.           RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #473           .
.                    ---December 21, 1995---                    .
.                          HEADLINES:                           .
.                 THE FOURTH HORSEMAN: NUCLEAR                  .
.                          ==========                           .
.               Environmental Research Foundation               .
.              P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD  21403              .
.      Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@rachel.clark.net       .
.                          ==========                         

. . Back issues available by E-mail; to get instructions, send . . E-mail to INFO@rachel.clark.net with the single word HELP . . in the message; back issues also available via ftp from . . ftp.std.com/periodicals/rachel and from gopher.std.com. . . Permission to repost, reprint or quote is hereby granted. . . Subscribe: send E-mail to rachel-weekly-request@world.std.com . . with the single word SUBSCRIBE in the message. It's free. . =================================================================

THE FOURTH HORSEMAN: NUCLEAR

It was another dismal year for the fourth horseman of the environment, the nuclear industry. During 1995, bad news rolled in from around the world, making it unmistakably clear that this technology is more dangerous, less controllable, and more damaging to democracy than even its severest critics had imagined. The end of the "cold war" has, if anything, heightened the danger that nuclear bombs will one day obliterate another city--by accident, by terrorism, or by political blunder.

Nuclear technology has two parts, which are barely separable: A-bombs, and civilian nuclear power plants. Both technologies use "nuclear fission" --the splitting of atoms of uranium-235 or of plutonium-239, releasing enormous quantities of energy. Inside nuclear power reactors, the fission reaction is controlled, producing a steady heat which makes steam, which makes electricity. In a nuclear bomb, the fission reaction is maximized to yield a tremendous explosion.

Bomb-grade uranium-235 can be made from natural uranium. There are well-known low-tech ways to do it, which the world learned in 1991 when Iraq was discovered making A-bombs using 50-year-old technology.[1]

The other A-bomb material, plutonium-239, is created inside nuclear power reactors, but it must be purified before it can be made into bombs. This step --called "reprocessing" --has been abandoned in the U.S., mainly to keep plutonium out of the hands of terrorists and lunatics. But reprocessing still goes on at numerous locations around the world. Furthermore, a kind of reactor called a "breeder" creates more plutonium than the nuclear fuel it consumes. The U.S. has abandoned breeder technology, but Britain, France, Japan, Germany, and Russia are all committed to it.[2] Several of these countries plan to build more breeders. By the year 2010, some 550 tons of plutonium will have been reprocessed from civilian nuclear reactors.

The official "nuclear club" (those who admit they have the bomb) now includes the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia, and India. In addition, Israel is widely believed to have roughly 300 A-bombs. The former prime minister of Pakistan announced in 1994 that Pakistan has the bomb.[3] North Korea is said to have 5 A-bombs.[4] Others known to be aggressively acquiring A-bomb technology include Iraq, Libya, and Iran.

By far the easiest way to acquire material for a nuclear weapon is to steal it. The amounts needed are not large: one kilogram of plutonium (2.2 pounds) will do it, or 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of enriched uranium can make a bomb equivalent to 1000 tons of TNT.[5] The amount of plutonium needed to make a bomb is somewhere between the size of a hockey puck and a soda can.

Existing stockpiles of weapons-grade material are substantial. Here are known plutonium inventories, in kilograms (kg), as of 1990:[6] U.S.: 98,182 kg military (mil), plus 1209 kg civilian (civ); Russia: 104,545 to 127,273 kg mil, plus 22,727 kg civ; Britain: 4545 kg mil, plus 43,545 kg civ; France: 5455 kg mil, plus 35,364 kg civ; China: 1364 to 2273 kg mil; India: 254 kg mil, plus 455 kg civ; Israel: 363 to 636 kg mil; Belgium: 618 kg civ; Germany: 855 kg civ; Japan: 2636 kg civ; Pakistan: unknown; North Korea: unknown; Iraq: unknown; Libya: None yet; Iran: None yet.

