An Appeal for a Real and Comprehensive Approach to Health Care Reform

While the US may be moving one step closer to health care reform with the passage of the Baucus Bill by the Senate Finance Committee, it is clear that a very important element in the health care discussion is being overlooked. What is making Americans so sick?

Health care costs wouldn't be so high and there wouldn't be so much concern about the cost of a public health care plan if so many Americans weren't so sick.

Right?

On Monday, the New York Times reported on the hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic waste being dumping into the nation's water supply by coal-fired power plants. In the article, "Cleansing the Air at the Expense of the Waterways", Charles Duhigg reported:

"For years, residents here complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste in their yards. Five states — including New York and New Jersey — sued the plant’s owner, Allegheny Energy, claiming the air pollution was causing respiratory diseases and acid rain.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of waste water containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

'It’s like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead,' said Philip Coleman, who lives about 15 miles from the plant and has asked a state judge to toughen the facility’s pollution regulations. 'We can’t escape.'

Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data."

If the air pollution caused by coal-fired plants has already been linked to chronic asthma and COPD, just imagine the result of ingesting large quantities of the same toxins in your drinking water.

In an article for Care2.com, Melissa Breyer reported on the link between pesticides and Parkinson's Disease.

A study by eminent oncologists Dr. Leonard Hardell and Dr. Mikael Eriksson of Sweden concludes that there is a link between "the world’s biggest selling herbicide, glyphosate (commonly known as Roundup, marketed by Monsanto), to non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a form of cancer."

The following video clip is from the documentary "The World According to Monsanto" which took an in-depth look into the bio-chemical companies impact on agriculture, the environment and health.





And while we're discussing Monsanto we certainly can't forget their efforts to bury the truth about rBGH (bovine growth hormone) in milk.




There are many, many more instances of links between toxic waste and disease but I think that you get the picture.

Corporations have been dumping toxins in the water, air and food supply with impunity. The American public has grown sicker which has in turn driven up health care costs. Health care insurers are profiting from this illness. And now the corporate lobbyists and insurance industry spin machine are waging a full scale assault on health care reform.

Dear Members of Congress and President Obama,

if you really want to reform health care please take a comprehensive approach to this problem. How can you not pass health care reform with a public option when the government agencies which were supposed to protect the environment, agriculture and public health have failed us so miserably.

The previously cited New York Time article shows that the Riverhead International Coal Plant in Macon GA has been cited for 124 violations, paid $0 in fines and hasn't been inspected since 1979. 1979 - 30 years ago.

Let the teabaggers and birthers rant, rave and spread lies about "death panels" but don't give in to the insanity.

Americans can diet, exercise, visit the doctor and take all the pills we want. But if the biochemical and power industries continue to poision the air, water & food, we will grow sicker and sicker. Health care costs will both bankrupt consumers and increase the federal deficit. And in the end, we will die. Those without health care coverage will just die much quicker.

Congress must pass health care with a public option and if you want to reduce costs take on the corporations that have contributed to this crisis. Fine them. Shame them if you have to. Expose them for the greedy, heartless profiteers that they have become.

How dare Wellpoint sue the State of Maine to ensure that it is guaranteed a profit!

Enough is enough.

Bees, Frogs, Bats and Bad News

First it was the bees, then the frogs and now, it's the bats. What's next?

It appears that the economy isn't the only failing system in the US. The nation's ecosystem and its agricultural base are just as much in a state of crisis. Yet, from all appearances, it seems that the problem is getting little attention and almost no support for the people working on a plan for rescuing and revitalizing the environment.

In late 2006, we first began learning that the honey bees were vanishing due to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder.

As Melissa McNamara reported in February, 2007 for CBSNews:

"In spite of all the advances in agriculture, honeybees remain indispensable. By moving pollen from flower to flower, bees are the only efficient way for many crops to pollinate, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports.

As growing season begins in California's Central Valley, there is nothing quite as busy as a beekeeper. Farmers pay them to put their hives in their fields and orchards.

'It means the difference between profit and loss for them,' says beekeeper Lance Sundberg.

