Shell under fire from Indigenous Peoples over human rights abuses and environmental destruction in Canada, Alaska and Nigeria

Posted: 17th May 2012 by KiPnews in GeoPolitics & Global Warfare
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Report to be launched in London on Friday at a public meeting before the delegation travels to The Hague for Shell’s AGM next week

SHELLLondon, UK – This Friday 18th May the Indigenous Environmental Network in partnership with Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation are launching an Indigenous-led campaign against Shell and its harmful projects. A delegation of four Indigenous people [1] from North America will participate in the public launch of a report profiling the British-Dutch company’s increasing involvement in the world’s dirtiest and riskiest energy projects.

The launch event, ‘Get the Shell Out’ [2], is taking place at 7.30pm at Toynbee Hall, East London, with opportunities from 6.30pm for media interviews. It is co-hosted by a coalition of organizations which also includes UK Tar Sands Network, Women of Africa, Platform, Rising Tide UK, FairPensions, Greenpeace, Shell to Sea, Climate Rush, Art Not Oil and the Rossport Solidarity Camp.

The new report, entitled “Risking Ruin: Shell’s dangerous developments in the Tar Sands, Arctic and Nigeria” [3] profiles Indigenous communities impacted by Shell’s operations in Canada’s Alberta Tar Sands, Aamjiwnaang First Nation’s territory in Ontario, Alaska’s Arctic Ocean and Africa’s Niger Delta.

It argues that the impacts of Shell’s destructive activities outweigh the benefits and expose the company to both reputation damage and political risk, including litigation.

The delegation will then attend Shell’s Annual General Meeting in The Hague, Netherlands, on 22nd May, where they will confront the Chairman and Board over the massive human and ecological rights violations and economic devastation that the company’s operations have brought to local communities.

There will also be a simultaneous creative protest by UK activist groups, including UK Tar Sands Network and London Rising Tide, at Shell’s satellite AGM in the Barbican Centre on May 22nd.

Eriel Deranger, community member and spokesperson for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), Alberta – an Indigenous community residing downstream from tar sands operations and who are currently suing Shell for violating past agreements [4], states:

“Tar sands extraction projects on our traditional lands are being approved at a pace that is both irresponsible and irreparably destructive. People in the community of Fort Chipewyan
 are genuinely afraid. Our food and water sources are contaminated, resulting in a fear of eating traditional foods and eroding the continuation of our cultural and subsistence lifestyles. Yet Shell plans to aggressively expand its activities, doubling production. The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is calling on Shell to meet its past agreements and halt expansion until our broader concerns about the cumulative impacts of tar sands operations are addressed.”

Ron Plain, from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, Ontario – which has been called ‘the most polluted place in North America’ by the National Geographic Society, and the ‘the most contaminated airshed in Canada’ by the World Health Organization due to its proximity to ‘Chemical Valley’ where Shell’s and other tar sands operators’ refineries are causing serious health and reproductive impacts – said:

“Aamjiwnaang is the first community in the world to experience birth ratios of 2 girls to 1 boy due to endocrine disruption from the pollution. This is the first step towards extinction. Shell have admitted that their current facility, which is located at the fence-line of Aamjiwnaang, ‘could not meet today’s environmental regulations or standards.’ But Shell’s proposal for a new facility within Aamjiwnaang territory was recently denied by Canada for a whole host of environmental, social and other reasons. The corporate response to that set-back was to build onto the antiquated facility the equipment needed to process more tar sands bitumen.”

Robert Thompson, Chairman of REDOIL and an Inupiat from Kaktovik, a village on the edge of the Arctic Ocean in Alaska, where Shell plans to drill offshore in Arctic waters this summer, said:

“Shell plans to drill in the Arctic this summer without the proven technology or infrastructure to deal with inevitable spills. They have not demonstrated the ability to clean up spills within or from under the ice or during storms. Our culture depends on a clean ocean, and we have subsisted in this region for 12,000 years. We oppose Shell’s plans that have the potential to destroy the culture of our people and will further push the planet into irreversible climate change.”

Ben Powless, a Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario, representing the Indigenous Environmental Network [5], said:

“Not only have Shell reveled in being a climate criminal, they have also been exposed as fighting the European Union’s proposed Fuel Quality Directive, in collusion with the Canadian government. Their continued environmental destruction and violation of Indigenous rights across Canada, Alaska and Nigeria show that Shell needs to change their operations or face increasing protest and opposition across the world. Our organization is supporting an Indigenous-led campaign against Shell’s extreme energy projects to bring together front-line impacted communities.”