Using the low estimates from the figures given above, the world total in 1990 was 322,117 kg of plutonium. This represents the capacity to make 322,117 small atomic bombs. And this is just the plutonium inventory. The world's inventory of enriched uranium, if it were known, would greatly increase our estimate of the capacity for trouble. For example, the Soviets had at least 120,000 to 130,000 kg of bomb-grade enriched uranium at the end of the cold war.[7]

The former Soviet Union provides an example of the insecurity that nuclear technology brings with it. At the end of the "cold war" the soviets had an estimated 32,500 individual nuclear weapons, held at 950 separate locations.[8] When political chaos overtook the land, soviet nuclear weaponry fell under the control of four governments: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Then civil war broke out in the Ukraine when Crimea declared its independence, and in Russia when Chechnya tried to secede. "Train loads of special radioactive freight often cross regions where armed interethnic conflicts are under way," says the Russian newspaper KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA, quoted in the TIMES.[9]

Now a different kind of political chaos has emerged in former soviet lands. According to studies by German investigators, about 5000 different criminal gangs, overseen by about 150 "godfathers," are now operating in the former Soviet Union; the total membership of this "Russian mafia" is estimated at 100,000 people. The K.G.B. (soviet secret police) and specialized military units, which worked to control the gangs, have now been substantially weakened, and "evidence exists that many highly-trained veterans of such agencies have themselves joined mafia bands," says the TIMES.[10]

Under such conditions, just keeping track of nuclear inventories is impossible. In mid-1994 the NEW YORK TIMES began a front-page story this way: "Russia has no way of knowing for sure if any of its vast supply of bomb ingredients is missing, many of its own nuclear officials and scientists admit." The story featured a front-page photograph of a Russian nuclear scientist saying, "It's possible to buy anything in our country, including weapons and samples."

Terrorists --and future nuclear club members --will pay millions of dollars for a few pounds of nuclear material. In early 1995, the NEW YORK TIMES reported that there had been 124 cases of actual or attempted nuclear smuggling from former communist countries during 1994, compared to 56 cases in 1993 and 53 in 1992. Citing as its source "a Western European intelligence report," the TIMES said "the smugglers themselves have become steadily more sophisticated." The TIMES described some of the smugglers as "a disaffected former Czech nuclear worker," and "officers of the Russian northern fleet in Murmansk." Other smugglers mentioned in the report were "a Polish dealer in used cars, meat and sausage," a "38-year-old Colombian who had spent years in Moscow as a student," two Spanish accomplices, and "a German businessman." The intelligence report said that Russian civilian nuclear research institutes often keep their inventories of radioactive materials on paper only, without checking them against actual stocks.[11]

Terrorists want even small amounts of nuclear materials because making an A-bomb is not the only way to terrorize the world with uranium or plutonium. Just blowing a chunk of plutonium to smithereens with dynamite in some city center would be sufficient to contaminate a large area, essentially permanently. Such an attack would strike dread into the hearts of local people, who would never know whether they had inhaled a lethal dose of plutonium. The real weapon in this scenario would be fear, and a permanent sense of insecurity throughout the city.

Even without terrorism, nuclear safety is impossible to assure. In the U.S. --thought to be a model of stability and technical prowess --nuclear stockpiles are subject to human foibles.

** In December 1992, the U.S. Army mistakenly shipped a kilogram of plutonium by Federal Express, which transported it on an airplane.[12]

** In late 1994 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, U.S. officials discovered that 2 kilograms of bomb-grade uranium --enough to make a small nuclear bomb --had leaked from a defunct Oak Ridge reactor. The uranium had escaped by turning into a gas "through an unexpected chemical reaction" and was found accumulating in a drain pipe. Officials expressed concern that if water entered the pipe, a nuclear chain reaction could ensue, showering radioactive material over a wide area.[13]

** On Dec. 6, 1994, the Department of Energy reported that U.S. plutonium inventories were being held at 35 locations in containers that were subject to leaks and ruptures. More than 64,000 plutonium containers included plastic bags, glass bottles, and metal canisters, "some of which were unlabeled and unmarked. Many of the containers were ruptured or broken; consequently plutonium was reported to have contaminated floors, walls, piping, and doors at several facilities. In all, the report characterized the nationwide network of weapons complexes as a dilapidated and hazardous system." In sum, even the wealthiest, most technically advanced nation in the world evidently does not have what it takes to manage these materials safely.

