"This research suggests global warming isn't always steady, but happens with occasional 'speed bumps,'" said study co-author Josh Willis, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "This cooling is probably natural climate variability. The oceans today are still warmer than they were during the 1980s, and most scientists expect the oceans will eventually continue to warm in response to human-induced climate change."

Rising seas

Regardless of the cooling trend observed since 2003, average sea levels have continued to rise. The rising of sea level occurs due to the thermal expansion of the oceans from the heating and chunks and runoff from melting ice sheets and glaciers.

"The recent cooling episode suggests sea level should have actually decreased in the past two years," Willis said. "Despite this, sea level has continued to rise. This may mean that sea level rise has recently shifted from being mostly caused by warming to being dominated by melting. This idea is consistent with recent estimates of ice-mass loss in Antarctica and accelerating ice-mass loss on Greenland."

In a previous study, researchers reported that in parts of the Antarctic, 84 percent of glaciers have retreated over the past 50 years in response to a warmer climate. But the melting glaciers are not the reason for the cooling.

The amount of ice and water from the melting glaciers is very small compared to the overall temperature of the oceans, Willis told LiveScience.

Ocean temperatures have been through dips like this before.

There have been substantial decadal decreases, said study co-author John Lyman of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. "Other studies have shown that a similar rapid cooling took place from 1980 to 1983. But overall, the long-term trend is warming."

Cause of cooling not yet identified

Determining the amount of heat oceans store is important for determining the amount of total energy absorbed from the sun and energy reflected back.

"The capacity of Earth's oceans to store the sun's energy is more than 1,000 times that of Earth's atmosphere," Lyman said. "It's important to measure upper ocean temperature, since 84 percent of the heat absorbed by Earth since the mid-1950s has gone toward warming the ocean. Measuring ocean temperature is really measuring the progress of global warming."

Researchers have not yet identified the cause of ocean cooling in the last three years but hope that further studies will clarify this anomaly.

Some say it could be due to events such as volcanic eruptions, but the reasons need to be looked at still, Willis said.

The study is detailed in the current issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

© 2006 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

While the United Nations may be emasculated, it is still the only hope of mankind. Setting up another institution would do no better. Like it or not, humanity must once again make a commitment to the UN. We need to appeal to the ordinary people in every country to reject leaders who ignore the UN and who reject its mission.

We now have this Declaration of the International Day of Peace every 21st day of september, which "is meant to be a day of global ceasefire, when all countries and all people stop hostilities for the entire day..." If the leaders will not, then the people should. They should for one day in a year stop all hostilities. The media should cease for one day from inflaming passions and hatred in the name of peace.

In modern war, leaders and generals stay far behind the lines and are in no danger of getting killed or wounded. The supreme sacrifice must be made by the young people. Knowing this, the leaders and generals still see war as an option in settling conflicts between nations. By their soldiers ceasing hostilities for one day, the leaders and generals will be forced to appreciate that they have no right to sacrifice young peopl in wars which will solve nothing.

If this annual International Day of Peace could be a small step forward in addressing and raising global awareness on the inhuman afflictions caused by war, it would certainly be a most laudable endeavour. If this UN call for cessation of hostilities for just one day on September 21st is observed by all warring factions in the world, then we can say that the global peace agenda is starting to get dividends. Of course the ultimate objective is for all nations and their leaders to one day agree that for mankind to survive, for modern civilization to be meaningful, there must be a unified effot to criminalize all wars!

Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad
Global Peace Forum
Kuala Lumpur

20 September 2006

"From songbirds to alligators, turtles to bats, eagles to polar bears, mercury is accumulating in nearly every link of the food chain,'' said Catherine Bowes, an author of the report who manages the federation's mercury program in the northeastern states.

High mercury levels in popular fish such as swordfish and canned albacore tuna prompted government health warnings in 2004 aimed at pregnant women and children. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can damage fetuses and cause mental retardation, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, blindness and deafness.

The contamination also can kill or harm wildlife. According to the study:

-- Common loons stopping at Walker Lake in Nevada on their way to Saskatchewan have been contaminated with mercury lingering from past gold mining operations.

-- At least one endangered Florida panther has died from mercury poisoning, probably from consuming raccoons with high mercury levels.

-- Western and Clarke's grebes in Clearlake (Lake County) have shown altered hormone levels because of mercury poisoning.

-- River otters in New York, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Nova Scotia have elevated levels of mercury and in some places are showing such neurological effects as difficulty in walking. One otter died from mercury poisoning.

