GlobeNews January 2002 New Year Special Vol.3, No.1 Global Citizens! Stay on top of the world. Current events, trends, travel, politics, eco and tech topics. Not your nine o'clock news. CONTENTS: WEF COMES TO NYC WSF: THE ALTERNATIVE PCB: MONSANTO'S DIRTY LEGACY MARIN COUNTY RECYCLING LOCAL NEWSPAPER GATEWAY MEGA SQUID SITED IN THE DEEP GALE NORTON GOES OVERBOARD TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2001 POLAR COOLING DAMN THIS TRAFFIC JAM! TAKE A LEAK TO REDUCE FUMES ============ !!GLOBALERT!! ============ WEF COMES TO NYC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From January 31 to February 4, 2002, the Swiss based World Economic Forum will hold its first annual meeting ever in the United States in New York City at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Some 3,200 business leaders, politicians, journalists and academics will meet behind closed doors to set an agenda for the global economy. Thousands of protesters are also expected to converge in the New York. The WEF is a private member organization comprising representatives from 1,000 of the world's largest corporations including Microsoft, Monsanto, Nike, General Motors, and, until recently, Enron. Originally formed in 1971 as the European Management Forum, the Swiss based group has grown into a major global agenda setter and a leading proponent of corporate globalization. Until this year, the organization held its annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort town of Davos. The exclusive meeting is open to members - who pay upwards of $30,000 in annual dues - as well as selected politicians, journalists and academics. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are both expected to be among the 3,200 in attendance. While the WEF helps set global economic and trade agendas that affect the world, the group predominantly includes European and American businesses. WEF http://www.weforum.org/ WSF: THE ALTERNATIVE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The World Social Forum formed last year Porto Allege, Brazil, as a counter summit to the WEF annual meeting. Some 10,000 activists, educators, unions and workers from around the world met to discuss alternatives to the neo-liberal economic model. " 'Another World Is Possible' was the event's official slogan," reported Naomi Klein last year. "After a year and a half of protests against the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the World Social Forum was billed as an opportunity for this emerging movement to stop screaming about what it is against and start articulating what it is for." As many as 60,000 people are expected to attend this year's Forum which meet again from Jan. 31 to Feb. 5. WSF http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/ http://www.portoalegre2002.org/ PCB: MONSANTO'S DIRTY LEGACY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the poor side of Anniston, Alabama, the people grew berries in their gardens, raised hogs in their back yards, caught bass in the murky streams where their children swam and played and were baptized. They didn't know their dirt and yards and bass and kids -- along with the acrid air they breathed -- were all contaminated with chemicals. They didn't know they lived in one of the most polluted patches of America. Now they know. They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the industrial coolants known as PCBs, St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew. In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they found fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided "there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges." In 1975, a company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered its conclusion changed from "slightly tumorigenic" to "does not appear to be carcinogenic." Monsanto enjoyed a lucrative four decade monopoly on PCB production in the United States, and battled to protect that monopoly long after PCBs were confirmed as a global pollutant. "We can't afford to lose one dollar of business," one internal memo concluded. The Environmental Protection Agency ordered General Electric Co. to spend $460 million to dredge PCBs it had dumped into the Hudson River in the past, perhaps the Bush administration's boldest environmental action to date. The decision was bitterly opposed by the company, but hailed by national conservation groups and many prominent and prosperous residents of the picturesque Hudson River Valley. In Anniston, far from the national spotlight, the sins of the past are being addressed in a very different way. Here, Monsanto and its corporate successors have avoided a regulatory crackdown, spending just $40 million on cleanup efforts so far. But they have spent $80 million more on legal settlements. David Carpenter, an environmental health professor at the State University of New York at Albany, has been a leading advocate of the EPA's plan to dredge the Hudson, but he says the PCB problems in Anniston are much worse. "I'm looking out my window at the Hudson right now, but the reality is that the people who live around the Monsanto plant have higher PCB levels than any residential population I've ever seen," said Carpenter, an expert witness for the plaintiffs in Anniston. "They're 10 times higher than the people around the Hudson." The Anniston lawsuits have uncovered a voluminous paper trail, revealing an unusually detailed story of secret corporate machinations in the era before strict environmental regulations and right-to-know laws. The documents - obtained by The Washington Post from plaintiffs' attorneys and the Environmental Working Group, a chemical industry watchdog - date as far back as the 1930s, but they expose actions with consequences that are still unfolding today. Now that PCBs are considered "probable" human carcinogens by the EPA and the World Health Organization, it is easy to forget that they were once known as miracle chemicals. They are unusually nonflammable, and conduct heat without conducting electricity. Many safety codes once mandated the use of PCBs as insulation in transformers and other electrical equipment. They also were used in paints, newsprint, carbon paper, deep-fat fryers, adhesives, even bread wrappers. The American public had no idea of