The great diesel scandal

How cheap fuel is choking our cities

Diesel’s popularity with motorists has surged, but its green image was an illusion. Now concern is growing over the damage caused by emissions, with children particularly vulnerable

The diesel and the damage done … particulates are one of the worst offenders in air pollution. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Stand at a busy road junction on a bright day and chances are you will see it: a Wacky Races cloud of black smoke left hanging in the air after a car pulls away. These clouds are actually particles of soot – partially burnt fuel from diesel engines – and they are arguably the worst environmental menace facing city-living Britons – and children in particular.

Diesel vehicles have enjoyed a surge in popularity on our roads, rising from less than a quarter to more than half of all cars sold in the last five years. In the recent past, they were even touted as more environmentally friendly than petrol vehicles, because they burn less fuel and so can produce, overall, less CO2. This green image, however, was always an illusion: diesel engines burn fuel less cleanly than petrol-driven models, resulting in a large excess of particulates – the visible clumps of soot left behind in the exhaust fumes.

Particulates are one of the worst offenders in air pollution because they damage the lungs when inhaled. “It has been known for a long time that diesel particles are harmful, and the links to lung cancer have been widely published,” says Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation. “Along with other major factors such as poor diet and smoking, diesel levels in a large city like London have been associated with significant health problems.” For children, especially, this can cause a permanent stunting of lung growth. And the picture may be even worse than current studies show: “There is a growing consensus in the medical community that diesel particulate emissions are more dangerous to health, particularly lung health, than previously thought,” adds Woods.

Yet despite our growing knowledge of the problem, the coalition’s policies – which follow on from equally harmful policies under the previous government – still favour diesel over petrol, and motorists continue to respond by opting for diesel in the showroom and at the pump. Diesel is taxed at exactly the same rate as petrol, a situation that the Treasury argues is fair and shows no favouritism between the fuels. The problem with this argument is that diesel cars travel further on a gallon of fuel than their petrol-driven counterparts, so the tax per mile is much lower.

The answer, according to a growing number of experts, is to tax diesel more heavily and regulate its use more strictly. The British Lung Foundation would firmly support such measures, says Woods. Simon Birkett, founder of Clean Air in London, also supports higher taxes, as does the environmental group Client Earth, and the RAC Foundation, while Friends of the Earth wants a fuel-tax review and Greenpeace says higher taxes in urban areas may be the best approach.

Source: TheGuardian Read more

Make you Fink on Friday

Ramifications

Global decline of wildlife linked to child slavery

Children enslaved as fishing labour in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana

New research suggests the global decline in wildlife is connected to an increase in human trafficking and child slavery.

Ecologists say the shortage of wild animals means that in many countries more labour is now needed to find food.

Children are often used to fill this need for cheap workers, especially in the fishing industry.

The decline in species is also helping the proliferation of terrorism and the destabilisation of regions.

According to a study in the journal, Science, the harvesting of wild animals from the sea and the land is worth $400bn annually and supports the livelihoods of 15% of the world’s population.

But the authors argue that the rapid depletion of species has increased the need for slave labour. Declining fisheries around the world mean boats often have to travel further in harsher conditions to find their catch.

In Asia, men from Burma, Cambodia and Thailand are increasingly sold to fishing boats where they remain at sea for many years, without pay and forced to work 18-20 hour days.

“There’s a direct link between the scarcity of wildlife, the labour demands of harvests and this dramatic increase in child slavery,” said Prof Justin Brashares from the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study.

“Many communities that rely on these wildlife resources don’t have the economic capacity to hire more labourers, so instead they look for cheap labour, and in many areas this has led to the outright purchasing of children as slaves.”

This exploitation also happens in Africa, where people who once found their food in the neighbouring forests now travel for days to find prey.

Fishers to pirates

Children are often used by hunters to extract wildlife from areas that would be too costly to harvest.

The researchers contrast the outcomes of the collapse of fisheries of the north east coast of the US and in the waters off Somalia.

The decline of fish stocks is increasing the need for slave labour to work on the boats

Source: BBCNews Read more

Monday Moaning

I have long been against these ‘energy drinks’ like Red Bull. It is my opinion that they should be banned.

In my perambulations through the blogosphere, I have read nothing good about them, in fact quite the contrary. All medical advice I have read says the same, avoid them.

Caffeine energy drinks ‘intensify heart contractions’

Energy drinks packed with caffeine can change the way the heart beats, researchers warn.