Plutonium is among the most toxic materials every discovered. When a small piece of it gets into a human lung, it is supremely efficient at causing cancer. Somewhere between 28 and 80 micrograms is thought to cause cancer in a human "with certainty." If we use 80 micrograms as a lethal dose, we can calculate that one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of plutonium contains 12.5 million deadly cancer doses.

Worse, recent scientific studies reveal that plutonium causes genetic damage to humans, but it's a new kind of damage which may not become evident for several generations. In other words, infinitesimal amounts of plutonium breathed today may not harm you, but may harm your grandchildren or great-grandchildren. The mechanism for this delayed genetic effect is poorly understood, but is the subject of numerous scientific papers confirming its existence.[14] Thus plutonium's toxicity is worse than scientists thought even five years ago.

Yes, this genie of death is out of the bottle. And every time we look, this genie is bigger and more full of diabolical surprises. It is time we put a cork in it. Stop making plutonium. Even more fundamentally: Stop mining uranium.

Happy New Year!

--Peter Montague ===============

[1] William J. Broad, "Iraqi Atom Effort Exposes Weakness in World Controls," NEW YORK TIMES July 15, 1991, pgs. 1, 6.

[2] Paul Leventhal and David Horner, "Peaceful Plutonium? No Such Thing," NEW YORK TIMES January 25, 1995, pg. A21.

[3] Reuters, "Pakistani Is Rebuked on A-Bomb Remark," NEW YORK TIMES August 25, 1994, pg. A7.

[4] James Sterngold, "Defector Says North Korea Has 5 A-Bombs and May Make More," NEW YORK TIMES July 28, 1994, pg. A7. And: Michael R. Gordon, "North Korea Said to Have A-Bomb Fuel," NEW YORK TIMES June 8, 1994, pg. A7.

[5] William J. Broad, "A Smuggling Boom Brings Calls for Tighter Nuclear Safeguards," NEW YORK TIMES August 21, 1994, pgs. 1, 24.

[6] Howard Hu and others, PLUTONIUM: DEADLY GOLD OF THE NUCLEAR AGE (Cambridge, Mass.: International Physicians Press, 1992), pgs. 40, 43.

[7] William J. Broad, "Deal for U.S. to Buy Bomb Fuel From Russia Said to Be in Peril," NEW YORK TIMES June 12, 1995, pgs. 1, 6.

[8] Jane Perlez, "Tracing a Nuclear Risk: Stolen Enriched Uranium," NEW YORK TIMES February 15, 1995, pg. A3.

[9] William J. Broad, "Russia Admits to Accidents at Nuclear Plants During Soviet Years," NEW YORK TIMES November 27, 1994, pg. 22.

[10] Stephen Kinzer, "The Long Shadow of the Russian Mob," NEW YORK TIMES Dec. 11, 1994, Section 4, pg. 1.

[11] Craig R. Whitney, "Smuggling of Radioactive Material Said to Double in a Year," NEW YORK TIMES February 18, 21995, pg. 2.

[12] "Plutonium Shipping Rules Violated," FACTS ON FILE WORLD NEWS DIGEST Dec. 22, 1994, pg. 958A2.

[13] "Uranium Leak Found at Tennessee Lab," FACTS ON FILE WORLD DIGEST Dec. 1, 1994, pg. 895G1.

