The saga continues

The nuclear crisis is far from over. It was extremely depressing to read yesterday that the rating of the severity of the accident in Fukushima has been raised to 7, the worst on an international scale, to the same level as the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

A report in the New York Times reveals that:

The nearly monthlong delay in acknowledging the extent of these emissions is a fresh example of confused data and analysis from the Japanese, and put the authorities on the defensive about whether they have delayed or blocked the release of information to avoid alarming the public.

They wanted to avoid alarming the public? I mean, doesn't the public have the right to know, the right to have information in a timely manner? The public can decide for themselves whether they will be alarmed or not.

As I was reading an article in Conservation Magazine that discusses BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster last April, the description of what happened (i.e., how BP and the US government did not make public some vital information concerning the disaster) are strikingly similar:

For several weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig collapsed last April 18, nobody knew how much oil the busted wellhead was releasing into the Gulf of Mexico—only that the quantity was huge. Without that critical data point, there was no way to gauge the growing size or potential impact of the disaster. Yet the people in charge of stopping the gusher seemed curiously uninterested in knowing the extent of the damage. BP declined to provide any estimate of the volume of oil erupting into the sea, saying it made no difference in their plans to cap the well or clean up the spill, while NOAA offered only a single estimate of 5,000 barrels per day.

The lack of reliable information on an enormous, unfolding disaster made little sense to many scientists and engineers following the news...

... Large-scale disasters almost always overwhelm government agencies. Bureaucracies are accustomed to moving slowly. And when they try to move fast, they hit red tape, turf conflicts, and political obstacles. And large oil companies (or other private organizations) will safeguard their own interests before the public’s... Worse, to minimize political or economic fallout, those linked to a disaster often downplay the severity of the situation or spin it to their own ends.

It depresses me to no end that we seem to be incapable of learning from our mistakes.

Image taken from http://www-ns.iaea.org/tech-areas/emergency/ines.asp

Nuclear crisis continued

The past week has been a difficult one for me. I am surprised to find myself distracted very easily and frequently, making it difficult to concentrate on anything but the news in Japan. I think it is fortunate that we do not have cable TV. Last week I visited a Japanese friend who had her TV on to CNN, and during the short time I was there, horrific images were replayed over and over again. I am glad that I do not need to unnecessarily expose myself, and my daughter, to such violent images.

My primary information source is from the internet. The problem with the internet is that there is too much information available, and we never know what political or sensationalist agenda is behind each piece of information. The good thing about the internet is that we can find all different kinds of news and views. According to numerous internet sources, amounts of radioactive material have been detected in water, milk, and vegetables such as spinach, not only from Fukushima but in Tokyo, 220 km away. However, the Japanese government is informing the public that "the radiation levels exceeded the limits allowed by the government, but the products 'pose no immediate health risk'" (The Guardian, 19 March). According to the CNN, the World Health Organization has also declared that "short-term exposure to food contaminated by radiation from Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant poses no immediate health risk". But really, the question we should be asking ourselves is this: what is meant by "no immediate health risk"? What exactly are the reasoning behind these statements?

As an anthropologist who has documented the human environmental impact of nuclear weapons testing wrote in a commentary: "In this nuclear world, what is the meaning of 'safe'?" To quote a little more from her:

In a nuclear crisis, life becomes a nightmare for those people trying to make sense of the uncertainties. Imaginably, the questions are endless. Radiation is invisible, how do you know when you are in danger? How long will this danger persist? How can you reduce the hazard to yourself and family? What level of exposure is safe? How do you get access to vital information in time to prevent or minimize exposure? What are the potential risks of acute and chronic exposures? What are the related consequential damages of exposure? Whose information do you trust? How do you rebuild a healthy way of life in the aftermath of nuclear disaster? And the list of unknowns goes on. These questions are difficult to answer in the chaos and context of an ongoing disaster, and they become even more complicated by the fact that governments and the nuclear industry maintain tight control of information, operations, scientific research, and the biomedical lessons that shape public-health response. This regulation of information has been the case since the nuclear age began, and understanding this helps to illuminate why there is no clear consensus on what Japan's nuclear disaster means in terms of local and global human health.

Another worrisome development closer to home is this one: that "despite growing opposition sparked by the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan", Indonesia is proceeding with plans to build four nuclear reactors (IRIN, 21 March). This brings us to the question so aptly posed by an op-ed in The Washington Post: "If the competent and technologically brilliant Japanese can’t build a completely safe reactor, who can?"

But the Japanese, just like anyone else, make mistakes. Just this morning I read that people who had escaped in officially designated higher-ground shelters to escape the tsunamis were swept away, because such shelters were designed with 5.5m-high waves in mind, and the actual waves that engulfed the coasts of north-east Japan were up to 7.3m (JMA 2011). It's also reported that just a month prior, government regulators "approved a 10-year extension for the oldest of the six reactors at the power station" and that after the extension was granted, The Tokyo Electric Power Company admitted that "it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment related to the cooling systems, including water pumps and diesel generators, at the power station’s six reactors.

I do not know if humans are capable of building "completely safe" nuclear power plants. So long as humans are capable of making mistakes, I suspect not. I hope we do not have to face another nuclear disaster to find out.

A social-natural disaster

Ever since the massive earthquake hit north-eastern Japan on 11 March, my email and SMS inboxes have been flooded with concerns from friends and colleagues. Living in a country where hazards strike and often turn into devastating disasters, I am not surprised to hear expressions of concern coming from strangers--shop keepers that I meet for the first time, for example.

Fortunately, no family member or close friends have been hurt directly from the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami. My parents' dog may suffer from a urinary track infection, as his daily walks have been limited due to temporary stopping of the elevators in my parents' 26-storey apartment building in central Tokyo. Another family member living in Tokyo had to walk 4 hours to get home, as the train services were stopped. But these inconveniences are minor compared to the damage and suffering of people directly affected by the earthquake and tsunami. My thoughts are with them.

At the same time, I worry immensely about the developments surrounding the nuclear power plants in Fukushima. State of nuclear emergency has been called, with six reactors reportedly having difficulties with their cooling systems (14 March, Sydney Morning Herald). I am not sure if we should be consoled by comments from experts who say that a partial meltdown "is not a disaster" and a complete meltdown is not likely (14 March, Reuters). What bothers me is the conflicting and contradictory information I am seeing in the various media, in Japanese and in English. In addition to the confusion, there is obviously much covering-up going on, and the truth to the extent of damage may only be uncovered later.