Airborne mercury, which eventually falls to the land and water, comes mostly from coal-fired power plants or medical and trash incinerators. Sewage treatment plants, chlorine-manufacturing plants and runoff from abandoned gold and mercury mines can flow directly into water and wetlands.

The main source of mercury in humans comes from consuming big predator fish such as swordfish, shark, king mackerel, tilefish and albacore tuna, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Birds and other wildlife also eat mercury-contaminated fish as well as insects, crayfish and other small organisms. The mercury accumulates at higher levels up the food chain to raccoons, mink, river otters, panthers and polar bears, the study found.

David Evers, a leading avian ecologist who specializes in contaminants at the nonprofit BioDiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine, said mercury-contaminated insects contribute to the high levels of the element in birds, bats and some other wildlife species.

"Traditional, conventional thinking was that the fish food web was the only pathway of concern. But our studies have found that there are other food webs of concern, including insects," Evers said.

The report from the National Wildlife Federation is consistent with what California researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey and San Francisco Estuary Institute in Oakland have found in California clapper rails, Caspian and Forster's terns and other shorebirds feeding in the southern end of San Francisco Bay.

Guadalupe Creek, which flows through San Jose, carries inorganic mercury from a now-closed mercury mine. The mercury converts to the toxic form, methylmercury, in the former Cargill salt ponds being restored in the South Bay.

Letitia Grenier, a conservation biologist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, has researched mercury in songbirds in the wetlands. She praised the work of Evers and other East Coast researchers.

"It's important for us to open our minds. We should question where there are other habitats where we could have mercury accumulations. It's great that we're finally looking at mercury in animals,'' Grenier said.

The National Wildlife Federation issued the study as part of a lobbying effort for regulations to control mercury emissions at coal-fired power plants and other sources.

The Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a trade group for power generating companies, criticized the study Tuesday as redundant, given past studies. In a statement, spokesman Scott Segal said emissions of mercury have been reduced by 40 percent since 1990.

E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com

"Silent Spring" simultaneously alerted the public to the chemical dangers all around them while incurring the predictable wrath of corporate America. Indeed, an author can be certain about his or her impact when companies like Monsanto-the good folks who brought us Agent Orange-take aim.

The use and abuse of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, Carson posited, were directly responsible for myriad health hazards not only for humans, but all life on the planet. "If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials," she wrote, "it is surely because our forefathers...could conceive of no such problem."

"Silent Spring showed that people are not master of nature, but rather part of nature," says Carson's biographer, John Henricksson. "It was a revolutionary thought at the time. Today no one seriously questions its truth, but in 1962 it was a direct attack on the values and assumptions of a society."

We could use some of that "revolutionary thought" stuff today as we now produce pesticides at a rate more than 13,000 times faster than we did in 1962. The Environmental Protection Agency-hardly a bulwark against corporate domination-considers 30 percent of all insecticides, 60 percent of all herbicides, and 90 percent of all fungicides to be carcinogenic, yet Americans spend about $7 billion on 21,000 different pesticide products each year.

"Prior to World War II, annual worldwide use of pesticides ran right around zero," says author Derrick Jensen. "By now it's 500 billion tons, increasing every year." As a result, about 860 Americans suffer from pesticide poisoning every single day; that's almost 315,000 cases per year. Some of the many symptoms of pesticide poisoning include: altered personality, memory loss, difficulty concentrating, dizziness, headaches, hyperactivity in children, wheezing cough, liver damage, kidney damage, constipation/diarrhea, decreased sex drive, decreased sperm count, severe muscle weakness, and cancer. The worldwide death rate from pesticide poisonings is more than 200,000 per year.

It's so, so easy to ignore or even mock the plight of mussel larvae but this is a canary in a coalmine situation. Those larvae are the mussel's children and what happens to them-in its own way-is happening to human children. "Let's be clear," Jensen concludes. "Those in power are poisoning children, stealing their physical and cognitive health: making them weak, sick, and stupid."

No wonder the whole damn planet is on Prozac.

Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.



Mickey Z. is the author of five books, most recently "50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism" (Disinformation Books). He can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.

Two weeks ago the Economist also recanted. In the past it has asserted that "Mr Bush was right to reject the prohibitively expensive Kyoto pact". It co-published the Copenhagen Consensus papers, which put climate change at the bottom of the list of global priorities. Now, in a special issue devoted to scaring the living daylights out of its readers, it maintains that "the slice of global output that would have to be spent to control emissions is probably ... below 1%". It calls for carbon taxes and an ambitious programme of government spending.

Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial. But I'm not celebrating yet. The danger is not that we will stop talking about climate change, or recognising that it presents an existential threat to humankind. The danger is that we will talk ourselves to kingdom come.

If the biosphere is wrecked, it will not be done by those who couldn't give a damn about it, as they now belong to a diminishing minority. It will be destroyed by nice, well-meaning, cosmopolitan people who accept the case for cutting emissions, but who won't change by one iota the way they live. I know people who profess to care deeply about global warming, but who would sooner drink Toilet Duck than get rid of their Agas, patio heaters and plasma TVs, all of which are staggeringly wasteful. A recent brochure published by the Co-operative Bank boasts that its "solar tower" in Manchester "will generate enough electricity every year to make 9 million cups of tea". On the previous page it urges its customers "to live the dream and purchase that perfect holiday home ... With low cost flights now available, jetting off to your home in the sun at the drop of a hat is far more achievable than you think."

Environmentalism has always been characterised as a middle-class concern; while this has often been unfair, there is now an undeniable nexus of class politics and morally superior consumerism. People allow themselves to believe that their impact on the planet is lower than that of the great unwashed because they shop at Waitrose rather than Asda, buy Tomme de Savoie instead of processed cheese slices and take eco-safaris in the Serengeti instead of package holidays in Torremolinos. In reality, carbon emissions are closely related to income: the richer you are, the more likely you are to be wrecking the planet, however much stripped wood and hand-thrown crockery there is in your kitchen.

It doesn't help that politicians, businesses and even climate-change campaigners seek to shield us from the brutal truth of just how much has to change. Last week Friends of the Earth published the report it had commissioned from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which laid out the case for a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. This caused astonishment in the media. But other calculations, using the same sources, show that even this ambitious target is two decades too late. It becomes rather complicated, but please bear with me, for our future rests on these numbers.

The Tyndall Centre says that to prevent the earth from warming by more than two degrees above preindustrial levels, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere must be stabilised at 450 parts per million or less (they currently stand at 380). But this, as its sources show, is plainly insufficient. The reason is that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not the only greenhouse gas. The others - such as methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons - boost its impacts by around 15%. When you add the concentrations of CO2 and the other greenhouse gases together, you get a figure known as "CO2 equivalent". But the Tyndall Centre uses "CO2" and "CO2 equivalent" interchangeably, permitting an embarrassing scientific mish-mash.

"Concentrations of 450 parts per million CO2 equivalent or lower", it says, provide a "reasonable to high probability of not exceeding 2C". This is true, but the report is not calling for a limit of 450 parts of "CO2 equivalent". It is calling for a limit of 450 parts of CO2, which means at least 500 parts of CO2 equivalent. At this level there is a low to very low probability of keeping the temperature rise below two degrees. So why on earth has this reputable scientific institution muddled the figures?

You can find the answer on page 16 of the report. "As with all client-consultant relationships, boundary conditions were established within which to conduct the analysis ... Friends of the Earth, in conjunction with a consortium of NGOs and with increasing cross-party support from MPs, have been lobbying hard for the introduction of a 'climate change bill' ... [The bill] is founded essentially on a correlation of 2C with 450 parts per million of CO2."

In other words, Friends of the Earth had already set the target before it asked its researchers to find out what the target should be. I suspect that it chose the wrong number because it believed a 90% cut by 2030 would not be politically acceptable.

This echoes the refusal of Sir David King, the government's chief scientist, to call for a target of less than 550 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, on the grounds that it would be "politically unrealistic". The message seems to be that the science can go to hell - we will tell people what we think they can bear.

So we all deceive ourselves and deceive each other about the change that needs to take place. The middle classes think they have gone green because they buy organic cotton pyjamas and handmade soaps with bits of leaf in them - though they still heat their conservatories and retain their holiday homes in Croatia. The people who should be confronting them with hard truths balk at the scale of the challenge. And the politicians won't jump until the rest of us do.

On Sunday the Liberal Democrats announced that they are making climate change their top political priority, and on Tuesday they voted to shift taxation from people to pollution. At first sight it looks bold, but then you discover that they have scarcely touched the problem. While total tax receipts in the United Kingdom amount to £350bn a year, they intend to shift just £8bn - or 2.3%.

So the question which now confronts everyone - politicians, campaign groups, scientists, readers of the Guardian as well as the Economist and the Sun - is this: how much reality can you take? Do you really want to stop climate chaos, or do you just want to feel better about yourself?