[14] A sampling of recent papers: H. Nagasawa and others, "Cytogenetic effects of extremely low doses of plutonium-238 alpha-particle irradiation in CHO K-1 cells," MUTATION RESEARCH Vol. 244 (1990), pgs. 233-238. And: M.A. Kadhim and others, "Transmission of chromosomal instability after plutonium alpha-particle irradiation," NATURE Vol. 355 (February 20, 1992), pgs. 738-740. And: K. Holmberg and others, "Delayed chromosomal instability in human T-lymphocyte clones exposed to ionizing radiation," INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RADIATION BIOLOGY Vol. 68, No. 3 (1995), pgs. 245-255. And: Munira A. Kadhim and others, "Alpha-particle-induced chromosomal instability in human bone marrow cells," THE LANCET Vol. 344 (October 6, 1994), pgs. 987-988. And: John B. Little, "Changing Views of Cellular Radiosensitivity," RADIATION RESEARCH Vol. 140, No. 3 (December 1, 1994), pgs. 299-311.

Descriptor terms: nuclear power; nuclear weapons; nuclear proliferation; terrorism; soviet union; germany; organized crime; russian mafia; russia; fission; plutonium; uranium; smuggling; lung cancer; delayed genetic damage; mining;

             .
.                    ---December 14, 1995---                    .
.                          HEADLINES:                           .
.                    FOUR HORSEMEN, PART 2:                     .
.                     LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY                      .
.                          ==========                           .
.               Environmental Research Foundation               .
.              P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD  21403              .
.      Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@rachel.clark.net       .
.                          ==========                           .
.  Back issues available by E-mail; to get instructions, send   .
.   E-mail to INFO@rachel.clark.net with the single word INFO   .
.    in the message; back issues also available via ftp from    .
.    ftp.std.com/periodicals/rachel and from gopher.std.com.    .
.   Permission to repost, reprint or quote is hereby granted.   .
. Subscribe: send E-mail to rachel-weekly-request@world.std.com .
.  with the single word SUBSCRIBE in the message.  It's free.   .
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The loss of biodiversity is the most difficult problem we face. Loss of species is permanent. Ingenuity can replace a whale-oil lamp with an electric light bulb, but it cannot replace the whales after we hunt them to extinction.[1]

Driving species to extinction is probably the only permanent change that people can make to the earth; anything else will probably be repaired, in the long run, by natural processes.

Extinction itself is a natural process. But humans have speeded up that process greatly; extinctions are now occurring at a rate 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural rate of extinctions (see REHW #441).[2]

Extinctions are dangerous for humans, but it is not immediately clear just how dangerous. In their 1984 book, EXTINCTION, Paul and Anne Ehrlich compare our situation to an airplane held together by rivets. As time goes on, an occasional rivet will pop out. No single rivet is essential for maintaining flight, but eventually if we pop enough rivets, a crash seems certain to occur. So it is with humans and the other species with whom we share the planet. No single species is essential to our well being, yet it is certain that we need biological diversity in order to survive. Therefore each time we diminish diversity, we take another irreversible step toward the brink of a dark abyss. In the process, we desecrate the wondrous works of the creator.

There is a growing body of scientific literature about the loss of biodiversity, which reveals a consensus that humans are the cause of the speedup of species extinction, and therefore of the loss of biodiversity.[3]

There are now about 5.7 billion humans on earth and our numbers are growing at about 1.6% each year, doubling the total population every 44 years. Each month now, we add new people equal in number to the population of New York City (about 8 million people)--a quarter of a million new mouths to feed each day. It will not be easy to keep this up. The world's farm land is already stressed, and in short supply. Furthermore, soil erosion is reducing the available supply of good land; each year about 12 million hectares (29.6 million acres) of arable land are destroyed and abandoned because of unsustainable farming practices --0.8% of the world's total arable land lost each year. To adequately feed people a diverse diet requires about 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres) of arable land per person, but only 0.27 hectares (0.7 acres) is available today. According to David Pimentel (Cornell University), in 40 years available land will be down to 0.14 hectares (0.35 acres) per person because of soil erosion and population growth.[4]

It is not easy to assess the total impact of humans on the planet. There are various ways to look at it. For instance, humans have so far changed about half of earth's ice-free land surface.[5] Furthermore, 43% of the earth's land surface has been judged "degraded," defined as "having diminished capacity to supply benefits to humanity."[6] One more doubling of our population and we'll have changed a very large fraction of the planet's vegetated surface, and will have degraded much of that. In addition, we humans are presently using, or preventing other species from using (for example, by grazing our domestic animals), about 40% of terrestrial (non-oceanic) "net primary productivity." "Net primary productivity" is the amount of new vegetable matter created each year by photosynthesis as plants use the energy of sunlight to combine water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, the base of all the world's terrestrial food chains.[7] One more doubling of us and there will be precious little "net primary productivity" left for other species --surely an ominous prospect. We humans depend upon other species. We seem to be gnawing holes in our own lifeboat.