Having lived in two of the top ten countries with a high reliance on nuclear energy (France gets nearly 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, while Japan's is 30%) (IAEA 2008), I cannot pretend to be a simple bystander to the whole issue.

The nuclear crisis in Japan is literally adding fuel to opposition to building of new reactors around the world (13 March, Beyond Nuclear). In Germany and Switzerland, plans to build or renew nuclear power plants are being and suspended (14 March, the Guardian).

The advantage of nuclear energy is that it does not produce smoke or carbon dioxide, so it does not emit greenhouse gasses (Darwill 2010). It has been touted by many a viable option to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. However, the question we should ask ourselves is this: do we want to resort to nuclear power to combat climate change?

In addition to problems such as environmental pollution (radioactive contamination and nuclear waste disposal) and concerns over safety such as those we are currently facing in Japan, the fundamental issue we should be considering is that “nuclear power is often nothing more than a way to avoid changing anything” (Solnit 2007). Nuclear power plants, like power plants that rely on fossil fuel, retain “the big infrastructure of centralized power production and […] the habits of obscene consumption that rely on big power”. Simply substituting nuclear with fossil fuel is not changing the fundamental problem we have: our increased need for energy.

Nearly ten years ago, I had a conversation with Prof Akio Morishima, former President of the Central Environmental Council of the Environment Agency of Japan. After learning that he spent much of his career fighting for victims of environmental pollution during Japan’s rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 70s, I was surprised to hear that he supported the development of nuclear energy. While admitting that nuclear energy is problematic, he asked, "but what are the alternatives?" The possibility that our increasing need for energy could be curbed had not occurred to him.

The challenge we thus face is this: to fundamentally change the way we live and suppress our insatiable energy use. Unless we do so, it is unlikely we can stop climate change. And that, in my opinion, is what makes climate change an extremely contentious issue.

I will be closely following the developments surrounding the nuclear power plants. This is a human-made disaster following a geological disaster.

Top photo taken from http://www.smh.com.au/environment/bigpics/japan-disaster, subtitled "Houses are swept by a tsunami in Natori City in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011".

Olive Nails

先日行ったネイルサロンは、Plaza Senayan の Sogo にある、Olive Nails 。現在 Sogo が改装中なので、１階の出入り口の近くというちょっとオープンなスペースにありましたが、改装が終わったら（おそらく）もうちょっと落ち着いた場所に移るのでしょう。韓国人の女性がオーナーで、印象としては、全てのスタッフがとてもきちんと訓練を受けている感じでした。ネイルのカラーを選ぶのも、センスのよい色をサジェストしてくれて、きれいな色に仕上げることができました。普通のマニキュアとペディキュアで、250,000 rp. 二人のスタッフが同時にやってくれるので、乾かす時間含めて１時間で終わるのがうれしいです。

それにしても、ネイルポリッシュやポリッシュリムーバーはとても体に悪い化学物質が使われていることが知られているでしょうか。私はあの臭いがとても嫌いで、閉め切ったサロンには行かないようにしています。アメリカの National Healthy Nail Salon Alliance のサイトにあるように、サロンでよく使われているもっとも体に悪い化学物質「the toxic trio」とは、トルエン（toluene）、ホルムアルデヒド（formaldehyde）とフタル酸ジブチル（Dibutyl phthalate: DBP）。このサイトからダウンロードできるガイドには、この３つの毒を使っていないネイルポリッシュのリストがあります。

Sogo にあった Olive Nails には、とてもお腹が大きい妊娠後期の女性が働いていました。上記の３つの化学物はとても体に悪く、特にトルエンは胎児への影響が心配されているようです。私が妊娠しているときは、ネイルサロンにもヘアサロンにも行きませんでしたが、これらのサロンで働いている女性達は誰が守ってくれるのでしょうか。本人が知らなく、サロンのオーナーも何もしなければ（害があることを知らないかもしれないし、知っていても何もしないかもしれない）、我々消費者が行動を起こさなければなりません。インドネシアでどのようなことができるのか、調べてみようと思っています。

The story of cosmetics: The ugly truth about personal care products

Finally, an up-beat, easy-to-digest, and non-preachy short film about toxic personal care products!



According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics,

The Story of Cosmetics, released on July 21, 2010 at storyofcosmetics.org, examines the pervasive use of toxic chemicals in our everyday personal care products, from lipstick to baby shampoo. Produced by Free Range Studios and hosted by Annie Leonard, the 7-minute film reveals the implications for consumer and worker health and the environment, and outlines ways we can move the industry away from hazardous chemicals and towards safer alternatives. The film concludes with a call for viewers to support legislation aimed at ensuring the safety of cosmetics and personal care products.

The main messages of this film are:

• many personal care products have chemicals ingredients that are toxic , including those that are linked to cancer or other problems like learning disabilities and asthma.
• less than 20% of all chemicals in cosmetics have been assessed for safety by the industry’s own safety panel.
• claims made on bottles (such as "organic" "natural") are meaningless (unless they are certified by a third party), as is clear when we actually take a look at all the ingredients listed on a product.
• No governmental entity (in this case, the Food and Drug Administration of the US) is making sure that the stuff in our personal care products is safe; the FDA doesn’t assess the safety of personal care products, nor their ingredients. Instead, it is "self-regulated" by the cosmetics companies themselves.
  

This is pretty depressing. But there are things we can do.

• protect ourselves by identifying the best possible choices in the store;
• take action: demand the government to pass laws/regulations to ensure that our personal care products are safe;
• but most important of all, don't fall into the trap that we must use lots of products (the average woman in the U.S. uses about 12 personal care products containing about 180 chemicals daily, while the average man, about 6 products containing about 85 chemicals) to feel beautiful.
  

I did say that the film is easy to understand, right?

Another thing I really appreciated about this film is that it doesn't take ages to download. Here in Jakarta, where the internet connections aren't top-speed, it can be pretty frustrating to try to watch YouTube and trailers of films.

After discovering this film, I have added The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics to my link list titled "Raising healthy children sustainably" on the right-hand side of this blog.

blowing up mountains

(photo taken from Orionmagazine.org, no copyright info available)

I laughed for a full minute when I read this header the other day: Science confirms that blowing up mountains harms mountains. Yes, the reason why Grist.org is one of my favourite environmental news sources is because of its sense of humour.

The content, though, is no joke.

