Sunday, August 31, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/04/ebola-risk-guinea-fruit-bats

Ebola risk unheeded as Guinea's villagers keep on eating fruit bats
Monday 4 August 2014

Health workers struggle to separate myth from reality of Ebola as residents say abandoning tradition is out of the question

Medical teams struggling to curb Ebola in west Africa have been discouraging bush meat consumption, believed to have caused the outbreak, but some rural communities dependent on the meat for protein are determined to continue their traditional hunting practices.

While meat from wild animals such as fruit bats, rodents and forest antelopes has largely disappeared from market stalls in main towns such as Guéckédou in southern Guinea – the epicentre of the disease, and the capital Conakry following campaigns to avoid contamination, it is still being eaten in remote villages despite the risks.

"Life is not easy here in the village. They [authorities and aid groups] want to ban our traditions that we have observed for generations. Animal husbandry is not widespread here because bush meat is easily available. Banning bush meat means a new way of life, which is unrealistic," said Sâa Fela Léno, who lives in Nongoha village in Guéckédou.

The disease, which erupted in Guinea's southern forest region and was diagnosed in March as Ebola, is west Africa's first outbreak, and the worst known to date globally with more than 700 deaths. Infections continue to spread in Guinea and neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Poor knowledge and superstition especially in rural communities, as well as cross-border movement, a poor public health infrastructure and other epidemiological causes have contributed to its spread.

The immediate concern is to halt human-to-human transmission. Discouraging bush meat consumption and introducing livestock as an alternative to hunting are part of long-term solutions against the risks of contracting Ebola from the wild, said Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.

"We recognize the importance that bush meat has to quality nutrition that you may not get from only crop-based diets. We do not say that you should stop wild meat … but can we replace the need to go to the forest and hunt wildlife with having a source of livestock and livelihood that can be safer?" Lubroth said.

"Can we have a more development agenda where we could have poultry production, sheep, goats, pigs … so that there is no undue encroachment into the forest for hunting?"

Getting the message across

Promoting hygienic practices to avoid contracting Ebola is a protracted endeavor. Urging new norms for diet is far harder. Lubroth said: "It becomes very difficult to convey to an individual about a threat that cannot be seen, in this particular case a virus.

"One of the major aspects is to build trust with communities or villages. The sociology, the anthropology, the communication is so important, not like the veterinary or the wildlife or medical sciences," he told IRIN, explaining that epidemiological facts have to be translated in simple ways for ordinary people to understand, by using local allegories for instance.

Yet promoters of health messages, such as Mariame Bayo in Guinea, have been threatened with death in villages where residents strongly oppose aid workers. "In Nongoha we were told that if we don't leave we would be cut into pieces and our flesh thrown into the water," she said.

"There are those who go even as far as saying that the government and the president have invented Ebola, and that it is meant to avoid holding elections," said the health minister, Colonel Rémy Lamah. The presidential election is due next year.

"It is difficult to change a society's way of life, but when it comes to saving lives I think no efforts should be spared. We didn't say that people will no longer eat meat. [Discouraging bush meat] is just an interim measure," he added.

Because Ebola had not previously broken out in west Africa, many rural communities have been perplexed and grown wary of health workers who have been accused of introducing the virus. Some believe it is witchcraft or an evil spell. Moustapha Diallo of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, however, said fewer villages across the three west African countries remained hostile to aid groups, following public education campaigns.

"The main behaviour change needed is at funerals where a lot of cases are being contracted. That and good protective measures at health structures are the most important targets," said Stéphane Doyone, west Africa coordinator of Médecins sans Frontières.

Virus spillover risks

Exposure to infected people as families care for sick relatives at home,touching bodies during burials or even hospital-acquired infections continue to account for the high death toll. However, rural communities still hunting for bush meat risk further spillover of the virus from infected wild animals, according to the FAO.

"We will die if we must, but abandoning our traditions is out of the question. It is true that we have lost many relatives. That's fate," said Guéckédou resident Mamadi Diawara.

Guinea's communication minister, Alhousseine Makanera Kaké, said bringing the outbreak under control is fraught with challenges. "Obstacles will remain until the outbreak is over. It goes without saying that we will not overcome this easily," he said.

It is still unclear why the Ebola virus crossed from its animal hosts this time in west Africa while communities have consumed bush meat for generations without infection. "We do not know enough about Ebola's natural cycle in the jungle. I'm sure it ticks away every year or every season, but it only makes it into the news when we have human mortality," said Lubroth.