Even more ominous is that we have run out of waste-disposal room on the planet. The world used to be empty, but now it is full.[8] There is no place left to isolate our residues without harming something or someone. There is abundant evidence supporting this proposition. Global warming. Depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer. Destruction of the world's forests. (Half the world's moist forests --home to most of the world's species --have been destroyed, and the destruction is continuing.) The accelerated rates of species extinction, already noted. The decline of amphibians. The bleaching of coral reefs. The appearance of phytoplankton blooms in numerous coastal waters. The decline of sea urchins. Mass die-offs of seals and dolphins. Cancer epizootics in fish.[9] (An epizootic is a disease affecting large numbers of animals of one kind at the same time.)

Of course we humans are not exempt from these troubles. Our own rates of cancer are rising, as are rates of nervous system disease, immune system disorders, hormone imbalances, and birth defects. (See, for example, REHW #385, #376, #365, #446, #410, #411.)

In March of this year, 180 countries held a World Summit on Social Development, endorsing the statement that "social development and justice are indispensable for the achievement and maintenance of peace and security within and among nations."[11] They might as well have added "and among species," for preserving biodiversity will require us to curb human population, and curbing human population will require us to end the absolute poverty that afflicts 1.5 billion humans. When poverty diminishes, so does the pressure to have many children.

But ending poverty will require the developed world to reverse some traditional policies. As things now stand, the inequality between nations is growing larger each year. As time passes, the rich nations are gathering more of the planet's available benefits unto themselves, leaving less and less for the rest of the world. In 1960, the richest countries with 20% of world population received 70.2% of global income, while the poorest countries with 20% of world population received 2.3% of global income. Thus the ratio of income per person between the top fifth and the bottom fifth was 31:1 in 1960. In 1970, that ratio was 32:1; in 1980, 45:1; by 1991, the ratio had grown to 61:1. In constant [inflation-adjusted] 1989 U.S. dollars, the absolute gap in per-capita annual income between the top fifth and the bottom fifth rose from $1864 in 1960 to $15,149 in 1989.[12] An immediate, affordable positive step would be to cancel the debts accrued in recent years by the developing world.[13]

Ending poverty will require changes in parts of the developing world as well: for example, more education, better health care, and expanded political rights and social opportunity for girls and women can create more productive social conditions.[14]

But ending poverty will also require transfer of skills and technology to the developing world, to promote economic growth, meaning growth of material goods. To make room for such growth on a finite planet, the developed world needs to take the lead by curbing its own grotesque excesses: greatly reducing the use and waste of fossil fuels; of persistent, bioaccumulative toxic chemicals; of wood; of virgin metals. This implies less logging, less mining, less profligate and wasteful consumption of all kinds. We need to eat less meat; harvest (and waste) fewer fish; eat lower on the food chain--thus benefitting the planet and our own health.[15] Furthermore, the developed world needs to achieve negative population growth, reducing its absolute numbers. After all, a child born in a rich nation is vastly more destructive of the planet than a child born to a peasant family in Asia or Latin America.

These suggestions for change seem far-reaching, but in truth we need to go farther. Saving biodiversity requires leaving large tracts of land in a natural state --or returning large tracts of land to a natural state. It is not enough to merely stop cutting new roads; we need to close old roads and revegetate. (In the U.S., there are 350,000 miles of logging roads in national forests --over 7 times the length of the interstate highway system. Many of these should be closed.) In general, we need to pave less land, and unpave more land. We need to use fewer synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, learning (re-learning, actually) to grow our crops in a more natural "organic" way. We need to re-think what we call "development," including subdivisions and one-acre lots. There was a time when these could be justified as beneficial, but that time has passed. We need to curb sprawl and we need to reverse the many public subsidies that promote it. We need to live closer together.

