A productive, but taxed, Earth
A UN-sponsored study finds that humans' growing demands have damaged the planet at unprecedented levels.


I fear the worst. I've been waiting for the end ever since I was 10 yrs. old. Really, I have. Sigh....


from the March 31, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0331/p11s02-sten.html

A productive, but taxed, Earth
A UN-sponsored study finds that humans' growing demands have damaged the planet at unprecedented levels.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

For hundreds of years, cod swarmed in waters off Newfoundland's rugged coast. But by 1992, rampant overfishing had crushed the cod. Price tag to people: tens of thousands of jobs lost and billions of dollars spent in job retraining.

Last year, a weather satellite spotted a monster dust cloud over Africa - hard to miss at 5,000 miles wide. Tree-cutting in northern Africa helps nourish such clouds, which cross the Atlantic, settle into US coastal waters, and possibly contribute to toxic algae blooms. Price tag to people: breathing problems for US coastal residents.

Cod depletion and dust clouds seem like pretty different problems. But they each play a role in the overall environmental degradation of the planet - a condition that a new global study says has escalated so quickly over the past 50 years that it outpaces anything experienced by ecosystems in human history.

Demands for water, food, fuel, timber, and fiber - all part of global economic expansion - have driven the change. The result: a big increase in short-term human benefits, less hunger, and more wealth. But this progress has been counterbalanced by a massive loss of diversity of life on Earth.

That's the state of the world, according to the first Millennium Ecosystem Assessment produced by some 1,300 scientists from 95 countries charged with painting a global eco-portrait. The United Nations-sponsored study was funded by the World Bank and several private foundations.

"We've had many reports on environmental degradation, but for the first time we're now able to draw connections between ecosystem services and human well-being," says Cristian Samper, director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington and a chief architect of the study.

Northern Africa's drying Sahel region and Newfoundland's emptier coastal waters, he says, are just two examples in an overall conclusion that 60 percent of the world's ecosystems are being degraded or used unsustainably. Ecosystems being drained or degraded largely in the pursuit of human well being include:

• Land: More of it has been converted to crop land since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined. Cultivated land now covers one-quarter of Earth's land surface.

• Coral reefs: About 20 percent of the world's coral reefs were lost and another 20 percent degraded in the past few decades.

• Rivers and lakes: Despite the fact that the amount of fresh water stored behind dams has quadrupled since 1960, its use for agriculture and other needs has exceeded long-term supplies by 5 to 25 percent.

• Coastal areas: Farmers' increased use of nitrogen fertilizers since 1985 has polluted waterways and coastal ecosystems. About 35 percent of mangrove swamps needed for water filtration in coastal areas have been bulldozed.

• Oceans: Many areas have been overfished, reducing stocks by 90 to 99 percent of preindustrial fishing levels.

"We always have this sense that if we just let up on overfishing for awhile the fish will bounce back," says Tundi Agardy, executive director of Sound Seas, a coastal-planning policy group, who was lead author on the coastal chapter of the millennium assessment. "But what we found is that, many times, the recovery of overexploited species is made impossible by all sorts of things like pollution, habitat loss, and climate change."

The loss of coral, for instance, is often attributed to degraded coastal waters that were harmed over time. Mangrove swamps that filter pollutants were bulldozed for apartment buildings. Combine that with large human populations living seaside and increased agricultural runoff flowing into the oceans. Now add overharvesting of fish that eat algae. Suddenly, you've got algae blooms that overwhelm coral reefs, Dr. Agardy says.

It's not known what changes have kept the cod from rebounding. Some say a change in ocean salinity. Others, including former fishermen, have blamed seals for eating them. Harp seal pups were butchered on the ice this spring for their pelts, but also in the expectation that a smaller seal population would help the cod recover.

But in years past, the cod recovered even with seal predators present, Agardy says. "It's pretty clear that cod have been fished down to a point where it will be hard for them to ever recover," she adds.

Yet changes in fishing policy and enforcement of those changes may help oceans recover, she says, adding that the question now is whether the political will exists to create change.