- George Monbiot's book Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning is published by Allen Lane next week. He has also launched a website - turnuptheheat.org - exposing false environmental claims made by corporations and celebrities
www.monbiot.com

The first spraying of the year in Brooklyn took place on the evening of August 21. The spray truck - now driven by unionized NYC workers wearing DOHMH insignias - recklessly spewed pesticides in a thick cloud down crowded 5th Avenue in Sunset Park and in the surrounding area in utter disregard of the hundreds of people walking the streets. The truck blasted pregnant women and many, many little children with the spray, and fogged people in dozens of restaurants - their doors wide open - without warning as they ate.

The City put up no signs in the neighborhoods announcing the spraying. They made no public warnings about the dangers of pesticides, the links between pesticides and asthma - which is epidemic throughout New York City -- childhood cancers, lymphomas, neurological disorders, chemical sensitivities . . . nothing.

This year, City officials have put forth even less information than in the past as to why they decide to spray pesticides. In addition, they have started spraying earlier in the evening, even though people are more likely to be on the streets and directly affected by the spraying.

The NoSpray Coalition learned about the plan to spray in Brooklyn earlier that same day and set up a literature table near at the "F" train exit on the corner of McDonald Avenue and Albemarle Rd. in the residential Kensington section shortly before the spraying began. Around a dozen participants distributed hundreds of flyers, spoke with local store owners, and held a Speak-Out right there on the corner.

Speakers noted that the pesticides spewed from the trucks are endocrine (hormone) disruptors that may cause cancer, and are especially dangerous to children, the elderly, and those who are immune compromised. 2

The pesticides also kill off natural predators of mosquitoes such as dragonflies, which eat large amounts of mosquitoes every hour. The result of each round of spraying is MORE, not fewer, mosquitoes. 3

As public awareness grows, people have begun taking to the streets. In recent months, protests against pesticides have taken place in Winnipeg (Canada), Chicago, Florida, St. Louis, and California.

Nevertheless, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City refuses to listen. "It's as though the City Department of Health has learned nothing in all these years," Coalition spokesperson Mitchel Cohen told Brooklyn News 12, which broadcast an extensive report on opposition to the spraying. FOX-News also sent a camera person. 1010-WINS all-news radio ran interviews as well as radio stations in Troy NY, and Massachusetts, and the local papers carried stories on the spraying, quoting extensively from the Coalition's press release on the dangers of pesticides. Ula Kuras, a reporter for IndyMedia, wrote a very good story that was featured on the front page of the IndyMedia website:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/08/74940.html

The pesticide mixture that the City continues to spray this year contains the cancer-causing chemical piperonyl butoxide. It also contains so-called "inert ingredients," which, despite the innocuous-sounding category ("inert" ingredients), are also dangerous. In addition, pyrethroids such as Sumithrin, the active ingredient in Anvil 10 + 10, have been shown to be hormone (endocrine) disruptors and neurotoxins as well as serious lung irritants. (see "What's In the Pesticides?")

And, in addition to being dangerous to people and the environment, an important new study shows that pyrethroid spraying is not even effective in reducing the number of the next generation of mosquitoes. 4

Why does the City continue to pursue this senseless way of killing mosquitoes?

Some Coalition members believe it has little to do with public health and more to do with creating the need for and justifying the use of million of dollars in federal funds. They note that all federal funds related to West Nile-carrying mosquitoes are coming from the so-called "Anti-Terrorism" budget. "There are no federal funds any longer for public health," Cohen said. "Researchers and public health officials have told us that in order to receive funds from Washington - and this was as much under Clinton/Gore before 9-11 as it is under Bush - they had to frame the issue as part of the fight against terrorism. It is a devil's bargain."

Indeed, the so-called pesticide 'cure' jeopardizes many, many more people than West Nile virus is said to do, as well as pets, bees, butterflies, fish and the natural environment. There are numerous effective ways to repel mosquitoes - poisoning us all is not one of them.

The No Spray Coalition has called for people throughout the City to protest the spraying, Some may block the spray trucks. Others may do theater, write to their local government officials, hand out flyers in their neighborhoods and schools, or take other actions deemed necessary to save our lives from the dangerous sprays the City is using.

The Coalition has also contacted the drivers' union, as spray truck drivers a few years ago were diagnosed at Mt. Sinai hospital with serious ailments due to pesticide poisoning.

FOOTNOTES

1. Salam, et al: "Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma findings from the children's health study." Environmental Health Perspectives 112(6):760-765.