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For UK interviews contact: Suzanne Dhaliwal, UK Tar Sands Network, +44 7807095669

For North America contact: Clayton Thomas-Muller, IEN Tar Sands Campaign Director, ienoil@igc.org, +1 613 297 7515

1. The delegation consists of: Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Tar Sands Communications Coordinator, Robert Thompson, Chairman of REDOIL & Inupiat resident of Kaktovik, Alaska, Ben Powless, Indigenous Environmental Network, Ron Plain, Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

2. For more information about the event, see: http://www.no-tar-sands.org/events/get-the-shell-out/ As well as the delegation there will be speakers from Nigeria and the Rossport Solidarity Campaign. Media representatives are invited to arrive from 6.30 for interviews with the speakers.

3. Email suzanne@no-tar-sands.org if you would like to receive an advance copy of the report. It includes contributions from:

Nnimmo Bassey, Environmental Rights Action (ERA)/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria; Faith Gemmill, REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands), Alaska; Eriel Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation; Ron Plain, Aamjiwnaang First Nation; and Ben Amunwa, Platform London

It will go online at www.no-tar-sands.org on Friday morning.

4. For more information see: acfnchallenge.wordpress.com

5. To find out more about the Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign, see: http://www.ienearth.org/tarsands.html

SOURCE; http://www.ienearth.org


Indigenous Environmental Network

“A network of Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions.”

Kepler satellite telescope reveals hundreds of superflares on distant stars

Posted: 17th May 2012 by KiPnews in Natural events & Meteorology
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Here on Earth we are occasionally concerned about solar flares due to the impact they can have on our electrical systems. But our solar flares are puny when compared to so-called superflares that occur with other stars.

A new research study by a team from Japan’s Kyoto University has found after studying one patch of sky over a 120 day period in 1990 using data from the Kepler telescope, that superflares are rather common, and as they describe in their paper published in the journalNature, some are a billion times as powerful as those that occur with our own sun.

Scientists have known about superflares for some time, though little is actually known about them. Nonetheless, over the past several years a near consensus had been reached regarding the reasons for their occurrence.

Most in the field agreed that they were caused by interactions with what are known as “hot Jupiters,” huge planets in close proximity to the star.

This new study undermines that theory; out of 365 superflares spotted occurring with 148 , not one of them had a hot Jupiter nearby.

Because of this, astrophysicists are once again in the dark and must now go back and rethink the possibilities. Some have already suggested that instead of a hot Jupiter, perhaps there is a hot  situation occurring, i.e. a more distant cooler planet interacting with the star.

Unfortunately, such an interaction would be far more difficult to observe because such planets wouldn’t change the amount of light observed by Kepler as would hot Jupiters when they pass between our planet and their star.

The team also found that superflares occur more often with faster spinning stars; of the 365 superflares observed, only 101 occurred with slow rotating stars.

They also found that stars that gave rise to superflares almost always had large sunspots as well. For these reasons, and because there is no evidence of such a large flare over the past 2000 years, the team doesn’t believe our own sun is capable of producing such large flares, which is good, because just one blast would destroy our ozone layer, making our planet uninhabitable in short order.

Scientists believe that flares from our sun come about when magnetic field lines that are connected to magnetically active parts on the sun, which we observe as  spots, snap like a cut wire, sending electrically charged particles into space. Unfortunately, the same model doesn’t appear to hold for superflares because of the differences in scale.

Thus, more research will need to be done to see if other models or theories can be built to help better explain this mysterious phenomenon.

More information: Superflares on solar-type stars, Nature (2012) doi:10.1038/nature11063

Solar flares are caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy stored near sunspots.

They release 1029 to 1032 ergs of energy on a timescale of hours. Similar flares have been observed on many stars, with larger ‘superflares’ seen on a variety of stars, some of which are rapidly rotating4, 5 and some of which are of ordinary solar type.

The small number of superflares observed on solar-type stars has hitherto precluded a detailed study of them.