The team from the University of Bonn in Germany imaged the hearts of 17 people an hour after they had an energy drink.

The study showed contractions were more forceful after the drink.

The team told the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America that children and people with some health conditions should avoid the drinks.

Researcher Dr Jonas Dorner said: “Until now, we haven’t known exactly what effect these energy drinks have on the function of the heart.

“The amount of caffeine is up to three times higher than in other caffeinated beverages like coffee or cola.

“There are many side effects known to be associated with a high intake of caffeine, including rapid heart rate, palpitations, rise in blood pressure and, in the most severe cases, seizures or sudden death.”

The researchers gave the participants a drink containing 32mg per 100ml of caffeine and 400mg per 100ml of another chemical, taurine.

Short-term impact

They showed the chamber of the heart that pumps blood around the body, the left ventricle, was contracting harder an hour after the energy drink was taken than at the start of the study.

Dr Dorner added: “We’ve shown that energy drink consumption has a short-term impact on cardiac contractility.

“We don’t know exactly how or if this greater contractility of the heart impacts daily activities or athletic performance.”

The impact on people with heart disease is also unknown.

However, the research team advises that children and people with an irregular heartbeat should avoid the drinks.

The British Soft Drinks Association already says the drinks are not for children.

Opinion:

I read horror stories like:

One in 20 teenage pupils goes to school on a can of energy drink instead of a good breakfast, a survey suggests. – BBCNews

Then stories like this:

Morrisons supermarket has banned children under the age of 16 from buying high caffeine energy drinks. – BBCNews

If supermarkets are imposing bans, then there must be a reason.

Governments are all too ready to ban drugs, but they do nothing when there is a serious health risks; why?

Because the energy drink market is huge, big corporations are involved, which means there is a lot of money to be made.

I go to the supermarket, and see shelves full of the stuff, it makes me snarl.

I can’t understand why people drink the stuff. I had a sip once, it tasted ghastly, it made me want to puke. Now I could understand if it tasted like Coke, or something similar, but it doesn’t.

Here in Brazil I see people of all ages drinking it straight, mixing is with soda or beer or spirits; and I shake my head in wonder, how can you be so stupid?

There is already evidence that energy drinks combined with alcohol cause heart failure, but you never see this reported in the mainstream media, it’s hushed up, it’s a taboo subject, it’s another example of media gagging.

Russia is introducing a ban on drinks contain caffeine and alcohol. “Excessive consumption of energy drinks can harm teenagers, pregnant women and people with cardiac, nerve or blood problems”, the lawmakers said.” – Top News

Now I don’t agree with many things that Russia does, but like their banning microwave ovens in the seventies, now this energy drink ban shows that they do do somethings right.

The “wide awake drunk” is a new danger, statistics show that these people are 4x more likely to think they can drive than a person who has only drunk alcohol.

Are we Slowing Down?

Many children ‘slower runners than their parents were’

Children are advised to do at least an hour of vigorous activity every day

Many children cannot run as fast as their parents could when they were young, a study of global fitness says.

Experts say the work – being presented at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting – suggests children’s fitness levels may be declining.

Researchers analysed data spanning 46 years and involving more than 25 million children in 28 countries.

On average, children today run a mile 90 seconds slower than did their counterparts 30 years ago, they said.

Obesity

Across nations, cardiovascular endurance – gauged by how far children can run in a set time – has dwindled consistently by about 5% every decade, according to the findings.

The decline is seen in boys and girls and across all ages from nine to 17 years, and is linked to obesity, with some countries faring worse than others.

Lead researcher Dr Grant Tomkinson of the University of South Australia’s School of Health Sciences said: “In fact, about 30% to 60% of the declines in endurance running performance can be explained by increases in fat mass.”

The problem is largely one of Western countries, but some parts of Asia like South Korea, mainland China and Hong Kong are also seeing this phenomenon.

Dr Tomkinson said children needed to be inspired and encouraged to do more vigorous exercise.

If not, the public health consequences could be dire.

Huff and puff

“If a young person is generally unfit now, then they are more likely to develop conditions like heart disease later in life,” said Dr Tomkinson.

To stay healthy, children and young people need to do at least an hour of physical activity – such as walking or cycling to school and running in the playground – every day. It can be done in small chunks rather than one session.

Prof Michael Gwitz of the American Heart Association said: “The type of exercise is really important.”

He says exercise must be something that “makes you sweat” and is “sustained and dynamic” to promote cardiovascular fitness.