While warning against consuming bats or handling sick or dead animals, Lubroth said an outright ban on bush meat "will likely see it go underground and that is actually worse. So we talk more about management than prohibition."

Providing alternatives to bush meat may solve only part of the problem. In the long run, better equipped and resourced public health systems remain crucial to curbing outbreaks.




"'Life is not easy here in the village. They [authorities and aid groups] want to ban our traditions that we have observed for generations. Animal husbandry is not widespread here because bush meat is easily available. Banning bush meat means a new way of life, which is unrealistic,' said Sâa Fela Léno....The immediate concern is to halt human-to-human transmission. Discouraging bush meat consumption and introducing livestock as an alternative to hunting are part of long-term solutions against the risks of contracting Ebola from the wild, said Juan Lubroth.… Promoting hygienic practices to avoid contracting Ebola is a protracted endeavor. Urging new norms for diet is far harder. Lubroth said: 'It becomes very difficult to convey to an individual about a threat that cannot be seen, in this particular case a virus'.... 'We will die if we must, but abandoning our traditions is out of the question. It is true that we have lost many relatives. That's fate,' said Guéckédou resident Mamadi Diawara.....”

As advanced as the Greeks and Romans were in most ways, they still held to ancient religious beliefs, including multiple gods, magic and fate. They visited oracles to try to see the future rather than following a track of logical thought to determine what would be a good course of action. Wherever logic and scientific thought becomes dominant, the society will spring forward in all ways, especially technology, public health and interrelated fields of knowledge. Where that doesn't happen, the beliefs of the people will be localized, highly traditional and sometimes very primitive. These people have always had plenty of yummy bats to eat, so why raise livestock? When America put its astronauts on the moon I was in a little local store in North Carolina and mentioned the event to the woman at the counter. She said that she didn't believe they really went to the moon, that it was all a lie, and that God didn't mean for man to go to the moon. I was speechless. I paid my bill and left.

In this case in Africa, the people, because their belief system has been reinforced at every hand by their traditions and not sufficiently challenged, such as by the government requiring them to send their children to school where they would have encountered microscopes, are mainly impervious to new ideas such as viruses. An article in wikipedia on education in Guinea says, “In 1999, primary school attendance was 40 percent. One girl attends school for every two boys. Children, particularly girls, are kept out of school in order to assist their parents with domestic work or agriculture. Government resources for education are limited, there are not enough school facilities to adequately serve the population of school-age children, and the availability of school supplies and equipment is poor.” As a result, even in the face of a rampaging illness that is spreading rapidly among them, they consider their death to be a matter of “fate.” It's hard to argue with that.





Justice Department Supports Native Americans In Child Welfare Case – NPR
by LAURA SULLIVAN
August 29, 2014

The Justice Department has weighed in on a class-action lawsuit in South Dakota pitting Native American tribes against state officials, and come down resoundingly in support of tribes.

It's the first time the department has intervened in a federal district court case involving the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law meant to keep Native American families together. The department filed an amicus brief in the case concluding that the state is violating the rights of Native American parents.

In the suit, tribes claim the state is failing to abide by the 36-year-old federal law, removing hundreds of Indian children from their families in court hearings where parents are rarely allowed to speak, and that often last less than 60 seconds.

The children are then placed in foster care, where they may stay for months or years.

"It's disgraceful," says Stephen Pevar, who is a senior staff attorney at the ACLU, which has brought the suit along with the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes.

As part of the lawsuit, the state had to turn over rarely seen transcripts of 120 recent court hearings. In every one, the Native American children were taken into state custody.

Not a single parent was allowed to testify at the hearings. Most were not allowed to say anything except their names.

"These were virtually kangaroo courts," Pevar says. "There was nothing, nothing that any of the parents did or could have done. It was a predetermined outcome in every one of these cases."

In one case cited in the lawsuit, children were taken away from a mother who the state said was neglectful. Their father, who was divorcing the mother, appeared at the hearing and said, "I am here. Please give custody of my children to me." The judge placed the kids in foster care.

In another example, a mother returned home from work to find her children had been taken away when her babysitter got drunk. She went to the hearing to explain she was the mother. Her children were also placed in foster care.

"This violates every concept of humanity," Pevar says. "If you have a right to a prompt hearing when [your] automobile is seized, they have a right to a prompt hearing when their children are seized."