According to the blog, scientists have proved that "irreversible environmental impacts" and increased health risks for local residents occur as a result of mountaintop mining. In an article in journal Science, scientists are calling for a stop in issuing of new mountaintop mining permits.

I first learned about mountain-top removal mining in Orion, a magazine I subscribe to. According to the article Moving Mountains, tops of mountains are being blasted away in order to extract coal. Non-coal material that's extracted/blown away, such as forest and soil (including whole ecosystems that inhabit tops of mountains!) are simply dumped into the valleys, burying streams and polluting water sources. This practice also increases the occurance of flooding and mudslides, leaving residents of nearby vulnerable to such "natural" disasters.

Incidentally, I had the opportunity to attend a symposium where one of the co-authors of the article in the journal Science mentioned in the Grist.org blog gave a keynote speech. She was heavily pregnant at the time, and I remember being very pleasantly surprised to see her in the fieldtrip (hiking in a national park in Queensland, Australia) the following day. A true inspiration for me--being pregnant (and having children) does not necessarily need to hinder our professional and personal activities, as well as aspirations! I gave birth to my own daughter June a little over a year after I met this environmental scientist.

As the terrible news of the horrible catastrophe in Haiti floods the media, one cannot help but think, why has the aftermath of the terrible earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January been as devastating as it has been? Why were there so many deaths--as a result of huge numbers of buildings collapsing, inability of the government to deal with the disaster, already poor people desperate for things to eat?

As was the case after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, it is now, more than ever, necessary to emphasize the social, cultural, and policy-based components that determine the extent of disasters when they strike; natural disasters do not just happen; "socio-natual disaster" are made.

SIGG の裏切り

日本でもよく売られている、SIGGのウォーターボトル。このメーカーが、つい最近、ボトルに使っているライナーに実はBPA（ビスフェノールA ）が入っていることを認めたのは、日本語のメディアであまり知られていないのでないでしょうか。

SIGGのボトルにBPAが入っている！というニュース（The SIGG BPA Confession）を目にした私は、SIGG Switzerland に問い合わせしました。受け取ったメールによると、

-->
To our knowledge, we at SIGG have never advertised our old liner bottles as being BPA free. Sometimes SIGG retailers or journalists will hear the “no leaching of BPA” message and inadvertently shorten that in their communications to “no BPA” (italics are mine)
-->

我々が知っている限り、わが社はSIGGボトルのライナーがBPA入っていないと宣伝していない、ということ。つまり、我々じゃない人たち（または媒体）によって宣伝されたことは、知らない、ということですね。その宣伝によって、SIGGはかなりの利益を得たはずなのに。

私がSIGGのボトルを買ったのは、去年の夏、東京へ出張したときでしたので、さっそくSIGGを扱っている会社、株式会社スター商事に連絡を取りました。すぐに交換してくれ、それ自体には満足しているのですが、疑問点がいくつか。

株式会社スター商事の方からいただいたメールには：

-->
この度はご迷惑おかけして誠に申し訳ありませんでした。
弊社でボトルの交換はさせていただきますが、内部コーティングがブラウンのものになります。
www.MySIGG.com/linerこちらでご確認ください。
また以前のコーティングでもコーティング内にBPAが少量混入しておりましたが、飲み物には１００％溶け出したりはする恐れはございませんので人体への影響はございませんのでご安心ください。
交換の場合はお手数おかけ致しますがお客様のボトルを弊社までお送り下さい。
到着次第新しいものをお送りさせていただきます。
宜しくお願い致します。
-->

と書いてありました。しかし、BPAは溶け出しているという実験の結果があるのです（Vom Saal claims BPA leaching in SIGGs）。何を根拠に、株式会社スター商事の方は「飲み物には１００％溶け出したりはする恐れはございませんので」とメールに書いたのでしょうか。

さらに、先月（２００９年９月）に横浜の東急ハンズに行ってたくさんのSIGGボトルが売られているのを目にしてびっくりしたのは、この古い（BPAが入っている）ライナーのボトルがまだたくさん売られている、ということ。それに関して問い合わせをしたら、

-->
お問い合わせの旧コーティングのSIGGボトルの店頭販売の件ですが、これらのボトルはBPAが溶出することは１００％ありませんので販売は継続しております。現在USAでおこなっている交換プログラムは、製品の不良、欠陥によるリコール回収ではなく、米国SIGG社が自主的におこなっているサービスの一環でありますことをご理解ください。 日本を含めた世界の国々では、製造年に関係なくSIGGボトルは人体に悪影響を及ぼさない安全なボトルであるとの見地から旧コーティングのボトルの販売を継続しております。 ただ、旧コーティングのボトルは在庫が限られておりますので随時新コーティングのボトルに切り替えてまいります。　
-->

という返事をいただきました。これはつまり、日本ではあまりこの事実（つまり、BPAがライナーに入っているということ）が知られていないので、そのまま続けて売っている、ということでしょうか（株式会社スター商事のこの件に関する正式な文章は、ここでアクセスできます。しかしこの文章、株式会社スター商事がやっているSIGGのホームページでは、見つけることができませんでした）。

ちなみに、日本て買える新しいライナーの商品は、商品ページを開けて上から

• エコメッシェージボトル
• シンプリーエコロジカル
• トラベラーデザイン（ピーコック、アンダーシーポエトリー、フラワーガール、ダンシングフレーム、ウィールズオブカルマ、スクエアペグ）
• アクティブデザイン（バタフライナイト、インヤン、アンダーウォーターラブ、カレイドスコープ、オリエンタルサマー）
• トラベラーデザイン（マハターコイズ、マハレッド、マハバイオレット）

だそうです。

エコビジネスとしてかなり儲かっているSIGG。裏切られました。

もう私は、買いません。

The case for breastfeeding

An article recently published in the Atlantic magazine titled "The Case Against Breast-feeding" prompted a lot of discussion in a parenting forum that I am a member of. The article was lauded by some—most notably those who did not breastfeed—for being a balanced article and for helping alleviate their guilt, while the pro-breastfeeders shot down the sensationalist journalism and criticized the author for damaging the breast-feeding agenda.

The article starts off by a very provocative claim: that breastfeeding is "this generation's vacuum cleaner—an instrument of misery that mostly just keeps women down."

Now, there is probably no housework that I hate more than vacuuming, so I was intrigued.