A key element of the UN report was to bring together economists and biologists to examine the impact of ecosystem changes on human well-being. In accounting terms, the report says, the loss of an ecosystem can be equated to loss of a capital asset.

For instance, exploitation of nature has benefited the economies of nations like Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Venezuela. But those nations actually experienced a "loss in net savings" when depletion of natural resources (energy and forests) and damage from carbon emissions were factored in, the report found.

A key finding was that abrupt, unexpected changes in ecosystems are increasingly likely. Changes are usually gradual in ecosystems, yet once a threshold is crossed, stark and rapid changes are possible.

Susan Minnemeyer spotted one of those changes a few years ago while peering for the first time at sharp satellite photos of Cameroon's dense tropical rain forest. As global information systems manager for Global Forest Watch project at the World Resources Institute in Washington, she noticed tiny lines in the forest, a spider's web criss-crossing the jungle - thousands of miles of illegal logging roads.

Losing valuable forest to illegal logging is bad enough, she notes, but another critical hidden cost has emerged: loss of wildlife.

Superficially, the Cameroon forest looks intact even after such logging because the forests aren't clear-cut; just the valuable trees are taken. But the illegal roads have opened up paths for hunters.

The growth of the bushmeat trade is rapidly depopulating the forests of all large mammals, Ms. Minnemeyer says. Her finding was just one of many examples of accelerating species loss cited in the study.

"It can look intact from the sky," Ms. Minnemeyer says. "But this is an empty forest - it's actually devoid of wildlife. We think we can change this, and we're working with the government to do that."

Tell Congress to stop grandstanding on the Schiavo tragedy.

Some choice excerpts from MoveOn PAC's email today:


Bush, Frist, and DeLay claim that they're acting out of concern for Ms. Schiavo. But a memo intended only for Republican Senators—uncovered by ABC News—reveals Republicans' true concern: "The pro-life base will be excited...this is a great political issue...this is a tough issue for Democrats."[2] This story also takes the heat off Tom DeLay, who is facing a number of serious ethics charges and legal scandals.[3]


Even many right-wing activists are concerned about Congress's interference in this case. GOP pollster Tony Fabrizi told the L.A. Times, "It becomes a more crystallized proof point that we are no longer the party of smaller government. We have become a party of 'It doesn't matter what size the government is as long as it is imposing our set of values.'"[4]


A large majority of the American public agree that Congress was wrong to interfere in the Schiavo case, and less than a quarter believe Congress acted out of real concern about Schiavo's life, according to an ABC poll.[9] And the nation's editorial boards agree. Check out this sampling from many of the nation's papers, compiled by the National Journal's Hotline:

* "The U.S. legal system is not supposed to be one of legislative 'do-overs... Lawmakers may believe that they acted this weekend to save a life, but they also took a step that diminishes the rule of law" (Washington Post, 3/22).

* "When the Founders wrote the Constitution, they devoted the largest section to spelling out the powers of Congress. Nowhere did they include the right to play doctor. Terri Schiavo's story is tragic enough without political malpractice" (USA Today, 3/22).

* "The Bush administration and the current Congressional leadership like to wax eloquent about states' rights. But they dropped those principles in their rush to stampede over the Florida courts and Legislature...It may be a formula for short-term political success, but it is no way to preserve and protect a great republic" (New York Times, 3/22).

* "Congress' unwarranted and brash effort to seize judicial power in the case of Terri Schiavo is shameful truly a low point in its recent history" (Kennebec Journal, 3/22).

* "What has happened here is that the GOP, famously the party favoring limited government intervention into people's personal lives, has inserted the federal government squarely in the middle of an incredibly personal medical issue. And they've done it all in the name of making sure that some of their core voters stay with them" (Athens Banner-Herald, 3/22).

* "Terri Schiavo has the right to die ... Congress and President Bush should be ashamed for prolonging the suffering and trying to legislate what is clearly the authority of the courts to adjudicate" (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 3/22).

* "Coming at a time when crucial health care services are being slashed, it is particularly upsetting to see this kind of expensive grandstanding on the part of congressional Republicans over one high-profile case. This is not compassion: This is cold-blooded political calculation" (Charleston Gazette, 3/22).

