Jim Kunstler : "Attention Deficit Nation"

The American public's failure to pay attention reached supernatural levels this week as our mass media gloated over falling gasoline prices to pre-hurricane levels. The news media took this to mean that all the end-of-the-summer trouble is over with and things can now get back to normal. What they failed to notice is this: Europe has been sending us 2 million barrels of crude oil and "refined product" a day from its collective strategic petroleum reserve.

Now, the important part of all this is that last week the International Energy Agency (IEA), Europe's energy security watchdog, declared that it would now end the 2 million barrel a day shipments to the US. After all, it is Europe's strategic reserve and they can't sell it all to us because, well, some strategic emergency might come up for them, too ...

Eco-Cities in China

slashdot.org -> observer.guardian.co.uk :

British engineers will this week sign a multi-billion contract with the Chinese authorities to design and build a string of 'eco-cities' - self-sustaining urban centres the size of a large western capital - in the booming country. Arup, the London-based consulting firm that has already signed up for one such project near Shanghai, will announce it has clinched a deal to extend the concept into a string of cities around China.

The eco-cities are regarded both as a prototype for urban living in over-populated and polluted environments and as a magnet for investment funds into the rapidly growing Chinese economy.

The Dongtan development, on an island in the mouth of the Yangtze river near Shanghai, aims to build a city three-quarters the size of Manhattan by 2040. The first phase will accommodate some 50,000 people. It is on target to be open by the time of the Shanghai Expo trade fair in 2010.

- The environmental problems currently faced by the Chinese are well-documented :

How toxic is your bathroom?

libertyforum.org -> ewg.org :

Be warned: your daily beauty regime could be taking years off your life. Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an unprecedented warning to the cosmetics industry that it was time to inform consumers that most personal care products have not been safety tested. What concerns scientists is the "cocktail effect" - the daily mixing of many different types of toxins in and on the body - and how this might damage health over the longer term.

On average, we each use nine personal care products a day containing 126 different ingredients. Absorbed into the body, they can be stored in fatty tissue or organs such as the liver, kidney, reproductive organs and brain. Medical research is proving that fragrances can trigger asthma; that the detergents in shampoos can damage eye tissue; and that hair-dye chemicals can cause bladder cancer and lymphoma.

If these problems had been linked to pharmaceutical drugs, the products would have been taken off the market. At the very least, money would have been spent on safety studies. But because the cosmetics industry is largely self-governing, and because we all want to believe in the often hollow promises of better skin and whiter teeth, products containing potentially harmful substances remain in use and on sale.

- This is a landmark study - pay heed! Time to review those toiletries. The last time the same group released a similar report about a couple of years back, it was regarding Teflon, which have prompted us to get rid of all our Teflon-coated cooking utensils - pots, pans, trays - everything, replacing them with stainless-steel and glass equivalents, and advising others to do the same. See links below.

(2005-11-08 00:19:41 SGT) [Env] Permalink

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