2. Pesticides have cumulative, multigenerational, degenerative impacts on human health, especially on the development of children which may not be evident immediately and may only appear years or even decades later.

* Physicians and Scientists for a Healthy World, The Multigenerational, Cumulative and Destructive Impacts of Pesticides on Human Health, Especially on the Physical, Emotional and Mental Development of Children and Future Generations. A Submission to The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, February 2000;
* Guillette, Elizabeth, et al: Anthropological Approach to the Evaluation of Pre-school Children Exposed to Pesticides in Mexico. Environmental Health Perspective, Vol. 106, No.6, June 1998;
* Kaplan, Jonathan et al. Failing Health. Pesticides Use in California Schools. Report by Californians for Pesticide Reform, 2002, American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Environmental Health;
* Moulton, Patricia, et al: Chronic Exposure to Pesticides and Intellectual Performance in Children, American Psychological Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, Aug. 13, 2006.
http://www.med.und.nodak.edu/depts/rural/presentations/pdf/APA081306.pdf.
* Ambient Air Pollution: Respiratory Hazards to Children, Pediatrics 91, 1993.

3. Studies done in New York state for mosquitoes carrying Eastern Equine Encephalitis found a 15-fold increase in mosquitoes after repeated spraying, and virtually all of the new generations of mosquitoes were pesticide-resistant. Journal of the Am Mosquito Control Assoc, Dec; 13(4):315-25, 1997 Howard JJ, Oliver New York State Department of Health, SUNY-College ESF, Syracuse 13210.

4. "Efficacy of Resmethrin Aerosols Applied from the Road for Suppressing Culex Vectors of West Nile Virus," Michael R. Reddy, Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, et. al., Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases, Volume 6, Number 2, June 2006.

Update: Lawsuit against NYC Government

The No Spray Coalition is an all-volunteer not-for-profit organization that formed seven years ago to oppose New York City's mass-spraying of Malathion and Pyrethroids by helicopter and truck. Since that time, the Coalition has grown substantially by working alongside other environmental justice organizations and individuals and supporting each others' work. As a result, anti-pesticides activities have increased throughout the continent. The No Spray Coalition, along with other activist groups, has become expert in the dangers of pesticides and in presenting alternative and non-toxic means for dealing with mosquitoes and other critters considered to be pests.

In 2000, the No Spray Coalition became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against New York City. Other plaintiffs include the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (Beyond Pesticides), Disabled In Action, Save Organic Standards - NY, Valerie Sheppard (in Memoriam), Mitchel Cohen, Robert Lederman, and Eva Yaa Asantewaa.

Our legal team is headed by Joel Kupferman (of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project) and Karl S. Coplan (of the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic, Inc.)

Last year, Federal District Judge Daniels upheld, for the most part, the No Spray Coalition's interpretation of the Clean Water Act. The trial was set to go forward solely on the question of whether or not the City sprayed over navigable waterways. Since that time, the Coalition and the NYC government have become engaged in some rather intense rounds of negotiations in an attempt to reach a settlement.

Why negotiate instead of going to trial? The advantage for NYC is obvious -- to avoid risking a "guilty" verdict finding that they sprayed over navigable waterways and broke the law. While the NoSpray Coalition has amassed a great deal of testimony and video clips that this was indeed the case, we believe that there are substantial advantages at this time for opponents of pesticide spraying to try to arrive at a settlement, so long as it contains language expressing a clear recognition of the dangers of pesticides and stipulates ecological remediation. These, we feel, would be an important advance over what we might win at trial should the City be found guilty of violating the law.

We were in the midst of finalizing a possible settlement when the City began this latest and horrible round of pesticide spraying. We still hold out hope that we will be able to reach a negotiated settlement, but the reckless spraying that the City is currently doing indicates to us that officials have not learned the lessons that even many of its own public health officials had outlined.

Over the next few weeks, while we continue negotiations, we also need to raise thousands of dollars to pursue the lawsuit (should negotiations collapse), as well as to intensify our work on the ground. We will be leafleting different areas of New York City against the spraying, and we are expanding our website to include more reports from across the continent. Please send reports of activities in your neighborhood to us, photos, etc.! (If you know how to add material to websites and have some time to contribute, we can sure use your help, too.)

As an all-volunteer group -- none of us gets paid -- the NoSpray Coalition depends on the consciousness and generosity of our supporters. Funds are desperately needed. Whatever you can contribute would be very helpful.
To send us a check, please mail it to the No Spray Coalition, PO Box 334, Peck Slip Station, NYC 10272.

