16 April 2003 By Athena Jones, Environmental News Network-Reuters

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Natural-gas-powered cars have long been preferred by cabbies who spend hours on city streets here, and these days, they can also be spotted among Argentina's smart set after an economic collapse made them a cheap, yet chic, choice.

Businessmen in suits and sedans are lining up at filling stations around Buenos Aires for CNG (compressed natural gas), and lines for the fuel were 50 cars deep along the highways leading to beaches this summer.

Argentina, with the third-biggest natural gas reserves in Latin America after Bolivia and Venezuela, is spearheading the use of CNG in vehicles and leads the world in the number of natural-gas cars with about 800,000.

The economic crisis here has had the unexpected effect of helping the environment. The fuel is cheap, clean burning, and produces fewer harmful emissions than gasoline or diesel. CNG cars today make up 15 percent of Argentina's personal vehicles.

The drive to use an abundant national resource as fuel in Argentina echoes similar attempts in Brazil, the world's No. 1 sugar producer, to encourage the use of cane-based ethanol to cut pollution and reduce dependence on oil, even though both countries are oil producers.

"It's got some potential. It's one piece of a very large puzzle. It has a lot of application in areas where there's a lot of natural gas," said Jed Bailey, a director of research for Latin America at Cambridge Energy Research. "And Argentina has the infrastructure for it."

Argentina also has a new economic reality after the January 2002 peso devaluation pumped up dollar-based gasoline and diesel prices more than 30 percent.

"It's less expensive. I'd say I save 20 to 30 pesos a day," said Luis, who drives as part of his work for an energy company.

His investment two months ago to outfit his silver Peugeot to run on CNG has already saved him about 1,500 pesos (US$515), about 200 pesos more than it cost to convert the motor.

Argentina's government has also jumped on the bandwagon, promoting natural gas use to cut costs in public transportation.

Some here argue compressed gas is the fuel of the future. Argentina's Chamber of Compressed Natural Gas, which joins providers and equipment makers, is at work on a Latin American project to unify standards to create a continent-wide network that can later be taken to other parts of the world.

"There's a revolution going on in the energy sector that developed countries aren't taking notice of. Developed countries are betting on the fuel cell idea, but that's for some 20 years from now," said chamber member Gregorio Kopyto.

NATURAL GAS AROUND THE WORLD

Compressed gas is being promoted for use in vehicles in India, South Korea, and Thailand, where it is seen as a good way to reduce oil imports in a region where crude oil reserves are small but gas reserves are high in several countries.

Engineers in Italy have been working on a scooter that runs on natural gas. The fuel has also seen increased use in the United States in vehicle fleets such as school and city buses, police cars, and airport ground service vehicles, according to U.S. government and private sector reports.

Argentina exports natural gas vehicle technology to Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and the chamber plans to help host a natural gas vehicles conference in Buenos Aires in 2004.

For natural gas to be a workable alternative fuel, it must be widely available and the proper infrastructure must be in place. Creating a network of natural gas stations and converting vehicles may not be cost-effective in some places.

"You have to make it convenient enough for people to want to do it, and it can't be so prohibitively expensive that they won't," said Linda Doman, an expert for international issues at the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration. "You have to have a certain amount of gas stations; otherwise people couldn't drive very far," Doman said.

Argentina opened its first compressed gas station in 1984 and now has 1,100 outlets in 17 provinces, making it available to a majority of its 5.4 million car owners. About 110,000 cars were converted last year alone.

The local Fiat , Volkswagen, and Peugeot units make CNG cars that also run on gasoline. A natural-gas car costs about 10 percent more than the standard version, a Volkswagen spokesman said. The fuel is stored in a metal cylinder that can take up much of the trunk.

GAS AND GOVERNMENT

A bill that would require that all public transportation run on the fuel and provide incentives for the gas sector is wending its way through Congress.

"To keep bus tickets at the current level, the state is subsidizing diesel prices, which is costing around 20 million pesos a month ($6.9 million)," Energy Secretary Enrique Devoto said in an interview after the bill was presented. "The cost difference would allow us to, for a short time, use the subsidy to fit the bus motors to run on compressed gas. That would lower costs by half and make it possible to maintain accessible ticket prices."

The savings are key for the cash-strapped government, where a deep recession led to the biggest ever sovereign debt default last year. Using the fuel could also limit inflation, as the peso has lost about 70 percent in value since devaluation.

CNG costs 60 percent less than the cheapest gasoline at the station where Luis filled his tank, run by Repsol YPF .

Natural gas is just one of many alternative fuels, along with liquefied petroleum gas, methanol, solar energy, biodiesel, hydrogen, and electricity.