According to the author, Hanna Rosin, the benefits of breastfeeding are not so clear in the medical literature, despite what the parenting books and magazines claim. Moreover, breast-feeding mothers are often "miserable, or stressed out, or alienated by nursing", and their marriages are put under stress as a result. Furthermore, breast-feeding sets up an unequal dynamic in marriage—co-parenting becomes difficult to attain when a child is breastfed. So, despite all this, why is breastfeeding "the real ticket into the club"? Why are upper middle-class, chic & urban mothers judged by how they brave the tribulations of breastfeeding?

As a feminist, I found one claim that Ms Rosin makes extremely valid—that one of the reasons given as a pro for breastfeeding, the lower costs, is completely BS; breastfeeding is cheaper than formula-feeding only "if a woman's time is worth nothing." Moreover, having exclusively breastfed June for 6 months now, some of the negative points of breastfeeding mentioned by Ms Rosin did resonate with me. Let me also add to the list:

• no "off-time": I am not sure if any parent can ever have time when she can be "off", but a breast-feeding mother must always think about her milk—whether it is about giving it to her baby directly, or pumping it when she is away from the baby. When out with a baby, the mother must always think about when and where to feed next. Unlike for the formula-fed baby, feeding is just as about the mother as well as the baby. For a mother, bursting breasts are just as difficult to bear as a crying baby!
  
• more burden on the mother: related to the above. A hungry baby can only be soothed by a mother's breast, if the baby is exclusively breast-fed.


• always concerned about milk supply: it is easy to fall into the habit of thinking, "is my baby getting enough to eat?" and being obsessing about weight gain of the baby, as this is the only way for us to gauge if the baby is eating well, and whether the milk supply is enough.
  
• dry skin: I am not sure if this has to do with the breastfeeding or not, but ever since I gave birth, my skin has become so dry, nothing manages to keep my skin moist! The number of wrinkles on my face has definitely increased in the past few months.
  
• loss of libido: unfortunately... though I am not sure how much libido any sleep-deprived parent has, when tending to a demanding baby!
  

Many articles, blogs and comments have appeared as a response to this article. The response made by members of the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) is worth noting here, as it mentions something that is often not stressed enough in parenting books—that breastfeeding is not only good for the child, but also for the mother. So, by choosing to breastfeed, the mother is not necessarily succumbing to self-sacrifice to do what's best for the child. A recent article in the BBC titled "Breastfeeding 'protects mother'" also attests to this issue, that breastfeeding not only facilitates faster recovery of the mother after birth, but has longer-term health implications. Furthermore, the USBC argues that breastfeeding can be easier and less time-consuming than washing and sterilizing bottles and buying and preparing formula. Although I have never prepared formula, now that I have gone back to work and June is being fed expressed milk, I can fully sympathize with the hassle of washing and sterilizing bottles and teats.

That Ms Rosin neglects to mention the dark side of breastfeeding—the toxic chemicals present in breast milk—is a glaring omission, for an article that claims to make a case against breastfeeding. If anything, that is the factor that should be seriously considered by any concerned mother. As it is written in Sandra Steingraber's Having Faith, "when it comes to persistent organic pollutants (POPs), breast milk is the most contaminated of all human foods"; situated on top of the food chain, "breastfed babies have greater dietary exposures to toxic chemicals than their parents". A serious discussion on breastfeeding should not neglect to mention the choice women are forced to make: whether "we should feed our babies chemically contaminated, yet clearly superior, breast milk or chemically uncontaminated, yet clearly inferior, formula".

It would have been more accurate if the article had been titled "The case for pro-choice". I myself have problems with "breast-feeding fascists" and no mother who does not breast-feed should be made to feel guilty. At the same time, living in a country where only 15% of babies are breastfed at 6 weeks, where people around me often look at me in consternation when I tell them that yes my baby is still (!) exclusively fed breast milk, I feel that what's called for is an environment that is more supportive of a woman's choice on this matter.

On the day that June turned 6 months old, I must say that I am very happy of the choice I have made to breastfeed my daughter exclusively for the first six months of her life.

The diagram on this page was taken from the Permaculture Research Institute of the USA's website, http://www.permacultureusa.org/2008/08/13/pesticides-and-you/

Announcing one's pregnancy

At 6 months, I am FINALLY starting to show, and I am over the "looking fat but not (yet) pregnant" phase (thank goodness). People are giving up seats for me on the Metro, and things that fall off my fork/chopsticks during meals land on my bulging tummy, not on my lap. The best part is that I feel confident when walking into a maternity clothes store.

I have also begun (belatedly) to tell people that I am pregnant. Instead of making a big deal out of it, I try to discreetly slip it in conversations. People's reactions can be categorized into three: (1) those who seem genuinely happy for me, proceed to ask numerous questions, and thus the conversation changes entirely; (2) those who say "congratulations", but limit questions to my health and my future plans; and (3) those who say something to the effect of "I guess I should congratulate you", ask when the baby is due, and then go back to the conversation we were having before the announcement.

Needless to say, such reactions depend on the kind of position and feelings each person has vis-a-vis having children. Those who respond as (1) tend to be mothers/fathers themselves, or they want to be mothers/fathers. The former tend to welcome me to the club and give me advice, while the latter tells me their plans/dreams of one day (soon) having children. Those who fall in the (2) category are the ones who have mixed feelings on the issue; they are not sure they want children, or haven't thought about it very much, so they ask the minimum questions deemed necessary but are usually uncomfortable having a deeper conversation on the issue. (3) is quite simple--they have no desire to dwell on this point than any other, because they are clearly not interested in having children or in dealing with people who do.

Having been in positions (2) and (3) in the immediate past, I can easily identify with those who react in such ways. The question I always used to pose, whenever people made such announcements was: "why did you decide to have a child?" This is a question that I have yet to be asked by anyone... yet I feel it is a crucial question that need to be considered by anyone and everyone who chooses to have children.

Why should an environmentalist who is always trying to minimze her ecological footprint choose to have a child, when we know that the average person in the developed world consumes 32 times more resources than someone in the developing world, and every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation (the large majority of them being children under the age of 5)?

Why are people who choose NOT to have children constantly questioned about their decision, while those who choose to have children are never asked about theirs?

My reasons for wanting to have a child are quite personal. But I do know that at this point in my life I am ready, with my partner, to go through a fundamental change in our lives. To quote from the movie "Lost in Translation":

Your life, as you know it... is gone. Never to return. But... [the kids] turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life.

Wish us luck!