In 2003, Whitman's then-spokeswoman, Tina Kreisher, was asked by an Environmental Protection Agency internal investigator "whether there was a conscious effort to reassure the public [in the fall of 2001].

"Ms. Kreisher said there was such an effort. This emphasis 'came from the administrator [Whitman] and the White House,' " according to newly released quotes from EPA papers.

Hugh Kaufman, an EPA senior policy analyst, told The Post yesterday, that Kreisher "blew the whistle not just on the White House, but on Whitman as well,"

Not only that, but Whitman apparently had financial interests in reassuring the public that all was well and that lower Manhattan could safely be reoccupied.

Meanwhile, Whitman's newly released financial-disclosure forms show that she said seven months before 9/11 that she would not get involved in any issue related to the finances of the Port Authority - which owns the WTC site - because she or her family owned PA bonds. Its finances could be impacted by lawsuits growing of the cleanup.

"I understand the following interests that belong to me, my spouse or my children present a conflict of interest," Whitman wrote at the time. She then listed various investments, including the bistate agency.

But Whitman was involved at Ground Zero despite that recusal, although she or her family also owned shares of Citigroup, whose insurance-company subsidiary, The Travelers, paid out hundred of millions of dollars in claims to downtown residents displaced by the attacks.

Critics said the documents indicate Whitman encouraged people to move back to near Ground Zero and work on the cleanup despite a health threat, which could have bolstered the bottom line of both the PA and Travelers.

That's because both the PA and Travelers now can argue in civil suits that they believed there was little or no danger from the air around the Trade Center based on statements made by the EPA.

Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), one of three Congressmen who last week demanded a Justice Department investigation that could lead to criminal charges again blasted Whitman:

"She conspired [with the White House] to convince people to go into an unsafe environment . . . For that, she ought to be prosecuted," Nadler said. "People are dead because of her."

An 2003 EPA Inspector General's investigation had revealed that the White House had pressured EPA into changing its press releases to add more "reassuring" language, but Kreisher's quote revealing Whitman's participation was not included in the IG's report.

According to Kaufman, who accused Whitman and the White House of manipulating information and deceiving the public, ""Until we fix the broken government, none of us is safe."

A recent study by the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York of thousands of Ground Zero workers confirmed that "that the impact of the rescue and recovery effort on their health has been more widespread and persistent than previously thought, and is likely to linger far into the future." Recovery workers are getting sick and dying from the effects of inhaling smoke and dust containing a toxic burning brew of asbestos, PCBs, jet fuel, and plastics, lead, chromium, mercury, vinyl chloride, benzene, human bodies, thousands of other toxic substances and concrete dust that was as caustic as lye.

Whitman insists that she warned of the dangers of the air at Ground Zero and that her more reassuring comments only applied to areas outside of the pile itself. New York officials were to blame for misinformation, according to Whitman.

If what these documents reveal is true, there are people who need to be punished. But of more concern to me is that these disturbing revelations will make it increasingly difficult for Americans to ever again have any confidence in government information about hazardous conditions following any future disasters. Even if people go to jail over this affair (which is highly unlikely), that confidence is something that will be hard to regain.

All of which makes for a very insecure homeland.

As you might expect, the plaintiffs in this case are not easily intimidated. Several are street-hardened ex-New York city cops and correction officers. They all served in two National Guard units stationed into Iraq during the first months of the war.

I first met them in late 2003, in Fort Dix, N.J., following a tip that a bunch of returned soldiers were suffering from illnesses that Army doctors could not explain.

The men I met that day were furious at the way Army doctors were ignoring their persistent symptoms of blurred vision, migraine headaches, blackouts, fatigue, a burning sensation when they urinated as well as blood in their urine, and other ailments, all of which they said began while in Iraq.

A few months later the independent tests arranged by the New York Daily News indicated that four of nine in one National Guard unit, as well as Matthew, who served in another unit, had all been exposed to depleted uranium, probably from radioactive dust from exploded shells.

The Pentagon has used the low-level radioactive metal since the 1991 Persian Gulf War to harden artillery shells so they can penetrate enemy tanks.

My Daily News reports created a firestorm that reached Congress and received coverage around the world, especially when the men, who were then still on active duty, publicly accused military doctors of refusing to test them for depleted uranium, or losing or delaying their test results.

Since then, the Pentagon has tightened its testing procedures and some two dozen state legislatures have either passed or are considering bills to require testing for depleted uranium for troops returning from Iraq.