Here we report observations of 365 superflares, including some from slowly rotating solar-type stars, from about 83,000 stars observed over 120 days. Quasi-periodic brightness modulations observed in the solar-type stars suggest that they have much larger starspots than does the Sun.

The maximum energy of the flare is not correlated with the stellar rotation period, but the data suggest that superflares occur more frequently on rapidly rotating stars.

It has been proposed that hot Jupiters may be important in the generation of superflares on solar-type stars, but none have been discovered around the stars that we have studied, indicating that hot Jupiters associated with superflares are rare.

source; http://phys.org

How Big are Today’s Sunspots?

Posted: 16th May 2012 by KiPnews in Natural events & Meteorology, Sciences, Universe & Sacred Geometry
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As we move through solar maximum in the solar north we can start comparing Solar Cycle 24 with other data.

Here is a comparison of the active region 11476 in an HMI image from May 11, 2012 with the Earth (small dot) and Jupiter (big dot). AR 11476 covered about 1100 area units at its largest size.

People claimed it was as big as Jupiter! We can see here that the dark core part of 11476 (called the umbra) was still quite small. Even though the entire sunspot was about half the size of Jupiter, it is mostly the dimmer penumbra.

Compare with the largest sunspot we have in a photograph, AR 14886 from April 7, 1947.

We put the Earth and Jupiter disks in again and see that AR 14886 is larger (6000 units) than AR11476, still a little smaller than Jupiter (which is 10,000 units), and the dark umbra appears to occupy a larger fraction of the sunspot. (Original picture is courtesy of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.) One of the largest sunspot in Solar Cycle 23 was 10486, which caused the massive Halloween storms of 2003. It was 2600 units at its largest.

The largest sunspots tend to occur after solar maximum and the larger sunspots tend to last longer as well. As we move through solar maximum in the northern hemisphere and look to the south to pick up the slack there should be plenty of sunspots to watch rotate by SDO.
CHECK IT OUT: SDO images are featured in the June issue of National Geographic!

source; http://sdoisgo.blogspot.ca

Is Traditional Media Dying? The Numbers Indicate Just That

Posted: 16th May 2012 by KiPnews in GeoPolitics & Global Warfare
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So-called mainstream media is quickly falling out of the mainstream. I am attempting to push the title of mainstream media out of my lexicon completely, replaced by “traditional media,” “legacy media,” “dinosaur media,” or “establishment media.”

This is because in the near future, calling it mainstream media will be about as accurate as calling Wake Up World Nazi media (that is to say, ludicrously inaccurate).

In March, the well known news organization and cable broadcaster CNN dropped a shocking 50% in total viewers and a whopping 60% in the age 25-54 demographic (A25-54) over the total day according to reports from TVNewser.

On the other hand, during primetime they fell 21% in total viewers and 26% in A25-54 viewers compared to March of last year.

CNN was not alone in losing a huge amount of their viewers, as the infamous Fox News was hit hard in March and overall in the first quarter (Q1) of 2012.

For the month, Fox lost a whopping 17%, which further shows that the biased, misleading dinosaur media is on the way out, and fast.

This is hardly surprising to someone like me in the alternative media, as it reflects exactly what we have been seeing: a crumbling paradigm of media that serves corporate interests and is little more than a dog sitting on the lap of government.

Most notably, CNN completely ignored the freedom-crushing National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 here in the United States.

Sections 1021 and 1022 of this legislation, now known as the indefinite detention provisions, completely eradicate our right to due process by authorizing the indefinite military detention of anyone the government says might be a terrorist.

It seems quite clear to me that the American people – and people around the globe for that matter – are beginning to wake up to the fact that we have been, and are currently being, deceived by the media on a daily basis.

That is likely why people are rapidly fleeing the insanely misleading establishment media which continues to tell them that they should be concerned with the lives of celebrities, the non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons, while completely ignoring the poison in our food and water, the increasingly tyrannical governments of the world, and the completely fabricated so-called “War on Terror.”

The people of the world are likely increasingly turning to the internet and social media to get the real news, as it is highly doubtful that suddenly 50% of CNN’s total viewers stopped consuming news altogether.

This is very encouraging to me and it signals a bright future for humanity as people are increasingly resilient to the misleading coverage and false narratives given to us by the establishment media.

If this trend continues, soon enough the entire concept behind traditional media will have to give way to the quickly rising independent and alternative media, and of course this is an incredibly positive development.

