Award recipients were Rob Barrett, Bob Burtman, BP Amoco, Neil Carman, Ph.D., Claire Caudill, the Environmental Justice Clinic at Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Ellyn Roof, George Smith, D.D.S., Sharron Stewart, and the University of Texas Health Science Center. (Visit www.cechouston.org and click Synergy to see their accomplishments.) Approximately 150 people attended the event.

October Delegate Luncheon
Linda Shead, Director of the Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF), spoke in October at the CEC Delegate Luncheon. She outlined the natural history of the Bay and GBF’s efforts to protect and enhance the most productive estuary in Texas. For more information about GBF’s work, visit www.galvbay.org.

There will be no delegate luncheon in December.

Eco Notes
Supreme Court Looks at Air Quality Standards
The US Supreme Court heard testimony in November concerning new Environmental Protection Agency air quality standards in what many consider one of the most important environmental and business cases in decades. In 1997, the EPA set two air standards the Houston area is not likely to be able to meet, including an eight-hour standard for ground-level ozone and a standard for airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter.

Opponents of the new standards, including many business and industry representatives, say that with the new standards the EPA has overstepped its authority, making decisions more proper to Congress. Opponents are also asking the government to look beyond the public health benefits and take into account the economic costs of the measures.

Supporters, including the Clinton administration, argue that the standards will save lives and reduce health care costs. The court’s ruling is expected by July 2001; the decision will not affect the current one-hour standards for ground-level ozone that Houston is now making serious efforts to meet. (United Press International, 11/7/00)

Power Plant PM_2.5
A new national report by Boston’s Clean Air Task Force estimates that 201 people in the Houston area die each year as a result of fine-particle pollution from power plants. The reports says that PM_2.5 pollution is also responsible in Houston for 132 hospitalizations and 76 emergency room visits for asthma attacks annually. Researchers estimate that requiring the area’s older power plants to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 75 percent, as considered in current legislation, would bring deaths down to 127, hospital stays to 82, and emergency room visits to 47 per year. For the full report, visit www.pirg.org/reports/enviro/dirty_power/index.html.

Two More Planets Needed
If people around the world, including those in developing countries, consumed as many resources as those in the richest countries, we would need two more Earths, according to the Living Planet Report 2000 produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The report uses a measure of human pressure on global ecosystems, or “ecological footprint,” that calculates the area needed to produce the resources consumed and to absorb the carbon dioxide emissions produced by each country. The area needed by the average North American is almost twice that required by the average Western European, and five times that required by the average Asian, African, and Latin American. The study also indicates that the natural wealth of the earth’s forests, freshwater, and marine ecosystems has declined by one third since 1970. (WWF 10/20/00)

Greenhouse Emissions Rising
Emission of greenhouse gases in the United States increased by 0.8 percent last year, according to the Department of Energy. Release of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas (primarily from the burning of fossil fuels), climbed 1.3 percent. Scientists believe that CO2 and other chemicals trap heat in the atmosphere and are responsible for global warming. (ENN 11/1/00)

HIV Rampant in Africa
At the beginning of this year, an estimated 24 million Africans were infected with the HIV virus; each day 11,000 more acquire HIV and 6,000 die from AIDS. Without a medical miracle, almost all of these millions will be dead by 2010. The epidemic will change Africa’s demographics by reducing life expectancy, raising mortality, lowering fertility, creating an excess of men over women, and leaving millions of orphans behind. Infection rates vary by country. In Botswana, 36 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive. In Zimbabwe, Swaziland, and Lesotho, nearly one quarter is infected. In Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia, the figure is 20 percent. (Worldwatch Institute 10/31/00)

Freshwater in Trouble
The world's freshwater systems are so degraded that their ability to support human, plant, and animal life is in peril, according to the report "Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Freshwater Systems," by the World Resources Institute (WRI). Four out of every 10 people currently live in river basins that are experiencing water scarcity. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people - close to half of the world's population - will face water scarcity.

Many freshwater species are facing rapid population decline or extinction as well. More than 20 percent of the world's known 10,000 freshwater fish species have become extinct, threatened, or endangered in recent decades. In the United States, 37 percent of freshwater fish species, 67 percent of mussels, 51 percent of crayfish, and 40 percent of amphibians are threatened or extinct. (WRI 10/21/00)

Parkinson's and Pesticides
Home pesticide use is linked to an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, according to a study led by Lorene Nelson, Ph.D. a neuroepidemiologist at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. Damage to the nerve cells in a certain part of the brain leads to the balance and movement difficulties characteristic of the disease, explains Nelson. Exposure to chemicals that have an affinity to this part of the brain may increase an individual’s risk of acquiring Parkinson’s. (EarthVision Environmental News, 8/8/00)

Stormy Weather Ahead
Expect hotter days, warmer nights, heavier rain and snowfall events, and more floods this century due to increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, warns a study published in the journal Science. The article is based on findings from some 20 global climate models currently used around the world. (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, 10/6/00)