The lawsuit is the first to reach a courtroom from Iraq soldiers who claim they were harmed by the weapon.

In a two-hour hearing before Manhattan Federal Judge John Koeltl last week, lawyers for the former soldiers argued that the Army caused their illnesses when it violated its own safety protocols and exposed them to radioactive dust. Army doctors also covered up information about their exposures and failed to provide proper medical treatment, the lawyers claimed.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney John Cronan, representing the Army, urged Koeltl to dismiss the lawsuit immediately.

A 1950 Supreme Court decision, commonly known as the Feres Doctrine, prohibits soldiers from suing the government for injuries "incident to [military] service," Cronan said.

As the government's lawyer spoke, Matthew sat with his wife, Janise, in a courtroom packed with supporters and quietly shook his head. Less than 10 months after Matthew returned from Iraq, his wife gave birth to a girl, Victoria.

Their baby was missing three fingers on one hand.

By his dogged questioning of both sides, it appeared that Koeltl was giving the soldiers' claims serious attention. He gave no hint how he might rule.
Juan Gonzalez, a columnist for the New York Daily News, speaks at a Latino leaders lunch tomorrow at the Union League Club sponsored by Al Dia newspaper in collaboration with the Philadelphia Daily News. Reservations required: 215-569-4666, ext. 136.

In a letter earlier this month to Esso, the UK arm of ExxonMobil, the Royal Society cites its own survey which found that ExxonMobil last year distributed $2.9m to 39 groups that the society says misrepresent the science of climate change.

These include the International Policy Network, a thinktank with its HQ in London, and the George C Marshall Institute, which is based in Washington DC. In 2004, the institute jointly published a report with the UK group the Scientific Alliance which claimed that global temperature rises were not related to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

"There is not a robust scientific basis for drawing definitive and objective conclusions about the effect of human influence on future climate," it said.

In the letter, Bob Ward of the Royal Society writes: "At our meeting in July ... you indicated that ExxonMobil would not be providing any further funding to these organisations. I would be grateful if you could let me know when ExxonMobil plans to carry out this pledge."

The letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, adds: "I would be grateful if you could let me know which organisations in the UK and other European countries have been receiving funding so that I can work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public."

This is the first time the society has written to a company to challenge its activities. The move reflects mounting concern about the activities of lobby groups that try to undermine the overwhelming scientific evidence that emissions are linked to climate change.

The groups, such as the US Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), whose senior figures have described global warming as a myth, are expected to launch a renewed campaign ahead of a major new climate change report. The CEI responded to the recent release of Al Gore's climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, with adverts that welcomed increased carbon dioxide pollution.

The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be published in February, is expected to say that climate change could drive the Earth's temperatures higher than previously predicted.

Mr Ward said: "It is now more crucial than ever that we have a debate which is properly informed by the science. For people to be still producing information that misleads people about climate change is unhelpful. The next IPCC report should give people the final push that they need to take action and we can't have people trying to undermine it."

The Royal Society letter also takes issue with ExxonMobil's own presentation of climate science. It strongly criticises the company's "corporate citizenship reports", which claim that "gaps in the scientific basis" make it very difficult to blame climate change on human activity. The letter says: "These statements are not consistent with the scientific literature. It is very difficult to reconcile the misrepresentations of climate change science in these documents with ExxonMobil's claim to be an industry leader."

Environmentalists regard ExxonMobil as one of the least progressive oil companies because, unlike competitors such as BP and Shell, it has not invested heavily in alternative energy sources.

ExxonMobil said: "We can confirm that recently we received a letter from the Royal Society on the topic of climate change. Amongst other topics our Tomorrow's Energy and Corporate Citizenship reports explain our views openly and honestly on climate change. We would refute any suggestion that our reports are inaccurate or misleading." A spokesman added that ExxonMobil stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute this year.

Recent research has made scientists more confident that recent warming is man-made, a finding endorsed by scientific academies across the world, including in the US, China and Brazil.

The Royal Society's move emerged as Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, warned that the polar ice caps were breaking up at a faster rate than glaciologists thought possible, with profound consequences for global sea levels. Professor Rapley said the change was almost certainly down to global warming. "It's like opening a window and seeing what's going on and the message is that it's worse than we thought," he said.

