Friends of the Earth
(Page 2 of 3)
July/August 1982
By the Mother Earth News editors
At the time of this writing (mid-May), the two countries seem far from solving their differences ... and the July convention may not happen at all. Argentinian nationals have been booted out of Britain . . . and therefore the chairman likely wouldn't want to return to England for the meeting, even if he were offered a special visa for that purpose. Perhaps the commission will get together in a neutral country . . . or appoint an interim chairman . . . or simply postpone (or cancel) the conclave.
RELATED CONTENT
Taxpayer subsidies for high-risk nuclear power plants should be redirected to promote alternative e...
A Plowboy Interview with John Gofman a prominent critic of nuclear power....
EXTENDED VS. NUCLEAR FAMILIES January/February 1984 There can be a dark side to family get-together...
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS November/December 1973 NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS may be used to blast away sections of ...
In any case, you can be sure that the still-active whaling nations of the world—Japan, Russia, Norway, Iceland, South Korea, Spain, Brazil, Peru, and Chile—won't mind a bit if the commission is either unable to assemble or thrown into chaos. Because several countries that are opposed to the slaughter of cetaceans have become new voting members of the IWC this year . . . and the additional support just might be able to tip the scales and make the long-hoped-for moratorium on commercial whaling a reality.
For the present we can only speculate about what may happen . . . and hope that by the time you read this, the Falklands crisis and all its attendant problems will be past history.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY?
Recent proposals by Anne Gorsuch (the Reagan-appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency) demonstrate that the promotion of health and the prevention of such maladies as cancer, birth defects, chemically caused spontaneous abortions, and male sterility rank among the lowest of the current administration's priorities.
The EPA's recent actions include a proposal to permit industry to continue to use, and release into the environment, polychlorinated biphenyls. PCB's, which have been shown to be long-lived toxic compounds that work their way into the food chain, are employed primarily by utilities as an insulating fluid in transformers and other electrical equipment. There is persuasive evidence to suggest that PCB's—in addition to being probable cancercausers-may be responsible for as many as 10 to 20% of the birth defects that occur in this country!
In fact, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 directed the EPA to ban the manufacture and distribution of PCB's—and to prohibit the use of the chemical in existing equipment—by 1979. Anne Gorsuch's EPA, however, has now called for hearings to reopen the debate, and the agency is citing "new evidence" that the substances "do not pose any serious risk of injury to human health".
This, despite the fact that the Health and Human Services Department has listed PCB's among "compounds either known or reasonably anticipated to be carcinogens". And this, despite the fact that the EPA itself estimates, on the basis of industry data, that electrical transformers now in use may be leaking 25,000 pounds of PCB's into the environment annually.