Whether it is the wave of the future or not, the fuel is likely to remain a focus of efforts to reduce dependence on costly oil in Argentina — and one welcomed by those watching their wallets.

"I travel a lot of kilometers (miles), and I spend a lot less — at least 30 or 35 percent less," said cab driver Miguel Angel Granja, who converted his car as soon as the option became available. "I have to fill the tank three times a day, but it's still cheaper than diesel."

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SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge yesterday temporarily blocked the Bush administration from relaxing rules dictating whether cans of tuna can be labeled "dolphin safe," suggesting new labeling rules could lead to more injuries and deaths among dolphins that swim with tuna.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, in issuing a preliminary injunction, wrote that the decision to change the dolphin-safe definition appears to have been influenced more by international-trade policies than scientific evidence.

Allegations in a lawsuit filed by Earth Island Institute, Henderson wrote, "raise a serious question as to the integrity of the (Commerce Secretary Donald Evans') decision-making process."

Although Evans "wisely refrained" from mentioning trade-policy concerns as justification for the new label rules, the judge said there is "little doubt" that he faced pressure from Secretary of State Colin Powell to liberalize the rules, as requested by fishing fleets in Mexico, Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced in December it was altering the rules at the request of foreign fishing fleets that said they need the dolphin-safe label to compete in the U.S. market and vowed not to use the label on tuna catches that result in known dolphin deaths.

Reuters 7 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT Website: www.ifrc.org

Clean water is an increasingly scarce commodity in many parts of the world. The United Nations has designated 2003 the International Year of Freshwater. In March, professionals in the water supply and sanitation field met in Kyoto, Japan, for the third World Water Forum. On the occasion of World Water Day (WWD) on March 22, Panama-based Fidel Peña of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) discussed the issues with AlertNet.

AN: What is World Water Day about? FP: It is about keeping the issue of water shortages in the public eye. WWD is a reminder to our national (Red Cross) societies, governments and the public that the problem is a great one. On March 22 every year we send out that reminder for people to take care of our scarce water supplies. This year it is especially important because the U.N. has declared access to clean water a human right. We want governments to know that.

AN: What is the IFRC's role in World Water Day? FP: WWD is a U.N. initiative. We are adding our voice to that of the U.N. and the other agencies involved in the launch of the initiative. It is something we have been involved in every year. Here in the Americas we are doing two types of work. One in the field with our national societies who are currently involved in emergency operations or those that have development programmes for water supply and sanitation. We are also working with them to help make the whole issue a lot more high-profile. We help them with press conferences, promotions and events to celebrate this day. We try to do it at community level firstly, because that is where most of our work happens, but we also work with universities and governments.

AN: What is the work you are doing in universities? FP: We have agreements with universities to provide technical education in exchange for students who will work with us in the field to get experience. Apart from those groups we also work very closely with other NGOs like Oxfam and Médecins sans Frontières and, usually, we establish contact with governments and link up so we can run our programmes together.

AN: How long have you been involved in this type of work? FP: Personally I have worked with the Red Cross for 18 years, since I was 20 years old. I am a chemical engineer by trade but have been with the federation three years as the water and sanitation delegate. In Mexico, I spent six years working in a water institute. It is not huge experience but we are trying to do our best. The federation started work on water sanitation in the African crisis of 1993. But our projects have intensified over the last four years. Here in the Americas we started our first big operations in 1999 following Hurricane George and Hurricane Mitch in Central America and the landslides and floods.

AN: What is it like in areas where water supplies are bad? FP: It is very sad. I have been to areas of Paraguay where there is no water for the crops or cattle. You see the crops ruined and the cattle starving. The people are mainly indigenous Indians and they have lived on their land for generations and don't want to leave. The conditions force them to use unsanitary water and that leads to problems with dysentery, malaria and diarrhoea.

AN: Do you think your work has made a difference? FP: Yes. In two ways. It has increased the capacity of response of our national societies. Ten years ago, societies such as Colombia, Paraguay and Venezuela did not think they could do anything about the problems of water and sanitation but now they all have programmes running. Not only in emergency response, but rehabilitation and development also. Secondly, with the community. Our main task is to get in touch with the community. Together with our national societies, local governments and other NGOs we assist in more integrated programmes.

AN: When will your work be finished? FP: It is not easy to answer that question We want to have safe drinking water and proper sanitation for all the vulnerable people we are assisting. But it is a very big problem.