State officials declined NPR's request for comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit. Pevar says the suit has been a long time coming.

"There is a crisis in many parts of the United States, and there has been one for decades involving the forceable removal of Indian children from their homes by state judges and social services employees," he says. "This lawsuit seeks to do something about it."

In its brief, the Justice Department wrote that state court and state officials with the Department of Social Services have an obligation to "actively investigate and oversee emergency removals of Indian children to insure that the removal ends as soon as possible, and that Indian children are expeditiously returned to their parents or their tribe" from the beginning of the process with the first court hearing to the end.

The Indian Child Welfare Act mandates that states place children with their tribes, their relatives or Native American foster parents if they have to be removed from their families.

In South Dakota, almost 9 out of 10 Native American children are placed in non-Indian homes or group homes, says Chase Iron Eyes, a staff attorney with the Lakota People's Law Project.

"It's a human rights crisis what's going on," he says.

This year, 7 of the state's 9 tribes applied for federal planning grants, with the help of the law project, in an effort to develop their own foster care programs. State officials have said they support that effort.

"We're trying to turn the whole system around," Iron Eyes says, "and give that power back to where it belongs — the power to raise our own families."

Iron Eyes says the future of Native American tribes depends on it.




“The Justice Department has weighed in on a class-action lawsuit in South Dakota pitting Native American tribes against state officials, and come down resoundingly in support of tribes.... In the suit, tribes claim the state is failing to abide by the 36-year-old federal law, removing hundreds of Indian children from their families in court hearings where parents are rarely allowed to speak, and that often last less than 60 seconds. The children are then placed in foster care, where they may stay for months or years.... 'It's disgraceful,' says Stephen Pevar, who is a senior staff attorney at the ACLU, which has brought the suit along with the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes. As part of the lawsuit, the state had to turn over rarely seen transcripts of 120 recent court hearings. In every one, the Native American children were taken into state custody.... "This violates every concept of humanity," Pevar says. 'If you have a right to a prompt hearing when [your] automobile is seized, they have a right to a prompt hearing when their children are seized.' State officials declined NPR's request for comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit. Pevar says the suit has been a long time coming.... In South Dakota, almost 9 out of 10 Native American children are placed in non-Indian homes or group homes, says Chase Iron Eyes, a staff attorney with the Lakota People's Law Project. 'It's a human rights crisis what's going on,' he says.”

I read that in the early 1900's when one room schools for Native American children were set up, the speaking of their native language while at their studies was banned, for the purpose, I'm sure of forcing them to learn English. It had the result, however, that many Indian languages have almost gone out of use. There was a movement in the 1970's for speakers of these languages to get together and use the languages, plus writing them down, thus teaching young people how to speak them. This policy of taking Indian children away from their parents, strikes me as being for the purpose – the destruction of the Indian cultures. When they placed them in foster homes it was often into white homes rather than relatives or Indian people on the reservation.

The Department of Justice is looking into a large number of shameful hearings in which the parents were not allowed, in many cases, to talk at all except to give their names, after which their children were unceremoniously taken away from them with nothing but a “kangaroo court” proceeding. These actions are directly against the law called the Indian Child Welfare Act, which declares that Indian children should be placed with family members when possible and if not that, with Native American adults on the reservation. How the state departed so far from this law is not stated. The DOJ report states that state officials are to 'actively investigate and oversee emergency removals of Indian children to insure that the removal ends as soon as possible, and that Indian children are expeditiously returned to their parents or their tribe.” Hopefully this will end a practice that is inhumane and without any logical reason, unless indeed it is to break their pride and sense of cultural unity – a type of genocide.




Missing British boy with brain tumor found in Spain – CBS
AP August 30, 2014, 11:01 PM

LONDON - A critically ill 5-year-old boy who was taken out of a British hospital against doctors' advice has been found in Spain, police said Saturday.

An international search began Thursday for Ashya King, who has a severe brain tumor, after his parents removed him from a hospital in the southern English city of Southampton for unknown reasons.

British police said earlier that a European arrest warrant was issued for the boy's parents, Brett and Naghemeh, both Jehovah's Witnesses. The family had last been seen traveling on a ferry to France.

Police said late Saturday that officers are questioning the couple, and are "waiting to hear on Ashya's condition." They did not specify where in Spain the family was found.