But beekeepers like Sundberg have a mystery in their hives this year. Bees are disappearing at an alarming rate.

'Colonies are going down. The bees aren't dead in the box or aren't out front,' says Jerry Bromenshenk, a bee researcher at the University of Montana. 'They've just disappeared. Just vanished.'

The following is a trailer for the documentary feature film - The Vanishing of the Bees which discusses the scale and potential impact of the problem.






It has also come to the attention of scientists, environmentalists and virtually anyone who spends anytime with nature that the frogs are dying.

Now it appears that bats are mysteriously dying too.

Last October Eliza Strickland reported for Discover Magazine:

"Researchers have gathered some clues to solve the mystery of what’s killing off hibernating bats throughout New England, but say they’re still far from knowing how to halt the strange die-off. In a new study, researchers identified the characteristic white fungus that has been found on the noses of dead and dying bats, and say it’s a new species of mold that thrives at low temperatures like those found in caves in the winter. But debate still continues over whether the fungus is the cause of death, or simply a secondary infection that takes advantage of bats with already weakened immune systems.

Bats covered with the fungus, a sickness now called white-nose syndrome, were first spotted in Howes Cave near Albany, N.Y., during the winter of 2006. At that time, field biologists reported caves that were typically covered with hibernating bats had loads of vacancies…. In one case, a cave floor was littered with dead bats [LiveScience]. Since then, the epidemic has spread throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont, with 80 to 100 percent of bats dying in some caves."

Now today, Sandy Bauers, Inquirer Staff Writer reports the following in her article, Troubling signs for bats in Pa:

"Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Game Commission confirmed that bats had tested positive for the same fungus found in New England bats that have been dying by the tens of thousands during the last two winters.

Everyone agrees that the finding could have profound effects on the bat population here. One of the many mysteries is whether the fungus causes the deaths, now referred to as 'white-nose syndrome,' or is a symptom.

Mass deaths have consequences not only for the bats, which are common throughout the region and are found even in urban areas.

'Bats are the best friends we have, in terms of insect control in some areas,' said game commission spokesman Jerry Feaser. 'And they are, for farmers, some of the best natural predators of crop-killing bugs.

A single bat can eat hundreds of mosquitoes and other insects an hour.
Officials are asking anyone who sees flying bats or dead bats this winter to report it to the regional game commission office in Reading at 610-926-3136.

Of course, you can't expect that a few missing and dying bees, frogs and bats to get the same media coverage as the economy or the wars. This won't be a marketable story until we're over-run with disease carrying pest insects or there is an absence of fresh fruits and vegetables in the supermarkets.

Let's just hope that it's not too late.

A Reminder From Mother Nature

Talk about uncanny timing.

On the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, after months of discussion about off-shore oil drilling, and just days away from the GOP National Convention scheduled to be held in Minneapolis, (the city in which a bridge collapsed only 13 months ago), the residents of the Gulf Coast once again sit in the path of nature's fury.

It's almost as if Mother Nature herself wants to remind us that we have not been good stewards of our infrastructure and wants to make sure that we remember the many promises made, and yet to be fulfilled, to the people of the Gulf.

Two hours ago Alan Markoff of Reuters reported the following:

"Hurricane Gustav gathered strength over the warm waters of the Caribbean on Friday roaring toward the Cayman Islands and the Gulf of Mexico on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's deadly strike on New Orleans.

The storm, which killed up to 77 people in the Caribbean, plowed toward superheated waters south of Cuba where it could absorb enough energy to strengthen into a major hurricane before ripping through the heavy concentration of U.S. oil and natural gas platforms off Louisiana.

While long-range storm forecasts are prone to huge errors, the most likely track had Gustav going ashore west of New Orleans Tuesday morning as a Category 3 storm on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.

U.S. emergency officials warned that Gustav was expected to be accompanied by a 15 to 30 foot (5 to 9 meter) storm surge along the Gulf Coast and said four states in its potential path were expected to begin large-scale evacuations on Saturday.

'This storm has the potential for being a very dangerous storm,' said Bill Irwin, a program director with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Oil prices slipped on Friday after a week of volatile trading due to Gustav's threat to the 4,000 Gulf platforms that produce a quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas. Energy companies evacuated offshore workers and shut production in preparation for the most serious Gulf storm since the devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season."

