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Category: Archive

Archived material from historical editions of The Generator

  • Harmless chemicals are poisonous in combination

    Harmful chemicals commonly used: Gray then tried the same experiment with phthalates – the ubiquitous compounds used for softening plastics and thicken lotions, and found in everything from shampoo to vinyl flooring and flexible medical tubing. They also disrupted male development, in this case by stopping the foetus from making testosterone.

    Increased risk through value additivity: The mix of two phthalates that Gray used caused many of the same effects on male rat foetuses as a mixture of vinclozolin and procymidone. It makes sense that chemicals targeting the same pathway would have an additive effect. But what about mixtures of chemicals that work via different mechanisms? Surely the individual doses of such chemicals would not be additive in the same way.

    Principle does work: In 2004, Gray and his team put this to the test by mixing procymidone with a phthalate at levels that, on their own, would produce no effect. Because the chemicals work via different routes, he expected that the combination wouldn’t have any effect either. But they did.

    Wreaking havoc in reproductive system!: Then the team mixed seven compounds – with four independent routes of action – each at a level that did not produce an effect. "We expected nothing to happen, but when we give all [the compounds] together, all the animals are malformed," Gray said. "We disrupted the androgen receptor signalling pathway by several different mechanisms. It seems the tissue can’t tell the difference and is responding in an additive fashion."

    Time to take cognizance: All of this was throwing up problems for regulatory agencies around the world. Governments generally don’t take into account the additive effects of different chemicals, with the exception of dioxins -which accumulate to dangerous levels and disrupt hormones in the body – and some pesticides.

    Easier said than done!: For the most part, risk assessments were done one chemical at a time. Even then, regulation was no simple issue. First you needed to know a chemical’s potency, identify which tissues it harmed and determine whether a certain population might be exposed to other chemicals that might damage the same tissue. Add in the cocktail effect and it would get harder still. "It is a pretty difficult regulatory scenario," admitted Gray. "At this point the science is easier than implementing the regulatory framework."

    New Scientist, 1/9/2007, p. 46

  • Why it’s harder to enrol to vot

    Gary Nairn gets the facts on electoral reform

    Posted on the campaign blog , April 13th, 2007

    It’s hard to see who wins from the changes to the Electoral Act, which effectively make it harder to vote. Surely a democracy is strengthened by the removal of obstacles that bar access to the ballot box. That’s why the key aim of the Electoral Act is to make it as convenient as possible for people to get on the electoral roll.

    And in the absence of any evidence of widespread voter fraud, it is obvious both convenience of enrolment and the integrity of the electoral roll can be achieved at the same time. That’s why, around the world, many developed nations don’t close the rolls until right before the election. In that case, then who benefits from amendments that make it harder to get on the roll, especially for first-time voters? Well, according to the statistics indicating young people are more likely to vote progressive, the Coalition does.

    Perhaps that explains Liberal MP Gary Nairn‘s vehement opposition to GetUp’s campaign. He has issued a press release accusing GetUp of "misinformation and lies" and stating that GetUp has "a strange habit of distorting the truth". Here are his claims:

    That GetUp asserts that the roll will close as soon as an election is called.

    GetUp has never made this assertion. The roll will close for new voters at 8pm on the very night the election is officially called – it is officially called when the writ is issued by the Governor General.

    That GetUp claims that proof of identity will be needed when voting.

    GetUp has never made this claim. Perhaps Mr Nairn is referring to the proof of identity that will now be needed to enrol to vote.

    That GetUp asserts asking young people to provide ID when enrolling is too onerous a burden, and will serve to disenfranchise young first time voters.

    People who have turned 18 since the last election and are not yet on the roll will have to enrol before 8pm on the day the writ is issued for the election. Last election, 78,816 new voters enrolled in the week after the writ was issued. Those who enrol before then will now have to either have an Australian Driver’s licence or, if using another form of ID, find an ‘authorised person’ (ie. a Justice of the Peace or other listed person) to verify their ID. If they have no form of ID they need two people who are on the electoral roll and have known them for more than a month to sign their form. This is more onerous than the current system.

    That GetUp claims that the government moved by stealth to rush these laws through the parliament.

    GetUp has not made this claim. The Government did not need to move by stealth to pass these laws because their Senate majority could, despite widespread opposition by experts and the other parties, rubber stamp it.


    Mr Nairn’s claims against GetUp are not supported by any evidence. He argues that "[T]hese laws will protect the fundamental right to vote," but any inspection of them reveals the opposite to be true.

  • WA outlines plan to surrender wood heaters

    Ongoing community education, incentives for heating replacement or wood heater surrender, and legislation to require the removal of non-compliant wood heaters when a house was sold were some measures to mitigate adverse health impacts from wood heater smoke, said Sally Talbot, Parliamentary Secretary representing the Minister for the Environment, in the Western Australian Legislative Council on 14 August 2007.

    Policy paper details proposed solutions: Answering a series of questions, Talbot said: "The wood heater policy options paper was released on 23 May. This document includes details of the names and types of particles in the air from wood heaters. This information is detailed in Appendix A: Chemical properties of wood heater emissions. The wood heater policy options paper details the costs of adverse health impacts from the use of wood heaters attributed to wood smoke emissions in the Perth metropolitan region. It also details recommended actions to reduce these health impacts. These actions are ongoing community education, incentives for heating replacement or wood heater surrender, and legislation to include a requirement that at time of sale of a house, non-compliant wood heaters must be removed. The policy paper is still open for comment until 3 September 2007."

