ELF begins new wave of suburban eco-vandalism
A sabotage campaign by the nation’s most radical environmental group has moved from the countryside to the doorstep of the nation’s biggest cities.
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a movement that originated in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, has claimed responsibility for a string of arsons in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Detroit, San Diego and Philadelphia in the past 12 months. No one has been charged in any of the attacks.
The attacks, which included the costliest act of environmental sabotage in US history, have targeted luxury homes and SUVs, the suburban status symbols that some environmentalists regard as despoilers of the Earth.
The ELF is the FBI’s No. 1 domestic terrorism priority. The organization has done more than $100 million in damage — but caused no deaths — since it split off from the radical environmental group Earth First! and surfaced five years ago.
The ELF operates in a series of anonymous cells and uses the Internet to communicate and broadcast its message. But it has little organization, no fees and no membership list, frustrating FBI efforts to penetrate the group. (AP)

Global warming kills 160,000 a year
Global warming kills about 160,000 people through its effects every year, scientists have warned. And the numbers dying from “side-effects” of climate change, such as malaria and malnutrition, could almost double by 2020, they say.
The study, by scientists at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the World Health Organization, concludes that children in developing countries are most vulnerable to the impact of global warming.
Most deaths would be in developing nations in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, says Haines. These regions would be worst hit by the spread of malnutrition, diarrhea and malaria as a result of warmer temperatures, droughts and floods.
However, people in Europe or North America might live longer, on average, due to milder winters. This would be despite risks from heat waves. About 15,000 people died in France alone during Europe’s scorching summer this year. (The New Scientist (UK))

GM crops fail key trials
Two of the three GM crops grown experimentally in Britain, oil seed rape and sugar beet, appear more harmful to the environment than conventional crops and should not be grown in the UK, scientists are expected to tell the government next week. The third crop, GM maize, allows the survival of more weeds and insects and might be recommended for approval, though some scientists still have reservations.
The results of the three years of field scale trials — the largest scientific experiment of its type on GM crops undertaken anywhere in the world — will be published Friday, Oct. 10 by the august Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The results have been a closely guarded secret for months, and will be studied by scientists, farmers, food companies and governments across the world.
The study will include eight peer-reviewed papers about the effect of growing GM crops and accompanying herbicides on the plants and animals living in the fields around. The papers compare the GM fields with conventional crops grown in adjacent fields.
The political fallout from the trial results is potentially enormous. It would give the government every excuse to refuse permission outright for two of the three crops on environmental grounds. One of the two legally watertight reasons for such a refusal is the environment, the other is health. Almost all of northern Europe, with similar farming conditions, would be expected to follow any British ban. (Guardian (UK))

Critical US energy bill crafted in secrecy
The massive energy bill taking final shape behind closed doors on Capitol Hill this week began in controversy and is heading into more of it.
The two Republican chairmen in charge of the energy packages from the House and Senate are behind closed doors to rewrite the bill themselves without input from Democrats and other critics.
Republicans say their closed-door process is the only way to wrest a bill out of a Congress that is deeply divided on energy issues. They say the result will produce American jobs, keep energy prices low, and ease dependence on foreign oil.
After failing to win support for their own version of an energy bill, Senate Republicans agreed to revote the bill that passed in the 107th Congress, when Democrats controlled the Senate.
But already, important elements of the Senate-passed bill have dropped out of the conference draft. This includes a popular plan to require power companies to meet annual targets for increasing their use of renewable fuels, including wind, solar, biomass and hydro. On Monday, 53 senators signed a letter calling on the conferees to restore this so-called renewable portfolio standard. Electric utilities oppose the mandate. Other no-shows are higher CAFE (gas mileage) standards for automobiles and light trucks and big tax breaks for renewable energy.
But the most controversial elements of the new energy plan concern the effort to open protected areas to exploration and drilling. The draft energy bill includes a provision to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Christian Science Monitor)