Brazil: Earth's Laboratory...•€Eminem, U2 score Grammys, too Real story of human genome map •€Breaking Bioethics: Darwin vindicated Afghan famine threatens 1 million •€WashPost:

Brazil: Earth's LaboratoryBrazil: Earth’s laboratory

MSNBC’s Jennifer L. Rich reports on the enormous environmental problemsfacing Brazil, a nation whose ecological health is viewed as inseparablefrom that of the Earth’s itself.

Brazil finds environment an easy cutJennifer Rich on the major hits taken by Brazil’s environmental programs inthe wake of the country’s financial crisis.

Small steps on a fantasy islandJennifer Rich looks at efforts to educate the young and mitigateenvironmental losses on a small island in Brazil’s fabulous Mata Atlantica.

Surviving the GreenhouseSurviving the greenhouse

A “fuel cell” revolution could provide the key weapon against globalwarming, but waiting for the technology to take hold will be messy, andpossibly dangerous. By Miguel Llanos.

MSNBC Terminal Planet Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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Scientific sleuths track climate trendsThe scientific investigation into climate change is more like a detective storythan a sci-fi plot. By Alan Boyle.

Germany’s special shade of greenNBC’s Andy Eckardt on Germany’s own particular brand of “Green” politicsand how it has seeped into its powerful manufacturing culture.

Slideshow: Hope for the futureA photographic look at some of the challenges and possible solutions to theEarth’s climate problems.

The People BombChina: The people bomb

MSNBC’s Kari Huus reports on China’s struggle to stretch resources andlimit the environmental damage of its 1.3 billion-strong population. AsChinese move up the economic ladder, their problems become the problemsof the world.

The Yangtze’s collision courseThe Yangtze River is a microcosm of China’s problems. With a population of400 million along its shores, heavy industry growing, and flooding on therise, it suffers too little environmental planning, too late in the game. ByMSNBC’s Kari Huus.

World population hits 6 billionThe world’s population topped the 6 billion mark Tuesday. That claim, andits implications, have revived an centuries-old debate about populationgrowth. By Julia Sommerfeld.

Will technology save us from overpopulation?As the globe’s population passes 6 billion, some economists are predictingthat technology will ensure that future generations will have long,productive lives. MSNBC’s Julia Sommerfeld reports.

March of the DesertWhen the river runs dry

MSNBC’s Nicole Pope reports from eastern Turkey on an irrigation projectthat has Syria and Iraq on edge and typifies the dilemmas faced bycountries in arid regions.

MSNBC Terminal Planet Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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Colorado River is region’s strained lifelineAs the American Southwest continues to grow, new pressures are beingplaced on the water supply of the Colorado River. Will there enough water togo around?

The dying Dead SeaNBC’s Hanson Hosein reports on the disintegrating health of the Dead Seaand explores the diagnosis for the future.

The Yellow River’s desperate plightMSNBC’s Kari Huus on the drastic measures being considered in Beijing toprevent the Yellow River from drying up.

Turning salt water into goldIt’s a goal that’s as tricky as it is tempting: turning salt water into fresh at acost that makes it practical, writes MSNBC’s Miguel Llanos.

Africa: The Hot ZoneAfrica, the infectious continent

While outbreaks of new, exotic infectious diseases — as well as theresurgence of old killers — have surfaced all over the globe in the pastdecade, no continent has been harder hit than Africa.

Death lurks in the jungleStefan Lovgren examines why mysterious infectious diseases seem boundto originate in Africa’s thick, uncharted forests.

Tradition, fear fan HIV epidemicMSNBC’s Stefan Lovgren in Nairobi reports on how fear and ignorance, plusAfrican tradition, often make it impossible to prevent epidemics like HIV andAIDS from spreading.

Forgotten malaria killing millionsStefan Lovgren looks at the meager sum spent to battle malaria, which killsas many as three million people a year in Africa.

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MSNBC Terminal Planet Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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Thursday, February 22, 2001

From Russia with Indifference

Moscow may have benefited from the spying of Robert PhilipHanssen, but you wouldn’t know it from the press coverage.A Web exclusive by Christian Caryl

West Wing Story:The Honeymoon is Already Over

Bush and the White House press corps hit a rough patch. AWeb-exclusive column by Martha Brant, every Wednesday

Newsweek Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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One Mother’s Responseto the McVeigh Debate‘I’m not opposed to the death penalty,’ says Jeannine Gist,who lost a daughter in the Oklahoma City bombing. ‘But Idon’t think it’s something we should televise for the public.’A Web exclusive by Flynn McRoberts

American Beat:A Not So Hairy SituationWhere have all the bald Congressmen gone? A weeklyWeb-exclusive column on the news by Gersh Kuntzman

Bush vs. Iraq: The RematchThe president, in office only a month, strikes his father’s oldadversary. But a new era may require a fresh strategyagainst Saddam. By Russell Watson and Roy Gutman

Music: The New British InvasionHelp! Beatlemania is infecting our kids. By Lorraine Ali

Live Talk: Michael IsikoffNewsweek’s investigative correspondent joined us for a LiveTalk about Bill Clinton—his past, his departure from theWhite House and his future. Read the transcript.

NEWSWEEK Poll:Clinton’s Popularity Takes a DiveThe former president’s approval rating is hurt by Richpardon. A Web exclusive

Harlem, U.S.A.

'Voices in Our Blood:'Putting the civil rightsmovement intoperspective

Newsweek Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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Questions and Answers:DARE-ing to be DifferentA popular anti-drug program has decided it’s time to makesome changes. A Web exclusive by Laura Fording

Web Exclusive:I Lost on ‘Jeopardy!’A NEWSWEEK reporter shoots for game-show stardom. AWeb exclusive by Suzanne Smalley

Test YourselfOur current-events quiz. How well are you keeping up withworld events?

Art for Art’s SakeNew York City’s Mayor Giuliani may not like an image ondisplay at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. But there’s more tothis exhibit than just one photo. A Web exclusive by AnatRosenberg

China: Another Olympic Scandal Brewing?Beijing may be awarded the 2008 Olympics despite itsrecord of human-rights abuses. A Web exclusive by MarkStarr

Withering on the WebIcebox.com is the online entertainment world’s latestcasualty. A look at the continuing struggles of Webanimation sites. A Web exclusive

Books: DeLillo, LiveThey came. They saw. They quivered. The author’s fanspack a rare book reading. A Web exclusive by Michael J.Agovino

Capitol Letter: The Third Way

Should Eminem get aGrammy? Kids cast theirvotes, plus letters fromreaders. And rethinkingzero tolerance. A new,weekly feature producedwith Teen Newsweek.

“The criminal conductalleged represents themost traitorous actionsimaginable against acountry governed bythe rule of law.”

FBI Director Louis Freehon Robert PhilipHanssen, the FBI agentaccused of having spiedfor Russia for more than15 years

Newsweek Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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Moderation is very hot with Washington Democrats. Plus, analternative tax-cut plan from Vermont. Our Web-exclusivecolumn on Congress, every Thursday, by Bill Turque

The Borowitz Report:‘Joyce DeWitt Virus’ Harms FewComputers, Experts SayPotentially dangerous ‘Three’s ‘Company’ e-mail virus isblocked from becoming widespread epidemic thanks toapathy, indifference, poor memories. Our weekly Webexclusive humor column on the news, every Wednesday

Around the World with the MacPhersonsThis family of four from Virginia has embarked on ayear-long journey around the world—and we’re going alongfor the ride. Join us every Tuesday for the latest, Webexclusive installment from their trip. Then, cast your LiveVote and e-mail the MacPhersons on the road

New: The NEWSWEEK ArchiveNow available online, Newsweek magazine stories datingback to 1993, including all of the Web exclusive articlespublished since last June. Searching is free, and articles arefor sale either individually or on an unlimited basis with adaily or weekly pass. Click here to view our new archives

What A Long, Strange TripFor more than a year, we’ve worked gathering confidentialinformation for a now-it-can-be-told account of the race forthe White House. Here’s the first chapter. PLUS, check outthe multimedia version of our special report on Campaign2000

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Newsweek Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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Newsweek Front Page 9:06 AM ET Thursday, February 22, 2001

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NBA UPDATE

Kobe-less Lakers beat Spurs

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Updated: 09:36 ET Feb. 22, 2001

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By Jennifer L. RichMSNBC

RIO DE JANIERO, July 5 —  Ask the locals, andthey’ll say that God must be Brazilian. Gazingdown at Rio de Janeiro from the open arms ofthe Corcovado, it’s easy to see why. The city isnestled improbably among majestic rockformations, an imposing fresh water lake and theworld renowned crescent-shaped beaches ofCopacabana and Ipanema.

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        AN HOUR’S DRIVE inland and the city gives way topine-covered cliffs that tower above lushly carpeted valleys, anod to the good sense of King John VI of Portugal, who in theearly 19th century, chose the mountains behind Rio for hiscourtly home.       But behind Rio’s striking beauty lies a cautionary tale ofepic proportions. It began not long after the last Brazilianmonarch abandoned his throne near the turn of the last century,when a growing population began to cut down the country’sforests to make way for agriculture. That practice continuesvirtually unabated today. The State of Rio de Janeiro used to be97 percent covered in natural forest. Today, less than 20 percentremains.       AS BRAZIL GOES, EARTH GOES       Similar destruction appears throughout the Mata Atlantica,a plant- and animal-rich ecosystem that once covered 800,000square miles of Brazil’s coastline. Now, only about 7 percent ofthe original Mata remains, 171 species are threatened withextinction, and conservationists say that the survival of theecosystem is unlikely.       “The Mata Atlantica has a terminal illness,” said MarioMantovani, director of Sao Paulo-based SOS Mata Atlantica. “Itno longer has the ability to resist. If there were 20 or 30 percentof the Mata left, it might be possible revert the damage. Todayno.”       In a struggle between man and nature that has echoesaround the planet, massive environmental concerns have rearedup throughout Brazil as the government attempts to meet theneeds of its growing population. On the western border nearBolivia, the huge Pantanal wetlands are being drained to makeway for hydroelectric projects, eliminating an entire habitat.

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Deforestation in Brazil's interiorrain forest is eating away at aregion environmentalists call "thelungs of the planet."

       The worst droughtin almost 200 years inthe arid northeast isturning about 110,000square miles of oncefertile land into desert.Overcrowding in SaoPaulo and Rio, withpopulations of 18million and 7 millionrespectively, haspolluted water sources,denuded mountainsidesand spawned outbreaksof disease andunmanageable criminalviolence. Because thecountry is so large, and

the variations in climate so broad, Brazilians are being forced tofind solutions to virtually all of the world’s environmentalproblems within their own borders.       The pressure put on Brazil by environmentalists andpoliticians in the developed world to curb these trends has oftenspawned resentment. After all, ask Brazilians, Egyptians,Chinese and Indians alike, were not Europe and North Americaonce covered by forest? Should developing countries put theirdreams of prosperity on hold on the evidence offered by foreignscientists?       “Brazil has a huge tropical rainforest that includes a largepercentage of the world’s biological diversity, and thepopulation is growing rapidly and is becoming progressivelymore affluent,” said Lester Brown, an environmental authorityat the Worldwatch Institute in Washington. “The possibility of aquarter of a billion relatively affluent consumers in the future inBrazil means a lot of additional pressure on world resources.       “If the Brazilian Amazon goes, the rest of the Amazon willgo with it. How this would affect the climate, no one reallyknows,” he said.       RESOURCES TO BURN       Further complicating the debate in Brazil is themisconception here that the nation is a bottomless reserve ofnatural resources. Flying over the Amazon, it is hard to envisionthat the solid block of green below is being destroyed at a rateof 5,000 football fields a day, as conservative figures estimate.Or that an area between up to four times the size of Californiahas already been stripped of vegetation in recent decades by

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“clear cutting,” a process by which ranchers and developers cutor burn down huge swaths of forest to make way for grazinglands and other agriculture.

       The sheer immensity of the Amazon, the largest tropicalrainforest in the world covering an area more than half the sizeof the continental United States, means that until recently localshave treated the forest as if its bounty would never end. Now, itmay be too late to save.       “If we can’t find a path to sustainable development in thenext 10 to 20 years, it is very likely that by the year 2050 therewill be very little forest left,” said Carlos Nobre, head ofBrazil’s Center for Weather and Climate Research.       WORLDWIDE IMPACT       The majority of the world’s scientists believe that the lossof the Amazon rainforest would be devastating to the globe’senvironment. There is an active debate over how quickly anddramatically the results will show themselves, but few nowargue that such devastation will pass unnoticed. Among themore catastrophic forecasts: enormous decreases in air qualityand resulting increases in lung diseases and cancer; the meltingof polar ice caps and the submergence of many of the Earth’sinhabited coastlands - among them, large parts of New York,Hong Kong, London and Shanghai.       Back in the Amazon, Nobre leads a group of internationalscientists who recently launched an ambitious project todiscover just how the rainforest fits into the globalenvironmental cycle. Working from a neatly manicuredcompound at Kilometer 40 of a lonely stretch of halfwaybetween Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Nobre’s small groupdirects a larger, global effort involving over 200 researchers

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funded by NASA, the Brazilian government, universities andEuropean donors. Ultimately, Nobre said, they hope to pinpointexactly how crucial a role the rainforest plays in cleansing theEarth’s air of carbon dioxide, and in turn, controlling the buildup of greenhouse gas.       From there, the group hopes to apply its knowledge todevise sustainable solutions for the Amazon, as well as tropicalrainforests in Africa and Asia.       The Amazon has a long history of defeating grand efforts totame it, to develop it and, more recently, to save it. One of themost spectacular failures occurred in the 1920s, when HenryFord began buying up tracts of land for development as a rubberplantation. A combination of factors, including the mistakenplanting of Ford’s trees too close together, led to a blight thatwiped out the entire project.       “All of the efforts to develop the forest have not been basedon a solid knowledge of the functioning of the ecosystem,”Nobre said. “If you start with Henry Ford and the rubberplantations in the ’20s and ’30s to the cattle ranches today, allhave been failures. We know why these things fail, but we don’tknow how to make them work.”       CREATING AN INCENTIVE       Several hundred non-governmental groups also are workingin Brazil to find alternatives to clear cutting and otherenvironmental degradation. Many point to Brazil’s richbiodiversity, which includes 55,000 different types of plants or22 percent of the world’s known species, as a means to profitoff of the growing market for medicinal herbs. Others,including Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and U.S. VicePresident Al Gore, have advocated the use of “matching funds”that would create an incentive for Brazil to spend on theenvironment.

Logging on the western fringes ofthe Amazon.        So far, however,

those efforts whichhave progressedbeyond talk have failedto make a majorimpact. Any successfulassault on the problemsof Brazil would need tocount on the fullsupport of thegovernment. To date,

Brazilian governments have been notoriously lax in making theenvironment a priority, preferring to concentrate on economicgrowth and - some critics would say - patronage and corruption.

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       Even in the face of catastrophe, inaction often prevails.Despite the fact that more than 12 percent of the Amazonianstate of Roraima burned to the ground last year fromuncontrollable wildfires during the February to April dryseason, environmentalists say the government has failed to takepreventive measures this year.       “The major problem with the environment in Brazil is thatwe are not forward looking,” said Garo Batmanian, Director ofthe Worldwide Fund for Nature in Brazil. “We usually come inafter the problem has already happened and spend billions ofdollars to try and fix it.”       The fiscal crisis and near economic collapse earlier thisyear set efforts back even further. Acting to quell the marketand meet International Monetary Fund strictures, the Braziliangovernment has had to drastically cut its budget. Invariably, oneof the main casualties of the cuts was Brazil’s environmentalagency and related programs.       “What the government seems to forget,” said SOS’sMantovani, “is that you can’t stop drinking water. You can’tstop breathing. You can’t buy biodiversity. These are issues thatare basic for the country, but we tend to live hand to mouth,without any plan for the future.”       In any other country on this planet, that might be a local orat most a regional problem. But Brazil’s problems, scientistssay, are everybody’s problems.       Jennifer L. Rich is MSNBC’s Sao Paulo correspondent.

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By Miguel LlanosMSNBC

VANCOUVER, Canada, Aug. 1 —  A revolution is in theworks. Here in western Canada and also inremote Iceland; in Stuttgart, Detroit and Tokyo,too, the plot is thickening. The target: theinternal combustion engine, the ancient regimeof the industrial world. The plot being hatchedwould change the way the world’s cars andhomes are run. And, if you believe that carbonemissions may be warming the planet andplaying havoc with its climate, then this is a

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revolution that may just save the Earth.