the downside of PCBs until the late 1960s. But Monsanto did. They just didn't do anything about it. By 1996, officials were finding astronomical PCB levels in the area: as high as 940 times the federal level of concern in yard soils, 200 times that level in dust inside people's homes, 2,000 times that level in Monsanto's drainage ditches. The PCB levels in the air were also too high. One third of residents near the plant were found to have elevated PCB levels. The communities were declared public health hazards. Near Snow Creek, the state warned, "the increased risk of cancer is estimated to be high." That's when Monsanto launched a program to buy and raze contaminated properties, offering early sign-up bonuses and moving expenses as incentives. "Monsanto intends to be a good neighbor - to those who wish to leave, and to those who wish to stay," its brochures explained. Still, the company's credibility problems linger in Anniston. A recent company e-mail revealed that even gifts of computers and labs to area schools were part of a new damage control strategy: "The strategy calls for significantly increasing ... community outreach, contributions and political involvement while aggressively seeking ... to contain media issues regionally." [Source: The Washington Post] KC TECHSHOP ----------------- Shop in your jocks! Online at the NEW KC TechShop! JANUARY DEAL$: 1) CANON BJC-2110 BUBBLE JET PRINTER: ONLY $40 720 x 360 dpi, USB + Parallel Ports, Mac or Windows 2) ACER 4300U USB SCANNER: ONLY $70 600x1200 dpi, 48-Bit, "Scan to Web" Button 3) CANON PRINTER & SCANNER: ONLY $100 BJC-2110 Color Bubble Jet Printer and CanoScan D646U USB Scanner * MONEY-SAVING RANKINGS Best sites for comparison shopping and reviews. * "SWEET SPOT" SHOPPING LISTS DESKTOPs and LAPTOPs. Best price-to-quality! * GREEN PC Section Deal$ on Technology: http://www.kahl.net/shopping ============== THE GOOD NEWS ============== MARIN COUNTY RECYCLING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Famous for mountain biking, Marin County has another new form of "cycling" to be proud of: RE-cycling. The Alameda County Computer Resource Center has a satellite location in Novato. They take anything from old computer items to VCRs, TVs, CD players, phones AND they give a tax write-off whether it works or not! They do NOT accept large appliances (refrigerators, microwaves, copy machines, typewriters). The center takes most donations for free. BUT it charges from $10 to $35 for TVs and computer monitors (for the removal and disposal of cathode-ray tubes). Marin County Computer Resource Center is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, and on Fridays. Hours on Thursday are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, call 883-1428 or visit their website: http://www.accrc.org/ here's the Marin Independent Journal article: http://www.marinij.com/news/stories/index6002093.html ========== GLOBESITES ========== BARGAIN HUNTING IN THE AMAZON --------------------------------------------- The biggest bargains throughout the Amazon.com universe are here. - Up to 50% off toys and electronics and up to 60% off kitchen essentials - Books for less than 5 bucks, CDs for less than $7, and a slew of videos for under $10? Using this link choose OUTLET from the Store Directory: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/kahlconsultants LOCAL NEWSPAPER GATEWAY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Need to find a local newspaper? Try Newspaperlinks.com. This site has links to practically every local newspaper in the USA and Canada as well as internationally. Amazing! NEWSPAPER LINKS: http://www.newspaperlinks.com =========== GLOBENEWS =========== MEGA SQUID SITED IN THE DEEP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ An enormous squid 23 feet long lives 3,000 feet under the ocean. Scientists are baffled by its strange looks and weird behavior. The squid have been spotted all over the world -- in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. No one has captured one of the odd squid yet, so it has not been named. But its un-squidlike demeanor has biologists speaking in decidedly unscientific terms. "This is well beyond a new species," Michael Vecchione of the National Marine Fisheries Service said. "New species are a dime a dozen. This is fundamentally different." The squid do not act or look like other squid, which tend to be quick-moving and highly visual. Instead of having two arms and eight tentacles, the new squid has 10 appendages that all look alike. "The really long skinny arms are so much longer than the squid's body," he said. "We don't know of any cephalopod that has arms like that." Vecchione said the squid join an array of unusual creatures being spotted for the first time as improved technology makes underwater exploration more common. [Source: Reuters] GALE NORTON GOES OVERBOARD ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Imagine this: you're working for a government agency. your organization gets into some legal issues regarding a database. a judge tells your agency to remove this database and anything connected to it from the internet. So what does your boss do? She disconnects the entire agency from the internet. No more email, no more websites. So, could this happen? Sure can, in fact it just did to the US Department of the Interior! The DOI shutdown is tied to a court case involving alleged government mismanagement of Indian trust fund accounts. On Dec. 5, 2001 U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Interior to disconnect from the Internet all computers that had access to all trust-fund information. The order came after a court-appointed master revealed "deplorable and inexcusable" computer security lapses in the trust-fund system. The trust-fund system is more than a century old and holds money the federal government has collected for individual Indians from oil, gas and mineral leases on their land. The judge had hired a computer hacker who was able to break into the system and access the accounts. In response to the breach and the order, Interior shut down all agency sites and denied Internet access to employees. It has been more than a month since a federal judge ordered the Interior to sever all the ties between the Internet and 300,000 trust