And as my friend Bob was preparing to evacuate New Orleans he sent out the following message to his friends:

Well, here we go again. Ironically on the third anniversary of Katrina, the people of Louisiana are once again faced with the possibility of a direct hit from a hurricane. As I write this, the forecasted track of Hurricane Gustave will place it on the Westbank of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana (a suburban community of New Orleans) on Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Two things are different today as the state prepares for Gustave from this time three years ago.

1. The people and government entities of the area are far more prepared this time than they were three years ago.

2. I live here now…on the Westbank of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana!

There was a time (when I was a reporter) that I would have a.) wanted to be here to cover a hurricane and b) I would have had to be here to cover a hurricane. Neither of those factors come into play in 2008.

As a result, you won’t have to include my name on your “mental checklist” of people in and around New Orleans that you have to check on in this area if Gustave moves this way. I will be leaving New Orleans on Saturday evening and flying “home” to Philadelphia.

Having been back in the area for a few months now working directly on the Katrina recovery effort, I’ve seen firsthand the impact that the storm continues to have on the people of the region. Trust me, the last thing that is needed here is another direct hit by a major hurricane. Please include this area and her people in your prayers over the next few days.

May God bless New Orleans and all of her people.

Robert

Bob, I echo your sentiments

Related news items:

Extreme Homeowner Makeover


Updated on 8/29/08 10:25pm

It's Time to Get Very Serious About Water

There's an old saying that "it's too late to close the barn door when the horse is gone". And another saying that reminds us that "you don't miss the water until the well is dry".

Well the world's usable water supply is running mighty low and it's seems that, as in the gasoline and food crises, the barn door has been left wide open.

With summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) approaching and weather temperatures rising it's time for everyone to get very serious about water and water management. While Congress is busy debating approaches for addressing the impact of skyrocketing gasoline prices, meteorologists, environmentalists and farmers are already talking about how high temperatures and the lack of rainfall will impact the southeastern US.

The states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee are in an on-going dispute over water resources and land boundaries. The Michigan and Ohio State Legislatures are still trying to decide on participating in the Great Lakes Water Compact. Some states seem to have their head in the sand. Washington politicians seem to have their head stuck somewhere else. And, questions about water supply and US infrastructure were MIA during the US presidential primary debates.

I, for one, am pricing rain barrels for gathering rain water.

In the following video Mike Hightower of Sandia National Laboratories discusses the world water shortage with a reporter for KRQE in New Mexico

excerpt from:
How the World Is Realizing That Water Is "Blue Gold"
by Mark Clayton,

Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there's a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you're caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water -- and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation's farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, "is the oil of this century." Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as "blue gold."

"We're at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need -- water -- is going to be provided," says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. "The profit motive and basic human need [for water] are just inherently in conflict."

Will "peak water" displace "peak oil" as the central resource question? Some see such a scenario rising.

"What's different now is that it's increasingly obvious that we're running up against limits to new [fresh water] supplies," says Peter Gleick, a water expert and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, a nonpartisan think tank in Oakland, Calif. "It's no longer cheap and easy to drill another well or dam another river."

"We have ignored demand for decades, just assuming supplies of water would be there," Dr. Gleick says. "Now we have to learn to manage water demand and -- on top of that -- deal with climate change, too."

In the following video Patrick Barta discusses how Perth, Australia is addressing its growing water shortage.

Related articles:

Michigan House Passes More of Its Water Management Plan

Ohio Agreement to Join Great Lakes Water Plan Stalls Again

Florida Lawmakers Mad About Water

Poaching Water Isn't The Solution



Related posts:

Much Talk About Oil But Little About Water

Falling Bridges and No Water

Georgia Water Crisis: Sorting Out Priorities

US Sales of Municipal Water Systems to Multinational Interests

Rethink That Vacation in Alaska

According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association website, "Alaska is the premier destination for adventure and ecotourists seeking a personal connection with nature, wilderness and the local people" Well here's something for anyone considering an Alaska wildlife vacation to consider.

