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Archive for August, 2007

The following article in a British Columbia newspaper is about a professor wishing to study POPs on their intermediate stops between China and the Arctic. Interesting.
http://www.saanichnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=28&cat=23&id=1051161&more=0
Your article refers to pesticides sourced from Asia, spreading across the globe and wandering up to the Arctic as “spills” and “factory emissions.” The pesticides in questions are neither, they […]

Banned Chemicals on Australian Reef

Posted by Mel on August 14th, 2007

People who have read Cold, Clear, and Deadly frequently ask if there is a similar problem with POPs in the southern hemisphere. There is, but it is much less because there is mush less agriculture and industry in the southern hemisphere.
Recently, the North Queensland Register had articles an article on the presence of banned pesticides […]

India Pesticide Ban Proposed

Posted by Mel on August 14th, 2007

The Minister of State for Agriculture has announced the banning of 25 pesticides. The following article; http://www.domain-b.com/industry/agrochem/20070813_government.htm lists all the substances that are banned or restricted. Among them are several persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that evaporate from fields where they are applied and traverse the northern hemisphere to pollute waters from the continental United States […]

Banned Pesticides found in Australia

Posted by Mel on August 11th, 2007

Great Barrier Reef ‘swamped by pollutants’ reads the headline at:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22226193-5005961,00.html
No concentration is given, but fear is expressed at the finding of Organic Pesticides such as DDT, chlordane, dieldrin, Aldrin, and heptachlor … even though they were banned in the 1980s.
It must be that they did not assay for toxaphene and PCBs, as they are surely […]

China may be a half a century behind us in terms its ability to explode an economy and pollute a planet, but as basic human beings they are no different than we are and were. When, in 1963, a Swedish chemist found that fish taken from remote lakes in northern Sweden were contaminating his wife, […]

China’s Misuse of Pesticides

Posted by Mel on August 8th, 2007

Following are a couple of interesting and scary articles on the horrendous mismanagement of Chinese agricultural pest control.
China Launches Campaign on Banned Pesticides:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-08/08/content_6492093.htm
In this story, “grave food safety concerns” are expressed because of the overuse of pesticides, growing industrial pollution, and improper use of pesticides just prior to harvest. It is estimated that China has […]

DDT, Pesticides and Malaria

Posted by Mel on August 8th, 2007

The raging argument about whether or not environmentalists … by banning DDT … are responsible the death of millions of third world children certainly fosters a dichotomy of opinion. The National Geographic presents a very interesting, balanced, and lengthy article at http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature1/text7.html.
I urge anyone seriously wondering about the issue to read it completely. Please note that […]

The Evolving Face of PCBs

Posted by Mel on August 7th, 2007

The manufacture of PolyChlorinatedBiphenyls began in 1929. They were welcomed as lifesavers that supplied safe cooling of electrical equipment and the safe and efficient transfer of industrial heat and power. The versatile liquid mixtures soon found their way into inks, caulks, plastics and resins. By 1978, nearly half of their uses were as a mixture […]