Brett King, 51, and Naghemeh King, 45, removed the boy Thursday from Southampton General Hospital in Britain and took a ferry to France with their gray Hyundai and the boy's six siblings, Interpol said.

Police in Hampshire, England, said the boy was likely to be in a wheelchair or pushchair, can't communicate verbally, and is immobile.

While the search was on, authorities urged the public to report any sightings and warned that the child's life was at risk.

"If we do not locate Ashya today there are serious concerns for his life," Detective Superintendent Dick Pearson, a Hampshire police investigator, said in an Interpol statement. "He is receiving constant medical care within the U.K. due to recent surgery and ongoing medical issues."

"Without this specialist 24-hour care, Ashya is at risk of additional health complications which place him at substantial risk," he said.

The press office for Jehovah's Witnesses said it wasn't aware of the facts of the case, but said Jehovah's Witnesses are encouraged to seek the best medical treatment for themselves and their children.

Jehovah's Witnesses accept medical treatment, but believe the Bible forbids some treatments and they often refuse blood transfusions.



Both the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses in the US refuse medical care in many cases, though this article said that the press office for Jehovah's Witnesses denied that . A number of people in this country were in the news recently for refusing to give vaccinations to their children, with the result that some childhood diseases are cropping up in larger numbers now. This goes beyond what I consider to be bad parenting, but is causing a public health problem. I'm glad the British authorities caught and arrested these parents. Now the boy can get the treatments that he needs.

This is one of the ways in which I think our “freedom of religion” in this country goes overboard. When two or three Islamic fathers in the last decade have been on trial for killing their daughters because they had “disgraced the family” by not wearing their hair fully covered, choosing a non-Muslim boyfriend, etc. In some Middle Eastern countries and among some Hindus in India this goes on into modern times. It's called an “honor killing.” In the US it's called murder and may get them the death penalty.






WWII soldier missing since 1945 finally comes home
CBS NEWS August 30, 2014, 3:39 PM

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- Friends and family of a Tennessee soldier who was missing for nearly 70 years were finally able to say goodbye Friday, CBS Chattanooga affiliate WDEF-TV reports.

Army Pfc. Cecil E. Harris' platoon came under attack Jan. 2, 1945, in France near the German border during World War II.

Once the smoke cleared, his fellow soldiers noticed the 19-year-old from Shelbyville was missing.

Sixty-eight years later, in 2013, a French national located a possible grave marked by a rock with a crude "H" engraving.

When officials excavated the site, they found Harris' dog tags.

"That was 25,426 days ago," Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Gulley, who served as the family's casualty officer, said Friday. "And on day 25,424 Private First Class Cecil E. Harris finally came home."

Harris was posthumously awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

"The Lord answered my prayers after 70 years," Harris' widow, Helen Harris Cooke, 90, who was pregnant when Harris went to war, told The Tennessean newspaper.

Harris' funeral was held in Chattanooga, where Cooke lives.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam declared Oct. 22, the day Harris is expected to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, to be a day of mourning with flags at half-staff to honor Harris' ultimate sacrifice.




“Once the smoke cleared, his fellow soldiers noticed the 19-year-old from Shelbyville was missing. Sixty-eight years later, in 2013, a French national located a possible grave marked by a rock with a crude "H" engraving. When officials excavated the site, they found Harris' dog tags. Harris was posthumously awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, Bronze Star and Purple Heart.”

This is one of those great stories, like the love letter that is suddenly delivered after 40 years has passed. Some French citizen must have found him with his dog tag, buried him probably at risk to his own life, and put his initial "H" on the stone. A beautiful selfless act by a brave person who did the world a good turn. That war made many unsung heroes. Unlike most of our wars in this country, it took place in people's back yards, and involved everyone who had the misfortune to be there. The US Civil War, of course, was like that. My grandmother, who was born in 1875, said that when she was a child they used to find buttons from soldiers uniforms lying on the ground there. That's enough to send a chill down my spine. Talk about ghosts!





Who's Getting a Raise? Minimum Wage Hikes Gain Steam in States, Cities – NBC
BY SETH FREED WESSLER
August 31st 2014

As Americans take a break this Labor Day, workers in many U.S. states and cities are looking forward to getting more money in their paychecks.

Even as Congressional proposals to raise the federal hourly minimum wage to $10.10 stalled earlier this year, the push to boost pay for the nation's lowest-paid workers continues to gain steam across the country. A growing number of state and local governments are responding to pressure from workers to raise the wage floor.