(for some more quotes from the film, go to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335266/quotes).

Prenatal testing

Until recently, pregnant women over the age of 38 in France were systematically advised to have amniocentesis--a prenatal test to determine whether a baby has a genetic disorder or a chromosomal abnormality. In the US and many other countries, women over 35 are recommended to have amnio. Being 34, and determined not to slip through this inter-cultural gap, whether to get this test done or not was something that I considered seriously.

The contradictions of genetic prenatal testing are well-described by Sandra Steingraber in her book Having Faith. Amniocentesis is very narrow in focus in that "the whole enterprise implies that the future life of a child can be read by counting its chromosomes and scrutinizing their architecture" (click here for an excerpt of the book chapter where this issue is discussed). This is quite problematic when one considers that the majority of birth defects are not attributable to inborn genetic errors; children born with defects due to environmental factors, such as mercury poisoning or thalidomide, would not be detected using this method. Moreover, so many disorders and defects due to environmental factors are not detected until many years after birth; studies link pesticide exposure to autism, neurological disorders, and other developmental problems. A question Steingraber asks is "What if amniocentesis inquired about environmental problems as well as genetic ones?"

The results of two screening tests that I went through--the nuchal translucency scan (at 12 weeks) and HT21 blood test (at 17 weeks)--came out to indicate that the possibility of my fetus having Down syndrome and neural tube defects were extremely low--1:2495 for Down syndrome. The morphological scan (done at 22 weeks) indicated no physical abnormalities--even though, of course, as was written in the papers that were attached to all the test results, they do not guarantee that the fetus will be free of abnormalities/disorders.

In the end, we decided against having amniocentesis. But if a prenatal testing that allows us to determine the amount of environmental contaminants in our body, one that could diagnose whether or not the fetus will be free from problems arising from such contaminants existed, I would certainly have taken it. Since being diagnosed with “sick house syndrome” (a Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) six years ago, I have changed my lifestyle so that I am exposed to as little environmental toxins as possible. However, if such prenatal testing existed, it would be very important for me to know how much my diagnosis six years ago could negatively affect my child. This would be such an important information for all parents-to-be.

Another thing we found out during the second trimester ultrasound was that the fetus' growth is normal and that all measurements--the diameter and circumference of the abdominal area, thigh bones, etc.--are in the 50 percentile, i.e., average. What a relief to parents (to-be): having a completely average child! Having grown up in an environment where one's academic aptitude is measured using scores and percentiles, it was a big relief to know that the measurements of the fetus are 50 percentile. At what point in our lives as parents does having an average child become NOT enough? We'll have to wait and see.

Your heartbeat

I heard your heartbeat today
I saw you on the screen, all 65mm of you

Although I'd felt your existence for nearly 11 weeks
through the pulls, twinges, and aches in my tummy
Hearing your heartbeat has made you more real
Seeing your movements bought tears to my eyes

I hope you will grow within me safe and sound
until you decide to come out after 27 more weeks or so

Until you do, I will do my best to ensure that you will continue to have the best environment within me, because I know that

If the world's environment is contaminated, so too is the ecosystem of a mother's body. If a mother's body is contaminated, so too is the child who inhabits it.

I hereby delcare my support for Mothers of Organic™'s organic manifesto and whole-heartedly concur with We the Mothers because I:

• belive that organic farming upholds basic human rights to safe food and security of person;
• know that the very young require special protection from toxic contamination;
• am willing to take precautionary action to keep us both safe;
• am alarmed that agriculture has become the number one polluter of fresh water; and
• refuse to be fooled by supermarket price tags.

And until you do come out, I will continue my work and do the best I can to make the world, our environment, a better place for you and me.

* the above italicized quotes are from the Mothers of Organic website.

Harvest for Hope: A guide to mindful eating

A delightful book written by Jane Goodall, aka the "chimpanzee lady", most famous for having made the groundbreaking discovery that our next of kin not only use tools but also make them. Her kind, wizened face framed by tied-back long grey hair is easily recognizable from the numerous animal documentaries/ shows on TV that she has been in. I did not realize until I read this book that she was a student of Louis Leaky, the famous evolutionary anthropologist. Since the late 1980s, Goodall has focused her activities on conservation/animal rights, and has been awarded numerous accolades for her efforts.

For someone who has been buying organic food for more than 10 years (starting with buying some vegetables in the late 1990s to becoming more rigorous since 2002, gradually shifting to almost 100% organic in the past two years), some new things in this book convinced me that what I've been doing is right: that eating locally-grown organic food is not only good for our bodies (no toxic chemical pesticides & fertilizers, antibiotics, GMOs, sewerage sludge going into our bodies), but also for the environment (less strain on our planet's environment, biodiversity and water resources, fewer resources spent on packaging the food then fossil fuels used to ship food long distances) and such food tastes better as well!

When friends and family hear me say this, they inevitably say: aah but you are lucky that you can afford to buy organic food. But, as Goodall demonstrates in her book, non-organic vegetables or meat from factory-farmed animals are cheaper than organic vegetables and pasture-raised animals only because the true costs of conventional vegetables/animals are hidden from us. After all the costs are taken into account--taxpayer's money going into government subsidies for agribusinesses; clean-up of environmental pollution caused by factory farming (estimated to be 9 billion USD a year in the U.S. alone!); treatment of illnesses, weakened immune systems, and food poisoning caused by eating animal meat saturated with antibiotics and hormones--the true cost of organic meat or vegetables is comparatively less.

Some of the horrifying details of "conventional food" described in Harvest for Hope are quite shocking:

• liquid manure from pig factory farms is "the number one pollution threat to the rivers and waterways of the U.S.", and that these farms are intentionally located in poor and minority communities;
• a study on local salmon caught off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, showed that some had lumpy spleens, orange-stained livers, or vital organs that melded together, and that swabs taken from salmon covered with sores were crawling with bacteria;
• behavioural problems such as violence and verbal abusiveness are strongly linked with increased consumption of fatty foods (fast foods) and processed sugars (soft drinks).
  

The parts of the book that I enjoyed the most are her little stories and anecdotes; the fascinating tale of sacrifice at the "giveaway buffalo" on Grande Ronde Indian reservation in the U.S.; the heartening story of a 20-year-old cow Trippel, in the Netherlands; zoo animals choosing organic vegetables when given a choice, or peeling the skin off non-organic fruit (while not for organic fruit).