    Health costs calculated in policy options paper: "The wood heater policy options paper includes details of calculations of health costs attributed to wood smoke emissions in the Perth metropolitan region," Talbot said. "The rationale and factors considered to calculate this figure are outlined in Section 2.3 of the paper. In addition to this, further information is available in a supplementary document titled Cost-Benefit Analysis of Wood-Smoke Reduction in Perth, which is available on DEC’s website."

    Reference: Hon Giz Watson, Member for North Metropolitan, AG, Hon Sally Talbot, Parliamentary Secretary representing the Minister for the Environment, Member for South West, ALP, Legislative Council of Western Australia, Hansard, 14 August 2007. A copy of these proceedings can be accessed at
    http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au

    Erisk Net, 22/8/2007

  • Iceland calls of whale hunt

    Reporting by Roddy Scheer

    The minke whale is one species that will be spared as Iceland has suspended its whale hunt.

    Responding more to economic realities than to political pressure, the government of Iceland last week announced that it is calling off its controversial whale hunt due to lack of demand for the product. Environmentalists are cheering the decision, hoping that it signals an end to commercial whaling in the region.

    Last year, the Icelandic government faced cries of consternation from around the world when it issued permits for the commercial hunting of nine endangered fin whales and 30 minke whales.

    The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), which campaigns globally to protect the world’s whales, welcomes the decision by Iceland’s fisheries ministry. Economic studies commissioned by the group there revealed very little demand for the meat. In contrast, the country’s successful whale-watching industry generates more than $20 million in revenue each year.

    "This is fantastic news for whales and for Iceland,” says IFAW’s Robbie Marsland. “Whaling is cruel and unnecessary, and all of our studies have also shown there is little appetite for whale meat in Iceland or internationally. We hope that Iceland’s successful whale-watching industry will continue to grow without the country’s image being further tarnished by whaling.

    Source: IFAW

  • Feds gut state emission controls

    States would lose their legal powers to make companies disclose data on greenhouse gas emissions and energy under a proposed Federal Government takeover that a constitutional expert said would undermine state-based climate change initiatives, reported The Age (30/8/2007, p. 5).

    Federal legislation overrides state and territory laws: In the first big step towards creating a national emissions trading scheme, the Government had introducted legislation setting out how big industrial polluters would publically report their emissions from October 2009. The law would override the states’ and territories’ ability to compel companies to reveal data about greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse-savings projects, energy consumption and production.

    The Age, 30/8/2007, p. 5

  • EU to Fall Just Short of 2010 Renewable Target

    However, a big increase in wind capacity in Germany, Spain and Denmark as well as in the UK, France, Italy and Portugal has boosted electricity from renewable sources to record levels, compensating for droughts that have hit Europe’s hydroelectric power production, and paving the way for the EU to come within a whisker of reaching its electricity sector target of 21% by 2010.

    A record 7,500 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity was built in Europe in 2006. Wind energy now supplies 3.3% of the EU’s total gross electricity consumption. It is estimated that the wind power capacity will increase from today’s 50,000 MW, producing 100THW of energy, to 180 GW, producing 500 TWH of electricity by 2020. Wind power could, some studies say, supply 16% of the EU’s total electricity consumption by 2020.

    In 2005, 16.3% of renewable electricity came from wind, 15.8% came from biomass, 1.2% from geothermal and 0.3% from solar power; the majority, 66.4%, came from the EU’s expanding hydroelectric power sector.

    Nine countries are on track to meet their national renewable electricity targets of 21% for 2010: Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxemburg, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands.

    Germany has already overshot the EU target and 14 per cent of its gross electricity consumption is expected to come from renewable energy by the end of 2007. In 2000 the share was 6.3%.

    About 22 billion kWh of electricity was produced by wind power in the first half of 2007 in Germany with 21,283 MW of installed capacity. The country is also the third biggest generator of electricity from biomass behind Finland and Sweden and ahead of Spain, the UK and Denmark.

    New legislation that set a feed-in tariff guaranteeing a fixed price to suppliers has played a key role in increasing the amount of electricity coming from renewable sources in Germany, analysts say.

    Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was hopeful that Germany could extend its use of renewable energy to 30% by 2020.

    Some European countries are set to miss all the EU renewable energy targets, including Belgium, the UK, Italy and Greece.

    UK government officials estimated that the UK can hope at best to have 9% of its energy by 2020 from renewable sources; it currently has 2% from renewable sources.

    Stephanie Schlegel from the Institute for International and European Environmental Policy in Berlin said that the key to meeting the renewable energy targets as well as to cutting GHG emission cuts was reducing the overall consumption of energy in the EU.

    However, electricity consumption in the EU member states has continued to grow in spite of energy saving policies. Total electricity consumption in the residential sector for the EU grew by 10.8 per cent between 1999 and 2004 from TWH in 1999 to 765 TWH in 2004. The electricity in the industrial sector grew by 9.5 % between 1999 and 2004.

    Also, Schlegel said that some of the EU renewable targets might not help cut GHG emissions: in particular the environmental benefits of the EU target on biofuels is hotly debated among experts.

    Looking ahead, she said that the EU could only meet its target of 20% energy from renewable sources by 2020 if the next round of talks between the EU member states is successful.

    The European Commission is opening up negotiations with member states this autumn to set specific targets for each country and for each renewable energy sector; national plans are to be finalized by December 2007.

    "Setting EU wide targets is a good policy instrument for increasing renewable energy use, but the negotiations on which country has to meet which specific target are bound to be difficult this autumn, and it is only when each country has clear targets that the progress can really be measured," Schlegel told RenewableEnergyAccess.com.

    Jane Burgermeister is a freelance science writer based in Austria.