        AFTER YEARS OF naysaying, and spurred by newscience on the climate issue, some carmakers, oil giants andpower companies have joined governments andenvironmentalists in the push to develop cleaner power sources.       As with all revolutions, however, what happens betweennow and its execution will be messy. Battles will be fought overinterim technologies. Big money interests will try to strangleinnovations that threaten their franchises. Government policieswill grapple, with variable success, with the issues raised by thenew technologies.       David Nemtzow, head of the bipartisan, public-privateAlliance to Save Energy, says his worst fear is what mighthappen during those battles.       “Will we make the right decisions? Will we have the rightincentives?” he asks. “We still don’t know and there’s plenty ofreason to be nervous.”       NEITHER SOLAR, NOR NUCLEAR       The revolution would overthrow three icons of theindustrial age: the internal combustion engine, petroleum andpower plants fired by coal - all sources of carbon emissions,which many scientists fear are compounding the natural“greenhouse” effect that traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere.

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The cells in DaimlerChrysler'ssubcompact fuel-cell car arepacked under the car seats.

       In effect, the generators of power for our cars and ourhomes, our offices and our stores, would be supplanted bysomething cleaner.       But what’s capable of all that? A few years ago, somehoped that solar energy or perhaps even nuclear power wouldfill the void. But the limitations of solar energy and the risks ofthe atom dampened enthusiasm for those solutions.       In the past few years, however, a new alternative has risenbased on the most abundant element on Earth: hydrogen.

  Engine-eering

MSNBC Interactive• Compare the inner workings of

the internal combustion engineand a fuel cell using "protonexchange membranes"

       “Fuel cells” offer atechnology that can taphydrogen’s carbon-freeenergy, and have alreadysupplanted solar and nuclearalternatives as a growthresearch area.       The basic fuel cellmixes hydrogen andoxygen, creating a chemical

reaction that produces electricity. That in turn powers a motor.       Not surprisingly, support for hydrogen and fuel cells isbroad-based. Praise from government, industry andenvironmentalists includes terms like “staggering” and“revolutionize” and “the beginning of the hydrogen age.”       HEADING TO HYDROGEN       Fuel cells could be used not only in vehicles but also in ourhomes, offices, industries and even our cell phones and laptops.That’s significant because U.S. greenhouse gas emissions aredivided about evenly among vehicles, buildings and industry.       In some ways, hydrogen is a natural step in humankind’senergy evolution. Earth’s first societies were fueled by wood,

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then coal and today petroleum as well as natural gas. With eachstep there’s more hydrogen and less carbon in the energy cycle.

  Greenhouse symptoms

MSNBC Interactive• Watch video reports on how

high temperatures are affectingcountries around the world

       The triad of modernindustry - internalcombustion engines,petroleum and power plants- rely heavily on anothercarbon, another basicelement.       Like hydrogen, carbonis in us and all around us.But when used to create

energy it emits smog-producing gases as well as carbon dioxide,the single most important “greenhouse” gas.       At present, carbon emissions are about 6.5 billion metrictons each year worldwide — that works out to 22 billion tons ofCO2, which is created when carbon is burned. Some scientistshave long believed that to be an unsustainable situation. Now,with climate worries on the rise, many scientists believe theseemissions are doing damage to the planet.       FUELING THE CAR CULTURE       The idea behind fuel cells has been around since 1839, butthe first significant use was by NASA to power the Gemini andApollo spaceships - a tradition that continues with today’sshuttles.       Cost and size were huge obstacles until a few years ago,when advances by government and industry researchers broughtboth down significantly.       Ballard Power Systems here in suburban Vancouver is oneof the leaders. The company has $750 million in financialsupport from Ford and DaimlerChrysler, which hope to massproduce fuel cell cars in the next few years that match theperformance of today’s cars.

  Climate quiz

MSNBC Interactive• Test your knowledge on

energy, technology and globalwarming

       A major step was takenearlier this year whenDaimlerChrysler unveiled asubcompact fuel-cell car.Ferdinand Panik,DaimlerChrysler’s head offuel-cell research, describedthe breakthrough as“comparable to the impactthe microchip had on

computer technology when it replaced the transistor.”       A key issue is what kind of fuel to use to get the cyclegoing. The chemical process needs to be activated, and the

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cleanest way - in effect, no carbon emissions - would be usingpure hydrogen or even solar energy.       But a solar solution is long-term and getting gas stations tosell hydrogen and finding safe ways to move it around is achallenge. Revolutionaries feel it will happen, but not rightaway and that in the meantime a more acceptable fuel must beused. Regular unleaded is a possibility, as are methanol,ethanol, natural gas and other fuels.       Those all contain carbon, but fuel cells would still becleaner than the internal combustion engine because they gettwo to three times as much energy, and thus mileage, out ofeach gallon.       HOME IS WHERE THE HYDROGEN IS?       Fuel cell companies are also developing “stationary”generators to power homes, offices, hospitals and stores. Thefirst uses have been in isolated areas or where a reliable powersupply is crucial - casinos and banks, among them. Hospitalsare another logical market. But the technology is spreading:

The First National Bank of Omaha, the largest independentU.S. bank, last month bought a fuel cell power system for itscomputer center, citing concerns about a centralized power gridsusceptible to outages. The fuel cell not only powers thecomputers, but also heats the building and water - and evenmelts the snow on the outdoor walkways. Run on natural gas, italso cuts CO2 emissions by nearly half compared with a dieselpower generator.

The biggest player to jump into the market is GeneralElectric, which recently joined with Plug Power to promisefuel-cell generators for the home and office in 2001. Costs willbe $7,500 to $10,000 initially — but are expected to drop to$3,500 once mass produced. That would come out to 7-10 centsper kilowatt-hour. (General Electric also owns NBC, a partnerin the joint venture that owns MSNBC.)

In Oregon, the Bonneville Power Administration is buying110 fuel-cell generators to test them in homes following asuccessful two-year pilot project.

Longer term, if the costs come down to or below what we payfor electricity now - it’s possible the centralized power gridwould simply be obsolete for many uses, replaced by fuel cellsin garages or basements to light, heat and cool our homes.       PLAYING IT COOL IN ICELAND       Ironically, Iceland, where you’d think they might like awarmer Earth, plans to become the world’s first hydrogen-basedeconomy and pass along its lessons to other countries.

Surviving the greenhouse

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  The Greenhouse Effect

MSNBC Interactive• Without it, we couldn't live

here. A look at why the Earth isa warm andcozy place.

       The island nation isalready the world leader inrenewable energy — 67percent of the economyruns on geothermal or otherrenewable power.       But the government,backed by Shell andDaimlerChrysler, wants tofurther that leadership,

replacing the internal combustion engines on its entiretransportation and fishing fleets with fuel cells.       “Within ten to fifteen years,” predicts Hjalmar Arnason, anIcelandic lawmaker and chairman of its Committee forAlternative Fuel, “we will see radical changes in our societywith respect to hydrogen and fuel cells.”       U.S. ARENA       In the United States, Democrats and climate activists tendto prefer a carrot and stick approach to getting industry toreduce carbon emissions.       Republicans and industry tend to feel it’s all well and goodto develop technologies to reduce emissions but that mandatingcuts, as many governments agreed to do in the 1997 Kyotoclimate change accord, will retard economic growth.       Staking out the center of the debate are groups like theAlliance and the Pew Center on Climate Change, whose 21corporate partners believe enough is known about globalwarming to warrant preventive action now.       “The ‘ultimate’ solutions probably are 50 years out in thefuture,” says Pew director Eileen Claussen, “but that doesn’tmean we can’t take steps” in the meantime.       “Neither technology nor policy can do the job on theirown,” she adds. “What you need is the right mix.”       The Pew Center doesn’t claim to know what that mix is,though it hopes its own presence as a business voice of climateconcern will build consensus. Says Claussen: “We want toprevent this from being a terminal planet.”              

 U.S. debate makes friends, enemies       

 What to do while waiting for the revolution       

Surviving the greenhouse

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"Environment" - Complete coverage Friends, enemies in U.S. debate Tips to save money, and emissions Tapping into other technologies Praise for hydrogen, fuel-cell power Getting on board the fuel-cell bus

Pew Center on Climate Change Alliance to Save Energy

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Surviving the greenhouse

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By Kari HuusMSNBC

BEIJING —  “It is a good thing that China has a bigpopulation,” Mao Zedong stated with confidencein 1949. “Even if China’s population multipliesmany times, she is fully capable of finding asolution,” he said. Today, China’s leaders arestill looking for that solution, and as the Chinesemove up the economic ladder, their problemsbecome the problems of the world.

China: The people bomb

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        WHILE MAO put advocates of population control behindbars for their pessimistic forecasts, post-Mao China has takendrastic - many would say Draconian - steps to put the brakes onpopulation. But even with its legendary One Child Policy,China adds an estimated 14 million people each year. That ismore than the total population of Florida, or the combined totalpopulations of Norway and Sweden.       It’s not that Beijing’s efforts were a failure. On average,women in China have just 2.5 children each - a low rate amongdeveloping countries. But the population of women now in theirchildbearing years is massive - about 350 million - and peopleare living longer. Controlling growth at this point is likebringing a runaway freight train to rest.       Even if Beijing’s tough birth control policies hold sway -which is by no means certain - the population may rise to about1.6 billion by 2050 before leveling off.       WHAT IF THEY PROSPER?       Now imagine a billion people moving from a simpleagrarian lifestyle toward a life with all the latest conveniences.       Following the lead of the West, Chinese people are eatingmore meat, buying private cars, building skyscrapers, burningmore coal, using more water, cutting more trees and dumpingmore waste.

China: The people bomb

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‘China cannotafford to get richfirst and clean uplater.’— HO WAI CHIexecutive director, GreenpeaceChina

       Its massive population is what makes China’sindustrialization different than Western industrialization in thelast century. According to China’s own statistics, the amount ofland, farmland, grassland water resources owned by eachindividual Chinese is less than one-third of the world’s averagefigure. Forest and oil resources per capita are just one-tenth ofthe world’s average.       “China cannot afford to get rich first and clean up later,”said Ho Wai Chi, executive director of Greenpeace China.       “It must urgently invest in clean production technologies,energy efficiency and renewable energy programs if it is toavoid an environmental meltdown,” he said.       Environmentalists and population experts argue about thedegree and timing of China’s problems, with predictions forChina’s environment and quality of life ranging from unhealthyto catastrophic.       But China is by no means alone in its dilemma. Particularlyin the developing world, many countries have just started tolook at their growth rates, and are only now beginning to offerbirth control services to their people. In sub-Saharan Africa, forexample, population growth is mostly outpacing economicgrowth, intensifying poverty. And India, growing by 15 millionpeople a year, is likely to surpass China as the most populousnation in the next few decades.       How Beijing handles its challenge could be instructivearound the globe.Source: United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects,

The 1998 Revision.

       CHAIN REACTIONS       In any scenario, the world will be affected by how Chinadeals with its dilemma. Not only are China’s farmland andwater resources in short supply and its ecosystems imperiled,but the nation’s growing consumption is measurably strainingresources and environments outside its borders.       In one of the gloomiest — and most hotly contested —forecasts, Worldwatch Institute’s Lester Brown suggests thesituation in China could lead to an international food crisis.       Beijing does not deny the seriousness of these issues, butthere are so many of them and little room to maneuver. Also,solutions to one set of problems tend to beget others.

China: The people bomb

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‘Past a certainpoint it gets harderto find no-costsolutions. Allsolutions haveunintended sideeffects if you fill acountry the wayChina is filled.’— ROBERTENGLEMANvice president for research,Population Action International

       “This is the lose-lose proposition of a large population,”said Robert Engleman, vice president for research at PopulationAction International. “Past a certain point it gets harder to findno-cost solutions. All solutions have unintended side effects ifyou fill a country the way China is filled.”       For example, China has done remarkably well at producinglarge amounts of food on comparably little land. As its leadersare eager to tout, the country has remained reasonablyself-sufficient for grains, supporting one-fifth of the world’spopulation on just one-eighth of the world’s arable land — thesmall slice of eastern China that supports the vast majority of itsbillion people. Most of the country is made up of mountains ordesert, regions barely habitable, much less arable.       But the dramatic gains in agricultural productivity in the1980s are leveling off and the last decade of intensive farming,marked by the highest use of chemical fertilizer and pesticidesin the world, is now destroying farmland.       In Zhaozhou county, home to about 330,000 farmers andranchers in northeast China, about one-quarter of the land areaturned to an impermeable crust after overgrazing caused achemical change called alkalization of the soil. Another portionof the land used for crops suffers from “soil burning,” whichtakes place when chemical fertilizers are used but organicmatter is not restored to the soil, as it was in the past whenmanure served as fertilizer.

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       “The decline of organic matter in soils is probably morecrucial than most of the issues that make the headlines,” saidJosh Muldavin, a geography professor who chairs internationaldevelopment studies at University of California Los Angeles.       Muldavin has been working with the Zhaozhou farmers torejuvenate the soil, but remedies are very expensive and cantake decades. “Things can be done but they’re difficult,” hesaid. “At the same time, economic policy is pushing people toincrease production.”       A better publicized problem is that rapidly growingindustrial areas have gobbled up vast amounts of farmland -about 1 percent per year in the 1990s. This is even worse than itappears, suggested Muldavin. “Unfortunately, the marginal landis in hinterlands, and is the last to be converted (to industrialuses). Some of the richest farmland is in areas that are rapidlyurbanizing, primarily in the north China plain. The bestfarmland is being converted.”       The trend has set off alarms in Beijing: China’s elderlyleaders have all witnessed famine in China in their lifetimes.But directives to limit the loss of land have proven difficult toimplement and hard for local government officials to enforce.Power and wealth, after all, lie in the hands of the industrialists,

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not with the farmers.       Most economists agree that China will likely need to importmore grain, though China’s leaders - fearful of politicalimplications - are loathe to do so. And China’s entry into theinternational grain market would raise prices for the entireworld market.       WATER WARS       Seen from the halls of power in Beijing, the country’s mostpressing problem is to keep the economy rolling ahead. It is theissue upon which dynasties have risen and fallen, and China’selder revolutionaries know their history.       Early experiments in private enterprise originally took rootbecause of a crisis in the countryside. There was a desperateneed to provide alternatives for people living in rural areas,which at that time made up some 90 percent of the population.Farms had been divvied up ever smaller over the generations(except during a short period of collective farming) until theaverage plot was a tiny noodle strip of an acre or less.

  China's urban explosion

MSNBC Interactive• China's urban centers see

unprecedented growth.

       Blossoming factoriesaround the country haveabsorbed hundreds ofmillions of people anddramatically raised livingstandards across China.       Largely because ofthese factories, economicgrowth has been stunning —

nearly 10 percent a year for two decades. To absorb vast armiesof people from the countryside, and those laid off fromunprofitable state firms, China needs to keep it all movingforward — fast.       But industry and rising soaring urban consumption arealready on a collision course with agriculture as the two sidesvie for scarce water supplies, especially in the arid north.

China: The people bomb

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       A growing population of cityresidents has driven demand skyhigh — access to private showersalone makes a huge difference. Addin luxuries like washing machines,beer, Coke, and swimming pools,and the problem of consumptionbecomes understandable. Watertables are falling one to three metersa year in some urban areas.       Farmers are facing a moredesperate situation. With alarming

frequency and greater duration, the Yellow River, one of themain water sources in the north, runs dry before it meets thesea.       In some places, the farmers continue to pump what isbasically untreated sewage into the fields. Meanwhile, otherrivers have disappeared. “They have sucked everything up,”said Daniel Gunaratnam, a water specialist at the World Bank inBeijing.       Water - the shortage of it in the north, the pollution of it inthe south - may be the country’s most pressing problem. Waterhas been named one of the top challenges for the country byChina’s most prominent man of action, Premier Zhu Rongji, butputting in place an integrated plan involves countless trade-offs.       One partial solution comes from diverting water. China hassome of the world’s biggest projects of this kind under way,including three canals that will move water from the YangtzeRiver in the south some 800 miles north to the parchedBeijing-Tianjin areas, home to some 20 million.       “The future of China depends on how they solve (thewater) problem,” said Gunaratnam.       AIR POLLUTION       The air pollution produced by China’s economictransformation has been equally stunning, and in some cases,legendary.       The country has some of the worst air quality standards inthe world, a factor, health experts believe, behind the soaringrates of asthma and other respiratory disease. The northern cityof Benxi finally drew the aid of international agencies when itdisappeared off satellite images because it was buried beneath athick, acrid cloud.

China: The people bomb

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China has some ofthe worstair-qualitystandards in theworld, a factor,health expertsbelieve, behindthe soaring ratesof asthma andother respiratorydisease.