Reuters is reporting that the State of Alaska is planning a lawsuit to overturn the US Department of the Interior's decision to place the polar bear on the endangered species list.

excerpt from:
Alaska to Sue to Block Polar Bear Listing
By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The state of Alaska will sue the U.S. government to stop the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, arguing the designation will slow development in the state, Gov. Sarah Palin said on Wednesday.

Palin said the state will file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington challenging U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's decision to grant Endangered Species Act protections to the polar bear.

The Republican governor has argued that the ice-dependent polar bear, the first mammal granted Endangered Species Act listing because of global warming, does not need additional protections.

"We believe that the listing was unwarranted and that it's unprecedented to list a currently healthy population based on uncertain climate models," said Alaska Assistant Attorney General Steven Daugherty.

In the following clip Daniel Siberg of CBS News reports on why polar bears have been placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

Demand That Manufacturers Take Back Your TV

This year, more than 50 million new TVs will be purchased. Flat screens, high-definition plasmas and LCDs -- Americans buy more than anyone else.

But have you ever wondered what happens when you throw away an old TV? You put it in the trash or out on the street and then what happens?

You won't believe the answer.

Chances are your old TV will end up on the other side of the world in Africa or Asia. Once there, workers strip out any useful metals and other components and then set the pile on fire to make room for more waste on the next barge. You can't imagine the scene as black smoke full of dangerous chemicals fills the sky and pollutes the water supply.

See for yourself by watching this shocking video

-- and then help demand change now:

http://takebackmytv.com/speakout

TVs are often the center of American households -- but on the other side of the world, they're creating an environmental and health crisis that can't be ignored any longer.

Today, Just 12 percent of electronic waste in the U.S. is recycled. Other first-world countries, including all of the European Union, Japan, and Taiwan require manufacturers to collect and recycle their old products, but here, TV manufacturers are not held responsible at all. That needs to change.

Join the Take Back My TV campaign today by sending a letter to the executives of TV manufacturers telling them to take responsibility for their hazardous waste:

http://takebackmytv.com/speakout

Each one of those millions of TVs headed for the garbage contains large quantities of dangerous chemicals. Older cathode ray tube TVs contain between four and eight pounds of lead apiece, and newer flat-panel TVs contain high levels of mercury. When TVs get dumped into landfills, these chemicals seep into the surrounding soil and water supplies. Just 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury can contaminate a 20-acre lake and make its fish unfit to eat.

The problem is only getting worse. Soon, an FCC-mandated transition to digital TV signals will make millions more TVs obsolete, and Americans will begin discarding them even more quickly.

TV manufacturers have a responsibility to help deal with this waste safely. They earn billions of dollars off these electronics, so they must play a major role in their disposal.

Sony has already committed to the first television take-back program in the United States. That's a major step in the right direction, but the rest of the TV manufacturers have resisted the producer responsibility movement in favor of programs that shift the burden to consumers.

Tell these TV makers to help safely dispose of their products:

http://takebackmytv.com/speakout

Advances in technology have improved our lives in so many ways. But as we move forward, we must be aware of what we leave behind.

Thank you.

Only 3 Out Of 2679

I just signed a petition asking the media to cover global warming in their questions of the Presidential candidates. I hope you'll join me!

Major political reporters have been actively ignoring the issue of global warming when interviewing presidential candidates. They have only mentioned the words GLOBAL WARMING in 3 questions ALL YEAR! Hosts like Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos and Wolf Blitzer have instead asked ridiculous questions about UFOs, baseball and even Chuck Norris!

Check out http://ga3.org/campaign/media_alert to learn more and urge these hosts to stop covering the horse race and get back to the human race.

Global warming needs to be a priority issue in the election. Please act today!

Just In Time For Holiday Shoppers: The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard (www.storyofstuff.com) tells you exactly where all that "stuff" that you purchase comes from and where it goes when you throw it away. It is an entertaining but more importantly informative tour of our consumer-driven culture and exposes the real costs of our "use-it and lose-it approach to stuff ".

If you truly care about becoming a socially conscious consumer this video is a must see. I just wish that everyone could have seen it before "Black Friday."