But this time, the waste would benefit no one. By yesterday, at least six people, including two children, had died from the fumes. Another 15,000have sought treatment for nausea, vomiting and headaches, queuing for hours at hastily set up clinics. Pharmacies have run out of medicines and the World Health Organisation has sent emergency supplies to help the health system. The Ivorian government had resigned over the matter and, so far, eight people have been arrested.

The tragedy is said to have begun on 19 August, after a ship chartered by a Dutch company offloaded 400 tons of gasoline, water and caustic washings used to clean oil drums. The cargo was dumped at Akouedo and at least 10 other sites around the city, including in a channel leading to a lake, roadsides and open grounds.

The liquids began to send up fumes of hydrogen sulphide, petroleum distillates and sodium hydroxides across the city. As the tidy-up operation begins, environmental groups have begun to ask how this occurred.

"We thought the days when companies shipped toxic waste to poor countries were over," said Helen Perivier, toxics co-ordinator for Greenpeace. "It peaked in the 1980s but since then the determination of African countries to stamp the trade out has helped yield results. That this has happened again is extraordinary."

Probo Koala, the ship that offloaded the waste, is registered in Panama and chartered by the Dutch trading company Trafigura Beheer. Trafigura had tried to offload its slops in Amsterdam, but the Amsterdam Port Services recognised its contents as toxic and asked to renegotiate terms. Trafigura said shipping delays would mean penalties of at least 250,000 US dollars (£133,000) so handed it over to a disposal company in Abidjan alongside a "written request that the material should be safely disposed of, according to country laws, and with all the correct documentation."

This story is a common one. All down the West Africa coast, ships registered in America and Europe unload containers filled with old computers, slops, and used medical equipment. Scrap merchants, corrupt politicians and underpaid civil servants take charge of this rubbish and, for a few dollars, will dump them off coastlines and on landfill sites.

Throughout the 1980s, Africa was Europe's most popular dumping ground, with radioactive waste and toxic chemicals foisted on landowners. In 1987 an Italian ship dumped a load ofwaste on Koko Beach, Nigeria. Workers who came into contact with it suffered from chemical burns and partial paralysis, and began to vomit blood.

Thereafter, the UN drew up plans to regulate the trade in hazardous waste through the Basel Convention. By 1998, the European Union had agreed to implement the ban, which prohibited the export of hazardous wastes from developed countries to the developing world, but the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand refused to sign up;global waterways are still filled with ships looking to unload their toxic waste.

And now, there is a new threat - the dumping of electronic waste, or e-waste: unwanted mobile phones, computers and printers, which contain cadmium, lead, mercury and other poisons. More than 20 million computers become obsolete in America alone each year.

The UK generates almost 2 million tons of electronic waste. Disposing of this in America and Europe costs money, so many companies sell it to middle merchants, who promise the computers can be reused in Africa, China and India. Each month about 500 container loads, containing about 400,000 unwanted computers, arrive in Nigeria to be processed. But 75 per cent of units shipped to Nigeria cannot be resold. So they sit on landfills, and children scrabble barefoot, looking for scraps of copper wire or nails. And every so often, the plastics are burnt, sending fumes up into the air.

"There is a tradition of burning rubbish all over Africa, but this new burning of electronic equipment is incredibly dangerous," said Sarah Westervelt of the Basel Action Network, a pressure group that monitors the trade in hazardous waste. In China, workers burn PVC-coated wires to get at the copper, and swirl acids in buckets to extract scraps of gold.

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that worldwide, 20 million to 50 million tons of electronics are discarded each year. Less than 10 per cent gets recycled and half or more ends up overseas. As Western technology becomes cheaper and the latest machine comes to be regarded as a disposable fashion statement, this dumping will only intensify.

"Electronic goods are the fastest growing area of retail," said Liz Parkes, head of waste regulation at the Environment Agency. "We need to encourage people to think about whether they really need a new electronic item, and to consider what happens to the goods they throw out."

Where does our rubbish go?

* Inspections of 18 European ports in 2005 found that 47 per cent of all waste destined for export was in fact illegal. (Greenpeace)

* In 1993, there were two million tons of waste crossing the globe. By 2001, it had risen to 8.5 million. (UN)

* UK households throw away 93 million pieces of electrical equipment a year - about four items per household. Many of these end up in West Africa, India or China. (Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling)

* There are more than 20 million redundant mobile phones in the UK. (Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling)

* From next summer, manufacturers and importers of electrical goods will have to take responsibility for collecting and reusing old or outdated equipment. (Defra)

* It is illegal to ship hazardous waste out of Europe, but old electronic items can be sent to developing countries for "recycling". (Defra)