A book that was instrumental in changing the way I view food was investigative journalist Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: What the all-american meal is doing to the world, which I picked up at a bookstore in Japan 6 years ago (the film loosely based on the book that came out in 2006 sadly does not do justice to the details documented in the book and is not worth seeing). The book gives an excellent account of the evolution of the fast food industry in the U.S., its relationship with the increasing use of automobiles, growth in industrial farming, exploitation of teenage/migrant labour and increased robbery of fast-food restaurants, proliferation of food poisoning, and upsurge in obesity in children. Although I must confess, I spent one summer working at a fast-food joint as a college graduate in the U.S., I haven't stepped into a fast food restaurant in over 5 years.

Harvest for Hope may be a bit wanting for those of us used to reading scientific material, as it has virtually no references (there is a small section in the end where one can find more information, but virtually no claim made in the book is backed by a scientific article/book). A book mentioned often in Goodall's book and recommended to those interested in reading a more thoroughly-researched material is Eat Here: Reclaiming homegrown pleasures in a global supermarket. Written by a researcher working for the Worldwatch Institute, the book tells us "why eating local food is one of the most significant choices you can make for the planet and for yourself". For more interesting information on eating sustainably, read his blog. Virtues of eating local are also well-documented in Barbara Kigsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, which I reviewed last year.

Jane Goodall's preachy tone used in the book does not offend but rather drives the points made in Harvest for Hope deeper: we need to vote with our mouths to change the world, and that it is possible for each and every one of us to make a difference by making the right choices every time we shop for food and everytime we eat in a restaurant.

ブラジル パンタナル湿地

去年末に行ったブラジル出張の後、Pantanal という世界で一番大きいといわれる湿地帯へ遊びに行きました。たったの４日間ですが、とてもすばらしい日々を過ごすことができました。もちろん、仕事のフィールドトリップで行った Parana 川も素敵でしたが、Pantanal へは必ずまた何回か行ってみたいと思いました。

さて、特に自然が豊かな場所へ旅行する際気をつけているのは、泊まる宿または雇うガイドが、「持続可能な観光」の原則にしたがっているかどうか。今回選んだのは、Fazenda Barranco Alto Eco-lodge という農場でした。この農場は、Marina と Lucas という若いスイス系ブラジル人夫婦が運営していて、ウェブにきちんと環境への取り組みが書いてあったし、実際話してみてもとても環境保全に気を使っていて、安心しました。出てきた食事に使う野菜や肉もできるだけ有機栽培（そして質素だけどとても美味しかった！）だということです。

この Rio Negro 沿いにある農場へ行くには、小さな飛行機に１時間ほど乗らなければなりません（乾季には車で行くことができるらしい）。飛行機のチャーターにはお金がかかるし、もちろん環境へのインパクトを考えましたが、悩んだ末、ここに決めました。

結果として、本当に正しい選択だったと思います。このような小さな飛行機（左に見える、ランドローバーと大きさがあまりかわらない！）に乗るのは初めてだったので心配しましたが、幸い天気に恵まれ、とても快適なフライトでした。パイロットが気を使ってくれ、湿地帯に入るとずいぶん低く飛んでくれたのですが（動物が見えるくらい）、ちょっとこれは怖かったです。

一番下の写真で遠くに見えるのが、このBarranco Alto 農場。

この農場の敷地内または Rio Negro で見たたくさんの野生動物に関しては、また後ほど。

The Weather Makers

It took me nearly two years to finish this book. I bought it in early 2006, only a few months after it came out, because I had read a great review about it. I saw the book piled up in every bookstore that I entered when I was in Australia last year (as the author Tim Flannery had won some prestigeous award in his country), but I could only look away in shame because I had yet to finish it. It was only when I promised myself that I would not read another book on the topic of climate-change--and oh there are so many of them these days!--that I forced myself to finish reading it.

The lesson to be learned here (at least for me, anyway) is--NEVER, ever, purchase a hardcover book. If you can not carry the book during commutes/travels on the train/aeroplane, you will not read it. Wait until it comes out in paperback, and it can be read whenever, wherever, you fancy.

In this book, Dr Flannery predicts that the day will arrive, sometime this century, "when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all natural factors. Then, the insurance industry and the courts will no longer be able to talk of acts of God...". The book is a must-read for any one of us who feels responsible for our actions, being a member of beings on earth that are now making the weather.

This informative book is amazingly easy to read--it is probably one of the most accessible accounts of climate change available (one that is backed by scientific data), starting with explanations of basic concepts related to the issue (including, for example, greenhouse gases & CO2) followed by a history of how climate change has shaped the evolution of earth. As it is clear from above, the reason why it took me so long to finish the book is because it was too bulky to carry on my travels/commutes, NOT because it is a difficult read.

After learning about the various horrific attempts by "climate sceptics" (such as the "Global Climate Coalition" that spent tens of millions of dollars in political donations and propaganda to spread misinformation and doubt on the "theory of global warming"; chair of the US House Energy and Commerce Committee who bullied three of the country's eminent climate researchers!) to oppress and counter efforts to combat climate change, one cannot help but throw our hands up in the air in dispair. One also wonders whether ours is a civilization that is heading towards collapse--as Jared Diamond aptly describes in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In his book Diamond has developed a five-point framewok of contributing factors that lead to a society's collapse: (1) environmental damage (2) climate change (3) hostile neighbours (4) friendly trade partners (5) the society's responses to its environmental problems. Could our civilization be heading down the same path that the Easter Islanders, Anasazi, Maya and Greenland Norse went? It is a depressing thought.

One thing (of the many) that I learned from The Weather Makers is the difference in the cleaner energies that are available. I had previously (and naively) thought that there was not much of a difference between the alternatives. But, as it is made clear in the book, hydrologen and nuclear mean survival of the big power companies (as the production of power would be centralized), whereas wind and solar open the possibility of power being generated by every one of us--what an empowering thought!

Dr Flannery must be an optimist, however, as his last chapter, titled "over to you", encourages us to take action now to reduce our impact and attain the 70% reduction in emissions required to stabilize the climte.