The following three video clips give you an introduction to the story but please, please watch it in its entirety.

Watch it, learn and get more information at: www.StoryofStuff.com


Introduction

Extraction

Production

Related articles:

Much Toxic Waste Lands In The Third World



Related posts:

When The Middle Class Can No Longer Cope

What Happens When You Don't Know What They Don't Want To Tell You

The Real Reasons We're Worrying About Food & Product Safety

Turning Communities Into Toxic Waste Dumps For A Price

Georgia Water Crisis: Sorting Out Priorities

What Would Your State Do?


excerpt from:

Georgia Farmers to Atlanta: Stop Hogging Water

As drought worsens, so do rural-city tensions over things like toilets, lawns

Crops or lawns?

In a recent editorial, Valdosta Daily Times lashed out at Atlanta, accusing it of hogging water while farmers watch their crops burn in the fields.

Atlanta politicians, the newspaper said, "can't bring themselves to tell their greedy constituents complaining about the low flows in their toilets this week that perhaps if they didn't have six bathrooms, it might ease the situation a bit. That watering your lawn isn't as important as watering crops. Or that their greedy overbuilding has taxed their supplies of natural resources beyond their capabilities."

Between 1990 and 2000, Atlanta added more than 1 million people and its water use climbed 30 percent to about 420 million gallons a day. Now metropolitan Atlanta boasts roughly 5 million people and projects more than 2 million more by 2030, when water could climb past 700 million gallons a day.

In rural southwest Georgia, the biggest city, Albany, has about 160,000 people in the metro area. The region helps make Georgia the No. 1 peanut state.

Farmers have tilled the fields here for generations, but water use spiked in the 1970s with the rise of new irrigation technologies such as center pivots and underwater pumps. The farmers now rely on thousands and thousands of wells that tap into a huge aquifer fed by the streams that crisscross the region.

* * * * *

Related posts:

What Can Be More Important Than Water?

What Can Be Achieved When You Don't Have Profitting From Disaster As Your Goal

When a government is more intent on protecting its people and natural resources than aiding private firms which profit from disaster then the whole nation thrives.


excerpt from:

How to fight a rising sea

What the Netherlands has done – and is urgently planning to do – in the face of climate-driven sea-level rise holds important lessons for the rest of the world.

Dordrecht, Netherlands - The Dutch enjoy a hard-earned reputation for building river dikes and sea barriers. Over centuries, they have transformed a flood-prone river delta into a wealthy nation roughly twice the size of New Jersey.

If scientific projections for global warming are right, however, that success will be sorely tested. Globally, sea levels may rise up to a foot during the early part of this century, and up to nearly three feet by century's end. This would bring higher tidal surges from the more-intense coastal storms that scientists also project, along with the risk of more frequent and more severe river floods from intense rainfall inland.

Nowhere does this aquatic vise squeeze more tightly than on the world's densely populated river deltas.

So why is one of the most famous deltas – the Netherlands – breaching some river dikes and digging up some of the rare land in this part of the country that rises (barely) above sea level?

In the Biesbosch, a small inland delta near the city of Dordrecht, ecologist Alphons van Winden looks out his car window at a lone excavator filling a dump truck with soil. He considers the question and laughs. "We do have a hard time explaining this to foreigners," he says.

The work here represent a keystone in the country's ­climate-adaptation plans, Mr. van Winden says. Indeed, nowhere are adaptation planning efforts to address rising sea levels and flooding more advanced than in the Netherlands.

To be sure, the country's economic wealth and long experience dealing with threats from seas and rivers give it an advantage over other low countries that face rising waters, such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the tiny tropical island nation of Tuvalu in the South Pacific. But many of the approaches the Netherlands is taking can and are being slowly adopted even in countries far poorer, specialists say.

The excavation work here is one example of what van Winden calls "soft approaches" to flooding in this small nation where competing interests jostle for every square foot of land. By buying out the few farmers remaining in this region, breaching the dikes they built to protect their land, and digging additional water channels, the Dutch government aims to reduce peak flood flows at Dordrecht and other cities downstream. No longer will tightly constricted river and canal channels hold high water captive. Big floods will overspread the Biesbosch, reducing the threat of water spilling over the top of levees that guard densely populated cities to the west.

