EarthTalk: Antibacterial Triclosan: Effective or Just Risky? and Sustainable Sugar: An Oxymoron?
Dear EarthTalk: I heard about a supposed dangerous chemical called “triclosan” that is in many personal care and other consumer products. Can you enlighten?
– Carl Stoneman, Richland, WA
Triclosan is a synthetic chemical compound added to many personal and household care products to inhibit illness by preventing bacterial infection. It works by breaking down the biochemical pathways that bacteria use to keep their cell walls intact, and as such kills potentially harmful germs if used in strong enough formulations. First developed as a surgical scrub back in 1972, triclosan is now used in upwards of 700 different consumer-oriented products, many of which people use more than once a day. They include hand soaps, deodorants, toothpastes, kids’ toys, yoga mats and, of course, hand sanitizers.
Manufacturers that use triclosan in their products
insist that the synthetic chemical helps reduce
infections. But numerous studies have shown that
washing hands with products containing triclosan was
no more effective in preventing infectious illness than
plain soaps. Other research even links triclosan to
various human health and environmental problems.
Jack Black’s Stunt Double, courtesy Flickr
Whether triclosan is actually as effective as advertised, especially in the small doses found in consumer products, is a topic of much debate. Manufacturers insist that the product helps reduce infections. But researchers from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health found, after surveying 27 different studies conducted between 1980 and 2006 on the effectiveness of antibacterial soaps, that washing hands with products containing triclosan was no more effective in preventing infectious illness–and did not remove any more bacteria–than plain soaps. The analysis, “Consumer Antibacterial Soaps: Effective or Just Risky?” was published in 2007 in the peer-reviewed journal, Clinical Infectious Diseases. According to lead researcher Allison Aiello, triclosan–because of the way it reacts in living cells–may cause some bacteria exposed to it to become resistant to amoxicillin and other commonly used antibacterial drugs, but she adds that more research is needed to bear out this hypothesis.
Continue reading »
Conscious Choice of Food Can Substantially Mitigate Climate Change, Research Finds
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: Reducing the consumption of meat and dairy products and improving agricultural practices could decrease global greenhouse gas emissions substantially. By 2055 the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture could be cut by more than eighty percent, researchers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research find. The results of the modelling study have recently been published in the journal “Global Environmental Change”.
“Meat and milk really matter,” says Alexander Popp of PIK. “Reduced consumption could decrease the future emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from agriculture to levels below those of 1995,” explains the first author of the study. In the past, agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly methane and nitrous oxide, have increased steadily. In 2005 they accounted for 14 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. “Besides the conscious choice of food on the consumers’ side there are technical mitigation options on the producers’ side to reduce emissions significantly,” says Popp.
Continue reading »
EarthTalk: Banana Plantations; and Volcanoes and Global Warming
– Laura Barnard, Hillsboro, OH
Sadly, the short answers to these questions may be yes and yes for now, but that may change as the $5 billion banana industry slowly comes to terms with greener forms of production. Historically, growing the world’s most popular fruit has caused massive degradation of rainforest land across the tropics, spread noxious chemicals throughout formerly pristine watersheds, and poisoned and exploited farm workers.
Banana production has long been known for its
environmental and human rights abuses, which have
included the use of dangerous pesticides, water
pollution, deforestation and poor working conditions.
But that is slowly changing thanks to the work of The
Rainforest Alliance, the Sustainable Agriculture
Network and other nonprofit groups.
Ian Ransley Design, courtesy Flickr
“Banana plantations were infamous for their environmental and social abuses, which included the use of dangerous pesticides, poor working conditions, water pollution and deforestation,” reports the Rainforest Alliance, a New York-based non-profit that has been working to improve worker and environmental conditions in the industry since 1990. “Pesticide-impregnated plastic bags, which protect bananas as they grow, often littered riverbanks and beaches near banana farms, while agrochemical runoff and erosion killed fish, clogged rivers and choked coral reefs.” Also, the proximity of housing to banana fields, coupled with lax regulations for pesticide handling, led to frequent illness among workers and people living near the plantations.
But help is on the way, largely thanks to the pioneering work of the Rainforest Alliance, which certifies as sustainable those banana farms and plantations that meet certain criteria for responsible farm management set by the Sustainable Agriculture Network, a coalition of non-profits striving to improve commodity production in the tropics. As a result of the program, some 15 percent of all bananas sold internationally now come from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. The group is especially proud of its agreements with two of the largest growers, Favorita and Chiquita. All of Favorita’s farms in Ecuador and all of Chiquita’s farms in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama are certified sustainable under the program.
Continue reading »
Coffee or Tea: Enjoy Both in Moderation for Heart Benefits, Dutch Study Suggests
American Heart Association: Coffee and tea drinkers may not need to worry about indulging – high and moderate consumption of tea and moderate coffee consumption are linked with reduced heart disease, according to a study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers in The Netherlands found:
- Drinking more than six cups of tea per day was associated with a 36 percent lower risk of heart disease compared to those who drank less than one cup of tea per day.
- Drinking three to six cups of tea per day was associated with a 45 percent reduced risk of death from heart disease, compared to consumption of less than one cup per day.