AN: Just how big is the problem of unsanitary water supplies? FP: We have found that less than three percent of the world's water is drinkable. In Latin America, there are at least 55 million people that don't have access to clean water. On a daily basis they need a minimum of 15 litres a day in an emergency situation. Sometimes it is difficult to reach that target but we are trying. In emergency cases we will bring in clean water to disaster areas but we are keen to help local people develop sustainable boreholes, wells and simple water distribution systems, for example gravity distribution. But we do not just want to deal with emergency responses and giving water to the people. We are trying to increase their capacity so they have systems they can manage. When we are with communities that have the chance to develop their water systems we always look at the situation very carefully and try to give them that chance.

AN: What is your particular role in the IFRC? FP: I am the regional delegate for water and sanitation in the Pan Americas. I am part of a bigger section of the IFRC's health department. In the federation's Geneva headquarters there are four engineers, and there are four regional delegates -- in Bangkok, Harare, Nairobi and me here in Panama.

AN: The U.N.'s Millennium Development Goal is to halve the number of people without access to clean water by 2015 and stop the unsustainable exploitation of water supplies. Do you think that is feasible? FP: No, unfortunately not. It is not really achievable but we are trying to do everything possible to reach that target. The world has changed since the targets were set -- the global climate for example. This causes different problems. There are more floods, hurricanes and droughts and we have to change to meet those needs.

Planetark.org BRAZIL: March 31, 2003

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Environmental activists reacted angrily last week to a Brazilian government measure allowing the sale of genetically modified soybeans, while farmers were worried about its terms and temporary nature.

Traders said the measure dispelled uncertainty about marketing of this year's record harvest and would boost trade in Rio Grande do Sul, the No.3 soy producer state in Brazil, which is the world's second largest soy producer and exporter.

About 80 percent of the soy crop in Rio Grande and 12 percent of the national crop is privately estimated to be transgenic.

"It's a serious attack on Brazilian justice," said Greenpeace genetics campaigner Mariana Paoli.

Transgenic crops are banned in Brazil while a federal court considers whether the government's commission on biotechnology, CTNBio, has the authority to approve their commercial planting and sale.

On Wednesday, the president's spokesman said that a provisional measure would be published last week allowing GM soybeans to be sold until the end of Jan. 2004.

Paoli charged that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government had broken an election pledge to adopt a precautionary approach toward GM crops, carry out environmental impact studies and stop illegal planting.

"The worst thing is that the government is now allowing domestic sales of GM soy, Brazilians will be consuming a product that hasn't received either health or environmental approval," Paoli said.

PRODUCER CONCERN

Producers, while pleased that GM soybeans could be marketed this year, were unhappy about labeling requirements and worried about the future.

"It won't be easy to fulfill the provisional measure because nobody is ready to segregate the harvest," said Rui Polidoro Pinto, President of the Agricultural and Livestock Cooperatives of Rio Grande do Sul (Fecoagro).

Pinto complained that the process of certification, involving the segregation of conventional and GM soybeans, starts before planting, but harvesting has already started.

He also noted that 25 percent of Rio Grande do Sul's soy crop had been sold in advance without definition of the type of grain.

The president of the Rio Grande do Sul Agricultural Federation (Farsul), Carlos Sperotto, agreed.

"We aren't equipped to segregate and label," he said, adding that arrangements for 2004 must be debated widely in congress and the courts.

Farm workers were apprehensive.

"It only applies for this harvest. We want a wide debate to fix clear rules for next year," said Elisario Toledo of the Federation of Agricultural Workers of Rio Grande (Fetag), noting that there were 142,000 soybean growers in the state.

Rio Grande do Sul is expected to produce 7.8 million tonnes of soybeans in 2002/03, up 39 percent from last crop season, according to the government's crop supply agency Conab. It forecast the national crop rising 18 percent to 49.6 million tonnes.

Soy traders said that at this late stage in the crop cycle, the government had no option but to allow the marketing of transgenic soybeans in 2003.

"Harvesting has already started in Rio Grande and banning GM soy now would hurt too many people," said a grain trading manager in the state capital Porto Alegre.

Uncertainty about government policy had brought soy trading to a virtual standstill in the southern state.

"It's been painfully slow. We're way behind last year," the manager said.

Analysts noted that six harvests of transgenic soybeans had been marketed in Rio Grande do Sul without problem or publicity.

"However GM soy has now become a soap opera," said Anderson Galvao Gomes, soy analyst at Celeres-MPrado.

Story by Peter Blackburn

Environmental News Network 03 April 2003

Adapted by Cameron Walker and Victoria Schlesinger, edited by Kathleen M. Wong, California Academy of Sciences

Fish Populations May Be Suffocating

Low oxygen conditions could be cramping the reproductive capabilities of fish. A report in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology suggests that oxygen deficiency, or hypoxia, may be as harmful to watery creatures as pesticides or toxic metals.