* * * * *

Related posts:

Is Congress Finally Getting It?

How The Wealthy Survive Disasters

Eastern England Escapes The Worst

As the world's climate changes we should all prepare for more and more of these events.


excerpts from:

Thousands go home after tide fear

Thousands of people who left their homes amid fears of flooding are returning after the biggest tidal surge for half a century.

Fears of widespread flooding in eastern England have diminished as tides peaked without major breaches of sea defences.

The waters were nearly 8in (20cm) lower than originally feared and passed without causing major damage.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said it had been a "close run thing" but that the worst was now over.

The North Sea surge had been moving south during Friday, combining with high tides and strong winds to create flooding risks along the coast.

Residents on the Kent coast had been told to remain vigilant due to high tides on Friday afternoon, but no major flooding was reported.

Congratulations Al Gore on Winning the Noble Prize

excerpt from:

swissinfo - The truth earns Gore and UN panel peace prize.

Former US vice president Al Gore and the Geneva-based United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Swiss climate researchers have hailed the decision, saying it is also a recognition of their work and that it will boost efforts to combat global warming.

Gore and the IPCC were honoured on Friday for their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for fighting it.

The former vice president, who won an Academy Award earlier this year for his film "An Inconvenient Truth", had been widely tipped to win the prestigious prize but he and the agency will share it.

"His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change," the citation said.

An Environmental Disaster That May Spark A Health Crisis

an excerpt from:

BBC NEWS | Africa | Disease alert in flood-hit Africa

Severe flooding across Africa has wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes and left many people vulnerable to water-borne diseases, officials say.

Scores of people have died and much of the continent's most fertile farmland has been washed away in what is being described as a humanitarian disaster.

The UN said more rain was expected and warned that the need for food, shelter and medicine was urgent.

Some 17 countries have been affected in West, Central and East Africa.

( These include: Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda )

UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said: "The rains are set to continue and we are really concerned because a lot of people are homeless and infectious diseases could emerge.

See map of the worst-affected nations

"Some of the poorest countries, like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger - the poorest nation in the world - are badly affected."

The UN said the floods could lead to locust infestations and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

Villages submerged

Countries in East Africa regularly flood at this time of year, but West African nations are much less able to deal with the deluge, the World Food Programme says.

"In Kenya or Ethiopia, these countries are facing floods every year and year after year, they have set up some contingency plans," the WFP's Pierre Lucas told the BBC.

"In West Africa, the level of awareness is not the same, and the response capacity [is] really different."

Ghana has been hit badly by the flooding, with three northern regions being declared an official disaster zone after whole towns and villages were submerged.

Information Minister Oboshie-Sai Cofie said: "It is a humanitarian disaster. People have nowhere to go. Some of them are just hanging out there waiting for help to come."

She said the Ghanaian government had received considerable aid and hoped the situation would improve.

French military helicopters were helping relief efforts in nearby Ivory Coast, while officials in Togo were dealing with more than 60,000 displace people and a wrecked infrastructure.

* * * * *

A related story:

Cholera Strikes Again in Guinea

Endemic in West Africa, cholera has once again struck in Guinea. The arrival of the rains at the end of May, notably in the capital, Conakry, has created an ideal breeding ground for the disease to spread. Faced with an increasing number of cases, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has boosted its direct support of the local health services.

Guinea 2007 © MSF

Since January this year, nearly 2,500 cases of cholera have been recorded in and around Conakry. Ninety people have died from the disease. After only a few hours, infected people can become dehydrated and die. Simple medical care consisting of oral rehydration or a perfusion, depending on the state of the patient and in some cases antibiotics, are enough to help patients quickly recover.

Do You Hear The Ticking Of the Clock

Some say it's the 11th hour, some say it's 11:59. Either way, the earth will never be the same. plk

an excerpt from:

Loss Of Artic Ice Leaves Experts Stunned
by David Adam, environment correspondent

The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at record lows, scientists have announced.

Experts say they are "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone.