Simply going to the gym or belonging to a school sports team might not be enough, unless you are moving around a lot.

Christopher Allen of the British Heart Foundation, said: “It’s well established that being physically inactive in childhood can have serious health implications later in life.

“Keeping active can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and the sooner kids start, the better.

“By encouraging children to get active, we can help protect their hearts as they grow up. Parents, schools and community groups can all help kids on their way to 60 minutes exercise a day.”

Opinion:

Not only exercise, get them off any form of soda, and don’t feed them anything that comes in a packet or a can from the supermarket.

 

Make you Fink on Friday

This video relates Chernobyl, but it reflects on Fukushima.

Remember that Fukushima is 18x Chernobyl….

Take time to view, it’s 50 minutes, the levels of government, military interference and denial are still hampering Chernobyl, as they will for Fukushima for years to come. Talk, talk, talk…

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Bear in mind, America is downwind from Fukushima, are we looking at the future for American children on the west coast, and maybe further?

Source: The Internet Post

Monday Moaning

I have posted on Nature Deficit Disorder before. This morning I saw a post on The Liberated Way entitled, just that.

The post has a link to a satirical video clip from Holland, with English subtitles. It also has another video clip, Nature’s Child.

Check out his post, it is real, and it is happening; Nature Deficit Disorder, our children are suffering from it.

.

My previous postings: Nature Deficit Disorder & CTWW 9th May 09

Nature Ramble

Today, the Lake District, and a problem.

People out grow pets, fads bring on new pets, people can’t cope with the grown animals, fads disappear leaving an unwanted animals in their wake.

Often as not, this creates a problem, because you release the animal into the wild far from its natural habitat where things are different and it has to adapt, often at the expense of other animals that were part of the original scheme of things.

Abandoned terrapins stalk Lake District

Pets bought in the wake of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze have been let loose and now pose a threat to wildlife and children

Terrapins can grow to the size of dinner plates, and are aggressive and smelly Photograph: Graeme Robertson

The ducks at Tebay services in Cumbria have a pretty good life. A cracking view of the Pennines on one side and the Lakeland fells on the other; a lovely pond by the northbound restaurant and a diet supplemented by organic leftovers from the award-winning farm shop inside. Just don’t mention the terrapins.

A few years ago something odd befell these otherwise lucky ducks, according to Terry Bowes, director of Wetheriggs Zoo and Animal Sanctuary up the M6 at Clifton Dykes near Penrith. “I had a call from Tebay and a lady there said: ‘We’ve got a problem here. Some of our ducks only have one leg. I think they must have some sort of disease.’ I went down there to have a look, and what did we find? Three red-eared terrapins the size of dinner plates! They’d been chomping the ducks’ legs off!”

Last week Bowes caused a ripple of alarm when he warned parents in the Lake District to look out for marauding terrapins, which have been dumped in the national park’s waters after becoming too big for their owners to cope with. “If you have kids paddling in a river the turtles could easily snap off a toe or a finger. They can become quite aggressive when they have grown,” he said.

So should holidaymakers panic at the growing terrapin threat? Bowes wouldn’t go quite that far. It turns out his intervention was more a cri de coeur. He was exasperated at the routine abandonment of creatures that suffered the misfortune of becoming fashionable at the time of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze.

“I was just a bit fed up with the situation,” he said on Friday as he showed the Observer around his charmingly ramshackle sanctuary. “The other Monday we had 14 terrapins come in on one day – by the end of the week we had more than 20. In the last year we’ve had more than 100 from 15 different species of freshwater terrapins. I was thinking what we could do about them all and then I heard about another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film coming out soon and steam came out of my ears. I was thinking, ‘Oh no, this is only going to get worse.'”

Read more

Opinion:

Before getting pets for your kids, have a good think about the future and the consequences.

Nature Ramble

This week we’re off to Nepal to see what problems they are having with wild animals.

It appears that National Parks and saving rare and endangered species creates other problems.

 

Attacks prompt Nepal to cap wildlife growth

 

Attacks by wild animals have caused lives and property to be lost

Officials in Nepal have said they will now have to put a cap on the growth of wildlife including endangered species like tigers and rhinos.

They say it is a result of significant increase in loss of human lives from attacks by wild animals.

The problem is especially acute in buffer zones between human settlements and national parks.

In recent years, Nepal has developed a successful protection programme for many endangered species.

The Bardiya National Park in the west now has more than 80 elephants, almost 10 times as many as there were in the 1990s.