Here is his list:

1. change to an accredited green power option
2. install a solar hot water system
3. install solar panels
4. use energy-efficient appliances
5. use a triple-A-rated showerhead
6. use energy-efficient lightbulbs
7. check fuel efficiency of next car
8. walk, cycle or take public transportation
9. calculate carbon footprint
10. suggest a workplace audit
11. write to a politician about climate change

Living in a small apartment in Paris makes it difficult for us to do 2. & 3. (where is the sun these days, anyway?); we can pat ourselves on our backs for doing 4., 6. & 8. already (and no need to do 7., as we do not own a car). 10. has been recently done at my workplace. Although my rudimentary French language skills may prevent me from doing 11. in France, I have decided that I will navigate the way towards making 1. happen. Any advise on how to do it would be very much welcome!

As an environmentalist, a book that I often refer to in order to minimize our impact on the climate is "Wake up and smell the planet: The non-pompous, non-preachy Grist guide to greening your day". This book was developed by one of my favourite environmental websites: http://www.grist.org/. The authors tell us that the "most important choices you can make in terms of air and water pollution, global climate change, and ecosystem destruction are those that relate to transportation, household efficiency, and food consumption" and give us numerous hints on how to make these choices. As the title suggests, the book is not at all preacy, and that's what I like about it!

The Stone Gods

In her latest novel, Jeanette Winterson takes us through three worlds, all of which are at the brink of collapse. The first is Orbus, which is "evolving in a way that is hostile to human life", despite the fact that its residents have managed to slow down global warming, stabilize emissions, drain rising sea levels, replant forests, and stop using oil, gasoline or petroleum derivatives. Winterson then takes us to Easter Island, which looked as if "some great creature with hot breath had flown above and scorched all below", just at the moment when the islanders fell down the last palm tree. The third is an unamed world, much like our own today, which has just suffered a nuclear attack. In this post-World War Three era, people no longer use money. The world is run by a global trding company that rents out everything--houses, cars, clothes, even leisure. This is a welcome change from pre-3 War era when "Nobody ever had enough money. Rich or poor, money was scarce. The more we had, the less it seemed to buy, and the more we bought, the less satisfied we became. It was a relief when money was gone".

As with all Winterson's novels, the plot is not complicated; it is the beautiful prose, and the ill-doomed and unconventional love between beings--between two women, between two men and between robot and human--that makes us read and re-read her books over and over again. But in this novel, her prose is not only thought-provoking, but at times very political:

"... life cannot be calculated. That's the big mistake our civilization made. We never accepted that randomness is not a mistake in the equation--it is part of the equation".

"The truth is that I've spent all my life with my binoculars trained on the Maybe Islands, a pristine place of fantasy... maybe if I hadn't done this, or that or... But the truth is I am inventing the maybe. I can only make the choices I make, so why torture myself with what I might have done, when all I can handle is what I have done? The Maybe Islands are hostile to human life".

"What it means to be human... is to bring up your children in safety, educate them, keep them healthy, teach them how to care for themselves and others, allow them to develop in their own way among adults who are sane and responsible, who know the value of the world and not its economic potential. It means art, it means time, it means all the invisibles never counted by the GDP and the census figures".

I had the opportunity to see Winterson read extracts of this book last year, which was a delightful experience. Winterson does not mean to paint a dismal future for our planet; she claims to be an optimist and believes that humanity deserves better. We must act fast, however, to try to change the possible course that our planet is taking. To see videos of her reading, go to: http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=493

Winterson is one of my favourite authors, and I have read almost all her novels. Although I cannot say that "The Stone Gods" is one of my favourite of her books, it is a thought-provoking one that I know I will keep on coming back to. The book has succeeded in inspiring me in the work that I do--to try to make the world a better place.

Our Stolen Future

In "Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?--A Scientific Detective Story", three scientists raise an alarm over the proliferation of manmade chemicals in our environment. By mimicking natural hormones, these chemicals threaten to undermine our future. It is a truly captivating and terrifying book, as it makes us realize that danger lies all around us--in the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the food we eat.

A good part of the book gives us details of sinister signs in wildlife--bald eagles born deformed, beluga whales whose level of PCBs qualify them as hazardous waste, polar bears and seals whose reproduction rate is in decline, dolphins succumbing to epidemics, frogs disappearing. In addition to habitat loss and changing climate, endocrine-disrupting chemicals are a major threat to the world's biodiversity.

But hormone-disrupting chemicals do not just threaten wildlife; they "act broadly and insidiously to sabotage fertility and development" of humans as well, as indicated by the drop in sperm count and increase in sperm abnormalities. The fact that such chemicals have profound effects on the fetus is even more serious a concern, as contaminants accumulated in a woman's body are transfered through gestation and and breast milk. The authors suggest that abnormal tendencies in our society such as increase in learning problems, attention deficit disorders, aggression and violence are possible long-term effects such hormones have on people. As Sandra Steingraber has eloquently informs us in "Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood", environmental hazards threaten each crucial stage of infant development.

In my view, "Our Stolen Future" is just as important as "Our Common Future" aka the the Brundtland Report (published in 1987), which placed environmental issues on the political agenda. As the authors themselves imply, the book should be considered a sequel to the groundbreaking work by Rachel Carlson. The major difference between this book and Carlson's is the call for the need to "move beyond the cancer paradigm", because hormone-disrupting chemicals are not classical poisons or typical carcinogens that kill people or make people sick; rather, they "diminish individuals without making them sick". Such "deficits" can have serious consequences over not just the lifetime of individuals but for the society as a whole. The authors raise concern of the "power of hormone-disrupting chemicals to undermine and alter the characteristics that make us uniquely human--our behavior, intelligence, and capacity for social organization".

Since it was published over ten years ago, "Our Stolen Future" has drawn widespread attention to the issue of hormone-disrupting chemicals, and has been successful in influencing government policies in the US and elsewhere. See http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/ for the latest developments in the field of endocrine disruptor scientific research. Both "Our Stolen Future" and "Having Faith" should be mandatory reading for everyone and anyone who cares about our future and our environment. It is the responsibility of each and every single one of us to keep ourselves informed; after all, as the authors state, "children have a right to be born chemical-free".

tick, マダニ, tique: the aftermath

I had almost forgotten the whole ado about the tick, when I woke up one morning, nine days later, to find that the tick bite was beginning to swell. After searching on the internet, it appeared that I had succumbed to Lyme disease. I had symptoms mentioned on every website: the characteristic reddish "bulls-eye" rash (a red ring surrounding a clear area and a red centre) that was getting larger; a headache; and joint pain. I immediately made an appointment with the dermatologist, who, after questioning me, did not seem to think that I had Lyme disease (due to lack of some other symptoms) but instead, had some other infection. Nonetheless, he gave me a prescription for a three-week course of antibiotics, and the necessary blood tests.