While many things in the world seem to just be getting worse, it is great to see that there is a growing tide of awakened people around the world who are not only aware of what is going on, but are also turning off the indoctrination platforms known as televisions and instead getting the real news from likeminded people who care about our future as human beings.

source; http://wakeup-world.com

SCIENTISTS REMOTELY ACTIVATE AND DEACTIVATE GENES WITH RADIO WAVES

Posted: 16th May 2012 by KiPnews in Electromagnetic, Technology
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Geneticists at Rockefeller University in New York have demonstrated the ability to remotely activate and deactivate specially engineered insulin production genes in mice through the use of radio waves.

Scientists remotely activate and deactivate genes with radio waves

As unbelievable as it sounds, this could represent a radically new understanding of how genes work as well as the ability to create an entirely new field of medical treatments.

Like many cutting edge technologies such as mind-controlled robots, new lifelike humanoid robots and microchips allowing mobile devices to see through walls and other objects, I see this breakthrough as having either radically beneficial or unimaginably detrimental uses in the future.

Unfortunately it has become quite clear that the pharmaceutical industry and the agencies that supposedly regulate them, like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are far from trustworthy.

This latest advance could give scientists the ability to remotely modify the activity of genes without any surgery or even traditional drugs.

However, while they bill the treatment as completely non-invasive, that is not entirely accurate. The researchers did, in fact, have to inject nanoparticles into the mice being studied in order to affect the genes.

Currently the lead author of the study, Jeffrey Friedman, says that this will be applied to research, allowing scientists to manipulate cells in a non-invasive manner.

Yet Friedman, a molecular geneticist, says that if this technique is continuously refined it could also have clinical applications.

This study, called “Radio-Wave Heating of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Can Regulate Plasma Glucose in Mice” was published in Science earlier this month.

The process which Friedman and his colleagues used involved coated iron oxide nanoparticles with antibodies which then would bind to a modified version of an ion channel on the surface of cells.

The target was a modified version of the temperature-sensitive ion channel known as TRPV1 and the researchers injected the particles into tumors growing under the skin of the mice being studied.

The researchers then utilized a magnetic field created by a piece of hardware somewhat like a downsized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device to heat the nanoparticles.

Low-frequency radio waves targeted the nanoparticles and heated them to 42 degrees Celsius, at which point the ion channel was activated, allowing calcium to flow into the cells and trigger secondary signals, which then went on to activate an engineered calcium-sensitive gene which produced insulin.

After a mere 30 minutes of being exposed to the low-frequency radio waves, the insulin levels in the mice increased and their blood sugar levels dropped as well.

However, Friedman emphasizes that this is not being done in order to create a new treatment for diabetes. Instead, it was just used because it provides an easily measured physiological variable to monitor the activity of the remotely controlled genes.

“There are many good treatments for diabetes that are much simpler,” Friedman said, while recognizing that it could potentially be used to activate other proteins to treat other conditions as well.

Using these low-frequency waves seems to be one of the most key components to this research.

“The great thing about this system is that radio-wave heating can penetrate deep tissue, and TRPV1 can focus that stimulus very locally to just where you have the nanoparticles,” said David Julius, a physiologist who studies TRPV1 at the University of California, San Francisco, according to Nature.

This research is just in its fledgling stages at the moment and this study is more of a proof of concept than anything else.

That being said, if this is developed and applied to some of our hardest to tackle illnesses, I believe this could be a major breakthrough for human health.

Yet at the same time, I could see this being used for less-than-admirable purposes as well, including actually making people sick.

Hopefully such a thing would never occur, but unfortunately the pharmaceutical industry has proven that they are interest in profits, not health, so it wouldn’t be all too surprising, in my humble opinion.

source; http://truththeory.com/

Canadian Internet Surveillance Bill C-30 Essentially Dead in the Water

Posted: 16th May 2012 by KiPnews in GeoPolitics & Global Warfare
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The Internet surveillance legislation sponsored by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has disappeared down a dark legislative hole. For all intents and purposes, the bill is dead.

If the Harper government still wants to pass a law that would make it easier for police to track people who use the web to commit crimes, it will have to start from scratch.

That new bill, if there is one, will probably be shepherded by a different minister. That’s how much damage this botched legislation inflicted on the government and on Mr. Toews.