       After a seven-year effort, Benxi is visible again. ButChina’s reliance on coal - dirty, but cheap and plentiful - is notgoing away. Coal provides about 75 percent of the country’spower supply, and demand for power climbs with each passingyear.       Japan, which has been affected by acid rain generated inChina, has provided scrubbers and other clean-coal technology.Widespread use of these technologies can make a substantialdifference in air quality, but their use affects the bottom line.There are persistent reports of factory managers turningscrubbers on only for inspections, because running them raisescosts.       Economists say coal is too cheap, which encouragesinefficient use. But as the United States and other countrieshave discovered, lifting subsidies on energy is politicallyunpopular and slows economic growth.       Ultimately, China will need to make a major shift, asindicated by a World Bank report from the northern province ofLiaoning.       “The air quality problems here and in other cities ofLiaoning Province are too severe to be solved soon, or atreasonable cost, by emission controls alone,” it reported.“Reducing air pollution will require action at all stages -beginning with finding different sources of fuel.”       THE GREENING OF THE REDS?       In the face of multiple crises, China is rethinking many ofits most dearly held beliefs - from its food security policy to itsviews on non-governmental organizations.       In the last few years, Beijing has allowed severalindependent green groups to form for the sake of education, andto some extent, to monitor industry compliance withregulations. It has tolerated the existence of Greenpeace Chinain the autonomous region of Hong Kong, despite the parentorganization’s penchant for public protest.       There are even signs that Beijing is rethinking its approachto limiting population growth. International population expertsnow insist that people, even poor people in the developingworld, don’t need to be forced to have smaller families as Chinahas done.       “The idea that poor people want more children for securityis largely a myth,” said Joe Speidel, population expert at theHewlett Foundation. “Most growth comes from a lack of accessto family planning. If people know they have an alternative,most will now choose to have a smaller family.”       There are also growing signs that China itself is subscribingto the view. Though it has not abandoned the One Child Policy

China: The people bomb

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that drew scathing criticism, in 1994 Beijing signed onto theCairo Program of Action. The 179 signatories agreed toimplement population programs that disband target numbers,abandon coercion and provide education. China’s signing ontothe program helped the U.N. Population Fund Program to winrenewed funding from the U.S. Congress, which had beenwithdrawn due to UNFPA involvement in China.       But at this point, even with ideal programs, it will begenerations before China can see the gains. In the meantime, itwill need equally creative means to stretch resources for itspeople.

 Explosion of unrest in Indonesia China disputes Iraq aid reports China promises Olympic spending N. Korea threatens new missile tests Nike vows to end abuses at overseas plants

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When the river runs dry  

Could water be the cause of a war?  

    By Nicole PopeMSNBC

SANLIURFA, Turkey, Oct. 10 —  In this landscape ofarid soil baked hard by desert heat, the dark bluewater snaking its way for miles up the windingEuphrates valley is a shock to the eye. ForTurkey, this is the frontline of a $32 billionstruggle to harness the waters of the Tigris andEuphrates rivers and fuel a boom in itsunder-populated, politically explosive southeast.

When the river runs dry

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But downstream in Syria and Iraq, thismammoth project is viewed with greatforeboding.

        THE 554-foot high Ataturk dam is the center piece ofTurkey’s ambitious Southern Anatolia or “GAP” project, aprogram that eventually foresees the construction of 22 dams.Like many other nations around the world, Turkey is usingirrigation to expand the area of arable land and increase itsagricultural output. An important byproduct, the Turks hope,will be increased development in an area torn by the Kurdishconflict for the past fifteen years. That makes hydroelectricpower a key to Turkey’s future.       For Syria and Iraq, the soaring wall of the Ataturk dam is apotential nightmare. Officials in both countries worry that whenthe project is completed, the waters that define the “FertileCrescent” will slow to a trickle. A decade ago, Syria wasfurious when Turkey turned off the taps for a few weeks to fillthe lake behind the Ataturk dam.

When the river runs dry

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Turkey's Ataturk dam.        In response, bothSyria and Iraq let it beknown that theyregarded the flow ofthese great historicrivers to be sacrosanct.Iraq reportedly went sofar as to threaten tobomb the dam if itwere ever used as a

means of pressuring the regime of Saddam Hussein.       WATER WARS?       International law provides few answers to settle disputesover the use of trans-national rivers. Some analysts believe thatscarcity of water could eventually lead to conflicts. The issueplagues relations between states of the former Soviet Union.Mexico complains about American dams that have cut off theflow of the Colorado River into the Gulf of California.       The Nile, the Danube, the Yangtze, the Amazon, the Niger- all great rivers whose water rights are now contested.Sources: Encarta, U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification,

Infoplease.com, MSNBC research

              The issue is particularly acute in the dry Middle East whichis fed by only three major basins - the Tigris/Euphrates, the Nileand the Jordan river.       “Water, the scarcest natural resource of the region, effectsrelations between Middle Eastern countries even more than oildoes. Indeed, so vital to the region is fresh water that the lack ofadequate supplies has forced Middle Eastern leaders intostrange and sometimes unwanted alliances and confrontations,”wrote Mostafa Dolatyar, of Newcastle University, in “TheMiddle East Environment.”       Turkey claims that Syrian and Iraqi concerns are misplaced.       “Turkey is committed to delivering at least 500 cubicmeters of water per second, Syria will never suffer,” says Prof.Ali Ihsan Begis, director of the Hydropolitics and StrategicResearch and Development Center at Hacettepe University inthe Turkish capital, Ankara. “There is enough water in the basinfor Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Regulating the water also means thatcountries downstream get a steady flow, whatever the season.”

When the river runs dry

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A woman walks through a tomatofield on the now irrigated Harranplains.

       Experts admit,however, that thequality of the water islikely to decline aspesticides and saltresidues seep back intothe rivers as a result ofmore intensive farmingand development.       Turkish authoritiesremain unwilling to

sign a formal treaty on the allocation of water, something thatmakes Damascus very uncomfortable.       A MARKET FOR WATER?       International cooperation may well be the only solution ifconflicts are to be avoided. Turkey’s late president Turgut Ozalcame up in the late 1980s with the idea of a peace pipeline thatwould carry Turkey’s water to thirsty countries of the MiddleEast. But politics, and in particular the animosity betweenArabs and Israelis, got in the way.

       Turkey has now startedexporting fresh water from theManavgat river, on its south coast, tothe Turkish enclave in NorthernCyprus, using giant plastic balloonstowed by tugboats. During a recenttrip, President Suleyman Demireloffered to sell water to Israel usingsimilar techniques, and feasibilitystudies are under way.       To ensure a sustainable balance

between man and nature, governments will have to wage theirown wars at national level. In implementing their GAPprogram, the Turks cannot ignore their region’s history. It wasindeed in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, further south in presentday Iraq, that irrigation was first used some 6,000 years ago.The need to plan, share and control the distribution of waterprobably encouraged the development of the first organizedcivilizations, such as the Sumerians and the Babylonians, whichthrived in the Fertile Crescent. But history also suggests thatoveruse of water which caused a buildup of silt and salt, andmay have eventually brought the downfall of these earlydeveloped societies. The paradox is that while lack of waterhinders agricultural production, excessive use can be just asdamaging and reduce the land to desert through salinization.       The need to feed a growing global population, poor farming

When the river runs dry

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practices, deforestation and haphazard development have madethese dangers more acute on the eve of the third millennium.Some 100 countries are affected today by the phenomenondescribed in the International Convention on Desertification, as“the degradation of the land in arid, semi-arid and sub-humiddry areas caused by climatic changes and human activities.”       THE DESERT EXPANDS       Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most severely hit, but landand groundwater resources are being depleted all over theworld. One third of the earth’s surface now suffers from thisprocess, which seriously reduces agricultural yields andtherefore threatens the livelihood of millions, and every year anadditional 80,000 square miles is rendered unusable.       Even water-rich Turkey is not immune. “Erosion affects 78percent of Turkey’s total land area,” says Dr Gülay Yasin,deputy director of TEMA, a foundation dedicated to combatingthe degradation of the soil. Steep slopes, high winds and hotclimate account for part of the problem, but deforestation andovergrazing are the main culprits. Without roots to hold it inplace, the soil is just blown away. Large sums are then spent onfertilizers to replace the rich nutrients that were lost. “The mainproblem is poverty,” explains Ms Yasin. “Peasants cut treesbecause they need money and they don’t have another fuel. Nolaw can be successful in such circumstances. We can onlycombat erosion if we give alternatives.”       When nature suffers, consequences are widespread. Soilerosion for instance can in turn affect the dams. TEMA is nowcooperating with the GAP administration to plant a barrier offorest around the lakes. “Some dams in Turkey, which weremeant to have a life span of hundreds of years, got filled up bysilt to the point of becoming unproductive in 40 or 50 years,”explains Dr. Yasin.       

 Miguel Llanos examines the potential fordesalinization as a solution to water problems

       Through the longest irrigation tunnels in the world,measuring 16.4 miles in length and 25 feet in diameter, preciouswater is now brought to the parched Harran plains, south of theTurkish city of Sanliurfa, and farmers are switching from drycrops such a pistachio nuts or wheat to more profitable ones likecotton and fruit trees.       “It started as a water development project, but there hasbeen a gradual shift of emphasis,” says Olcay Unver, the

When the river runs dry

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director of the GAP Regional Development Administration.       RETRAINING FARMERS       To ensure the success of its ambitious enterprise and avoidsome of the environmental pitfalls, the Turkish governmentrealized early on that an all-encompassing approach wasneeded. Training centers now teach farmers to save waterthrough techniques such as drip irrigation while state nurseriesexperiment with crops to find the most suitable for the climateand conditions. Management of the irrigation programs hasbeen placed in the hands of farmers’ association.       But old habits die hard. “Farmers are reluctant to changetheir ways,” admits Dilek Ozer, an enthusiastic youngagricultural engineer involved in the program. In this part ofTurkey where the population is a mix of Kurds, Arabs andTurks, and elsewhere in the world where education standardsremain low, only proof that better income can result fromchange will convince farmers to adopt new methods. The GAPmaster plan, for instance, foresaw a rotation of 2 or 3 crops, ofwhich only 35 percent was meant to be cotton. Yet, last year,most farmers opted for cotton, which sells well and can beeasily stored. Monoculture, however, leaves the regionvulnerable to crop diseases, and the large amount of waterneeded to grow cotton increases the risk of salinization.       The feud over water rights between Turkey and its southernneighbors may never ignite into a full blown regional crisis. Butpoor planning and insufficient management of the scarce waterresources could do more lasting damage. Even the Middle Eastcan exist without oil. But water is more than a commodity; it’s anecessity.

              Nicole Pope is based in Istanbul and covers Turkey forMSNBC.              

When the river runs dry

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By Charlene LainoMSNBC

Nov. 4 —  While outbreaks of new, exoticinfectious diseases — as well as the resurgenceof old killers — have surfaced all over the globein the past decade, no continent has been harderhit than Africa. But with international travelersflying viruses across time zones in a matter ofhours, experts have no doubt that the emergenceof menacing microbes in one locale could bringabout a worldwide pandemic. Are infectiousdiseases the new Armageddon?

Africa, the infectious continent

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    Terminal Planet

The big mystery: Where Ebola lurks  

        AFRICA’S TROPICAL climate makes it a hot zone in themost literal sense. The continent is, to put it simply, a breedingground for emerging pathogens.       Add to that environmental changes — such as globalwarming and destruction of the rain forests — rapid populationgrowth and haphazard development, and the scene is set formicrobes to thrive, international experts have warned.       Since the mid-1970s, the world has seen the emergence of30 new infectious diseases and the return of such killers asmalaria and cholera — many of them originating in the Africancontinent, said Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center forHealth and Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.       And in the past few years, floods and droughts brought onby global warming have exacerbated the situation, he said.       “Extreme weather creates conditions conducive tooutbreaks of infectious diseases,” Epstein said. Heavy rains, forexample, provide new breeding sites for the mosquitoes thatcarry malaria, dengue fever and other disease, whilecontaminating drinking water. Drought, on the other hand, fuelsfires that, in turn, spark respiratory ills, even meningitis.       When illness does strike Africa, a poor infrastructure —marked by poverty, malnutrition, crowded living conditions,limited health care and an unstable political climate — permitsdisease to spread undaunted.       MANMADE PROBLEM

Africa, the infectious continent

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       It’s the manmade aspect of the problem that so perturbs theexperts.       “These new pathogens didn’t come in on a tail of a comet,”said Dr. David Heymann, executive director of the WorldHealth Organization’s Program on Communicable Diseases inGeneva, Switzerland. “They’re lurking in animals. But bydisrupting nature, we have unleashed them onto ourselves.”       The destruction of the rain forests, for example, may bepartly to blame for clusters of killer outbreaks — ranging fromfeverish malaria to hemorrhagic Ebola.       When trees are cut down, pools of infested water are leftexposed in the forest, Heymann said. “What we have done is setup new breeding grounds for mosquitoes that can carry diseasesuch as malaria.”

  World AIDS

MSNBC Interactive• A look at the UNAIDS/World

Health Organization report onAIDS around the globe.

       Dr. Anne MarieKimball, an expert ininfectious diseaseepidemiology at theUniversity of Washington inSeattle, blamesdeforestation for recentEbola outbreaks. As peoplepenetrate the forest in searchof firewood, they can be

exposed to the virus, which might otherwise have beenrelatively contained, she said.

‘These newpathogens didn’tcome in on a tailof a comet.They’re lurking inanimals. But bydisrupting nature,we have unleashedthem ontoourselves.’— DR. DAVIDHEYMANNWHO

       Destroying the rain forests also has led to a loss of wildlifethat protects against infectious diseases, said Epstein. “Ascoyotes, snakes and other predators that normally prey upondisease-carrying rodents and mosquitoes are killed off by manin his hunt for more wood, for example, so is our natural bufferagainst plague and malaria,” he said.       “A hearty forest stocked with birds and a healthy lakestocked with fish are important in controlling mosquitoes,” hesaid, which may in part explain the resurgence of such diseasesas yellow fever and malaria — the latter all but wiped outseveral decades ago.       Cutting down the forest can sometimes change the micepopulation from forest to field mice, Epstein added, which canbring about new viruses such as one responsible for a deadlyfever in Bolivia.       “While this has yet to happen in Africa, there is everyreason to believe it can — and will — if steps are not taken,” hesaid.

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       GLOBAL WARMING       Several aspects of climate change, all related to globalwarming, are contributing the emergence of new diseases andthe resurgence of others, the experts say.

  The Greenhouse Effect

MSNBC Interactive• Without it, we couldn't live

here. A look at why the Earth isa warm andcozy place.

       Warming itself isallowing malaria to spreadto higher altitudes, Kimballsaid, noting that themosquitoes that carry thedisease to humans cansurvive only at mildertemperatures. Onceconfined to lower areas, theskin-piercing insects are

now able to flourish in the African highlands of Kenya.       The outbreaks have been devastating, Epstein said. Withpoor access to health care, many residents were sickened andkilled as malaria swept through several villages.

  World Epidemics

MSNBC Interactive• Infectious disease outbreaks

across the globe.

       El Nino-related extremeweather events also broughtflooding to the Horn ofAfrica,       chiefly Kenya andTanzania, he said, addingthat in 1997-1998, the areawas besieged with fourtimes as much flooding as

normal. The results: huge clusters of mosquito-borne malariaand Rift Valley fever as well as an epidemic of the water-bornedisease cholera.       The big surprise, Epstein said, are the fires brought aboutby recent droughts — “something we weren’t even thinkingabout a year ago.”       The fires bring haze, choking, air particulates andrespiratory ills. Membranes dry, making residents susceptible todeadly meningitis.       There’s also the impact on an already shattered economy.Due to Rift Valley fever, which strikes cattle as well as humansfor example, Africans couldn’t export livestock, Epstein said.Cholera-infested waters limited the sale of fish.       “We knew of the link between climate and infectiousdisease as early as the 1920s,” Epstein said, “but people putblinders on. And now we are paying the price.”       A GLOBAL PROBLEM       While the term Hot Zone may conjure up images of

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suited-up medical detectives working in containment zones tostop a deadly virus at its source, nothing could be further fromreality, the experts say. Each killer microbe has the potential tomake a lethal journey across the globe, carried by migratorybirds, international travelers or traded goods.       “Africa’ problem is not its own,” Epstein said, the WestNile-like virus’ recent debut in New York being an importantcase in point.       While scientists are still mystified as to exactly how themicrobe made its way halfway across the world, he said, “Whatwe can be sure of is that the environmental and socialconditions in Africa affect emerging diseases throughout theglobe.”       Like West Nile-like fever, mosquito-borne dengue feverhad been confined to the tropical zones for years, Kimball said,making “an outbreak in Texas earlier this year as scary as it isintriguing.”       It appears “we’re seeing a harbinger of what you can get asvectors move worldwide,” she said.       

  What should we be doing?Stopping infectious diseases early – at their source –is crucial to preventing a worldwide pandemic.Harvard’s Paul Epstein suggests these steps:

• Set up better surveillance and response capabilities.• Create a Health Early Warning System to track climatic

changes that “could be conducive” to disease outbreaks.• With early warning, do public health interventions that are

timely and environmentally friendly.• Stop deforestation as it now exists.• Develop cleaner, more efficient energy sources.• Establish an international center to fund all these changes.