So far, 13 states and 10 county and city governments have increased their minimum wages during 2013 and 2014. In June, Seattle raised its minimum wage to reach $15 an hour by 2018, the highest in the country, more than twice the current $7.25 federal minimum. Of the 10 states that raised their minimum wage this year, Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Vermont set the floor at $10.10 an hour or more.

“We’re seeing a shift around the country where states are looking to the minimum wage as a way to raise incomes for their residents,” said Jack Temple of the National Employment Law Project, a liberal group that supports wage increases. “Because Congress hasn’t acted, states and cities are doing it instead; $10.10 is the new starting point.”

The momentum toward higher wages does not appear to be waning. In November, San Franciscans will vote on a ballot initiative to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour in the next four years. A decade ago, San Francisco and Santa Fe, New Mexico, became the first localities to independently raise their minimum wages. Not until the last several years have other cities and counties followed in step. This year, San Diego, Richmond and Berkeley in California voted to raise wages. So did Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe County and Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti circulated a plan last week to raise that city’s minimum wage to more than $13. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel supports a $13 hour minimum wage. So does New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Oakland, California, will vote this fall on an increase to more than $12.

As a growing number of Americans have found themselves in low-wage jobs in the years since the recession, demands for higher pay have spread. Minimum wage workers have increasingly made their voices heard in a series of recent labor actions in fast food and retail sectors in dozens of cities. Though high-profile strikes in fast-food chains have not won workers higher wages in that industry, some private workplaces have raised hourly wages themselves. In February, Gap, Inc., agreed to raise wages to $10.10 an hour. In some high-cost cities, Ikea pays workers as much as $13 an hour.

Wage hikes have improved the lives of workers and their families, said Maria Noel Fernandez, organizing director with Working Partnerships, USA, which supported San Jose, California's wage boost to $10 an hour in 2012. “For families here, the $2 hourly difference is real," she said. "It’s allowed people to pay bills, to make rent, to survive."

Opponents of minimum wage hikes argue that raising the floor leads to lost jobs as firms automate and outsource to avoid higher wages. They also note that only about 2.6 percent of workers actually make a minimum wage. But Melissa Kearney, Ph.D., an economist with the Brookings Institution, said that raising wages also helps a larger group of workers who were earning slightly above the minimum.

“Research is quite clear that raising the minimum wage raises wages not just for those now making the minimum,” Kearney said. “Workers who make just above that wage will also see rising incomes. To keep the wage structure in a firm in place, employers will raise wages up the scale.” Kearney said that nearly a third of workers, or 35 million people, would see a pay raise if Congress boosted the federal minimum wage.

“The changes ripple up,” Kearney said.

Congressional Republicans earlier this year blocked a Democratic proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 over several years. Most economists agree that if the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since its historical high in the 1960s, the lowest paid workers would now make more than $10 an hour.

Recent public opinion polls show two-thirds of Americans support a federal increase. Even among Republicans, who were less likely to support the increase, close to half support a hike.

“There’s been so much emphasis on inequality in recent years,” Kearney said, “that more and more people are aware that people who are not making ends meet are working.”




“Even as Congressional proposals to raise the federal hourly minimum wage to $10.10 stalled earlier this year, the push to boost pay for the nation's lowest-paid workers continues to gain steam across the country. A growing number of state and local governments are responding to pressure from workers to raise the wage floor. So far, 13 states and 10 county and city governments have increased their minimum wages during 2013 and 2014. In June, Seattle raised its minimum wage to reach $15 an hour by 2018, the highest in the country, more than twice the current $7.25 federal minimum. Of the 10 states that raised their minimum wage this year, Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Vermont set the floor at $10.10 an hour or more.... Recent public opinion polls show two-thirds of Americans support a federal increase. Even among Republicans, who were less likely to support the increase, close to half support a hike. 'There’s been so much emphasis on inequality in recent years,' Kearney said, 'that more and more people are aware that people who are not making ends meet are working.'”


When I first heard President Obama propose $10.00 an hour, I thought he was overreaching, but it looks like he was on target. Five states have already made that the law, and Seattle raised its minimum to $15.00. Republicans are always talking about bringing in big business to create jobs, but that doesn't guarantee a high salary. In fact, such jobs are often minimum wage and relatively few in number. This additional income to each family will almost certain kick our economy up from its stubborn low point over the last six or so years into a boom condition. If people have money to spend, they will “stimulate” the economy the old fashioned way. I do hope this raise to $10.00 goes through. The whole US will be better off if it does. If this bill does make it into law, Obama deserves the credit for proposing it first. I can't wait to see what happens.