Bill C-30, also known as the lawful access legislation, would allow police to compel Internet service providers to cough up identifying information about anyone using the Internet.

The authorities would not be able to track a person’s activity on the web without a warrant. But they could find out whose name is attached to an IP address without that warrant, and without the person’s knowledge or consent, which is why both the federal and provincial privacy commissioners strongly objected to the bill as an unjustified violation of privacy rights.

Many Tory MPs are also said to be unhappy with the bill. They wonder why the government would abolish both the mandatory long-form census and the long-gun firearms registry in the name of privacy rights, and then violate those same rights with a bill that lets the government snoop on people who go online.

Mr. Toews responded to the criticism by declaring critics “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” This was fatal. As the Public Safety Minister reeled from online attacks – including from a Liberal staffer who tweeted the details of his divorce – the government hastily retreated, declaring the bill needed further study.

What has happened since? Nothing. And that nothing is everything.

Normally, after a bill receives first reading, debate begins on second reading, which is approval in principle. Once the bill passes second reading, it goes to a committee, where only minor amendments are permitted before the bill returns for third and final reading.

Instead of this usual route, House Leader Peter Van Loan decided to send C-30 to the public safety committee first, where it is supposed to be extensively revised, before returning to the House for second and third reading.

But before any of that can happen, the rules state that the House must debate the motion to send the bill to committee. That debate must last at least five hours – in effect, one sitting day.

But that debate hasn’t happened. And sources report that it won’t happen before the House rises for summer recess. That makes C-30 dead in the water.

Of course, the Conservatives could decide to send C-30 it to the public safety committee in the autumn. But it would take months to rewrite the bill, and then weeks to get it through second and third reading, before the bill went to the Senate for further study.

Long before then, Stephen Harper is expected to prorogue Parliament in preparation for a new Throne Speech. With that prorogation, Bill C-30 will quietly expire.

Before proroguing the House, Mr. Harper is expected to shuffle his cabinet. Public Safety is near the top of the list of portfolios in need of a fresh face. A new minister will have the job of putting together a new lawful-access bill, one that doesn’t unite opposition parties, privacy commissioners and the Tory caucus.

To assuage these concerns, the new bill will have to restrict the right of police to acquire any information about someone’s online identity without first obtaining a judicial warrant.

“If they truly removed the warrantless access provisions of the bill, across the board, then we would be delighted to sit with the government and work with them on additional amendments that we would still be seeking, but that would be doable,” said Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, in an interview.

But C-30 in its present form will never become law.

The Conservatives’ law-and-order agenda has finally had a comeuppance. It was delivered by everyone who wants to be left alone online.

source; http://www.pinewswire.net via http://www.theglobeandmail.com

Is the Earth a Sentient Living Organism? New Study May Provide the Proof

Posted: 16th May 2012 by KiPnews in Natural events & Meteorology
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            Is the Earth a Sentient Living Organism? New Study May Provide the Proof

 Is the Earth a giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land — interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous theory.

The Gaia hypothesis — first articulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s — holds that Earth’s physical and biological processes are inextricably connected to form a self-regulating, essentially sentient, system.

One of the early predictions of this hypothesis was that there should be a sulfur compound made by organisms in the oceans that was stable enough against oxidation in water to allow its transfer to the air. Either the sulfur compound itself, or its atmospheric oxidation product, would have to return sulfur from the sea to the land surfaces.

The most likely candidate for this role was deemed to be dimethyl sulfide.

Newly published work done at the University of Maryland by first author Harry Oduro, together with UMD geochemist James Farquhar and marine biologist Kathryn Van Alstyne of Western Washington University, provides a tool for tracing and measuring the movement of sulfur through ocean organisms, the atmosphere and the land in ways that may help prove or disprove the controversial Gaia theory.

According to Oduro and his colleagues, this work presents the first direct measurements of the isotopic composition of dimethylsulfide and of its precursor dimethylsulfoniopropionate. These measurements reveal differences in the isotope ratios of these two sulfur compounds that are produced by macroalga and phytoplankton. These measurements (1) are linked to the compounds’ metabolism by these ocean organisms and (2) carry implications for tracking dimethylsulfide emissions from the ocean to the atmosphere.

Sulfur, the tenth most abundant element in the universe, is part of many inorganic and organic compounds.