Estimated cost: several billion dollars a year.

       Other unexplained outbreaks of infectious disease may bedue to mosquitoes hitching a ride on a plane, Kimball said. Theinsects can survive in the wheel wells of aircraft, even at 40,000feet. So if mosquitoes set up shop while a plane is grounded inAfrica, they’ll land overseas with the baggage and passengers,causing previously unseen disease, such as recently happened inBelgium.       Travel also allows the mixing of different microbial strainswhen people come together, Kimball said. The new strains areoften not just deadlier, but also may be resistant to the drugs

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usually used to eradicate them.       “The world is so intertwined that a problem in one placetoday will be a problem in another place tomorrow,” she said.“Infectious diseases are giving us a wake-up call to create aglobal community.”       If we don’t, the experts say, we may indeed be facing thenew Armageddon.

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Brazil finds environment an easy cut  

But experts fear a horrific bill will come due later  

    By Jennifer L. RichMSNBC

ISLE OF CARDOSO, Brazil —  Brazil may seem an oddplace to find penguins, but each spring dozensride the winter currents up from the Atlantic andcome ashore in this tropical land. Agovernment-funded program rescues the birdsand places them back in the cool southboundcurrents when the summer ends. But this year,the rescue program and dozens of otherenvironmental projects in Brazil received nomoney, thanks to country’s financial crisis. For

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the penguins, the heat is on.

        THE SKY BLUE artificial habitats on this island thathoused errant penguins last year will remain empty this year.Many of the birds that mistakenly make their way to Brazil willend up dying.       “These are animals that are coming to Brazil from otherareas,” said Marcos Buhrer Campolim, the soft-spoken directorof the Island’s State Park. “This is not just a problem thateffects Brazil. It effects the entire planet.”       Being short of cash is nothing new for Brazil’senvironmental agencies, which often have to cobble togetherproject funding in partnerships with non-governmentalorganizations. But now, a series of economic crises threaten toturn what’s left of the country’s resources away from Brazil’srapidly worsening environmental situation.       DEFLATED AMBITIONS       When the effects of the Russia monetary crisis hit theBrazilian economy late last year, the government was forced tocut spending by $8 billion in an effort to balance the federalbudget. Altogether, the government slashed environmentalspending by 60 percent, according to figures from the privatewatchdog Institute for Socio-Economic Research.       Environmentalists were outraged by the decision,particularly since the government had cut matching funds forthe G-7-sponsored Pilot Program for the Protection of theTropical Forests. Without Brazil’s modest contribution, it wasfeared that the G7 countries would withhold the remainingmoney allocated this year for ten other environmental projects.       After intense lobbying, Congress agreed to restore the

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PPG7 matching funds, and a large portion of the overall budget.But where cuts were made across all environmental initiatives -like the 55 percent reduction in a $24 million program topromote sustainable development in the Pantanalwetlands-more was added to a program to control flooding.       “It’s incredible that the government, alleging that it has cutspending in all sectors, including social spending, wouldincrease resources for this budget item, which in the largemajority of the time is applied without being integrated into awider public policy,” said Helcio Marcelo de Souza, director ofEnvironmental Analysis at INESC, in an e-mail exchange.

  Hobbled giant

MSNBC Interactive• A look at Brazil's problems and

potential

       In the end, even theCongress’ half-heartedefforts to restoreenvironmental funding werenot effective. At the end ofApril, the administration ofPresident FernandoHenrique Cardosoannounced that it would be

using discretionary power to cut an additional 29.6% ofEnvironmental Ministry’s budget in order to meet the country’snewest loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund.       TALK IS CHEAP       Most environmentalists, however, say a lack of funding isonly a part of the structural problems plaguing the country’sefforts to protect the environment.       They say the Brazilian government did not begin to payattention to environmental problems until 1992, when theUnited Nations earth summit was held Rio de Janeiro. At thetime, the Cardoso administration took a more activelyconservationist public stance. He declared the Amazon andMata Atlantica rainforests, as well as the Pantanal wetlands,part of the national patrimony and gave them protected status.National parks and conservation areas were also demarcatedand limits placed on deforestation.       Behind the scenes, though, environmental groups say thatCardoso has done little to make sure that the new requlationswere followed. The World Wildlife Fund last month released astudy that showed that only 0.4 percent of Brazil’s territory metminimum federal standards for conservation, although 1.85percent of the country’s land has highly-protected status.       Cardoso, environmentalists say, continues to water downthe 1998 Crimes Against Nature Law, which sets penalties fordeforestation and other environmental degradation.       “The first mandate of Fernando Henrique [Cardoso] was

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the worst administration in terms of the environment since theend of the military regime [in 1985],” said Joao PauloCapobianco, executive director of the Instituto Socioambiental.“The government has done literally nothing to show consistencyin terms of policy. Any project that is started either doesn’t havecontinuity or it is abandoned. The enormous growth in thedeforestation of the Amazon is a clear sign of this.”       MORE IS BETTER, NO?       Part of the reason for Cardoso’s concessions, though, maybe political. The ruralist bloc in Congress, which opposes mostenvironmental restrictions, threatened to hamstring thegovernment’s efforts to pass the fiscal reform measures thatwere considered crucial for the salvation of the Brazilianeconomy.

Rio de Janerio, Brazil: Rochinaslums in foreground; upper classhigh rise apartments in rear

       Like all developingcountries, Brazil has arapidly growingpopulation that isconstantly demandingmore food, water,power and sanitation.In an effort to meet theneeds of its people, thecountry often makesquick, ill-planneddecisions. Of the 40“Great Works” that theCardoso administrationannounced with its“Brazil in Action”program-hydroelectricgenerators, gaspipelines, power

plants-the federal environmental agency Ibama objected toalmost all.       Brazil’s ministries, which are generally considered to bepersonal fiefdoms, are often headed by politicians who areselected based on what party they represent, rather than theirexpertise       THE DAMMED FOREST       “The Balbina dam is a good example of how you shouldnot build a hydroelectric dam,” said Garo Batmanian, head ofthe Worldwide Fund for Nature in Brazil. “It is in the middle ofthe Amazon. They flooded a large area. And we already lost aturbine because the very acidic water in the river is eating them

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up. Even if the environmental ministry had a budget severalbillion dollars, all it would do is clean up after the otheragencies if they don’t coordinate before hand.”       When asked about his ministry’s efforts to combatdeforestation, recently appointed Science and TechnologyMinister Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira told MSNBC: “That’s notmy Ministry’s responsibility. We don’t have anything to dowith that.”       There are signs that newly appointed Environment MinisterJose Sarney Filho-the son of former president Jose Sarney - istrying to open a dialogue among politicians, businesspeople andenvironmentalists in an effort to bridge the divide betweencompeting interests. But many Brazlians point out that until thecountry takes its environmental problems more seriously, thecountry stand little chance of making progress against thedevastation.              Donations to the cause of Brazil’s penguins can be send to:       Marcos Buhrer Campolim       Director, State Park at Ilha do Cardoso       Av. Professor Wladimir       11990-970 Besnard, S/NCananeia, SP       Brazil       

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Small steps on a fantasy island  

An effort to educate the young and manage losses  

    By Jennifer L. RichMSNBC

ISLE OF CARDOSO, Brazil —  The campsite at the Isleof Cardoso was getting a final going over andhalf a dozen camp counselors wolfed downlunch before the arrival of their latest guests.More than 60 school kids were due to descendon the site for three days of learning about theimportance of preserving the Atlantic rainforest,or as it’s known here, Mata Atlantica.

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        THIS IS one of the small steps Brazil has taken to ensurethat the next generation better understands the relationshipbetween the health of its environment and the health of thenation - and, ultimately, the world.       “If it weren’t for the environment, we wouldn’t be here,”said Eduardo Chammas, one of the children who had arrivedfrom Our Mother of Mercy school in Sao Paulo.       Environmental education is starting to gain popularity ingrade schools in the region, and the staff at the Isle of Cardosois trying to ride the wave by providing the kids with a hands-onlook at the country’s rich patrimony. They are hoping tostimulate awareness among the country’s young people in thehope that Brazil’s next generation will feel a kind ofstewardship that has escaped the current one.       

  Shrinking rainforest

MSNBC Interactive• A look at how the

Atlantic rainforest has shrunkover the last5 centuries

"Some of the kids live righthere on the coast and havenever even seen the Mata,”said Lazara Gazzeta,coordinator of anenvironmental educationprogram in the region forSOS Mata Atlantica. “Weare trying to show themwhat the area has to offer.”

       Located on the southern coast of Sao Paulo state, the Isle ofCardoso is a perfect laboratory for environmental education.Over the years, researchers working in the state park havecataloged 438 species of birds, 86 different mammals and 986species of plants, one of the highest concentrations ofbiodiversity in a country teeming with it. Many of the animalsthat live on the island, like the yellow-bellied alligator and thepurple-faced parrot, are threatened with extinction.       Protecting this habitat is not merely a matter of preventing

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development. “Flower poaching” is common on the island,which, like most of the southern coastline, brims with orchidsand bromelias, ornamental plants that are highly coveted in therich markets of North America and Europe. The       federal environmental agency Ibama estimates that 300 tonsof medicinal herbs are illegally removed from the protectedareas in and around the park every year.       THE PRICE OF A PURPLE-FACED PARROT       Complicating the situation are the scores of traditionalcommunities of native peoples that ring the area. Subsistencefisherman, hunters and farmers live on an average per capitaincome of $250 a year. To protect the nature around thesecommunities, local government agencies and environmentalgroups are working with residents to find alternatives toharmful practices.       “Do you know how much a purple-faced parrot sells for inthe United States and Europe?” asks       Wilson Alameida Lima, coordinator of the southern coastalregion for Ibama. “Up to $5,000. The locals may only be paid$10 for catching the birds, but it is money they can’t earnelsewhere. We have to find viable alternatives for thesecommunities to earn a living.”       Ibama’s first step has been to legitimize some activities sothat the impact on the environment can be monitored andregulated. This has been an exercise requiring a lot of patienceand negotiation. Lima said the effort is slowly paying off,however. To the north of the Isle of Cardoso on Long Island, acommunity of ornamental flower collectors was recentlylicensed by the government and formed into a cooperative tocoordinate the supply of bromelias. The hope is that regulatedharvests will save the species and also the creatures that, in turn,need the bromelias to survive.       MOLLUSK MANAGEMENT       Perhaps the greatest success story in the region has been inthe community of Mandira, where oyster collectors, along withmore than a dozen concerned groups and environmentalagencies, fought to create a nature reserve for the sustainableextraction of the mollusks.       Still, the groups are far from stabilizing the mollusk habitat.Each of these projects helps little more than 100 people to shifttheir economic activity away from environmental degradation.       “I’m sure we’ll all die before we can do 20 percent of thethings that we have seen need to be done around here,” saidJocemar Tomasino Mendonca, a researcher for the StateSecretary of Agriculture’s Fishing Institute. “But despite all of

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the problems with funding and with bureaucracy, our projectsonly take a little time to show a lot of results. It’s reallygratifying.”              

  Brazil's economic crisis has been a disasterfor the environment, too

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Scientific sleuths track climate trends  

Unraveling the mystery of global warming’s cause and effect  

    By Alan BoyleMSNBC

Aug. 1 —  Melting glaciers ... rising sea levels ...inundated coastlines: Those are the nightmarescenarios for global warming. But for now, theinvestigation into climate change is more like adetective story than a science-fiction tale.Scientists are hunting for clues about the originsand impact of the greenhouse effect — andtrying to crack the case before fear takes hold.

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        THERE’S NO DISPUTING that the planet’s climate ischanging: Global mean temperatures have risen 1 degreeFahrenheit over the past century. Researchers have declared lastyear to be the warmest in 120 years. Analyses of ice cores andtree rings have led experts to conclude that the 1990s rank asthe warmest decade in 1,000 years. One study even contends,on the basis of readings from a 2.2-mile-deep ice core fromAntarctica, that the current climate trend is unprecedented in thepast 420,000 years.       Figuring out the cause and effect is trickier, however - andthat’s the root of the controversy over climate change.       In the U.S., public opinion is evenly divided over whetheranything should be done about global warming, according to anNBC/Wall Street Journal poll: Fifty-one percent of the 500surveyed in late July said action should be taken, another 43percent said no action should be taken, and 6 percent wereunsure. (You can take a similar poll at left.)       But how much do people know about the current bout ofglobal warming? Is it primarily the result of a natural cyclebeyond our control, or is it mostly our fault? What’s thepotential impact, today and in the longer term? Here’s aprogress report on the search for answers:       

The cause       The “greenhouse effect” provides the link between humanactivity and global warming: Scientists know that some gases inthe atmosphere - such as carbon dioxide and methane - canretain heat and re-radiate it to Earth’s surface, just as glassbounces heat back within a greenhouse.       Scientific sleuths have compared today’s atmosphere withbubbles of air trapped within layers of ice, building up a “fossil

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record” of the atmosphere’s composition. Their findings:Greenhouse-gas levels have risen significantly sincepre-industrial times. Carbon dioxide, for example, has gone upfrom about 270 parts per million to more than 360 parts permillion.       Other investigators have used carbon-dating techniques andcomputer simulations to conclude that much of thegreenhouse-gas rise is due to human activity, primarilyfossil-fuel burning, agricultural practices and deforestation.       This is the basis for making humans the prime suspectsbehind the rising temperatures. But that doesn’t mean the casehas been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Patterns in solaractivity and even the earth’s changing orbit also affect globalclimate.

  The Greenhouse Effect

MSNBC Interactive• Without it, we couldn't live

here. A look at why the Earth isa warm andcozy place.

       Two reports in the Aug.15 issue of GeophysicalResearch Letters indicatethat solar activity couldaccount for 15 to 50 percentof the temperature rise overthe past century or more,based on computersimulations. But bothreports also say the solar

factor has played much less of a role in recent years - whichsupports the idea that the human factor is playing much more ofa role.       The current computerized models indicate that humans areresponsible for two-thirds of the world’s warming trend, saysTom Wigley, senior climate scientist at the National Center forAtmospheric Research.       SIMULATION EFFORTS       How far can the trend go? To answer that question,scientists develop computer simulations that match past patternsand extend those simulations into the future. The current modelscome up with a 3- to 5-degree rise in global temperatures overthe next century.       Because of the interplay of ocean currents, atmosphericcirculation and geography, scientists say a continued warmingtrend would have a stronger impact on the NorthernHemisphere than on the Southern Hemisphere.       But historically, Mother Nature has found ways tocompensate for climate shifts: One study has shown thatincreased carbon dioxide levels stimulate forest and plantgrowth, which would convert more CO2 into oxygen. Anotherstudy claims that an earlier round of global warming, 8,200

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years ago, melted a huge ice dam in North America, releasing acooling flood.       Wigley says computerized climate simulations take suchfactors as increased vegetative growth into account.Nevertheless, the complications illustrate that the outlook forfuture global warming isn’t an open-and-shut case.       DEBATING THE LINK       “Is Earth’s climate changing? The answer is, of course. Ithas been and it always will be in the future,” says Florida Techprofessor George Maul, who has studied the environmentaleffects of warmer ocean temperatures. “The real question iswhether human influence is causing climate change.”       Maul characterizes himself as a “fence-sitter” on thatquestion, and says better scientific data will have to bedeveloped. Other scientists, however, worry that time is tickingaway.       “Even if we stop burning fossil fuel and putting CO2 in theatmosphere, I know from the scientific studies that the lifetimeof the CO2 we’re putting in is about a century - so I know wehave to live with our mistakes for a long time,” says KenDenman of Canada’s Institute of Ocean Sciences, who was oneof the lead authors for a 1995 international report on climatechange.       “In that sense, there’s an urgency.”       

The effect       What would a warmer world look like? We’re alreadyliving with the effects of warmer global temperatures - and ifthe greenhouse effect keeps those temperatures on the rise, thechanges could be even more dramatic. Other factors complicatethe forecast, however:       WEATHER WORRIES       Summer heat waves and drought ... warmer winters withmore precipitation in the upper Midwest and the Northeast.Does that sound like a familiar forecast? Climate scientists sayit’s just what you would expect in the United States in a globalwarming scenario.       The latest computer simulations indicate that the futurewarming effect in the United States could be even morepronounced than the global average.       Ironically, the models show that sulfur dioxide emissionshave a cooling effect on the atmosphere, and as those pollutantsare reduced, the warming trend strengthens. Global warmingalso produces secondary effects in atmospheric circulation

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patterns, says Drew Shindell of NASA’s Goddard Institute forSpace Science.       For example, Shindell’s computer model indicates thatwarm marine air would blow more rapidly over northern landmasses - causing a more pronounced trend of warmer, wetterwinters in western North America and Eurasia.