Many of these suggestions will require governments to set limits and boundaries because free markets --despite their many merits --tend to work poorly in allocating resources for preserving the environment and biodiversity.[16] Acting through democratic government, an organized citizenry can impose values on their local free-market economy, making sure it works for their long-term benefit and not against it.[17]

In sum, we would do well to remember that, if there is a conflict between nature and humans, nature will resolve that conflict in its own way. We should also recognize that bold new departures are needed chiefly because we are the first generation that has faced the prospect of a "full world." And we are the last generation that has the opportunity to do something about it in an orderly way.

--Peter Montague ===============

[2] Stuart Pimm, "Seeds of Our Own destruction," NEW SCIENTIST Vol. 146, No. 1972 (April 8, 1995), pgs. 31-35.

[3] For example, see Bryan G. Norton, editor, THE PRESERVATION OF SPECIES (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986); Reed F. Noss and Allen Y. Cooperrider, SAVING NATURE'S LEGACY (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1994); and Edward O. Wilson, THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992).

[4] David Pimental and others, "Environmental and Economic Costs of Soil Erosion and Conservation Benefits," SCIENCE Vol. 267 (February 24, 1995), pgs. 1117-1123.

[5] Peter M. Vitousek, "Beyond Global Warming: Ecology and Global Change," ECOLOGY Vol. 75, No. 7 (October 1994), pgs. 1861-1876.

[6] Gretchen C. Daily, "Restoring Value to the World's Degraded Lands," SCIENCE Vol. 269 (July 21, 1995), pgs. 350-354.

[7] Peter M. Vitousek and others, "Human Appropriation of the Products of Photosynthesis," BIOSCIENCE Vol. 36, No. 6 (June, 1986), pgs. 368-373.

[8] Robert Goodland, "The Case That the World Has Reached Limits," in Robert Goodland, Herman Daly and Salah El Sarafy, editors, ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BUILDING ON BRUNDTLAND [Environment Working Paper No. 46] (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, July 1991), pgs. 5-17.

[9] Norman Myers, "Environmental Unknowns," SCIENCE Vol. 269 (July 21, 1995), pgs. 358-360. And see: William M. Stigliani and others, "Chemical Time Bombs," ENVIRONMENT Vol 33, No. 4 (May 1991), pgs. 5-9, 26-30.

[10] Thanks to Peter Bahouth for contributing ideas to this section; however, he bears no responsibility for their presentation here.

[11] "U.N. 'Social Summit' Held in Copenhagen; Delegates Reach Consensus on Poverty," FACTS ON FILE WORLD NEWS DIGEST March 16, 1995, pg. 182A2.

[12] See Joel E. Cohen, "Population Growth and Earth's Human Carrying Capacity," SCIENCE Vol. 269 (July 21, 1995), pgs. 341-346.

[13] We can easily afford to do this; see Paul Krugman, "Third World Debt," in THE AGE OF DIMINISHED EXPECTATIONS (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), pgs. 143-151.

[14] These ideas were endorsed at the September, 1994, U.N. Population Conference in Cairo, attended by 179 nations. See FACTS ON FILE WORLD DIGEST September 22, 1994, pg. 675A2.

[15] Jane E. Brody, "Health Toll of Meat Diet Is Billions, Study Says," NEW YORK TIMES November 21, 1995, pg. C6.

[16] See David E. Bloom, "International Public Opinion on the Environment," SCIENCE Vol. 269 (July 21, 1995), pgs. 354-358. And see Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., FOR THE COMMON GOOD [Second Edition] (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994).

[17] This is a subject to which we will return when we continue our series on "Sustainable America" which began in RACHEL'S #458, #459, #460, #461, and #465.

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