Sulfur cycles sulfur through the land, atmosphere and living things and plays critical roles in both climate and in the health of organisms and ecosystems.

“Dimethylsulfide emissions play a role in climate regulation through transformation to aerosols that are thought to influence the earth’s radiation balance,” says Oduro, who conducted the research while completing a Ph.D. in geology & earth system sciences at Maryland and now is a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We show that differences in isotopic composition of dimethylsulfide may vary in ways that will help us to refine estimates of its emission into the atmosphere and of its cycling in the oceans.”

As with many other chemical elements, sulfur consists of different isotopes.

All isotopes of an element are characterized by having the same number of electrons and protons but different numbers of neutrons.

Therefore, isotopes of an element are characterized by identical chemical properties, but different mass and nuclear properties. As a result, it can be possible for scientists to use unique combinations of an element’s radioactive isotopes as isotopic signatures through which compounds with that element can be traced.

“What Harry did in this research was to devise a way to isolate and measure the sulfur isotopic composition of these two sulfur compounds,” says Farquhar, a professor in the University of Maryland’s department of geology. “This was a very difficult measurement to do right, and his measurements revealed an unexpected variability in an isotopic signal that appears to be related to the way the sulfur is metabolized.

“Harry’s work establishes that we should expect to see variability in the sulfur isotope signatures of these compounds in the oceans under different environmental conditions and for different organisms. I think this will ultimately be very important for using isotopes to trace the cycling of these compounds in the surface oceans as well as the flux of dimethylsulfide to the atmosphere. The ability to do this could help us answer important climate questions, and ultimately better predict climate changes. And it may even help us to better trace connections between dimethylsulfide emissions and sulfate aerosols, ultimately testing a coupling in the Gaia hypothesis,” Farquhar says.

This study appears in this week’s Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

The Daily Galaxy 

MIMIC: Artificial Immune System Developed To Test Vaccines and Drugs

Posted: 16th May 2012 by KiPnews in Health & Nutrition
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The development and testing of vaccines and medicines is a long and expensive process, but it is a process that is needed to keep people healthy and to prevent diseases.

Now, researchers at Sanofi Pasteur, a prominent vaccine manufacturer, have published new research that has the potential to streamline this process through the development of an artificial immune system.

Artificial Immune System

This biomimetic model of the human immune system is called the Modular Immune In vitro Construct,  also known as the MIMIC® system – in various studies, this system has shown that it produces human response profiles, and has also been able to produce human immune responses from drugs and vaccines that cannot be duplicated in experimental animals.

The system consists of 96 individual wells, each of which represents a human immune system, and has been described as a clinical trial that doesn’t put humans at risk for potential adverse side effects. How the MIMIC system works is best explained through this video, provided by Sanofi Pasteur.

Sweet Smelling Danger? Toxins in Burning Candles, Candle Wicks, and Incense

Posted: 14th May 2012 by KiPnews in Health & Nutrition
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When Cathy Flanders, 41, of Plano, Texas, started burning candles for their pleasant smell in the spring of 1997, it never occurred to her she could be poisoning her family.

Three years, a serious illness, and a lawsuit later, Flanders has a lesson to share with anyone buying scented candles: Watch out for metal wicks.

Lead emitted by this type of candle is a serious health hazard.

“Candles are fast becoming one of the most common unrecognized causes of poor indoor air quality,” says Diane Walsh Astry, Executive Director of the Health House Project, an American Lung Association education project in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Flanders’ woes started when Cathy was shopping at a clothing store and spotted some candles whose labels promised to fill her house with the pleasant fragrances of “winter” and “spring.” Within six months of burning the candles, she noticed soot damage around her house.

But Cathy didn’t pinpoint the source of the problem until after Ron Bailey of Bailey Engineering in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, analyzed the Flanders’ candles and discovered lead emissions.

Around that time, 11-year-old Andrew Flanders’ grades dropped precipitously. His teacher wondered if he had attention deficit disorder. When blood tests revealed an elevated level of lead, the Flanders promptly sent him to live with his aunt.

“The lead deposits in our home are such that we could not sell the house if we wanted to,” says Flanders. As for the candles, the doctor ordered a total ban.

Testing revealed the lead level in the Flanders’ home to be 40 milligrams per square foot — 27 times the limit allowed in Housing and Urban Development homes.

