Dirty Water

This is from my article "Dirty Water: India and China share a grave environmental problem—extreme water pollution" that was just published in Scientific American Lives--a special issue that launched a new magazine. To read the rest of the story, click on the title to this post.

The hazy dawn knits river to sky on the banks of the holy Ganges river in Varanasi. Even at sunrise, the city’s 4.5-mile waterfront bustles. Bathers brush their teeth, soap themselves, and scrub their children. Legions wash laundry, gather water, and scour dishes. Men swim and lounge on ghats (steps that descend into the Ganges). Black noses and curving horns betray the presence of submerged water buffalo.

Women in bright saris gather in groups or with their families at the water’s edge. Up to 60,000 pilgrims journey to this sacred, 3,000-year-old city from across India each day. They sculpt altars in slick, gray mud, making offerings of flowers and candles. They pour Ganges water, pray, take a sacramental sip and immerse themselves in the turbid river for spiritual healing.

At the “burning ghats,” flames consume the bodies of the dead: Hindus believe casting their remains into the Ganges guides their souls to heaven. To them, this river is the mother goddess, Ganga Ma, who washes away humanity’s sins.

Four hundred million people rely on the Ganges watershed for drinking water, including Varanasi’s 1.6 million residents. But along its 1,560-mile journey from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the river absorbs raw sewage from 116 cities. Waste has turned these waters into a highway for viruses and bacteria, including deadly, dysentery-causing microbes like E. coli O157 and Shigella, and those that cause cholera, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever. Last year, the Indian government pledged $4 billion for river cleanup to stem the tide of waterborne disease.

But the problem of environmental water pollution extends far beyond the Ganges. Municipal waste, pesticides, and industrial chemicals foul waterways and drinking water across the globe, with the worst pollution concentrated in developing countries. If India’s waterways are the dubious poster children for sewage, then China’s waters take that role for toxic chemicals. Municipal waste is also a severe problem in China, but three decades of meteoric industrial growth have laced lakes and rivers with a witches’ brew of chemicals. Some Chinese waters are now among the most polluted on Earth.

Pangolins in peril

I've written on the Asian wildlife trade many times over the last years: the Asian turtle crisis, with turtles of many species being vacuumed off the Asian continent and eaten to the brink of extinction in less than a decade. Turtles are now being shipped or smuggled from across the globe, from Africa, the U.S., and every part of the globe, valued for their meat (and the longevity it is thought to impart) and used for Asian traditional medicine.

I've also written on the trade in tiger bone and other tiger parts, focusing on India's precipitous decline--catastrophic losses that were finally admitted by the government after decades of coverups. Nearly all parts of the cat, from eyes and whiskers to genitals and tail, are prescribed for their purported medicinal and aphrodisiac powers.

This month, I have a story on the Southeast Asian trade in pangolins--shy, armadillo-ish animals. They are the most-traded mammal on the illegal wildlife black market. Prices for their meat, organs and scales has skyrocketed from $10/kilo in 1990 to between $160-$250 today. Their precipitous decline prompted re-listing of two species, the Chinese and Malayan pangolins, from near-threatened to endangered.

Asian traditional medicine needs to adopt substitutes for endangered species--and needs to substitute manufactured synthetic compounds for animal ingredients. With pressures from habitat loss, disease, climate change, and so much more--animals can no longer be taken out of the wild in large quantities for any reason. Many species cannot survive even small losses.

You can read this story online: http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/winter_2010/on_the_ground_pangolins_in_peril.php

PLASTICS

The avalanche of plastic that is being produced, used and discarded across the planet has grown exponentially since these polymers first became popular during the 1950s. But this is one problem that we can truly address as individuals--though we also need to push for regulation to protect both our own health and that of a planet that is drowning in plastic.

Check out my editorial "Solutions Exist for Taming the Plastic Monster" (not my title.)

Big Coal is Worried

You know they're in a corner when the dogs start snapping.

The recent discovery that the coal industry was forging letters to Congress trying to herd them away from climate legislation shows how worried they really are.

Check out this article in yesterday's NY Times: Congressman Demands Answers on Forged Letters

The last administration handed over our national parks, coastlines and mountaintops to mining and drilling, having a fossil fuels party and ignoring the growing spectre of climate change. It's more than time that we step and take serious action to mitigate greenhouse gases--and for once, put corporate interests aside for the good of the planet.

Drugs, guns, gangs--and turtles

It is wild here, the stories are intense. Guns and drugs, lots of both.

Hit the ground running yesterday--4:30 rise, drove across the country and got on a Navy gunboat to explore a deserted island for hawksbill turtle nests--with an armed soldier.


Only two years ago, researchers discovered the last, best population of Eastern Pacific hawksbill sea turtles. Researcher J Nichols has jumped in here to try to quickly protect them--perhaps 100 turtles. Earlier this year, egg collecting was outlawed--up until now 95+ percent of the eggs were harvested and sold.

The big issue here is dodging the drug traffickers--some beaches and islands are totally off-limits. The police won't even enter these areas.

LONDON

Am in London at the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ): I was lucky enough to be given a Laura Van Dam Fellowship from the National Association of Science Writers to come here. Have attended great sessions on the state of science writing, journalism, book publishing, and new media, as well as specific issues like how science innovation will be needed to address burgeoning global needs for food, water and energy amidst the growing spectre of climate change. I was thrilled to hear John Beddington, the UK's Government Chief Science Advisor, bring up the need for population control and education of women--and identify big barriers to that as one world religion that still prohibits contraception and another that discourages the education of women. This issue is one that most governments and NGOs will not touch, and to me, is the pink elephant in the living room.

Fascinating to hear a global perspective on these and other issues from European, African, Asian, Australian journalists. Particularly interesting to hear differences in health care and health care costs and marketing (particularly pharmaceutical marketing) from European and Canadian journalists.

Also had some personal time with Darwin today: stepped into Westminster Abbey and saw his tomb, and in the evening, attended a WCSJ gala at the Natural History Museum. They just moved a huge marble statue of Darwin to the head of the main stairway to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. Later this year, the museum will open a brand new building named for Darwin. I had the honor of attending the event with a colleague, Victoria Costello, who was the other Van Dam recipient.

Water Wars

Some say that freshwater is the new oil. Many predict that with growing population overshadowed by the spectre of climate change, wars of the future will be fought over water, not crude.

In the U.S., battles over water rights have a long history in the West, but conflicts over water--and particularly groundwater--are now occurring across the country.

Check out my recent syndicated editorial. Welcome to the Water Wars.