From December 1997:Might global warmingbenefit Americans?Stanford scholar ThomasMoore thinks so, andexplains why.

       “In 30 years more, we could have not much permafrost leftin Alaska,” he says.       On the other hand, some experts contend that globalwarming could be a good thing for some regions: Stanfordscholar Thomas Moore, for example, notes that there would befewer winter frosts and longer growing seasons in the UnitedStates.       In any case, researchers emphasize that cyclical patterns ofoceanic and atmospheric circulation can affect weather moredramatically than long-term global warming. El Nino and LaNina patterns are just the most vivid examples of such patterns.Separating out all the influences is devilishly difficult.       “This definitely can give you a foretaste of what it wouldbe like if the climate models are coming true,” says JanineBloomfield, staff scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.“But can we say this is definitely global warming? That may bea little premature.”       WATER WORRIES       The retreat of glaciers, melting ocean ice and disintegratingice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctic provide the clearestevidence of extraordinary global warming, Bloomfield says.Some of that melting ice has endured for centuries.       The breakup of Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf could bejust the beginning: Bloomfield points out that some urban areasdepend on snowpacks for their water supply. Rapid melting ofsuch snowpacks, plus a greater chance of summer drought,could lead to more frequent water shortages.       Then there’s the threat of higher sea levels, fed by themelting ice. The Environmental Defense Fund has worked out awhole report on how rising sea levels and increased floodingcould endanger New York City in 2100.       But Maul says it’s easy to exaggerate the threat. He takes askeptical view of sea-level projections, pointing out that landmasses rise and subside all the time.

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       LIFE AS WE KNOW IT       A host of environmental changes have been attributed towarmer temperatures on land and in the ocean.       On the West Coast, the range of some salmon speciesalready has moved northward, Denman says. A NASA study,based on satellite observations, has found that warmertemperatures have pushed the spring growing season a fullweek earlier from the Great Lakes region to Alaska. The nestinggrounds for birds in Britain are slowly moving northward. Coralreefs around the world are showing increased signs ofbleaching, an indicator of potentially fatal stress.       In the longer term, warmer oceans could hamper the flowof nutrients upward from the cold, deep ocean - and hurt themarine food chain at its lowest levels. The “comfort zone” forfish, wildlife and crops in the Northern Hemisphere couldcontinue to shift northward, forcing changes in the economicbalance of power.       But scientists say their powers of prediction are limited,particularly when it comes to the environmental impacts.       “It’s very difficult to show a relationship between climateper se and human influences, and it becomes much harder whenyou’re talking about the effects of climate on the biologicalenvironment. ... There’s no doubt that things are going to popup and become painfully obvious to some people somewhere inthe not-too-distant future, but pinning down where this is goingto happen is somewhat tricky,” Wigley says.       Maul says he believes localized human factors such asurban “heat islands” and water pollution will far outweigh theimpact of global climate change in the foreseeable future. Coral

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bleaching, for example, could be caused by “the critters thatwe’re pumping into the system, just because we’re flushingtoilets,” he said.       Even though he considers himself a fence-sitter, Maul sayshe still favors strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions andother sources of pollution - “just because it’s goodstewardship.”       “This notion of sustainable development is good thinking,”he says. “It’s the right direction to go. But I think the idea thatwe understand the problem and know how to fix it and takeaction is more political decision than a scientific decision at thispoint.”              Alan Boyle is MSNBC’s Science Editor.

The past and future of climate MSNBC archive on climate change Climate change on the Web

Pew Center on Climate Change Climate Prediction Center National Center for Atmospheric Research

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Germany’s special shade of green  

With environmentalists in power, much is expected  

    By Andy EckardtNBC NEWS

MAINZ, Germany, Aug. 1 —  Germans are proud oftheir Green credentials — their stringentrecycling regime, the codes and ordinances thatregulate everything from the size of a washingmachine to the emission of a petro-chemicalcombine. The Green Party broke intogovernment last year as part of ChancellorGerhard Schroeder’s coalition. But can anenvironmental friendly nation also keep pace

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economically?

        ECOLOGICAL MODERNIZATION may sound like astrange, contradictory term. In Germany, however, its all therage. With the environmentally minded Greens in keyministerial positions here, the government has undertaken anunprecedented campaign of incentives and regulation to ensurethat Germany, at least, cannot be blamed for fiddling as Earthburned.       The 1997 Kyoto environmental accord called for areduction of greenhouse emissions that many industrializednations appear unlikely to meet. The overall goal - a reductionof 25 percent by 2008, has been criticized as arbitrary by somewestern critics and in the developing world many view theentire process as an effort to prevent their ascent into theindustrialized world.

  Top ten CO2 producers

MSNBC Interactive• See the rankings and find out

how much carbon dioxidesome countries are producing

       But if the issue has lostits appeal in some places, inGermany its on the frontburner. This year,Germany’s environmentalminister introduced a planbilled as “ecological taxreform” which aims tophase in large tax cuts tofirms that introduce new

standards with and cleaner practices.

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              The government also has pledged to help companies cleanup their production processes, to exploit alternative fuels,institute more recycling and develop a new “three-liter-car” - avehicle that would travel nearly 220 miles on a gallon of gas.       But with Germany’s economy only now emerging fromseveral years of stagnant growth, there also is enormouspressure to ensure such measures don’t impact productivity inGerman industry and thus exacerbate joblessness.

  Building the 'Supercar'

MSNBC Interactive• Learn about research efforts to

build an eco-friendly car

       The idea ofharmonizing ecology andeconomy is hardly new. Foryears in Germany,manufacturers of householdappliances and Germany’slarge car industry have beenleaders in efforts toeliminate hazardous

components and byproducts from their production lines.       A decade ago, when scientific reports first showed thatclorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, contributed significantly to ozonedepletion in the upper atmosphere, the giant Siemensconglomerate was moved quickly to cut by half the amount ofCFCs used in its refrigerators. Only a few years later, BMWdecided to replace vehicle parts that contained CFC. By 1993,all new BMW cars were CFC-free. The German governmentcommitted to a total ban of CFCs in 1994 two years ahead ofthe deadline agreed to by industrialized nations in the MontrealProtocol.       CLEANING UP THE AUTOBAUN       Germany’s auto industry had once lagged in relation to therest of the economy when it came to environmental concerns.With Germans at least as smitten with their powerful vehicles asAmericans, there was a real reluctance in the 1980s to doanything that would reduce the power, speed or performance ofGerman cars.

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Is your car top-rated in its class? Check this list to see thehighest — and lowest — scoring "Green Guide" cars bycategory. The "Green Score" is based on estimates of healthand global-warming costs attributed to each vehicle, with 100being the best possible score.

Engine typeCity

MileageHwy

MileageGreenScore

1. Electric vehicle fuel economy is given in miles per kilowatt hour (mi/kWh).2. Compressed Natural Gas fuel economy is given as gasoline-equivalent MPG.

SOURCE: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

       Thus, well into the 1990s, a majority of Germany’s fleetlacked catalytic converters and ran on relatively filthy leadedgasoline.       The public backlash at acid rain in the late 1980s andadvances in performance changed that. By the mid-1990s, ledby AUDI, German car manufacturers began to study ways tominimize fuel consumption and to “optimize the lifecycle” ofvehicles.       The key, in AUDI’s opinion, was vehicle weight. Soon,AUDI introduced its “Space Frame Technology” (ASF),making liberal use of aluminum where there once was heaviersteel. With relatively little change in production, AUDI found itcould reduce the weight of vehicles by 35 to 45 percent. Thepractical effect: its A8 line of cars drove an extra 70 miles foreach gallon of gas.       There is a down side, however. The lighter frames takemore energy to build. AUDI acknowledges this, but argues thatthe higher production emissions are more than compensated forin the course of the car’s driving life.       CATCHING UP       After a slow start, Germany’s car industry has moved out infront on environmental issues. With a record 3.75 million carsregistered in Germany this year and pressure from thegovernment to clean up their act, the emphasis has shifted. AllGerman car companies, including DaimlerChrysler,Volkswagen and OPEL, established special environmentaldepartments and research groups.       Most of these firms have low-emission-prototypes already,some powered by hydrogen and others with hybrid engines. Butthe focus in Germany at the moment is the “three-liter-car” - the

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car that will run over 200 miles on a gallon of gas.       Green party politicians say the manufacturers are notmoving fast enough. But automakers point out that, withGerman drivers still committed to the unlimited speeds of thecountry’s Autobauns, the performance of the fuel saving carswon’t make it on the open market. They see incrementalimprovements in fleet mileage as more realistic - and morecompetitive, too.       “Better results can be achieved if car manufacturers reducethe emissions of their entire product range, which we have beendoing extensively in the past years,” said Manfred Heller,General Manager for Environmental Protection at BMW. “Eventhough our goal is to optimize ‘Clean Energy’ production andproducts, we are at a stage where we can only achieve marginalimprovements in emission reduction and in some productionsectors we have already reached reduction limits.”       OTHER CHALLENGES       Germany industry’s efforts to clean up production havespread beyond the country’s borders, too.       Wolfgang Lohbeck, who has been highly critical ofGerman industry in the past, concedes that strides have beenmade.       “In the course of spreading environmentally friendlytechnologies throughout the world,” Greenpeace’s WolfgangLohbeck says, “German industry has brought its own enormousdynamism to the process.”       A good example of this philosophy exists in the applianceindustry. Both Bosch and Siemens Household Appliances(BSH) recently set an ambitious goal: the worldwideelimination of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are notozone-depleting, but like carbon dioxide, implicated in climatechange.       BSH’s European plants have consequently been using purehydrocarbons for some years. When building a new productionplant in Brazil, BSH completely excluded the use of hazardousHFCs right from the outset.       Factories which have been taken over by BSH wereupgraded to the new standard and in new plants thehydrocarbon technology is already integrated at the processplanning stage.       “The crucial point was not simply the German ‘good’example, but also the fact that the companies concerned hadincorporated the new technologies in their businessphilosophies,” Lohbeck said.              Andy Eckardt is an NBC producer based in Germany.

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The Yangtze’s collision course  

Where nature faces off with industry and the human species  

    By Kari HuusMSNBC

SHANGHAI —  Before the building of the massiveThree Gorges Dam began, Chinese and foreigntourists rushed to see the Yangtze River before itchanged forever. Passengers packed onto ferriescarrying 600 to 700 people. At key moments,they would rush out onto all decks — to viewancient temples, rocks shaped like a mythicalfigures, and finally, the Three Gorges — wherethe river passes between soaring cliffs.

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        BUT CHINA’S longest river is more than just a wildernessexperience. It’s also been an economic lifeline for millions.       The Yangtze, which runs 2,400 miles from Tibet to thePacific Ocean has long been one of the most heavily populatedplaces in China. Experts say its watershed supports 400-500million people. They live in massive industrial cities likeChongqing, and Wuhan, They farm the lower reaches, right upto the edges of this volatile river, and along its many tributariesand flood plains. In the upper reaches, where people areespecially poor, many make their money through lumbering, orcutting firewood for heating.

  Troubled River

MSNBC Interactive• See our slide show on the

Yangtze River

       Now, as thegovernment embarks onconstruction of one of thebiggest hydroelectric damson earth, there is a buildingboom near the site, justdownstream from the ThreeGorges Dam, as developersattempt to cash in on the

multi-billion dollar project. Laborers have arrived from aroundthe country to help.       “The Yangtze brings to a head many of the many majorissues in China,” says Josh Muldavin, chair of internationaldevelopment studies at University of California Los Angeles.       HISTORICAL FLOODING       The most dramatic illustration of the Yangtze’s dilemmawas the flooding that occurred in the summer of 1998, the

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largest for 50 years. After the devastation, which claimed 3,656lives and cost the nation $38 billion, Beijing took a tough lineagainst old-growth lumbering in the upper reaches of the river,places like Sichuan and Yunnan province.       But as with most directives in China, provinces, countiesand villages implement only what they feel they can afford.Some took the central government money and paid workers toplant trees instead of cut them, as instructed, according toGreenpeace China executive director Ho Wai Chi.

       But some didn’t think it wasenough to make up for lost profitsfrom lumber sales. “There wasvarious implementation,” says Ho.“Some people cut trees as fuel andcoal is too expensive for them. Soyou can’t just blame them for cuttingtrees. Also provinces still wanted togenerate money… so they justdisregarded it.”       MONUMENTAL PLAN

       Beijing shouldn’t have been surprised by the intensity ofthe disaster, in part because flooding along the river has beenincreasing since the early Communist days, when China’smodernization drive began, and clear cutting was common. Oneof the most common criticisms of the Mao era was its infamousdestruction of natural resources.       Ever since that period, leaders have dreamed of buildingthe Three Gorges Dam, in part to control flooding. It wasdiscussed, according to popular history, even by Sun Yatsen, apre-revolutionary nationalist hero, and debated throughout thelast five decades of Communist rule.

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       Again and again the plan was laid aside because of theengineering obstacles - this will be, by some measures, thebiggest hydroelectric dam in the world-or because of cost, closeto $30 billion. In the last decade, the debate has centered aroundthe dam’s environmental impact, at a time when large dams likeit have been discredited around the globe.       One of the biggest practical considerations is that the damrequires removal of more than 1 million people, mostly farmersand villagers. Expense is one problem. Just where to put amillion farmers after removing them from the rich land aroundthe river, is another.       Finally, not all observers even agree that the dam will workin preventing floods. Perhaps it will prevent future disastersdownstream. But some experts believe that upstream silting willeventually force water over the banks, causing new flooding inthe upper reaches.       “China would make better use of the billions of dollarsbeing spent on the dam by investing it in maintaining the 30,000kilometers of dykes along the Yangtze River and its tributaries,”according to a statement by the International Rivers Network.“Money should also be spent on the upkeep of overflow lakesalong the middle and lower Yangtze.”       FOULING THE WATER       Quite aside from the noisy debate over the dam, is the quietrise of contamination from industry and chemical fertilizerrun-off along the Yangtze. Already up-river mega-cityChongqing has miles of factories spewing smoke into the air,making it famous for its acid rain problem.       Nearing the mouth at Shanghai is the most heavilyindustrialized area in the country, and one of the worst sourcesof water pollution.       Now, the dam will make the river navigable for larger shipsto move much farther up the river, encouraging plants to movetheir operations further upstream.

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Advertisement

       There have been some efforts to limit the contaminationflowing into China’s coasts and rivers. The World Bank hasmajor water purification projects, and the Chinese governmenthas labeled one of the Yangtze’s main tributaries, the WaiRiver, a priority clean-up site. It also made efforts to closedown some of the most polluting plants along the Yangtze -those producing paper and pulp - with limited success.       These efforts are at best disjointed, and as often as notdisobeyed. One major problem is money that is diverted awayfrom projects through graft or waste - a problem that is unlikelyto disappear as long as China is poor and its civil servantsun-elected and poorly paid.       In a country that is bursting to be prosperous immediately,many of the real solutions are infuriatingly long term -replanting, providing job alternatives to lumbering and dirtyindustries, replacing old facilities with clean technology andadding water treatment plants.       Not least of these is the challenge of education. As thetourist boats ply the river, packed to the gills with passengersadmiring the view, many blithely toss their cigarettes,styrofoam dinner boxes and other wrappers overboard. The boatdisgorges all the collective sewage from the three-day trip intothe Yangtze before dropping its passengers in the city ofWuhan.

    Greenpeace China International Rivers Network  

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World population hits 6 billion  

A baby born in Sarajevo revives the population debate  

    By Julia SommerfeldMSNBC

Oct. 12 —  The world’s population topped the 6billion mark Tuesday, with the birth of a baby inSarajevo. To some, that’s cause for celebration.We are healthier and living longer than everbefore. But others worry the milestone isactually a harbinger of doom: they fear furtherenvironmental degradation and human suffering.And still others say we are misinterpreting thenumber entirely by overlooking the downwardtrend in global birthrates.

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The world's six billionthperson was born Tuesday,according to the UnitedNations. NBCcorrespondent DawnaFriesen reports.

       WHATEVER THE truth, the United Nations PopulationFund designated Oct. 12 as “The Day of 6 Billion.” U.N.Secretary-General Kofi Annan symbolically welcomed a babyboy born in Sarajevo as number 6 billion.       “I heard others talking about a six billionth baby but Ifound out from the doctors that it’s mine,” said Fatima Nevic,who gave birth to the 8-pound boy at Sarajevo’s hospital.       “I still don’t know what name he will have. Regardless ofwhether he’s the six billionth baby or not, I’m a happy mother,”she said.       The date, to be sure, is more symbolic than scientific,meant to mark the moment when the world’s population passesthat threshold. The figure, with all those zeros, has a millennialfeel, and will be certain to garner a fair share of media attention.But what does the number mean?