And for coffee they found:
- Coffee drinkers with a modest intake, two to four cups per day, had a 20 percent lower risk of heart disease compared to those drinking less than two cups or more than four cups.
- Although not considered significant, moderate coffee consumption slightly reduced the risk of heart disease death and deaths from all causes.
Researchers also found that neither coffee nor tea consumption affected stroke risk.
Continue reading »
Want to Find Your Mind? Learn to Direct Your Dreams
New Scientist: “Am I awake or am I dreaming?” I ask myself for probably the hundredth time. I am fully awake, just like all the other times I asked, and to be honest I am beginning to feel a bit silly. All week I have been performing this “reality check” in the hope that it will become so ingrained in my mind that I will start asking it in my dreams too.
If I succeed, I will have a lucid dream – a thrilling state of consciousness somewhere between waking and sleeping in which, unlike conventional dreams, you are aware that you are dreaming and able to control your actions. Once you have figured this out, the dream world is theoretically your oyster, and you can act out your fantasies to your heart’s content.
Journalistic interest notwithstanding, I am pursuing lucid dreaming for entertainment. To some neuroscientists, however, the phenomenon is of profound interest, and they are using lucid dreamers to explore some of the weirder aspects of the brain’s behaviour during the dream state (see “Dream mysteries”). Their results are even shedding light on the way our brains produce our rich and complex conscious experience. Read the rest of this article 
EarthTalk: Tree-free “Kenaf” Paper; and Minimizing Cell Phone Radiation
– Tiffany Mikamo, via e-mail
Kenaf, a fast-growing, non-invasive annual hibiscus plant related to cotton, okra and hemp, makes ideal paper fiber as well as great source material for burlap, clothing, canvas, particleboard and rope. Its primary use around the world today is for animal forage, but humans enjoy its high-protein seed oil to add a nutritious and flavorful kick to a wide range of foods. In fact, kenaf has been grown for centuries in Africa, China and elsewhere for these and other purposes, but environmentalists see its future in replacing slower-growing trees as our primary source for paper.
U.S. Department of Agriculture research shows that
kenaf yields some six to 10 tons of dry fiber per acre
per year, which is three to five times more than the
yield of Southern Pine trees, now the dominant paper
pulp source in the U.S. Kenaf also absorbs more
carbon dioxide than any other plant or tree.
Pictured: Bill Loftus tends kenaf plants at the
Kenaf Research Farm.
Credit: Kenaf Research Farm
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research shows that kenaf yields some six to 10 tons of dry fiber per acre per year, which is three to five times more than the yield of Southern Pine trees–now the dominant paper pulp source in the U.S. And to top it off, researchers believe kenaf absorbs more carbon dioxide–the chief “greenhouse gas” behind global warming–than any other plant or tree growing. Some 45 percent of dry kenaf is carbon pulled down from the atmosphere via photosynthesis.
No wonder environmentalists are so bullish on kenaf for our common future. “The more kenaf we grow, we can not only absorb significant amounts of the carbon dioxide that is responsible for global warming,” says Bill Loftus of the non-profit Kenaf Research Farm, “but also educate the world on how to be self-sustainable through kenaf’s many properties of providing food, shelter and economic opportunities.”
Continue reading »
EarthTalk: Will the BP Leak Do More Environmental Damage Than Other Oil Spills Before It? and Ethanol’s Place in the Alternative Energy Mix
– Nathan Gore, Pawtucket, RI
No one knows for sure how the ongoing oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will affect the deep sea ecosystem, but scientists are not optimistic. Oil from what is now considered the nation’s second largest spill, 1989′s Exxon Valdez mishap, slicked 11,000 square miles of ocean surface and 1,300 miles of pristine Alaskan coastline while killing hundreds of thousands of birds and marine mammals and untold numbers of fish and fish eggs. But the impacts of the ongoing Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf may be far worse given that much of the loose oil is actually in the water column, not on the surface. In fact, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently detected huge deepwater plumes of dispersed oil up to 30 miles long, seven miles wide and hundreds of feet thick.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
recently detected huge deepwater plumes of
dispersed oil up to 30 miles long, seven miles wide
and hundreds of feet thick. Pictured here: Workers
clean off an oil-soaked pelican at the Fort Jackson,
Louisiana International Bird Rescue Research Center.”
Lorna Baldwin, PBS NewsHour, Courtesy Flickr
Why would an undersea spill be worse? One outcome could be the expansion in size and extension in time of a seasonal “dead zone” that already plagues the Gulf of Mexico as a result of industrial pollutants and agricultural run-off from the Mississippi River. While huge Gulf of Mexico algae blooms help to naturally clean up the Midwest’s factory emissions and wasted fertilizer, such a process doesn’t come without a cost to the ecosystem. Every spring, in a condition known as hypoxia, this fast growing algae depletes large sections of the Gulf’s water column of the oxygen crucial for other life forms to survive there. The BP oil spill is likely to exacerbate this problem, as natural oil-eating microbes swarming over undersea oil plumes could cause or add to hypoxic conditions in otherwise teeming swaths of the Gulf.
Continue reading »