fund accounts held for American Indians. Read all about it: Court-ordered blackout leaves Interior employees without Internet, e-mail http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1201/121401h1.htm Indian Trust http://www.indiantrust.com/ EARTHLINGS! Interested in space, astronomy and extraterrestrial news? GET ASTRONEWS! Another free informative Kahl Consultants e-zine. Beam your request to: astronews-@-kahl.net TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2001 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Source: Multinational Monitor] Although there must be plenty of other companies that deserve a spot on this list, this article by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman presents ten companies that have behaved in such a way that their place on the list of "The Ten Worst Corporations of 2001" is well deserved. Corporations Behaving Badly: http://www.essential.org/monitor/ ============= FUTURE IS NOW ============= POLAR COOLING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Earth's polar regions long have been considered canaries in the coal mine on climate change - the first places to look, many scientists said, to learn whether the planet's temperature is, in fact, rising. Indeed, climate models generally predict that the heating of the atmosphere - precipitated by global warming - will cause the vast layer of ice that covers Antarctica to melt, raising sea levels and changing regional climate patterns by altering ocean currents. That widely held presumption is being challenged. Two studies of temperatures and ice-cap movements in Antarctica suggest that the Southern Hemisphere's "canary" isn't going down without a fight - key sections of the ice cap appear to be growing thicker, not thinner, as previously believed. And the continent's average temperature appears to have cooled slightly during the past 35 years, not warmed. Political opponents of the proposed Kyoto Protocol - which would limit human activity thought to cause atmospheric warming - are likely to pounce upon the results. The studies will likely be seen as vindication of their argument that the Kyoto treaty shouldn't be ratified until more is known about the science of climate change. While early climate models pointed to broad scale warming at both poles, improved models suggest the heating will be uneven at high latitudes and more pronounced in the north than in the south. That effect is evident in the greater-than-average warming that has occurred in Alaska, northern Siberia, and Greenland. [Source: Christian Science Monitor] HOW TO MAKE CHEAP CALLS ------------------------------------- You can get great LONG DISTANCE RATES with GLOBALCOM. SAMPLE RATES from ANY phone in the USA: * 5.5¢ per minute USA and Canada * 6¢ per minute Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong, UK * 15¢ per minute Philippines * 7¢ Connect fee per call * Works worldwide (via web enabled CALLBACK)! * No Monthly Fees! No Hidden Fees! We know you'll love Click4Prepaid from GLOBALCOM. We urge you to try it out: http://www.kahl.net/global/ ======= NET TIPS ======= DAMN THIS TRAFFIC JAM! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The web has become THE PLACE to check your traffic report before rushing off and getting stuck in rush hour traffic. Here is a sampling of sites. SMARTRAVELER.COM http://www.smartraveler.com/ Includes: real time up to the minute Interstate and local traffic information all regions of the United States. CALTRANS REALTIME FREEWAY SPEED MAP http://www.dot.ca.gov/traffic/ Includes: Real time traffic data for California BAY AREA TRAFFIC DASHBOARD http://news.bayarea.com/trafinfo/ Includes: San Francisco Bay Area Current Traffic Incidents & Congestion and Traffic Web Cams MANILA TRAFFIC http://www.trapik.com Thanks to all who wrote in their comments. Send us your questions for the next edition of GlobeNews. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GlobeNews by Kahl Consultants Visit us: http://www.kahl.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE PLUG ======== How has your small business or organization been performing lately? Are you happy with your work? Let Kahl Consultants help you. Technology. Use it appropriately. Put it in our hands. If you got this far you obviously enjoyed GlobeNews. Pass it on! Please forward it to a handful of your friends. Remember, the best things in life are free. THE PUNCH LINE ============== TAKE A LEAK TO REDUCE FUMES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A chemical originally obtained from urine might be able to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides from diesel engines by up to 80 per cent. A diesel truck has set off from a lab in the Netherlands to test the idea as it trundles around Europe's roads. The catalytic converters used with petrol engines don't work for diesels because of the high concentrations of oxygen in the exhaust gas, say researchers at the Dutch national laboratory TNO. But new European emissions regulations coming into effect in 2005 demand heavy NOx reductions from diesels. So TNO, Dutch truck maker DAF, and American catalytic converter manufacturer Engelhard have been trying to tackle the problem. The system they've come up with injects a urea solution into the catalytic converter. Urea is a nitrogen-rich organic compound that was originally isolated from animals' urine but which is now made industrially - for fertilizer - by reacting ammonia with carbon dioxide. Inside the converter, heat from the exhaust gases convert the urea into ammonia, which reacts with the harmful nitrogen oxides in the catalytic converter, transforming them into harmless nitrogen and water vapor. Trucks equipped with 900 liter diesel tanks will need an extra 50 liter tank for the urea solution, says TNO. One oil company, Elf, is studying potential ways of distributing urea via gas stations. Ray Holloway, director of Britain's Petrol Retailers Association, says it could cost £1000 to install a single urea pump on a forecourt. "With profit margins as low as 1.5p per liter of diesel that represents a substantial investment," he said. Sadly, although the toilets at service stations receive a steady supply of urea, TNO says there's not enough to make it worth collecting motorists' donations.