Fatima Nevic kisses her son, whowas symbolically welcomed asEarth's sixth billionth personTuesday.

       For one thing, itmeans that thepopulation of the worldhas doubled in less thanfour decades. Similarly,it means that a tenth ofall the people who haveever lived are nowalive.       Yet it also showshow quickly the rate of

population growth has slowed since the alarms about the

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consequences of overpopulation began sounding in the 1960s.Since 1992, the United Nations has had to push back its 6billion estimate by almost two years.       

Will technology save us fromoverpopulation?

       “This slowing of population growth is not inevitable. Thework of many people over the last 30 years made it possible.Whether it continues, and whether it is accompanied byincreasing well-being or increasing stress, will depend onchoices and action in the next 10 years,” a U.N. populationreports issued last month said.       ‘GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS’       “This is a classic good news, bad news story,” said AlexMarshall of the United Nations Population Fund. “No one inhistory thought it would be possible to reach this number withan intact planet; they predicted ecological collapse, famine andnuclear war, but we are doing rather well and that’s anachievement. But the other side is that so many people areliving in desperate poverty and the population is still growing,mostly in the poorest countries to the poorest families.”

       U.N. demographers project 2.9billion people will be added to theplanet in the next half-century, fewerthan the 3.6 billion added during thepast 50 years. But, in contrast to 50years ago, when populations weregrowing everywhere, growth is nowprimarily occurring in developingcountries.       “A population the size ofGermany is being added to the worldeach year, which would be fine if it

had the resources of Germany, but it doesn’t,” said Marshall.       The United Nations Population Fund and environmentalgroups like the Worldwatch Institute , Zero Population Growthand Population Action International are concerned about what agrowing population means for the environment and for thequality of life in developing countries.       Brian Halweil, a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute,said “The Day of 6 Billion” should be seen as a rallying pointfor population issues, the most pressing of which, he said, arefreshwater shortages and unemployment.

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       U.N. PROJECTIONS       The U.N.’s medium projection that the world populationwill hit 8.9 billion in 2050, while regarded as the most likelyscenario, is not inevitable. U.N. demographers have issued arange of projections for the 2050 world population, from 7.3 to10.7 billion.       And the general consensus, as expressed by 180 nations inthe 1994 Cairo population conference and reiterated in anotherU.N. conference this July, is that the world’s population growthrate should be slowed by providing women with moreeducational and family planning opportunities.Source: United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects,

The 1998 Revision.

       But the U.N. report finds that international assistance islagging and some of the world’s richest nations are notproviding the funds needed for programs aimed at curbingpopulation growth.       “Unless funding increases substantially, the shortfall couldspell continued high rates of unwanted pregnancy, abortion,maternal and child deaths, and an even faster spread ofHIV/AIDS. The shortage of funding also means that progresstowards human rights and equality in health care will be slowerthan ever,” the U.N. report said.       “We really talk about giving people choices,” said PeterKostmayer, a former U.S. Congressman who is now executivedirector for Zero Population Growth. “The important thing isempowering people and then you don’t have to worry aboutecological terms like carrying capacity.”

‘When I hear thequestion ‘Howmany people canthe earthsupport?,’ what Ihear is ‘Whatlevel ofenvironmentaldegradation andhuman sufferingare we willing toput up with?”’— BRIAN HALWEILWorldwatch Institute

       Although women today are having half as many children astheir mothers did, more than 78 million people are being addedto the planet each year, far more than in 1963, when the growthrate peaked. And high fertility 20 years ago has resulted inaround 1 billion people between the ages of 15 and 24 - a largergroup of people coming into their reproductive years than thisplanet has ever seen.       “The decisions taken in the next decade will determine howfast the world adds the next billion people and the billion afterthat, whether the new billions will be born to lives of povertyand deprivation, whether equality will be established betweenmen and women, and what effects population growth will haveon natural resources and the environment,” the report said.       To critics like Sheldon Richman, editor of the libertarianpublication “The Freeman,” the hype surrounding Oct. 12 ismisplaced. The pattern of increasing life expectancy anddecreasing death rate is simply the result of progress, he said.       “People are living longer and healthier lives than everbefore and this is not consistent with the idea we can

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overpopulate the earth,” he said.       Skeptics like Richman say that since Malthus predicted warand famine 200 years ago in his “Essay on the Principle ofPopulation,” concerns about the consequences ofoverpopulation have been baseless.       THE BIRTH DEARTH       Ben Wattenberg, senior fellow at the American EnterpriseInstitute, a conservative think-tank, argues that focusing on theplanet’s past population explosion is overly simplistic. Worldpopulation is a complicated issue, he said, and the moresignificant demographic trend is what he calls the “birth dearth”- a term referring to the declining birth rate.       

Experts wrangle over 'birth dearth'

       It took all of time until 1804 for the world’s humanpopulation to reach 1 billion. But at the population’s currentgrowth rate, it only takes about 12 years to add a billion peopleto the planet. Despite the slowing rate of growth since the1960s, the net population growth since World War II means thateven though people are multiplying at a slower rate, there are somany more people multiplying that the total number of peopleon the planet continues to grow.       Demographers call this phenomenon population momentumand compare it to having a huge amount of money in the bank -even if interest rates are low, your money will still grow. TheU.N. estimates that the momentum will not expire until around2050, when the declining birth rate will stabilize the world’spopulation.       Marshall at the United Nations Population Fund admits thatthere are many questions remaining about how many people ourplanet can support, but said that is exactly why we need to slowpopulation growth, to buy time in order to answer questionsabout the sustainability of the planet and solve problems likemalnutrition and unemployment.       Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich, whose 1968 book “ThePopulation Bomb” echoed Malthusian scenarios and made“overpopulation” a topical issue, said population growth isn’tthe only concern. Ehrlich still argues our current populationlevel is three times what it should be. He said that the earth’soptimal population size is around 2 billion.       ECONOMY VS. ECOLOGY       The debate over how many people are too many has pittedecologists and economists against each other since the 1960s.

World population hits 6 billion

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       Joel Cohen, a populations professor at RockefellerUniversity and Columbia University, said that the disagreementis inherent in the way each of these disciplines looks at theworld.       “Ecologists look at it in terms of natural restraints andeconomists emphasize human choices and usually both sides aremore confident that their sides are right than the facts warrant,”he said.       Much of the disagreement hinges upon the idea that there isa maximum number that the earth can support, known amongecologists as a carrying capacity.

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       “The idea of carrying capacity doesn’t apply to the humanworld because humans aren’t passive with respect to theirenvironment,” said Richman of “The Freeman.” “Human beingscreate resources. We find potential stuff and human intelligenceturns it into resources. The computer revolution is based onsand; human intelligence turned that common stuff into themain component of an amazing technology.”       But Halweil of Worldwatch disagrees, “It’s conceivable foreconomists to look at trends as going upwards infinitely, butnatural systems don’t behave in the same way. There arethresholds in terms of natural systems.       “Perhaps we could cut down all the rainforests and harvestall the ocean fish out of existence and we could replace themwith other resources, but that doesn’t really account fordestroying two ecosystems.”       

MSNBC's Kari Huus reports on China'spopulation problem

       Ehrlich said that on top of the problems caused by the sheernumbers of people inhabiting the planet are those caused byincreasing consumption patterns.       “Superconsumption is the other problem,” he said. “Andthis behavior may be more difficult to change. We have hadsome success with birth rates but we have no clue how to getoff superconsumption.”       Cohen said the notion of a carrying capacity, which isclosely tied to our consumption patterns, is a source of muchdebate because it isn’t as obvious for humans as for otheranimals because humans are more adaptable to environmentalchanges.       “When you overexploit an area people respond; peoplearen’t like deer who will just starve to death,” he said. “Thenotion of carrying capacity depends on how we want to live.”

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       This idea that overpopulation depends on what kind ofworld we want to live in summarizes the conclusion of Cohen’sbook “How Many People Can the Earth Support?” and theenvironmentalists’ viewpoint.       “When I hear the question ‘How many people can the earthsupport?,’ what I hear is, ‘What level of environmentaldegradation and human suffering are we willing to put upwith?” said Halweil.

The U.N.'s 'State of World Population' report United Nations Population Fund Worldwatch Institute Zero Population Growth Population Action International U.S. Census Web site

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A staff member of AquaGen International taps water from aportable desalination plant in Singapore. Desalinationtechnology has the potential to remedy water shortagesacross the world, according to some economists.

Will technologysave us fromoverpopulation?Some economists say fearsof global crisis are overblown

By Julia SommerfeldMSNBC

Oct. 12 —  While environmental groups are citingTuesday’s 6 billion person milestone tohighlight the challenges facing the globe, someeconomists are cheerfully wishing baby 6 billiona happy birthday. They predict technology willensure that today’s and tomorrow’s children willhave longer, more comfortable and moreproductive lives than those who came beforethem.

Will technology save us from overpopulation?

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 U.N. Secretary-General KofiAnnan is tosymbolicallywelcome anew-bornSarajevo baby asthe earth’s 6billionth membershortly aftermidnight.

       THIS VIEWPOINT, most vocally expressed by someoptimistic economists and members of conservative think-tanks,is based on the idea that humans don’t deplete resources but,through technology, create them. Thus, as the globe’spopulation grows, resources will become more abundant.       “We shouldn’t fear the arrival of more people because theyare the bearers of the real resource, human intelligence,” saidSheldon Richman, editor of the libertarian publication “TheFreeman.” “Technology is the result of applied humanintelligence. And technology helps us push back the carryingcapacity of the world. It creates resources. In effect, it makesthem infinite.”       This line of thinking is anathema to most environmentalists.       “Pretending that technology will give the earth an unlimitedcarrying capacity for humans is very dangerous. It ignores theenvironmental damage and human health implications of whatwe already do,” said Peter Gleick, director of the PacificInstitute for Studies in Development, Environment andSecurity.       SCARCITY OR ABUNDANCE?       Environmentalists say if present population andconsumption trends go unchecked, the earth will face a future ofovercrowded cities and scarce resources. They picturebumper-to-bumper cars spewing toxins into the atmosphere,wresting the earth’s crust of its last pockets of fossil fuel. Theyfear more malnutrition and less available fresh water.

Will technology save us from overpopulation?

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       Economists like Richman,however, predict an abundance - offood, water and fossil fuel (orwhatever energy source may replaceit). They envision desalination plantsmaking seawater potable, a “GeneRevolution” eradicating foodshortages and nuclear sciencemaking energy too cheap to meter.       That argument, for many, iscounterintuitive. How can morepeople using more resources result in

a net gain of resources?       Basically, their argument goes as follows: More people andmore consumption cause problems in the short run, such aspollution or resource shortages. But short-term scarcity raisesprices and pollution causes public agitation and this attractsentrepreneurs who will come up with technological solutionsand develop better ways to do things.       And in the long run, these developments will leave us betteroff than if the problems hadn’t arisen at all. In other words, it’salways darkest before the dawn.       The environmentalist view, it might be said, is more alongthe lines of it’s always darkest before it goes black. They seepresent shortages as harbingers of future resource dearth.       Julian Simon, the late University of Maryland professor andoriginal “optimistic economist,” based his argument onhistorical evidence that resources have become cheaper andmore abundant over time with increases in population. Thestandard of living has risen across the world as its populationhas grown, and there’s no reason to think this trend suddenlywill reverse itself, he argued.       SIX BILLION AND COUNTING       While world population is still rising fast, no one argues itwill hit the astronomical numbers like the 15 billion predicted20 years ago. The United Nations now believes that populationwill likely peak at 8.9 billion in the middle of the next century.       

  'Day of 6 Billion'

• 6 billion earthlings• Debating the 'birth dearth'• Opinion: The bomb has

already exploded

But some environmentalistssay even this modifiedfigure could spell disaster.They say we aren’t doingthat well providing for the 6billion people we alreadyhave.       The “optimistic”

Will technology save us from overpopulation?

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economists envision anotherfuture. About water shortages, they cite water reclamation,efficiency technologies and desalination. Of increasedagricultural demands, they believe higher-yielding seeds willcontinue to be developed. And when asked about pollution, theynote that new, non-polluting energy sources are in the worksand fuel efficiency has already drastically improved in recentyears.       More traditional environmentalists respond that suchtechnologies are too expensive. They argue that desalinationplants may be feasible in places like Tampa, Fla., but are simplynot affordable in places like India, which is facing a devastatingwater shortage.       “Technology is a tool,” says Alex Marshall of the UnitedNations Population Fund. “But first it has to be available, and toa large extent it isn’t available in Third World countries.”       But economists say that as technologies get more advancedand shortages more apparent, new technologies will becomemore cost-efficient and within the reach of Third World nations.       “As soon as a resource becomes truly scarce, it becomeseconomical to try to replace it,” said Jerry Taylor, director ofnatural resource studies at the Cato Institute.       “Fusion, fission, wind power, solar power and fuel cells areall alternative energy sources that aren’t economic yet becausewe aren’t experiencing a shortage of fossil fuels. There has tobe economic incentive. Marketplace actors figure out thecheapest way to give people what they want. And when itbecomes cheaper to use solar power or wind power, we will doso.”       Some environmentalists are particularly critical of thefuture of agricultural technologies. The Worldwatch Institutecites evidence that crop yields per person have been dropping inrecent years, suggesting the “Green Revolution” is over.       Predictably, some agriculture experts disagree. “The ‘GreenRevolution’ has not run its course. Agricultural productioncontinues to go up and it is nowhere near the ceiling,” said PaulWaggoner, former director of the Connecticut AgriculturalExperiment Station.       He says that the data Worldwatch is citing represents notagricultural shortages but simply the fact that cereal productionis not going up as fast as it has in the past because there is asurplus - and so there is less incentive to grow more agriculturesupplies.       Dennis Avery, director of Global Food Issues for theHudson Institute, adds that new farm technologies are alsohelping the environment.       “Without these new technologies, increasing population

Will technology save us from overpopulation?

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would mean deforestation, soil erosion and loss of wildlifehabitat because we would need to expand agricultural land intothese areas,” he said.       BIGGER PIE OR FEWER FORKS?       Ronald Utt, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, saysthe two sides can’t agree on population growth because “onelooks at what we have now and says that is all we will ever haveand the other sees change and opportunity and improvement.”       Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich, the most famous proponentof the environmentalist view of population growth, is verycritical of the optimistic school of thought.       “Large-scale technologies take a long time to deploy. It iscrazy to think some magic bullet will save us,” he said. “Andwe’ve invented a lot of technological rabbits out of hats butthey have toxic droppings.”       The economists admit that new technologies often haveunforeseen negative consequence, but argue that only Ludditeswould not acknowledge that conditions generally areimproving.       “We’re not saying that when we do things, it doesn’tproduce unwanted consequences,” said Richman. “We arealways moving ahead. Six billion people are living a lot betterthan 1 billion were in 1800.”       

World population hits 6 billion

       New technologies may push back some resourcelimitations, some environmentalists like Brian Halweil of theWorldwatch Institute concede, but they are not ultimatesolutions.       “No doubt technology will come up with solutions tospecific problems, but I think it is absurd to think that theunderlying causes of these problems like water shortages andmalnutrition are technological in nature,” he said. “Anddependence on technology also creates a kind of complacency -a quick fix mentality.”       Joel Cohen, a populations professor at RockefellerUniversity, says there are three schools of thought onoverpopulation:

“The bigger pie school,” the optimistic economist view thattechnology will increase the amount of resource we rely on;

“The fewer forks school,” the environmentalist argument thatwe better rapidly decrease population growth and consumptionpatterns; and

“The better manners school,” the humanitarian view that we

Will technology save us from overpopulation?

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should reduce inequality in income and be more rational in thepricing of goods.       It isn’t an matter of the economists versus theenvironmentalists being right, Cohen says, “Each alone is toosimplistic and the world can’t do without all three of theseapproaches.”

MSNBC's coverage of the environment Worldwatch Institute Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security Cato Institute Heritage Foundation

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Colorado River a strained lifeline  

Demand for water in booming Southwest has crippled river  

    By Dan McFaddenMSNBC

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 —  The Colorado River hasleft a legacy in the American Southwest as deepas the canyons and ravines it has carved there.The river, by virtue of 14 major dams anddozens of canals, aqueducts and irrigationprojects, has powered the development of anentire region of the United States. But even forthe mighty Colorado, there are limitations. Andaccording to scientists and planners, the river isa lifeline stretched to the breaking point.

Colorado River a strained lifeline

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        THE American Southwest, in its natural state, was mostlydesert with scant rainfall. Hot, dry and inhospitable, earlyexplorers saw little potential for settlement. Most were happysimply to get back alive.       But the Colorado River had the power to change that. Itsmuddy waters twist some 1,400 miles from the mountains ofColorado and Wyoming to the Mexican border and eventuallyto the Gulf of California. With man’s technologicalencouragement, its waters have been spread over seven statesthat are home to 25 million people.