Rudolf Wu of the City University of Hong Kong and colleagues raised carp under hypoxic conditions; the oxygen-starved fish developed smaller sexual organs and lower hormone levels than carp raised with normal oxygen levels. In addition, only 5 percent of the larvae from the low-oxygen carp survived, compared to 90 percent of normal fish larvae.

Low oxygen conditions can be a problem when nutrient levels rise, boosting algae growth and further sapping available dissolved oxygen. Wu says that hypoxic "dead zones" in the world's waterways, such as the one off Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico, could severely threaten populations of fish and possibly other aquatic species.

Drought Dried Out the Mayans

Studies of soils may have unearthed another clue to the Mayans' mysterious demise. The prosperous Central American society collapsed suddenly between the years 800 and 910. Theories about the cause of their downfall have ranged from overpopulation to climate change.

Now the most detailed sediment analysis ever conducted near the Mayans' main population centers indicate a long dry spell and three severe droughts may have brought the civilization to its knees.

Gerald H. Haug, now at Potsdam's Geoscience Center, and colleagues sampled sediments from the Cariaco Basin off the coast of northern Venezuela. The researchers tallied levels of titanium, an element which fluctuates with rainfall levels, to uncover three periods of low rainfall on the Yucatan peninsula. They report in the journal Science that these droughts match up with archeological records, suggesting that the population suffered three waves of collapse during the same time frame.

First Footprints Fled Disaster

The oldest known human footprints have been found preserved in ash on the side of a volcano in southern Italy. Paolo Mietto of Italy's University of Padua and colleagues say the 56 footprints were left by people fleeing a volcanic eruption 325,000 years ago.

The prints head away from the volcano's center and indicate those who made them were in a tearing hurry. Three humans around five feet tall slid, side-stepped, and rushed down the steep, 80-degree pitch of the mountain.

The scientists, who published their findings in the journal Nature, say it's impossible to determine whether the tracks were left by people of the Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis persuasion. One thing they are certain of, however, is that the trails were left by hominids who walked on two legs. While these may be the earliest known human footprints, fossilized hominid prints discovered in the 1970s date back more than 3 million years.

The Battle of the Birds

The bird world's most adept freeloader, the cuckoo, has been outmaneuvered by one of its hosts. Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving host birds with the draining task of raising the parasitic chick. To make matters worse, cuckoo chicks often eject any nestlings from their rightful home.

Many birds have evolved to recognize cuckoo eggs. But once hatched, the impostors are usually home free. Now Rebecca Kilner of Cambridge University in England and others report in the journal Nature that they have for the first time found a host who can recognize parasitic cuckoo chicks.

The superb fairy-wrens of New South Wales, Australia, can discern the begging calls of Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo chicks 40 percent of the time — and let them starve. Yet the wren cannot recognize the cuckoo's eggs, which are almost identical to its own. Kilner says the lengthy breeding season in Australia may account for the wren's unique recognition ability. Once an alien chick is spotted, the wrens, unlike many other birds, have a chance to lay again.

In a case of evolution caught in action, cuckoo chicks are now learning to better mimic the calls of fairy wren chicks.

Ancient Speakers Clicking Along

The language of the San hunter gatherers of Southern Africa is replete with unusual clicking sounds. A new study has pointed out the ancient roots of these so-called click languages, suggesting that the sounds may have been part of the earliest forms of human language.

There are about 30 modern click languages, each with a set of four or five click sounds; most are spoken by people in southern Africa. One of these click-speaking peoples, the Ju|'hoansis', are known to have extremely ancient origins.

Geneticists Alec Knight and Joanna Mountain from Stanford University traced the genetic lineages of one of the few click language groups in East Africa and have concluded that the split between the east African group and the Ju|'hoansis' might be the oldest known division in the human population. Because both groups speak a click language, these unique sounds were likely present in the language of their common ancestor. While geneticists still debate the exact timing of this split as well as why the click languages have remained in use, it's clear that clicks might clue modern listeners in to the sounds of the ancients.

Risky Radiation Levels Discovered on Mars

Any future settlers on Mars will need to stay under cover. New information collected by the unmanned spacecraft Odyssey suggest that radiation levels on Mars are high enough to harm anyone living on the planet's surface.

High levels of radiation are present throughout the galaxy, but Earth's thick atmosphere and strong magnetosphere block most of the cancer-causing energy from reaching our planet's surface. By contrast, astronauts on a mission to Mars would surpass their radiation exposure limits in only three years. Some scientists conclude that radiation levels on Mars are so high that even extraterrestrial organisms would need to hunker down underground.

Other immediate dangers on the planet's surface would include periodic bursts of intense sun radiation not deflected by Mars' thin atmosphere. Each of these storms would require astronauts and their vehicles to take shelter for more than a week.