Aromatherapy
The Flanders aren’t the only ones falling victim to pleasant-smelling candles with toxic wicks.

Candle sales in general have skyrocketed in recent years, according to the National Candle Association in Washington D.C., from $500 million in 1995 to $2.3 billion in 1999. Part of the candle craze may be due to new interest in aromatherapy, a type of alternative medicine in which odors are used for relaxation or to treat illness.

Ironically, the very candles sometimes used for aromatherapy can cause serious health problems. The chief culprits are candles with wicks made with metal cores.

“Some candle makers use metal-core wicks because cotton wicks are often limp and fall over into the wax, extinguishing the flame,” explains Jerome O. Nriagu, Ph.D., a professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who has studied scented candles.

Lead poisoning can lead to behavior changes and damage internal organs, especially the kidneys. Cathy’s husband, Kip, had his gall bladder removed because of an illness he blames on the candles.

Metal Wicks
Nriagu measured the lead released from 14 brands of candles. He found that burning four metal-wick candles for two hours can result in airborne lead concentrations that pose a threat to human health. People with weak immune systems, including children and the elderly, are particularly at risk.

“Besides breathing lead fumes, children can be exposed to even more lead that is deposited on the floor, furniture, and walls because they often put their hands in their mouths,” says Nriagu.

After similar research in Australia, lead wicks in candles were banned there in September 1999. But despite the urging of experts like Nriagu, the candles are still legal in the United States.

Not all candles — or even all scented candles — cause hazardous pollution.

But since labels won’t tell which ones are safe, Astry and other candle experts offer this advice:

Watch out for shiny metal wire inside the wicks of candles. Opt for pure paper or cotton instead.

Keep wicks trimmed to one-quarter inch for more complete combustion, and keep candles out of drafts.

Windiness blows more toxins into the air and causes inefficient burning.

Watch out for slow-burning candles with additives. (These candles often feel greasy to the touch.) Instead, look for pure beeswax candles, which emit less pollution.

For aromatherapy, put a few drops of scented oil in a defuser — a tray made to fit on a lightbulb. Or you can put the drops into some boiling water.

Don’t use candles in jars when the candle leaves a soot ring on the jar’s lip.

The soot may be an indication of lead dust.

Andrew Flanders, now 14, has moved back home. And the family is still hopeful their lawsuit will win compensation from the store that sold them the candles. But no matter what the result of the suit, Cathy only wishes she’d had some whiff of the danger when she first spotted those innocent-looking candles among the racks of shirts and pants.

Some Candles Emit Dangerous Levels Of Lead
Daily University Science News
07-Oct-1999

A University of Michigan School of Public Health study of candles purchased from stores in southeast Michigan shows that some candles on the market today are made with wicks that have either lead or lead cores that emit potentially dangerous levels of lead into the air.

The study is by Jerome Nriagu, a professor of environmental health sciences, who examined lead emissions from 15 different brands of candles made in the United States, Mexico and China.

He also examined the concentration levels of lead that lingered in the air in an enclosed space, such as a room measuring 12 feet by 12 feet and 10 feet high, after one hour and then again for five hours.

Nriagu’s study showed that lead emission rates for the candles ranged between 0.5 and 327 micrograms per hour.

After burning the candle for one hour, the lead levels in the air of an enclosed space were estimated to range from 0.04 to 13.1 micrograms per cubic meter, which compares to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommendation of 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter for ambient air. After one hour, five of the candles Nriagu tested emitted unsafe levels of lead into the air that measured greater than 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter.

After five hours, the lead levels in an enclosed space ranged from an estimated 0.21 to 65.3 micrograms per cubic meter.

Candles produced in China and the United States released the highest levels of lead into the air.

Regular exposure to lead in this manner in confined spaces could pose health risks to people with weak immune systems, especially children and the elderly, Nriagu said.

“Lead poisoning remains one of the most serious environmental health diseases in this country and other parts of the world. It affects many organ systems and biochemical processes with the most serious sequelae often occurring in the central nervous, cardiovascular and blood systems,” Nriagu said.

Nriagu’s findings are consistent with an Australian study due to be published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

In that study, Mike van Alphen of Lead Sense, an independent consultancy in Australia involved in environmental lead testing, lead exposure investigations and consumer product testing, examined a single brand of candle sold in Australia. The candle he examined released up to 1,130 micrograms of lead per hour.

