The Y2K Wind
AUSTRALIA – At the dawn of the millennium, computer systems may be disabled by the inability to cope with dates ending in 00. Permaculture International Journal brings news of another millennium catastrophe – a solar storm set to peak in May, 2000. Solar winds (vast tides of charged subatomic particles kicked up by sunspots and traveling 1-million-miles-per-hour) can fry earth-bound electric grids. The last big solar storms struck in 1989 and 1992, disabling North American power grids for several days. The next one may be worse. NASA plans to launch an IMAGE satellite to monitor the storm. on January 1, 2000 (computers willing). Now might be a good time to invest in some off-the-grid solar panels.

A Not-so-Bright Idea
RUSSIA – Russia’s privately owned Space Regatta Consortium (SRC) has dropped plans to place an artificial moon in Earth orbit this year. SRC’s fleet of Znayma satellites was intended to orbit a series of 210-foot mirrors to reflect beams of sunlight –10 times brighter than the full moon – to pierce the gloom of Scandinavian and Russian winters. Biologists protested that the false light could disrupt wildlife and Finnish author Juhani Makela complained that “I am certainly not ready to start chirping like a sparrow in January.” Makela noted dourly that “one of the great joys of life is to sit around looking and feeling sullen and cross.” If they can find the money, SRC may be back. (The mirrors-in-space idea originated during the Vietnam War with a Pentagon plan to light the Ho Chi Minh Trail at night.)

Rabbis for Redwoods
US – In July, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (the nation’s oldest and largest rabbinical assembly) passed a resolution calling for “protecting and restoring the ecological integrity of Headwaters Forest.” Headwaters, a 60,000-acre old-growth treasure in northern California, is threatened by Maxxam Inc., which wants to log the ancient redwoods. The fact that Maxxam’s chief executive, Charles Hurwitz, belongs to Houston’s Reform Congregation of Beth Israel prompted Rabbi Richard Litvak to complain that Hurwitz is “violating the ethics of the Torah.” Rabbi Stephen Pearce of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El explained that “These trees cannot be replaced. We have a responsibility to protect them.” The Northern California Jewish Bulletin reports that “support by the Jewish community for Headwaters is on the rise.”

Mad Cows and Englishmen
UK – “There has never been a case of BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy or “mad cow” disease] in any animal born and bred on an organic farm,” insists British organic dairy farmer Mark Purdy. For 10 years, Purdy was ridiculed for arguing that mad cow disease was caused by dousing cattle with Phosmet, an organophosphate pesticide. The Times of London reports that scientists are now siding with Purdy in concluding that “Phosmet could have been the trigger that caused what had been a rare endemic condition to explode to epidemic proportions.”

Great Bears and Barstools
CANADA – Forest activists are appealing to the world’s do-it-yourselfers to stop making cabinets and barstools with wood from the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR), home to more than two-thirds of Canada’s plant and land mammal species. Some 90 percent of the GBR’s timber is exported to Europe, Japan and the US, at great profit to three companies – Western Forest Products, International Forest Products (Interfor) and MacMillan Bloedel. BBC Wildlife reports that some of GBR’s timber is even winding up in Austria where it has been “pulped to make ‘eco-clothing’ – so-called because its fibers are natural.”

The Specter of Neo-Clonialism
CHINA – With only 1,000 wild pandas surviving in the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu (and with pandas proving stubbornly resistant to captive breeding in zoos) Chen Dayuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed a new route to pump-up the panda population – cloning. Xinhua News Agency reports that “trans-species cloning technology” would allow pandas to be cultivated in the wombs of other species. Zoos would overcome the bugaboo of inbreeding, but would the public want to ogle a manufactured panda?

French-Fried Islands

SOUTH PACIFIC –Exactly one day after France officially ended its South Pacific nuclear testing program in June, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that undersea French nuclear blasts have left the lagoons around Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls “contaminated for centuries.” Plutonium residue has saturated the lagoon sediment and radioactive tritium will continue leaking out of subsurface fissures for thousands of years.

The League of Cetaceans
US – The New Mexico-based Cetacean Studies Institute has issued a manifesto calling for “recognition from the human community of the inalienable rights of cetaceans.” Once technology has established direct communication links between humans and “at least one species of whale or dolphin,” CSI believes that “eventual representation at the United Nations” will be granted to the “cetacean nation.” (Humans, presumably, would be granted observer status.)

Cure for the Global Economy: Starve
INDONESIA – With food shortages threatening the stability of Indonesia, President B.J. Habibie has appealed to the country’s 200 million citizens to keep the economy from collapsing by fasting two days a week. “If 150 million Indonesians do this,” Habibie declared, “the country can save three million tons of rice a year, the same amount that the country has to import.” (Imagine the global impact if burger-munching Americans fasted for two days a week.)

Bacterium Beats Beryllium
US – Advocates of food irradiation claim that zapping meat and produce with nuclear waste is a fool-proof way to kill bacteria., but look what’s happening at the Department of Energy’s (DoE) Savannah River nuclear facility. To the amazement (and embarrassment) of DoE scientists, storage pools filled with roughly 217,000 kilograms of used nuclear fuel rods are crawling with bacteria – up to 10 million bacteria per milliliter of the highly filtered water. The bacteria are not only impervious to the radiation, they are cutting microscopic pits and fissures into the fuel rods. Since nuking the bugs doesn’t work, DoE hopes to clean its pools with ultraviolet radiation.

Hey, Kids, Nuke Your Mouth!
US – Nestlé blundered into another consumer boycott this summer when it introduced a candybar called “Nuclear Chocolate” to promote the movie “Armageddon.” Grandmothers for Peace International raised the boycott banner after Nestlé described the sensation of chewing the chocolate- crisped-rice and Pop Rocks concoction as a “chocolate chain reaction.” Anti-nuclear activists condemned the bar as “part of an effort to make our kids feel good about nuclear weapons, nuclear fallout and nuclear waste.” How did the one-ounce, $1.75 bar do at the box-office? It bombed.