So much ice has melted this summer that the Northwest passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the Northeast passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month.

If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030.

Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at Colorado University in Denver, said: "It's amazing. It's simply fallen off a cliff and we're still losing ice."

The Arctic has now lost about a third of its ice since satellite measurements began thirty years ago, and the rate of loss has accelerated sharply since 2002.

Dr Serreze said: "If you asked me a couple of years ago when the Arctic could lose all of its ice then I would have said 2100, or 2070 maybe. But now I think that 2030 is a reasonable estimate. It seems that the Arctic is going to be a very different place within our lifetimes, and certainly within our childrens' lifetimes."

read the rest of the article

Does Anyone Still Have Doubts?

Early 2007 saw record-breaking extreme weather: U.N


GENEVA (Reuters) - The world experienced a series of record-breaking weather events in early 2007, from flooding in Asia to heatwaves in Europe and snowfall in South Africa, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday.


The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said global land surface temperatures in January and April were likely the warmest since records began in 1880, at more than 1 degree Celsius higher than average for those months.


There have also been severe monsoon floods across South Asia, abnormally heavy rains in northern Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay, extreme heatwaves in southeastern Europe and Russia, and unusual snowfall in South Africa and South America this year, the WMO said.


...While most scientists believe extreme weather events will be more frequent as heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions cause global temperatures to rise, Baddour said it was impossible to say with certainty what the second half of 2007 will bring.


...The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. umbrella group of hundreds of experts, has noted an increasing trend in extreme weather events over the past 50 years and said irregular patterns are likely to intensify.


South Asia's worst monsoon flooding in recent memory has affected 30 million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, destroying croplands, livestock and property and raising fears of a health crisis in the densely-populated region.


...England and Wales this year had their wettest May and June since records began in 1766, resulting in extensive flooding and more than $6 billion in damage, as well as at least nine deaths.


...Mozambique suffered its worst floods in six years in February, followed by a tropical cyclone the same month, and flooding of the Nile River in June caused damage in Sudan.


Read the entire article at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL0736326820070807?
feedType=RSS&rpc=22&sp=true

Thank you to YouTube member Dogned for this great video.

Help stop the Bush/Cheney Dirty Drilling Plan

I just took action to protect fragile coastal waters in Alaska, Florida, and Virginia and the polar bears, sea otters, whales and other wildlife that live there. Will you help, too?

You can take action online at:
http://action.defenders.org/bushdirtydrill

On April 30th, the Department of Interior announced plans to allow harmful drilling in tens-of-millions of acres of environmentally sensitive waters off the coasts of Virginia, Florida, and Alaska, including an area closed to drilling after the disastrous Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989.

These areas are teeming with wildlife, including imperiled whales, sea otters and polar bears. New drilling could wreck these sensitive coastal ecosystems and the wildlife and tourist economies that depend on them.

Help me stop this awful plan.

Take action online at:
http://action.defenders.org/bushdirtydrill

Drilling rigs spew air pollution and toxic mercury emissions that can poison marine wildlife. The very loud airgun explosions from drilling exploration can cause whales to strand themselves on beaches and die. Increased offshore drilling raises the specter of another cataclysmic oil spill that could wreck the beautiful Virginia and Florida beaches where millions of Americans live or vacation.

At a time when we should be pursuing clean, renewable energy sources, the Bush/Cheney Administration has once again sought answers in a dirty drilling plan that will harm wildlife and speed up global warming.

Help me stand up for a smarter policy.

Take action online now at:
http://action.defenders.org/bushdirtydrill

Thanks!

Tell the US Congress That YOU Care About Global Warming

A Message from Al Gore

Help me send a message to Congress:

Now is the time to act on global warming.

I know from personal experience that the only thing that will make Washington really take notice and do something to solve the climate crisis is the prospect of millions of committed citizens taking action.

It's time to join together and make that happen.

Click the link below to sign the postcard to your representative demanding real action on global warming and I’ll personally deliver it to Washington in March.

http://www.algore.com/cards.html

I’ll keep you up to date on how things are going by email.

Get all the facts about global warming at:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/

and

http://www.algore.com/index2.html