system. However, current discussions by the ICC considering the possible replacement of higher cost emergency lighting with lower cost and more reliable photoluminescent materials in some applications, pose a potential threat to the emergency lighting industry. We have developed the Stairglow line to cover all of these bases for our Reseller partners. The breadth of the line allows our partners to address virtually any customer need and the depth of the line allows our partners to address the full scale of their customer’s budgets and durability requirements.”

Since 2005 Volk Corporation (incorporated 1890) has been a leader in the emerging photoluminescent emergency egress industry with placements of its Safety Step line in high profile arenas and federal buildings around the country. Most notably but not limited to The Palace of Auburn Hills, The St. Pete Times Forum, The AT & T Center in San Antonio and high rise federal buildings in Manhattan, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Stairglow stair nosings and the entire Stairglow brand of photoluminescent handrail covers, signage, tapes and emergency egress markings can be viewed at www.Stairglow.com .

For information on becoming a Stairglow Reseller go to www.Stairglow.com/resellers.aspx or contact Terry Fagan at 703-945-8121 or TFagan.Volk@comcast.net.