Climate Hack? How Plastics Could Help Save Us From Greenhouse Gases – NBC
BY JOHN ROACH
August 30th 2014

What's the fix for a warming planet? Just one word: Plastics.

As the world grapples with greenhouse gas emissions still rising despite years of political wrangling over how to combat global climate change, a technology to convert carbon dioxide and methane into plastic is emerging as one potential market-driven solution. To boot, the process can be less expensive than producing plastics from petroleum.

"You have a new paradigm where plastics are saving the economy a whole lot of money, they are replacing oil, and in the process we are actually sequestering carbon emissions that would otherwise go into the air," Mark Herrema, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Newlight Technologies in Irvine, Calif., explained to NBC News.

The market for plastics is massive — and thus the ability to sequester carbon. Plastics are found everywhere from beverage and food containers to toys, furniture and car parts. About 280 million tons of the stuff is produced every year, according to industry statistics.

The caveat is this: only about 10 percent of the plastic generated each year is recycled. The rest is trashed or escapes to the environment where it is a persistent environmental pollutant.

"They can make plastic out of potatoes, or peaches, or switchgrass, or carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The price of carbon is all the industry cares about," Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research and Education Institute in Long Beach, Calif., told NBC News. "The polluting nature of plastic, and the proliferating of plastic waste, is unaffected by the source of the plastic."

Microbial process

The engines behind the greenhouse gas to plastic conversion technology are microorganisms that feed on methane or carbon dioxide pumped into vessels of liquid. The microbes — some enhanced through genetic engineering, others improved via selective breeding – accumulate a biopolymer inside their cell walls as they feast.

"We influence these bacteria to get as fat as quickly as possible and then we harvest that biopolymer that is inside their cell walls," Molly Morse, the founder and chief executive officer of Mango Materials in Palo Alto, Calif., told NBC News. "That biopolymer comes out in powder form and you can pelletize it and then you have the raw ingredients to make other plastic goods."

A similar microbial-driven process takes place inside the vessels used by Newlight Technologies, according to Herrema. The breakthrough for his company came by engineering its system to produce enough high-quality polymer to make the technology economically viable without having to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers.

"I can go to someone in Texas or the Midwest and whatever they feel about climate change, everyone likes to replace oil and reduce cost, and so it sells itself," he said. The benefit of sequestering greenhouse gases becomes an afterthought, he added.

Using methane from sources such as landfills and wastewater treatment plants to make the plastic, noted Morse, is at least six times more economical than using the gas, for example, to generate heat or electricity. Many industrial facilities are legally required to capture methane emissions, noted Morton Barlaz, a civil, construction and environmental engineer at North Carolina State University.

"Having markets for that methane is a good thing as long as you are using that methane to make something that you are going to make anyway, in this case a plastic," he told NBC News.

Environmental pros and cons

According to Morse, the biopolymer produced by Mango Materials is biodegradable – it is designed to break down in the marine environment, compost piles, and landfills. In fact, the company is pursuing clients in markets "where biodegradability is key," she said. This includes plastic films used on farms and as an exfoliant in cosmetic products that often slip through wastewater treatment plants out to sea.

Newlight Technologies produces a biodegradable grade of its plastic as well, though several of its clients, according to Herrema, are opting for recyclable grades instead. All grades, he noted, have been certified by third-party carbon accounting firms as carbon negative — that is the products "sequester more carbon than they emit during the production process."

Marquee products made with Newlight's plastic pellets include computer bags for Dell, cell phone cases for Sprint and a chair for furniture manufacturer KI.

"There are pluses and minuses here," Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, said of the greenhouse gas to plastic technology in an email to NBC News. "At the one level, capturing what would otherwise be (methane) emissions into products is a big step forward."

For his part, Moore declined to choose between what he called the "bad alternatives" of more greenhouse gases or plastics, but noted that in a list of all the maladies facing humanity including climate change and infectious disease, "the one pollutant that may cause humans to be unable to reproduce is plastic."



http://consumer.healthday.com/disabilities-information-11/misc-birth-defect-news-63/plastics-chemical-bpa-may-harm-fertility-study-678759.html

Plastics Chemical BPA May Harm Human Fertility: Study
However, experts say lab findings might not translate to real-life risk
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Jul 31, 2013

Please note: This article was published more than one year ago. The facts and conclusions presented may have since changed and may no longer be accurate. And "More information" links may no longer work. Questions about personal health should always be referred to a physician or other health care professional.