In the Himalayas, the numbers of endangered species like snow leopards and red pandas have been growing as well.

And the country has nearly 24% of its land area as protected areas, including national parks, conservation areas and wildlife reserves.

With all these achievements in nature conservation, however, Nepal has also witnessed a rising number of human deaths and property losses because of wildlife.

In the last five years, more than 80 people have been killed by wild elephants while 17 of the animals died in retaliatory killings, according to forest ministry officials.

Elephant protest

Last month, local people in Chitwan, southern Nepal, staged a strike and demanded that a rogue elephant be killed after it had taken the lives of three people.

A few months ago, a leopard in western Nepal caused terror as it killed more than a dozen people within a matter of weeks.

In eastern Nepal, herds of wild elephants continue to rampage, demolishing human settlements and raiding crops.

National park boundaries are no barrier to animal movement

Meanwhile, common leopards are increasingly attacking children and livestock in the hilly region.

Further north, in the trans-Himalayan region, locals continue to complain about snow leopards preying on their livestock.

Although forest ministry officials are yet to compile the latest data on these losses, they do admit that such incidents have gone up remarkably.

“Before, we used to record about 30 human deaths because of wildlife attacks annually but in the past few years the figure appears to have risen significantly,” said Forest Ministry spokesman Krishna Acharya who, until recently, headed Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.

He added: “The time has now come for us to determine how many such wildlife species we can have in our protected areas.”

WWF’s Nepal country director, Anil Manandhar, said the problem had become quite serious.

“This is now something that could become the biggest threat and setback for Nepal’s success in wildlife conservation,” he explained.

Buffer zones

Wildlife experts say human settlements known as buffer zones around national parks have become flashpoints for human-wildlife encounters.

“The numbers of rhinos and tigers are increasing in the national park and they are moving out in search of food and space. Meanwhile, the increasing human population needs more of the natural resources available, and that competition creates conflict,” said Mr Acharya.

Most of Nepal’s national parks and protected areas are either in the Himalayan region or in the Tarai area, the southern plain land that border India.

Yet, wildlife-related loss of lives and properties are also increasingly being seen in the mid-hill region, geographically located between the Himalayas and Tarai plain land.

Rhino numbers in Chitwan National Park have shot up in recent years

Conservationists point at the growing number of attacks on children and livestock by common leopards because this region has seen huge success in community forestry.

“We have been hearing complaints from farmers that community forests have more wildlife than in some national parks and therefore they are suffering losses of lives and properties,” said Yam Bahadur Malla, country director for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Nepal.

He also suggested it was necessary to scientifically demarcate the boundaries of national parks, as some species involved in the attacks were sometimes found outside the existing boundaries.

Forest ministry officials, however, said the chances of expanding existing protected areas were very slim because Nepal had already made huge swathes of land available for nature conservation.

Mr Acharya said the details of plans to limit wildlife growth were yet to be worked out but he added that one of the ideas would be to relocate some of the wildlife species.

“We have listed nine such species that can be trans-located from where there are quite many of them to where there are very few and such species include animals involved in conflicts with humans,” he said.

Mr Acharya also hinted that Nepal will now not commit to protect more wildlife than the amount its protected areas could sustain.

“For instance, we have said we will double the number of tigers to 250. But as we cannot expand our protected areas, we will not be able to commit more than that,” he said.

“Nor can we add new conservation areas.”

Make you Fink on Friday

Fast food and takeaways linked to surge in child asthma and allergies

Teenagers more likely to have severe asthma and eczema if they eat fast food more than three times a week, study shows

Fast food was the only type of food associated with asthma and allergies across all ranges and countries, the study shows. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

A diet of fast food and takeaways may be behind the steady surge in children’s asthma and allergies affecting the UK and other developed countries, according to a study.

An international collaboration of scientists has found that young teenagers in particular are nearly 40% more likely to have severe asthma if they eat burgers and other types of fast food more than three times a week. Children aged six to seven had an increased risk of 27%. Children eating fast food were also more likely to get severe eczema and rhinitis – a condition where the nose blocks or runs and the eyes are itchy and water.

The scientists, from New Zealand, Spain, Australia and Germany as well as Nottingham in the UK, say their study could have “major public health significance owing to the rising consumption of fast foods globally” if the link they have found turns out not to be coincidence but causal.

The good news was that eating fruit appeared to protect young people from asthma and allergies. Eating three or more portions a week reduced the severity of the symptoms by 11% among teenagers and 14% among younger children.

 

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