Studies have shown that the central nervous system of children is particularly sensitive to lead.

Some of the most damaging neuropsychological effects of lead poisoning of young children include learning disabilities, reduced psychometric intelligence and behavioral disorders. These effects have been associated with chronic low-level exposure to lead and are believed to be irreversible.

Nriagu’s study measured the rate of lead emission in a laboratory setting using a flux chamber. The lead released as candle fume was collected in nitric acid and analyzed by means of an atomic absorption spectrometer. In addition to measuring emission rates, he calculated concentration levels of lead in the air in an enclosed space after one hour and then again, for five hours.

“The half-life of lead in air obviously would make a difference in terms of it being inhaled. A recent study has shown that particles emitted by candles during a normal burn are sub-micron in size and should remain suspended in the atmosphere for some time.Even if a particle is deposited after only a short trajectory through the atmosphere, it adds to the lead burden in the house dust. Airborne lead represents a hazard in more ways than one,” Nriagu said.

House dust is widely recognized as a primary route of childhood lead exposure through hand-to-mouth activities.

“Assuming that only 50 percent of the lead released is deposited in an area measuring 12 feet by 15 feet (such as a living room), we estimate that the loading of the lead to house dust will exceed the U.S. EPA guideline of 100 micrograms per square meter by burning one of the Chinese candles for a few hours. Our data thus shows that burning leaded candles can result in extensive contamination of the air and house dust with lead,” Nriagu said.

In general, Nriagu found that metal cores in Chinese candles were made of either pure lead or lead alloy while those made in the United States or Mexico consisted of zinc or lead-containing alloys. Lead was detected in small quantities in emissions from zinc-based wicks, suggesting that the lead may be a common contaminant in the zinc, wick or wax. The levels of lead were small, but still may represent a health risk over a long period of time.

Not all candles are made with wicks that have metallic cores.

The practice is primarily used with candles that are needed to burn longer, such as scented or ceremonial candles.

A metal core is used to provide rigidity to the wick which provides an even and slower burn rate, and to reduce the mushrooming at the tip. Since lead and its alloys melt at relatively low temperature, a large fraction of the wick core material is volatilized as the candle is burned.

“Because it is costly and difficult to control lead once it is released to the environment and medical treatment does not fully reverse the health effects, the optimal strategy for minimizing the risk involves the reduction or elimination of exposure in various forms. This study shows that there are still other important domestic sources of lead exposure that have escaped public scrutiny and legislative control. Leaded candles were recently banned in Australia, and we recommend a similar action in this country,” Nriagu said.

Incense and Other Sources of Indoor Pollution
Along with candle wicks and certain types of candle wax, and aromatics used in fragranced household and aromatherapy products, there are other point-sources of pollution in the home that may cause health problems in those who are already suffering from neurocognitive, respiratory, cardiovascular and immune disorders, as well as put young children, the elderly, and pets at risk for health disorders.

Some abstracts of interest from PubMed:

Real-time monitoring of particles, PAH, and CO in an occupied townhouse.
Appl Occup Environ Hyg 2000 Jan;15(1):39-47

Investigations of the proximity effect for pollutants in the indoor environment.
Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 1999 Nov-Dec;9(6):602-21

Effects of indoor environmental factors on respiratory health of children in a subtropical climate.
Environ Res 1997 Oct;75(1):49-55. Of possible concern to those with pets kept in humid rooms (or enclosures in rooms) in which incense is burned regularly.

Physical characterization of incense aerosols.
Sci Total Environ 1996 Dec 20;193(2):149-58

Indoor sources of mutagenic aerosol particulate matter: smoking, cooking and incense burning.
Mutat Res 1991 Sep;261(1):21-8

From Other National Institutes Of Health Sites

Toxicology and Carcinogenesis Studies of Isobutyl Nitrite (CAS No. 542-56-3) in F344 Rats and B6C3F1 Mice (Inhalation Studies)

source; http://www.anapsid.org

Noam Chomsky – The Purpose of Education

Posted: 13th May 2012 by KiPnews in Documentary, Legal Science, Psychology
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Noam Chomsky discusses the purpose of education, impact of technology, whether education should be perceived as a cost or an Noam Chomsky en 2004investment and the value of standardised assessment.

 

 

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