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Experts are frightened by a mass die-off of life along the Pacific Coast this year: plummeting fish populations, lots of dead birds on the beaches—and perhaps most worrisome, very little plankton, the tiny organisms that are a vital link in the ocean food chain.

“The bottom has fallen out of the coastal food chain, and there’s just not enough food out there,” said Julia Parrish, an ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Bird populations have fallen as much as 90 percent near San Francisco, with four times the usual number of dead seabirds. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found a 20 to 30 percent drop in juvenile salmon off the northern Pacific coast in the last two months alone.

Scientists believe rising ocean temperatures are making the area’s normal biological infrastructure break down—a phenomenon some attribute to climate change caused by pollution.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has issued a list of simple things Americans can do to slow down global warming, including using mass transit and pressuring their political leaders to promote clean energy.

“Warmer oceans may be killing West Coast marine life,” Seattle Times, July 13, 2005.
“Scientists puzzle over oddities along Pacific coast,” CNN, August 3, 2005.

Suicide a problem among returning vets

Two young soldiers recently returned from the Iraq war killed themselves in separate incidents in Killeen, Texas, while another returning soldier killed himself and his wife last Thursday, local newspapers reported.

Both Sgt. Robert Decouteaux, 24, and Spc. Robert Hunt, 22, were found dead in their Kileen apartments, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and asphyxiation. Both had recently returned from a year fighting in Iraq, and Decouteaux was scheduled to be sent back.

Private 1st Class Stephen S. Sherwood killed his wife and himself August 3 in Fort Carson, Colo., three weeks after returning from Iraq. The couple’s 8-year-old girl was staying with a neighbor at the time. He is the second Fort Carson soldier to commit suicide upon returning.

About a third of the veterans coming home from Iraq are returning with some sort of mental disorder, psychologist Edward Cable said.

“Soldier, wife die in apparent murder-suicide,” 9 News, Fort Carson, Colo., August 4, 2005.
“2 Iraq veterans stationed at Fort Hood kill themselves,” Associated Press, August 4, 2005.

Deaths “disappear” from accident-prone firm

Only seven months after 15 workers were killed in one of the worst workplace accidents in years, BP Amoco’s Texas City refinery was rocked by another explosion July 28.

No one was killed in this latest accident, but the plant has claimed dozens of lives in the last 20 years. The Public Information Awareness Group, a watchdog organization founded by Ralph Nader, reported last year that BP ranks first in workplace accidents, with 3,565 at its facilities since 1990.

Many such employee deaths, however, never show up on reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Houston Chronicle reported in May, for many of the workers are contractors—essentially, “temps.” Thus, the USBLS reported no refinery deaths in 2003 and 2004, because they were only counting non-temps.

“15th body pulled from refinery rubble,” Houston Chronicle, March 24, 2005.
“CSB releases photos of BP explosion,” Galveston News, July 31, 2005.
“Irresponsible Care,” U.S. PIRG report, April 2004.
“Murky stats mask plant deaths,” Houston Chronicle, May 16, 2005.

Texas schools teach urban legend as fact

Texas public schools have begun teaching Christian fundamentalist beliefs in their biology courses as an alternative to science. Textbooks for the curriculum include a long-standing urban legend, now taught as actual fact to students.

The new fundamentalist curriculum cites “documented research through NASA” as backing the Biblical story in Joshua 10:1-15. In the story, Joshua ordered “the sun to stand still … for about a day” so that he could finish slaughtering the Amorites at Gibeon. According to the urban legend, scientists at NASA discovered “a missing day” in the history of the solar system, and discovered that it matched the Book of Joshua.

The legend first appeared in 1936 and exploded in the age of e-mail, according to the urban legend watchdog site Snopes.com, but is completely false. No NASA scientists ever “discovered a missing day,” nor would such an occurrence be detectable after the fact. In addition, the sun cannot “stand still” in its course around the Earth, for it is the Earth that moves around the sun—a fact unknown to the ancient Hebrews.

“Bible Course Becomes a Test for Public Schools in Texas,” New York Times, August 1, 2005. www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.htm

Stop ‘crack baby’ myth, scientists urge

In the 1980s, media outlets carried sensational stories about so-called “crack babies,” stories later proven to be exaggerated. Now that mainstream media have begun carrying stories about “meth babies,” a coalition of scientists are urging them to quit.

During the “crack baby” scare, media widely reported that impoverished infants exposed to the then-new drug would suffer permanent intellectual and emotional inferiority, creating a “bio-underclass,” in the words of columnist Charles Krauthammer.

In 2001, however, a study of former “crack babies” “found no consistent, harmful relationship between prenatal cocaine exposure and physical growth, developmental test scores or receptive or expressive language.” Researchers found that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful to fetuses than cocaine, and that any problems the children experienced were probably because they were poor.

Now that “meth baby” and “ice baby” stories have gained popularity, a coalition of scientists have sent an open letter to major newspapers asking them not to revive “crack baby” myths or transfer them to another drug.

“Crack baby theory questioned,” the Daily Free Press, April 11, 2001.
“Newsbrief: Doctors, Scientists Urge Media to End ‘Crack Baby’ Myth,” August 5, 2005.

GOP judge attacked for backing human rights

After sentencing Al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ressam to 22 years in prison last week, Ninth Circuit Court Judge John Coughenour was promptly attacked in the mainstream media as a “threat.”

What angered many elite pundits was that Coughenour, a conservative appointed by Ronald Reagan, said that Americans must fight terrorism without eliminating legal freedoms.

“... our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart,” Coughenour said. “We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections ... [the trial] occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.

“Unfortunately, some believe that this threat [of terrorism] renders our Constitution obsolete,” Coughenour added. “… If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won.”

Elite media pundits immediately attacked Coughenour for such opinions. Pundit Michelle Malkin accused the judge of being a “terrorists’ little helper.”

FOX News pundit Hugh Hewitt accused Coughenour of inviting terrorists to “try and kill us,” and suggested he should be called to testify before Congress for his remarks.

“Ressam sentenced to 22 years in prison,” Seattle Times, July 27, 2005.
michellemalkin.com/archives/003123.htm
hughhewitt.com/archives/2005/07/24-week/index.php#a000024

Town finds success with clean energy

When Soldier’s Grove, Wisc., was smashed by floods in the 1970s—their second flood in 20 years—the residents decided to rebuild smarter. Instead of building levees around their community, as most river towns did, they moved to higher ground, remaking the river bottom into a wildlife area that cushioned the effects of flooding. Residents also rebuilt their homes using mostly solar power.

Three decades later, the townspeople have remained largely immune to years of rising energy prices and blackouts. Moreover, the town remains more prosperous than most Midwestern towns, because using local clean energy kept energy dollars from flowing out of the town.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Operation Fresh Start, dedicated to sustainable redevelopment of disaster-struck locations, recently issued a report praising the town as a success story.

www.worldchanging.com/archives/003233.html

Feds uphold ban on talking to co-workers

Most of us have regularly met with co-workers at a bar, coffee shop or union hall. Most of us have visited our co-workers’ houses at one time or another. Yet a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board allows employers to ban off-duty fraternizing among co-workers, in a move many blue-collar groups say violates the First Amendment.

The NLRB was considering a union’s suit against security firm Guardsmark, whose officials instituted a rule directing employees not to “fraternize on duty or off duty, date, or become overly friendly with the client’s employees or with co-employees.”

www.americanrightsatwork.org/workersrights/eye7_2005.cfm