Millions are dependant onprojects such as Hoover Dam toprovide provide water and power.

       These states-Colorado, Wyoming,Utah, Nevada, NewMexico, Arizona, andCalifornia - each take ashare of the river. Notonly does the Coloradoprovide drinking water,fill pools and waterlawns, it also enables

cultivation and generates vast amounts of electricity.       The Colorado is the key to the economic miracle that hastaken place in the Southwest in this century.       The problem? There is a finite amount of water. As theregion continues to grow, new pressures are being placed on thesupply. Will there be enough water to go around?       POLITICS OF WATER

Colorado River a strained lifeline

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       The allocation of the Colorado’s water remains littlechanged since the Colorado River Compact of 1922. Thatagreement and various Congressional acts and court decisionsthat have followed (known collectively as the Law of the River)govern water usage and set the amount each state can take fromthe river annually and set a minimum flow that is to reachMexico. In dividing up the river, the states accounted for everydrop; no water is “wasted.” The consequence is that there islittle predictable excess to be exploited as the region’s waterneeds grow.

Housing developments stretchout to the desert around LasVegas, Nevada. The city nowmust look for additional sourcesof water to fuel its phenomenalgrowth.

       Another problem isthat the amounts wereset after a period ofunusually wet years,making themartificially high.       “Basically, there isno water left afterMexico takes itsshare,” said BarbaraTellman, a senior

research specialist at the University of Arizona’s WaterResources Research Center.       “Given the current laws that govern the river, it is beingused to capacity,” said Bob Walsh, the external affairs officerfor the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado BasinDivision. The bureau is the federal agency responsible formanaging the river’s use.       The three Lower Basin states - California, Nevada, andArizona - have exceeded or are nearing their allocations, Walshsaid. Nevada is scheduled to use its entire allotment by 2007and Arizona is already nearing its allowance. California hasexceeded its share for many years, and in 1996 was ordered bythe Secretary of the Interior to reduce its take.       This poses a challenge for states that continue to be hometo some of the fastest-growing regions in the U.S. Las Vegas -the fastest-growing city in the nation for much of the 1990s -has already outpaced its water supply and is looking foradditional sources. And Southern California expects its waterdemand to grow 37 percent over the next two decades.       “This is a problem to which most of these places have notyet to awakened, or if they have, they are scrambling to findadditional sources of water,” said Kaid Benfield, a seniorattorney with the National Resources Defense Council inWashington, D.C.       CHANGES OF USE

Colorado River a strained lifeline

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       In a region that receives on average 4 inches of rain peryear, there are few alternative sources to exploit.       One of the key movements shaping up is a transfer of waterfrom agricultural to municipal use. Crop irrigation was a drivingfactor behind developing the Colorado River, and as waterbecomes more precious, the competition between urban andagricultural consumption is growing.       However, as Tellman notes, it is not an obvious choice.       “Some say agriculture doesn’t belong in the desert. But youhave to look at it in a worldwide perspective,” he said.       As nations around the globe convert farmland into urbanspace, the rationale for artificially maintaining agriculturalproduction becomes difficult.       Since farmers in the Southwest generally enjoy securewater rights by law, it is not a simple matter to appropriatewater from one party to give to another. Any move to alter themechanism by which farmers historically receive water hasbeen vigorously opposed.

       But what politics cannot do, themarketplace often can. Arizona isseeing numerous farms selling out todevelopers. Dependent on uncertaincrop prices and unable to keep upwith rising taxes, some farmers havedecided it is easier to sell out.       Few farmers fall into thiscategory, but many of the others arediscovering that water rights are avaluable asset. In a move no doubt to

be seen many times in the future, California’s ImperialIrrigation District recently agreed to sell unused water to thecity of San Diego.       Several methods of storing water are being examined aswell. In years where the Interior Department declares a surplusbeyond the allocations of the Law of the River - which hashappened every year since 1996, says Walsh - officials areexamining ways to bank the extra water.       One option under consideration is injecting waterunderground into an aquifer, where it can sit until needed.Arizona, for example, could cede a portion of its share of riverwater to California in a dry year and pump stored water out ofthe aquifer.       “There is a lot of belief that the river is not being used tocapacity, but the mechanisms to change that do not exist yet,”he said.       ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS

Colorado River a strained lifeline

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       The cost of exploitation has been the natural state of theriver. Dammed, diverted, channeled and filled with pollutedagricultural runoff, the Colorado is only a shadow of the wild,twisting river it was at the turn of the century. “It’s a series oflakes; it’s not really a river,” says Tellman.       The damage all this has done has led many parts of thecountry - places with far less concern about water scarcity - toconsider removing dams.       Invasive or exotic species are crowding out indigenousones. Salt cedars have replaced cottonwood trees along thebanks, and the elimination of natural habitat has endangerednative species of fish.       But the biggest loser might be the Colorado Delta. Mexicouses its allotment of Colorado water much as its neighbor to thenorth does - irrigating crops in desert conditions. It, too, usesevery drop.       As a consequence, the river no longer flows to the Gulf ofCalifornia. What was once a thriving delta ecosystem now doesnot receive water from the river in a year of normal runoff. Thelast time that happened was 1993.       Now fed by agricultural runoff from Arizona and theMexicali Valley, the delta is poisoned by pesticides and salt andstarved for fresh water.       WHAT NEXT?       California, already bumping up against the limits of itswater supply and anticipating huge growth in the next 20 years,is beginning to revise its use patterns and conservationpractices. But Nevada and Arizona still have water to spare andtheir growth is fueling string economies. Phoenix, at one point,was expanding at the average rate of two acres per hour.       “The idea of curbing or managing growth has not reallycaught on,” said Benfield. “That suggests that the Southwest isgoing to continue to grow in the same manner.”       And all those people will need water.

Colorado River a strained lifeline

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              MSNBC’s Dan McFadden is based in Los Angeles.                     

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The dying Dead Sea  

Levels falling precipitously as rivers are diverted  

    By Hanson R. HoseinNBC NEWS

MITZPE SHALEM, Israel, Oct. 10 —  Here at the lowestpoint on earth — 1,476 feet below sea level — asign at the Mineral Beach and Spa warns bathersnot to swim out beyond it. These days, it isunlikely anyone will disobey. That’s because theshoreline of the Dead Sea has receded anamazing 50 yards in a matter of years — a sign,scientists say, that this most famous of inlandseas truly is dying.

The dying Dead Sea

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        IN THE LAST 40 years, the water level of this biblicallandmark has dropped by more than 262 feet. Thus, the lowestpoint on earth keeps getting lower, mostly because 90 percentof the rivers that feed this body of water is being diverted tofarmland, hydroelectric projects and cities.       “The Dead Sea level is declining,” said Elias Salameh, ahydrologist at Jordan University’s Faculty of Science. “The areais shrinking, tourist facilities are too far away.”       The Middle East is a thirsty region. Drought conditions andgrowing populations in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinianterritories are placing heavier burdens on the area’s freshwatersupplies - namely the Jordan and Yarkon rivers and the Sea ofGalilee. Which means less water for the Dead Sea. But isanything being done to save it?

       “The Dead Sea willstop declining at acertain point,” said MeirBen-Meir, the IsraeliWater Commissioner.To him, Israel’s waterneeds are far morepressing than the fate ofthe Dead Sea, whoseheavily-salinated,brackish waters areviewed as beingunimportant as a sourceof usable water. Theirecological and touristvalue, of course, isanother matter.       “We don’t think ofthe Dead Sea when werefer to water scarcity,”

he said. “Instead of feeding the Dead Sea, let’s revive a deaddesert.”       RAISING THE DEAD       Israel actually did consider a huge project in the 1980s thatwould have helped to save the Dead Sea. A proposed canalfrom the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, the “Dead-Med”project, was studied in hopes of generating hydroelectric power

The dying Dead Sea

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as the water plunged downhill.       The electricity would be used todesalinate the water, which couldthen be put to human or agriculturaluse. Water that was not processedwould have been allowed to flowinto the Dead Sea. But like manyplans involving desalinization, thisone was ultimately shelved becauseit was deemed too expensive.       

 Miguel Llanos on the realities ofdesalinization

       But the concept of pumping water into the Dead Sea hasnot been totally dismissed. The 1994 peace treaty betweenIsrael and Jordan stipulated that both countries should cooperateon some sort of canal project. For their part, the Jordanians havekept the dream alive.       “The Jordanian government is very much concerned aboutthe declining level of the Dead Sea,” said Kamel Mahadine, theJordanian Minister of Irrigation and Water, in response toquestions from MSNBC. “Jordan’s total projected watersupplies from all sources indicate that our water deficit isincreasing with time.”       SALT IN THE WOUND       Jordan’s concern about the decline of the Dead Sea relatespartly to its need to use every available water source. Accordingto a Jordanian scientific study, groundwater supplies near theDead Sea are deteriorating as the shoreline recedes. As the sealevel drops, salty groundwater is pulled into the Dead Sea. Theempty space formerly occupied by the salt water is thenreplaced by fresh groundwater.

A salt crystal cluster lays on theshore of the Dead Sea at ElnGedi, Israel. The earth left by thereceding Dead Sea contains ahigh amount of salt residue thatcontaminates fresh ground water.

       This displacedfresh water is thensalinated by the groundthat still contains a highamount of salt residue.This salt contaminationfurther reduces theamount of fresh watersupply in the Dead Searegion.

       So Jordanians are keen to see some sort of project to savethe Dead Sea. They have been looking seriously at a“Red-Dead” route: pumping water from the Red Sea’s Gulf ofAqaba up the coastal ridge and then downhill through theJordan Rift Valley to the Dead Sea. That’s a plunge of 533vertical meters and a potential a source of hydro-power. But thisproject could cost as much as $5 billion.       “Jordan can’t afford it,” Salameh said. “Consensus needs to

The dying Dead Sea

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be reached between Jordan and Israel. The canal has to be usedby both countries.”       BETTER RED THAN MED?       Economics is not the only stumbling block to the Red-Deadidea. No one is sure what would happen if waters from twodifferent bodies of salt water are mixed. In theory, given theirdiffering densities and salt composition, they would not mix,creating two separate layers. Some scientists think that the seacould turn from clear blue to milky white, or even pink.       “We would be very concerned because of the potentiallynegative environmental impacts.” said Gidon Bromberg ofFriends of the Earth Middle East about the possibility of aRed-Med-Dead canal. “There has been no thorough assessmentyet.”       The only viable short-term solution for now seems to be tosomehow decrease the burden on the freshwater supply that isbeing diverted away from the Dead Sea. Israel is now usingtreated sewage water for part of its agricultural consumption. Itis also planning to build a desalinization plant along theMediterranean Sea which could be producing fresh water withinfour years.       “The more artificial water that we introduce to the region,the less that we have to sometimes overuse from current freshresources,” Israel’s Ben-Meir said.       Which means that the Dead Sea may still have a fightingchance. But its rescue will not come from any concerted anddeliberate effort to save it.

                     Hanson Hosein is an NBC News producer based in TelAviv.              

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The Yellow River’s desperate plight  

Beijing ponders drastic measures to sustain ancient waterway  

    By Kari HuusMSNBC

BEIJING, Oct. 10 —  The Yellow River — China’slegendary cradle of civilization — is drying up.One day in 1972, as irrigation and industries inthe north siphoned off more of its waters, theriver failed to reach the sea. It wasn’t apermanent situation, but by 1997, the river wasreaching the sea only one-third of the year. If theYellow becomes an inland river, experts say, itcould turn downstream provinces into desert.Faced with this grim prognosis, Beijing is

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considering drastic measures.

        THE PLIGHT of the Yellow River is the most dramaticsign of the increasingly severe water shortage in northernChina. As it runs dry, households, farms and factoriesincreasingly use water pumped from the ground, causing thewater table in the region to sink three to six feet annually. It isthe scarcity of water, even more than China’s shrinking arableland, that has raised questions about China’s ability to feed its1.3 billion people.       Beijing’s leaders quarrel with the doomsayers, but they toohave short-listed water as a priority issue. They now appear setto launch a project to transport water from the overflowingYangtze River in the south, to the Yellow River, some 750miles away.       BEIJING THINKS BIG       This is a $30 billion project, conservatively, that wouldpump water uphill in places and blast tunnels throughmountains. In cost, it would rival the controversial ThreeGorges Dam project on the Yangtze River.

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       In scope, it would dwarf any waterworks project in theUnited States. The massive Colorado-to-California waterdiversion project, for instance, is just a few hundred miles long.       Along with large dams, large water diversion projects havefallen out of favor in many parts of the world - the U.S. hasn’tbeen building them since the 1960s. This is partly becausewater projects, almost by definition, represent a massivesubsidy to farmers. But Beijing seems almost certain to pushahead on this one as it did with the Three Gorges dam - thebiggest such dam in the world by some measures - despiteinternational criticism.       The basic idea is that the Yangtze is subject to flooding,while the Yellow River is running dry, so transferring waterhelps kill two birds with one stone. But the logic doesn’t workfor many experts. “It doesn’t make economic sense, and couldhave serious environmental consequences,” said Sandra Postel,director of Global Water Policy Project at Amherst. “The onlyreason it’s being considered is because there’s no healthy, open,democratic debate.”       GOING FORWARD       Work is already underway on two south-north canalsassociated with the project. In the east, engineers are rebuildingand expanding an ancient manmade waterway - the GrandCanal - which originally ran from the Yangtze to Shandongprovince.

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       It will be extended north to theport city of Tianjin. The centralroute, which U.S. officials have seenunder construction, is designed totake water from a tributary ofYangtze and deliver it to Beijing.These two cities - combinedpopulation of about 20 million - havebeen rationing water for severalyears.       The third canal, the most

controversial and expensive, would deliver water from theupper reaches of the Yangtze to the upper reaches of the YellowRiver, where the two rivers are somewhat closer together. It isthis route that would have to pass through rugged mountains,and would ring up the largest bill.       The three canals combined would, at best, be able to deliverabout 60 million cubic meters of water to the north. “The waterthe project can deliver is nowhere near the types of deficit theyare running,” says Brian Halweil, staff researcher atWorldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C. “It’s only about 5percent of the deficit.”       Varying reports from Beijing suggest that the debate is notquite over. Whether parched China should simply import morefood, rather than attempting food self-sufficiency, is a questionthat is gaining momentum internally.       But there are signs of movement on the western route.Experts from the U.S. Development Agency are visiting parts ofwestern China this month, readying a feasibility report. “TheChinese have made up their minds that they are short of waterand have to do the project,” says a World Bank water specialistwho asked not to be named.       The idea of the south-north diversion fits into a pattern ofgrandiose schemes in Beijing, under the 50 years ofCommunism, and earlier. The Great Wall, the Three Gorgesdam, the Grand Canal, the Great Leap Forward. This project hasan air of inevitability, in part because it is an idea credited toMao Zedong, during a 1959 trip on the Yangtze River, at thesame time as the Three Gorges Dam. In ancient Chinese lore,the first emperor of China - the Yellow Emperor - was sonamed in part because he introduced flood control and irrigationsystems.       SMALL IDEAS, BIG IMPACT       China could use a powerful central authority to governwater today, to oversee water disputes among provinces. Butmany say what the country needs even more are policies to

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encourage conservation. In its parched north, the country needsto replace open irrigation ditches with water-efficient sprinklersystems, drip agriculture as is used in Israel. It would have tomandate new factories to use water-efficient systems, and waterrecycling. In fact, some point out, Beijing could subsidize orsimply provide all this equipment for a lot less than $30 billion.       Many economists say the first step should be to charge afee - even a nominal fee - for water. “Right now, farmersbasically get their water for free,” says Halweil. “If there wereeven a marginal, symbolic charge, it would spur all sorts ofconservation efforts.” But in China, as in the rest of the world,removing subsidies is a political hot potato. “There are manythings the government can do” Halweil says. So far, “the talk isthere, but the will is not there.”

 Explosion of unrest in Indonesia China disputes Iraq aid reports China promises Olympic spending N. Korea threatens new missile tests Nike vows to end abuses at overseas plants

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This Saudi Arabia site uses solar power to pump salt water,which is then turned into fresh water via a desalinationsystem.

Turning salt waterinto goldBut desalination advances slowedby few funds

By Miguel LlanosMSNBC

Oct. 10 —  It’s a goal that’s as tricky as it istempting: turning salt water into drinking waterat a cost that makes it practical. Engineersaround the world, from Oman to Illinois, havebeen wracking their brains trying to make thetechnology cheaper — and to get governmentsto fund more research. The stakes are enormous,but so far, advocates say, the investment inscience and technology hasn’t reflected that fact.