Here is the funny thing about the blood tests: I was to be tested once immediately, and then the second time after my treatment is over. However, because antibodies to the bacteria do not start showing until two or three weeks after infection, even if I had Lyme disease, the first blood test would be negative, since it had only been nine days. Furthermore, the three-week treatment is intended to clear the infection, so the second blood test should be negative as well.

What, then, is the point of the tests?

I guess in cases like this, the precautionary principle prevails, which is a good thing. I must, however, concur with Sandra Steingraber, one of my favourite authors (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/347/): while doctors prefer to err on the side of caution in cases like this, why can't it be the same for environmental diseases that are caused by suspected contributors such as pesticides, solvents and heavy metals? Will I ever live to the day when a government will say, to quote Steingraber, "Look, we don't know if you have been exposed, but we are removing environmental carcinogens from your neighborhood because we want to err on the side of caution"?

Most likely, I will never find out if I had Lyme disease or not. Regardless, I am comforted by the sources I found on the internet, which tell me that if treated early, the disease can be cured 100%, although if left untreated, it can affect the joints, heart and the nervous system.

Thank goodness for that.

The Diversity of Life

A fascinating book, which describes the miracle of life: how the world came to be as diverse as it is. Wilson has succeeded in giving an entertaining "ecology 101" course by writing such an accessible book. I could not put the book down--and this is coming from someone who managed to get a bachelor's degree from a liberal arts college without taking a single biology course! Had I picked up this book 15 years ago, when it first came out, I may even have become an ecologist! But alas, the two books that changed the course of my life were Eric Wolf's "Europe and the People Without History" and Karl Marx's "Das Kapital", and that is why I am an anthropologist today.

But I digress. The highlight of this book, which begins by demonstration of the resilience of ecosystems, is Wilson's account of how species are born and how, in 3 billion years, came to be as diverse as it is now. He then moves on to describe extinction of species--over 98 % of all species that ever lived are now extinct, but the world is currently at the peak of biodiversity. Wilson's depiction of the "unmined riches" of nature is also fascinating. In the last chapters of the book, Wilson tells us, in a rather preaching tone, that we must save the world's biodiversity from going extinct, and provides some concrete (but rather ambitious) actions that can be taken do so.

The only problem I had with the book is the species-centric view of the world; as is typical for books written by ecologists, people are described only as destroyers of nature, and a description of the rich interactions between humans and nature is only given two pages in the 400-page book.

This book should be compulsory reading for all those politicians and CEOs of multinational corporations, who are not convinced that we need to take immediate actions to conserve the environment. After all, as a Sengalese conservationist is quoted in the book, "In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught".

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

A truly delicious read (literally! Reading this book made me constantly hungry, I recommend that you only pick up this book when you are full, after a home-made meal of locally bought products) that traces the four seasons during which a family of four ate only local vegetables and animals. The year of eating local begins in spring, when the asparagus shoots emerge from the ground; thereafter, the family subsides, as much as possible, only on what they harvest or collect from their farm, what they can purchase at the local farmer's market, and what their friends give them. This takes us through seasonal eating of heirloom vegetables, potatoes, wild mushrooms, carrots, chickens and their eggs, cheeses, tomatoes (lots of them!), turkey, and pumpkins. Kingsolver, with her husband, does not neglect to give us lessons on why we should eat organic or local foods that are in season—the implications of food traveling 1,500 miles to reach our dinner table, genetically modified crops, the problem of overfed but undernourished Americans, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), subsidies paid to keep "conventional" industrially grown foods cheap—and why we should cook our meals from scratch and avoid, as much as possible, eating processed foods. In beautiful prose, Kingsolver also takes us through her trips to north-eastern part of North America and Italy, and the slow food movements there. We learn that aside from the rare items (such as fair trade coffee, wheat grown out of state, and breakfast cereals), the family succeeds in their efforts—and saves money in the process.

Kingsolver makes a case that organic food should not be seen as an elite privilege; penny-pinching should not be "an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains". We also learn that liberation of women from the home into the workforce, but WITHOUT the liberation from housework, has meant that less and less food is cooked at home—as Kingsolver notes, nobody looks forward to cooking at the end of a long day—and this is where a profiteering industry comes in: “hey ladies... go ahead, get liberated. We'll take care of dinner”. But cooking is not only "the great divide between good eating and bad"; "home-cooked, whole-ingredient cuisine will save money" and also "help trim off and keep off extra pounds". How could we possibly argue against that?

My only problem is that Kingsolver mentions next to NOTHING about the problems of eating fish and seafood—such as overharvesting and depletion of fish, the dangers of eating large ocean fish as well as fish from most rivers in the US due to toxic poisoning, and aquaculture and its negative effects on the environment, to name a few. She mentions that when she and her family denounced CAFOs, they would only order vegetarian or seafood menus when they ate at restaurants, but the cultivated shrimp typically found in American restaurants are just as likely to have had negative environmental impacts and ethical concerns as CAFOs. But the book is, as the title suggests, about animals and vegetables, and another whole book would have to be written to delve into such issues. Kingsolver is one of my favourite authors since I first read her work as a college student in the U.S., and I have read almost all of her books. In particular, "Prodigal Summer" and "Small Wonder" deal with topics that I can really identify with. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" will be an addition to my bookshelf that I am likely to pick up often, whenever I need an inspiration—whenever I am tempted to succumb to eating out or order take out, after a long day at work.

イラクの湿地

先日、イラク湿地復元の作業に関わっているイラク水資源省の人が、職場でプレゼンテーションをしました。

１９７０年代以降からフセイン元大統領が、湿原干拓工事や運河を建設し、湿地を干上がらせたそうです。農業用地とするためにということですが、湿地の周りに住んでいた人々（Marsh Arabs）を追い出す目的もあったようです。約9,000 sq kmの湿地が砂漠の状態になりました。

そして、２００３年以降、ＵＮＥＰ（国連環境計画）が日本の寄付金によって回復作業を始め、現在では湿地の約４０％が回復されたようです。 でも、生物多様性回復や、戻ってきた住民の生活が元に戻るには、あとだいぶ時間がかかりそうです。

戦争や殺人などがメディアでハイライトされる中、環境に対する犯罪はあまり取り上げられませんね。 気候変動に対して何の取り組みをしないブッシュ大統領やハワード首相も誰か逮捕してほしいです。