WEDNESDAY, July 31, 2013 (HealthDay News) -- A chemical used in everything from food-can linings to store receipts might also pose some risk for infertility and birth defects, a new study suggests.

Exposure to bisphenol A, or BPA, may disrupt the human reproductive process and play a role in about 20 percent of unexplained infertility, said researchers from Harvard University.

In laboratory experiments, they exposed 352 eggs from 121 consenting patients at a fertility clinic to varying levels of BPA.

"Exposure of eggs to BPA decreased the percentage of eggs that matured and increased the percentage of eggs that degenerated," said lead researcher Catherine Racowsky, director of the assisted reproductive technologies laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

BPA also increased the number of eggs that underwent an abnormal process called "spontaneous activation" that makes eggs act as if they have been fertilized when in fact they haven't been, Racowsky said.

Moreover, many eggs exposed to BPA that matured did so abnormally, increasing the odds for infertility and birth defects such as Down syndrome, she said.

Eggs exposed to the highest levels of BPA were the most likely to show these ill effects, the researchers found. Their results are similar to earlier research examining the effect of BPA on animal eggs, they said.

Racowsky cautioned that these latest results with human eggs were seen in the laboratory, so whether BPA exposure works the same way in real life isn't known. And the research also found only an association between BPA and infertility and birth defects, not necessarily a cause-and-effect link.

In addition, the eggs used in the experiment were going to be discarded because they didn't respond normally and thus could be considered damaged to begin with, she said.




About the article on BPA, Racowsky threw in several cautions on its accuracy, and I do hope she is right about that. I've been hearing about BPA for years now, and I choose not to believe I'm in danger from it. It is present in many things that we eat and drink all the time, with as far as I can tell no ill effects. It's like the fear that giving your babies needed vaccinations causes autism. Studies have been made, and they didn't show that autism is caused that way. They're looking more at genetic causes now. Besides, not all plastics contain BPA.

“... a technology to convert carbon dioxide and methane into plastic is emerging as one potential market-driven solution. To boot, the process can be less expensive than producing plastics from petroleum." Sounds miraculous and it is a process that requires the use of bacteria. These plastics can be either biodegradable or not, according to which company produces them and how they do it. Both have their uses. The key is that they sequester carbon dioxide and methane, keeping them from escaping into the air. Methane has a marketable use already as fuel, but as far as I know carbon dioxide is mainly a wasted byproduct that invades the atmosphere and causes global warming. The only thing that uses carbon dioxide - except for these bacteria - is photosynthesizing plants, so every time we cut another tree down in the rain forests of the world we are ruining our atmosphere further. These specially bred bacteria eat both gasses and produce what is called “biopolymer,” much as our bodies produce fat, and it accumulates inside their cells. It is then taken from the bacteria and put into the form of a powder which can be made into plastic. It sounds very easy, and according to how much gas is used up by the bacteria and how much plastic they make, it is a partial cure for our global warming problem. We still need to keep the rain forests, though, because I can't see this using up all the carbon dioxide. I hope the oil industry and the Republicans don't fight the development of these processes just because it means less oil will be bought. That would be truly unpatriotic.





Russians Get Creative With Ukraine Protests Despite Danger – NBC
BY ALBINA KOVALYOVA
August 31st 2014

MOSCOW - Under relentless pressure from heavy-handed officials, Russians protesting their country’s policies in Ukraine are getting creative.

At a recent Moscow fashion show, a young girl stepped down the catwalk dressed in Ukraine's national colors of yellow and sky blue before stopping and holding a gun to her head. The video of the performance went viral, causing a stir in Russian social media.

Any morning commute on the Moscow Metro reveals a smattering of accessories in blue and yellow -- a subtle but striking statement.

On Aug. 20 the Russian capital awoke to televised images of one of the iconic “seven sisters” Stalin-era skyscrapers flying the Ukrainian flag, its showpiece golden star painted yellow and blue. Four young Russians were detained by the authorities even as journalists rushed to the scene.

Two days later, a daredevil going by the pseudonym “Mustang Wanted” posted a selfie on top of the skyscraper, and released a statement on his Facebook page claiming responsibility for the stunt.