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        ONE FOCAL POINT is the Middle East DesalinationResearch Center, which brings together engineers, scientists,policymakers and water system operators from the region,including Israel.       Paul Simon, a former U.S. senator and author of “TappedOut: The Coming World Crisis in Water,” sees thethree-year-old center as a positive step but one that also reflectswater’s weight in geopolitics.       “Israelis and Arab countries are working together and that’sa positive thing,” he said, because “water is either going to becatalyst for war or a catalyst for peace in the Middle East.”       PROCESS STILL ‘VERY INEFFICIENT’       The desalination research center, located in Oman,acknowledges the importance as well. “The economy of theMiddle East is inextricably tied to desalination of seawater andbrackish ground water,” reads a statement on its Web site. “Inorder to sustain the economic growth of the region, desalinationwill have to play an increasing role” in increasing the supply offresh water.       

  Desalting techniques

Two processes dominate• Distillation: This mimics the

way nature's heat absorbswater vapor from the oceanand then returns it via cloudsas fresh water. Sixty percent ofall desalinated water isproduced this way.

• Reverse osmosis: The UnitedStates is the primary user ofthis process, which relies onmembranes to separate saltfrom salt water.

But the center also notesthat Research anddevelopment on desalinationreally hasn’t changed muchover the past 30 years.Calling desalination still“very inefficient,” the centeris seeking “innovative”research proposals thatmight be completely newapproaches or attempts tore-engineer failedapproaches.       One hopeful tool has

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been the Internet. In aspeech to members, the

head of the International Desalination Association noted its rolein the “broad new interest in desalting technology.”       “No doubt aided by the numerous Internet sites which nowexist,” David Furakawa said earlier this year, “more questionsare now raised and more information is now transferred thanever in our short desalting history.”       PITCH FOR MORE MONEY

‘No doubt aidedby the numerousInternet siteswhich now exist,more questions arenow raised andmore informationis now transferredthan ever in ourshort desaltinghistory.’— DAVID FURAKAWAInternational DesalinationAssociation president

       In the United States, Simon has become a leading advocatefor more government funding of desalination research anddevelopment.       He authored legislation in 1996 that led to a U.S.desalination research program, but notes that it and other federaldesalination projects total just $2 million a year. Compare that,he says, to the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, whicheach year spent the equivalent of $400 million in today’sdollars.       “If we spent five percent as much each year on desalinationresearch as we spend on weapons research,” Simon writes in“Tapped Out”, “we could enrich the lives of all humanity farbeyond anything anyone has conceived.”       ADDING UP NUMBERS       Simon now heads the Public Policy Institute at SouthernIllinois University and last month hosted a desalinationconference bringing together experts from around the world.       The key conclusion, he says, was the need for moreresearch and more cooperation among nations.       

  Water works

Some facts about desalinationefforts• 11,000 desalination plants

operate in 120 nations.• 60 percent of those plants are

in the Middle East.• Desalting plants produce 4

billion gallons daily.• These plants produce 15 times

as much as 20 years ago.• Saudi Arabia leads the world in

desalting projects, but othersinclude 22 African nations.

"Tapped Out"

Simon feels that whileshort-term steps to protectwater supplies shouldinclude conservation andanti-pollution measures, thelong-term answers will bedesalination and populationcontrol.       The numbers, he adds,make desalination anobvious policy choice: 97percent of Earth’s water isseawater, and two-thirds ofthe three percent left asfresh water is tied up inicebergs and snow.

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       On top of that, 70 percent of the world’s population liveson coastlines, so desalination plants could be located nearby.       The numbers also reveal how little desalination iscontributing now: Just one-quarter of one percent of Earth’sfreshwater needs is served by desalting systems.       HOMES, FARMS, INDUSTRY       Desalinized water is now as cheap as fresh water forhousehold use in many parts of the world. And in the UnitedStates, Tampa is building what will be the nation’s largestdesalination plant to serve households.

Projects to filter out pollutantsfrom fresh water include thissolar-powered "disinfection"system on pontoons in a Brazilianlake.

       Simon predictsmost people livingalong coastlines willsomeday usedesalinized water.Southern California, henotes as an example,expects its existingwater supply to beenough for just 43

percent of its projected population in 2010.       A bigger challenge is the fact that home use is just 15percent of total consumption. The rest is used by farms andindustry, which often use huge volumes at subsidized rates.       “I recognize the political reality of that,” Simon says,referring to the fact that cheap water means happy farmers. “Butit’s also a problem.”       COSTS FALLING       Desalting costs have come down by a factor of 15 in theindustry’s 50-year history, and Simon is optimistic that “small,incremental breakthroughs” will bring the cost down further inthe near future.       “How soon,” he adds, “depends on how soon we recognizethe problem.” A war over water might force us to focus on theissue, he says. But in general “we’re not good at long-termpolicy,” he says of policymakers.       And, referring to the political realities in the United States,he adds: “We tend to think about as far as November.”

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Miguel Llanos is environmental editor for MSNBC on theInternet.              

Middle East Desalination Research Center U.S. Water Desalination R&D Program International Water Resources Association International Desalination Association ABC's of desalination

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Death lurks in the jungle  

Experts view continent’s disease outbreaks as a grim omen  

    By Stefan LovgrenMSNBC

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 4 —  Every day, the minerstrudged to the gold mine outside Watsa, aremote village in mineral-rich eastern Congo. InApril, a few complained of headaches, fever andbreathing problems. The next day, theyexperienced violent diarrhea and beganvomiting. The village began to question the localdoctor’s diagnosis of malaria. Their fears wereconfirmed a few days later when the first victim

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died.

           Terminal Planet  

        AS IS OFTEN the case in Africa, word of the mysteriousdisease traveled slowly. Roads in eastern Congo are impassable;telephones are non-existent. When foreign doctors finallyarrived in Watsa, they found a full-fledged outbreak of a diseasefrom which few recovered.       Laboratory tests confirmed that the miners had contractedMarburg, a deadly virus that attacks human cells and causesmassive bleeding throughout the body. At least 60 died.       Such stories once caused more curiosity than concernoutside of Africa, a continent stereotypically portrayed asbackward, untamed and anarchical.

       If those labels nolonger apply to thecontinent, they stillapply well enough toAfrican health care.Epidemics can rageunchecked. Treatablediseases claim tens ofthousands yearly.       And in a wordmade smaller by airtravel and immigration,it is unlikely that these

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diseases will remainconfined in Africa.

       For a variety of reasons — climate, lack of infrastructure,poverty and illiteracy are just a few — Africa is viewed bymany of the world’s leading health officials as a prime breedingground for problems that cannot be quarantined. The AIDSepidemic, believed by most scientists to have originated inAfrica, is the classic example.       Another may be this summer’s mosquito-born outbreak inNew York City of West Nile virus. Such incidents have led theUnited Nations, the U.S. National Institute of Health andEurope’s health ministries to conclude that Africa’s infectiousdiseases could pose a threat to the globe in the coming century.       MYSTERIOUS BEGINNINGS       Marburg, like many diseases born in Africa, is believed tohave started in the continent’s central dense forests. That’s justone of the traits it shares with its better-known cousin, Ebola.Known as hemorrhagic fevers, both are among the most virulentviral diseases known to mankind. The early symptoms aresimilar: high fever, headaches, stomach pains. Neither has acure. Most cases end in death.       Little else is known about the diseases. Mammals,especially rodents, appear to be important natural hosts formany hemorrhagic fever viruses. But the animal hosts ofMarburg and Ebola are undiscovered.       The Marburg virus, which has an incubation period of twoto 21 days, was first recognized in 1967 in an outbreak of ahemorrhagic disease in the German city of Marburg. Thatoutbreak was linked to the importation of African greenmonkeys to Germany.       A decade later, in 1976, the Ebola virus, named after a riverin the Congo, the former Zaire, was first identified after twoepidemics that killed 397 people in western Sudan and easternZaire.       In 1989, the Ebola virus was isolated in monkeys importedfrom Philippines and quarantined in U.S. laboratories. A largeepidemic in western Zaire in 1995 claimed 244 deaths, and wasfollowed by another outbreak in the country of Gabon in 1996.In all, at least 793 people have died from Ebola.

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Children cover their noses duringthe ebola epidemic in westernZaire in 1995.

              CROSSING SPECIES       One theory suggests that a plant virus may have led to theanimal infections. From there, an infected tick or mosquito cantransmit the disease to humans. And Ebola is then transmittedfrom human to human via blood, secretions or semen.       Hemorrhagic fevers have also been transmitted via thehandling of infected chimpanzees, a particular problem in manyparts of Africa where the bush meat trade flourishes.       Poaching of bush meat — from reptiles to primates — isbig business in countries like Congo and Cameroon. Heaps ofroasted monkeys and antelope parts from the nearby jungles fillmarkets in Yaounde, capital of Cameroon.       Logging companies assist in the bush meat trade. Whiletheir workers rely on bush meat for food, logging roads allowhunters to reach remote areas of the forest, and trucks providean efficient mode of transport. And experts warn that peopleencroaching further on the forest in search for food are bound tosoon unearth other deadly diseases.       Because these hemorrhagic fevers occur in localizedoutbreaks in remote areas, finding a treatment is difficult.Epidemics are severe, yet they happen infrequently, and thereare only limited opportunities to gain new insight into theclinical nature of the diseases.       Pat Campbell, a doctor with Medicins sans Frontieres,noted the toll in Africa has extended to health workers as well.       “The doctor in charge of the hospital in Watsa — to whicha number of cases had been referred — died of Marburg virusinfection,” she said. “Thereafter, patients shunned the hospital,believing that certain employees of the hospital had usedwitchcraft to cause his death.”       

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Tradition, fear fan HIV epidemic  

Kenyan women suffer both from disease, cultural taboos  

    By Stefan LovgrenMSNBC

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 4 —  Christine Kowi had agood life. As a secretary, she earned $700 amonth in a country where the average income is$300 a year. Her husband, Walter, was asuccessful technician. Their three children allwent to private school, and the family lived in aposh neighborhood. Then, in early 1996, her lifechanged. After a routine medical check-up at heroffice, she was fired. “I never suspected HIV,”

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Christine said. “I thought it was a disease forpoor people. I just thought the company neededa new secretary.”

           Terminal Planet  

 ‘My husband diedout of ignorance. Idon’t want the restof the world tomake the samemistake.’— CHRISTINE KOWIKenyan AIDS

       SOON AFTER, Kowi got into a serious car accident. Ablood test at the hospital confirmed that she was HIV positive.       In Africa, traditions, economics and ignorance conspireagainst the fight to stem the spread of HIV and AIDS. Kowifound out quickly that not only her life, but her way of life, wasgoing to change.       Her husband came to see her at the hospital. “He told menot to come home,” she said. “He said he would be tooembarrassed.” Walter then instructed the doctors not to call anyof his family members if his wife died.

       Meanwhile, herfather disappeared fromthe family home inKisumu, in westernKenya. His parting noteread: “Don’t look forme. Our only daughter,who is taking care of us,is already dead. I amnever coming backhome.”       Convinced that hiswife somehow

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contracted HIV in thecar crash, Walter Kowirefused to be tested.

Instead, he re-married, without telling his new wife he might bea carrier. Four months later, he contracted pneumonia and died.His new wife followed a few months later.       A DIFFICULT ROAD       Although recovering from the accident, Christine Kowicontemplated suicide. “AIDS was going to kill me anyway,”she said. That’s when she was introduced to The Association ofPeople With AIDS in Kenya, or TAPWAK. There, she metpeople from all walks of life.       “I was surprised to see even doctors who were HIVpositive,” she said. “This empowered me. I realized it was notthe end. And I wanted to tell others the same thing.”       AIDS counseling is a tough job anywhere. But in Africa,where the subject is taboo, it is particularly daunting.       “People hear ‘ukimwi’ (the Swahili word for AIDS) and allthey know is that you’re facing the grave,” said Kowi. Whenprominent Africans perish from AIDS, their deaths are oftenattributed to “short illnesses.” It is, says UNICEF chief CarolBellamy, a “conspiracy of silence.”       The numbers are staggering: More than 22 million peopleare infected with AIDS or HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. About 11million Africans have died from AIDS in the past 15 years, aquarter of a million in Kenya. An estimated 1.5 millionKenyans live with HIV/AIDS.       FACING TRAGEDY       In the abject slums of Maili Saba, on the borders of thesprawling housing estates east of Nairobi, Grace Adhiambo, 23,was cleaning her one-room mud house when Kowi came by fora counseling session.       Adhiambo, a soft-spoken woman with a shy smile, haslived with HIV for 11 years. She contracted it when she wasraped as a 12-year-old orphan. The woman for whomAdhiambo worked at the time arranged with the parents of therapist that he should marry Grace. Paul, her husband, beat herdaily and prevented her from getting family planning advice.       After Adhiambo gave birth to three children, at the age of15, her husband told her he was HIV positive. When shethreatened to run off, she recalled, Paul laughed. “You’vealready been infected. You can’t run away from this disease,”he said.       Her husband died from AIDS four years ago. According tothe tradition of her Luo tribe, Adhiambo was bequeathed as a

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wife to one of Paul’s four brothers. Because of her condition,however, none of them wanted to sleep with her. A cousin ofPaul’s finally agreed to do it for a payment of $75 and a vat ofbeer. Soon afterward, she gave birth to her fourth child.       “In Kenya, AIDS and HIV rates are high partly because ofour traditions and culture,” said Kowi, reflecting on thechallenge of education people about the condition. “We havewife inheritance, people don’t use condoms, they use the sameknives for circumcision procedures. Violating the tradition inthe Luo culture will incur the ‘chira,’ a curse that may take theform of AIDS.”       Now, Grace lives alone with her children. Her two boys,Eric and Frederic, are HIV positive. Her daughter, Julia, 10, is— so far — HIV negative.       LIVING WITH AIDS       Adhiambo says the counseling by Kowi has helped herunderstand the disease.       “When I get hungry, I get sick,” she said. “I’m mostlyconcerned with getting money to feed my children.” She earns$1.50 a day when she can find some gardening work. AIDSdrugs, costing as much as $1,500 per month, are out of thequestion for most Kenyans.       Meanwhile, Christine Kowi, now 31, lives in the nearbyMaringo slums. The rent is $30 a month, a far cry from the$750 rent that she and her husband paid a few years ago. Shegets paid to deliver lectures on how to live with HIV.       Her father, Joseph, returned after Christine found him andcounseled him about HIV. And despite her burden, she stillsupports some 20 family members.       Her health has gone up and down. Once she developedboils all over her body. A year ago, her weight dropped tobelow 75 pounds after she suffered bronchitis.       But for now she is doing well, convinced that her sense ofpurpose keeps her healthy. “My husband died out ofignorance,” she said. “I don’t want the rest of the world to makethe same mistake.”

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http://www.msnbc.com/news/329969.asp (5 of 5) [2/22/2001 10:17:48 AM]

Forgotten malaria killing millions  

Disease — curable, absent in West — exacts huge toll in Africa  

    By Stefan LovgrenMSNBC

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 3 —  Every year, as many asthree million people die from it, about 90percent of them in Africa. A child succumbs to itevery 20 seconds. The statistics on malaria, stillthe greatest killer disease in Africa, areoverwhelming. Despite the enormity of theproblem, the world spends only $2 billion a yearto fight malaria, a fraction of what is spent onAIDS.

Forgotten malaria killing millions

http://www.msnbc.com/news/329977.asp (1 of 3) [2/22/2001 10:17:51 AM]

           Terminal Planet  

        THE WORLD HEALTH Organization is now launching amajor initiative, as part of its “Roll Back Malaria” program, toencourage pharmaceutical companies to invest more money inresearch and a vaccine.       Some scientists contend that push is misguided, becausepharmaceutical companies have no financial incentive to find avaccine. Most Africans would not be able to afford it. Instead,they are pursuing behavioral studies that seek to prevent thespread of malaria, rather than cure it.       At ICIPE, the International Center of Insect Physiology andEcology, in Nairobi, scientists have discovered a number ofplants indigenous to Kenya can help deter mosquitoes. “Ifpeople could put these plants in their homes to prevent gettingbitten, it may help reduce the spread of malaria,” says BartKnols, an entomologist at the center.       And new research at the University of Florida shows thatinsects look for “victims” with high levels of vitamin B andcholesterol. According to Jerry Butler, an entomologyprofessor, mosquitoes have such a sophisticated sense of smellthat they can detect tiny amounts of chemicals transmitted fromthe body into the air from 40 miles away.       That suggests that bathing regularly may lower the chancesof getting malaria. However, the research — so far — has donelittle for the millions in Africa who contract it each year.

Forgotten malaria killing millions

http://www.msnbc.com/news/329977.asp (2 of 3) [2/22/2001 10:17:51 AM]

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Your Taxes: What'snew in 2001

Forgotten malaria killing millions

http://www.msnbc.com/news/329977.asp (3 of 3) [2/22/2001 10:17:51 AM]