He was demonstrating against Russia’s actions in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin’s government is widely accused of fomenting and actively supporting a separatist rebellion. The United Nations estimates that the fighting between pro-Russian separatist and Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine has left over 2,590 people dead since the fighting began in mid-April this year.

Russian citizens could "become victims of the Russian law, which is widely famed for its fairness,” Mustang Wanted said in his Facebook post, with obvious sarcasm. He repeated the stunt on Sunday, this time to mark Ukraine's Independence Day.

Wanted may have escaped censure but others haven't been so fortunate. When activists in Moscow tried to hang a Ukraine flag on the famous Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge to mark Ukraine's Independence Day, police detained them before they could finish.

The police's swift reaction underlines a bitter reality for any members of the opposition in Russia – Putin is overwhelming popular so only a minority support protests against his policies.

A translator who helps administrate a Facebook group against Russia’s involvement in Ukraine is one of those determined to hang in there.

“I cannot let go of the situation that is going on and there is a Hitler-like dark gloom ahead. Where else can one go?” she told NBC News on the condition of anonymity.

Moscow teacher Tamara Eidelman said the government’s disregard for the rule of law is frightening.

"I think that there is nothing more important right now than to fight against the war [in Ukraine],” she said.

And it seems for Putin, there is little more important than punishing those who dare protest his government’s actions. On July 22, he signed a new law criminalizing repeated street protest violations with up to five years in jail.

Protesting against the government was already pretty dangerous before the latest crackdown.

On May 6, 2012 tens of thousands of people took place in large anti-government demonstrations in what was widely known as the Bolotnaya protests. They became violent when some activists clashed with police, and 31 people have been prosecuted, and prison sentences up to four-and-a-half years.

They were charged activists for rioting, but the consensus is that they have been punished for simply daring to challenge the government. Similarly, members of the all-woman punk band Pussy Riot were convicted of hooliganism after performing an anti-Putin song in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in Feb. 21, 2012.

Band members were sentenced to jail time after a trial that made news headlines around the world.

As with the Bolotnaya and Pussy Riot cases, Russian state media and most politicians have portrayed recent demonstrators as a fifth column – or the enemies from within. Meanwhile, their cause has been taken up by international rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch.

So it isn't surprising that fear stalks even the most dedicated anti-Putin demonstrators these. Varvara Pakhomenko, who works for a nongovernmental organization in Moscow, said that for the first time ever she's afraid to attend demonstrations.

"There is a mass hysteria in the air right now," she said. "There is a lot of public aggression which can turn into violence."




On Aug. 20 the Russian capital awoke to televised images of one of the iconic “seven sisters” Stalin-era skyscrapers flying the Ukrainian flag, its showpiece golden star painted yellow and blue. Four young Russians were detained by the authorities even as journalists rushed to the scene..... The police's swift reaction underlines a bitter reality for any members of the opposition in Russia – Putin is overwhelming popular so only a minority support protests against his policies.... And it seems for Putin, there is little more important than punishing those who dare protest his government’s actions. On July 22, he signed a new law criminalizing repeated street protest violations with up to five years in jail.... Varvara Pakhomenko, who works for a nongovernmental organization in Moscow, said that for the first time ever she's afraid to attend demonstrations. 'There is a mass hysteria in the air right now,' she said. 'There is a lot of public aggression which can turn into violence.'"

Putin is clearly not without criticism, though this article and another earlier said that he mainly enjoys popularity. Many people like the “strong” image he is putting forth. Others are concerned about the loss of life – over 2,590 just since April – and honor Ukraine's right to operate independently of Russia. The protests have been mainly non-violent and even humorous, but some people have been arrested. The Bolotnaya protests were much more serious, involving some 10,000 people and violent interactions with the police. On August 20th, four young people succeeded in flying the Ukrainian flag from a Moscow skyscraper. The police nabbed them almost immediately and they were arrested, but the flag was seen by all on the television. Another group maintains a facebook page against Russia's involvement in Ukraine. A translator who works on the page said, “'I cannot let go of the situation that is going on and there is a Hitler-like dark gloom ahead. Where else can one go?'” I didn't find that Russian facebook page, but I did find this one in Kiev – https://www.facebook.com/euromaidanpr if you want to look at it. There is a picture of Putin on that page that makes him look like a snarling wolf. They definitely don't like him.