* "One by one, the bedrock conservative convictions of the national Republican Party are giving way...yielding to the demands of a raucous religious right that has become the Republicans' most reliable electoral base" (Trenton Times, 3/22).

* "Washington's empathy for Schiavo centers on vying for political points, not merely concern for one family's personal, medical plight. That makes this unwise intervention by elected officials even more distasteful" (Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/22).

* "To have the legislative and executive branches of the federal government mobilize on a Sunday as fast as if we'd declared war in order to intervene in a family's medical dispute is, frankly, frightening. It's an unprecedented intrusion by the highest echelons of federal power into a private hospital room. It's dangerous. And more than a little Orwellian" (Augusta Chronicle, 3/22).

Bush Digs Dry Well in Alaska
Glut of right wingers, dearth of oil

"President's Bush quack solution to the energy crisis, i.e. opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. In addition to wrecking the ecology, oil drilling in Alaska won't produce more than a puddle of crude toward reducing energy imports in the Lower 48." Wow, did this mean nothing when they approved to do this? Unbelievable.


Mondo Washington
Bush Digs Dry Well in Alaska
Glut of right wingers, dearth of oil
by James Ridgeway
March 17th, 2005


WASHINGTON, D.C.—Docile as always, members of the Senate yesterday narrowly voted to support President's Bush quack solution to the energy crisis, i.e. opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. In addition to wrecking the ecology, oil drilling in Alaska won't produce more than a puddle of crude toward reducing energy imports in the Lower 48.

The vote was close and represents but the first volley in the continuing struggle to stave off exploitation of the Arctic refuge. Still, it already has been taken as a symbol of Bush's strength on domestic issues. In this case, opponents of drilling are to be found among environmentally minded members on both sides of the aisle. Nonetheless, the right back benches, which drive the Congress, held firm and squashed the middle. This vote can only embolden the right to up—not lower—the ante on any number of issues, from Social Security to energy to Medicare.

Oil drilling in Alaska isn't going to solve any problems, and may make them a good deal worse, by providing the yuppie SUV owners reason to think they can keep on guzzling gas. Yesterday's misreported OPEC production increase isn't really an increase at all, but an acknowledgement that the cartel already is producing all it can, and the already high prices are likely to increase, not decrease.

All sorts of oil people these days are predicting the energy industry is exhausting existing reserves. There are no new big finds. Many analysts believe the much ballyhooed discoveries in the Caspian basin have been hyped way beyond their actual size. Not to mention the extraordinary costs of building pipelines over thousands of miles to haul oil and gas to Europe in the West, and industrial China in the East.

To be sure, the frozen north holds untapped reserves, but the Arctic play to date has largely centered on Canada, and sucking up and piping its oil reserves down to California and the mid-continent.

Analysts at John S. Herold, Inc., the energy research outfit that first spotted the flimflam at Enron, have joined the crowd in predicting oil production is topping off. Robert Bryce, in Salon, wrote on Tuesday, "Since last fall, Herold has done peak estimates on about two dozen oil companies. Herold believes that the French oil company, Total S.A., will reach its peak production in 2007. Herold expects 2008 to be critical, with Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., BP, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and the Italian producer, Eni S.p.A., all hitting their peaks. In 2009, Herold expects ChevronTexaco Corp. to peak. In Herold's view, each of the world's seven largest publicly traded oil companies will begin seeing production declines within the next 48 months or so." Says Herold Executive Vice President Richard Gordon: "If the dinosaurs are going extinct, we are trying to figure out which ones are going to go extinct the soonest."

As oil prices continue to climb, the oil producers hopefully will continue to pump their proceeds into American dollars. But there is a widening acknowledgement that the American economy is a touch-and-go affair, not about to crash, but not about to boom, a wobbly situation. What happens if central bankers in Asia and elsewhere begin to shift their dollar holdings? "What foreign central bankers have it in their power to do," notes the Economist, "is to reveal before all the world that the mighty American economic empire has no clothes." A good part of the reason would be the government's inability to come to grips with the energy crisis that has been in our face since the early 1970s. There is no alternative but to move away from fossil fuels. But this is anathema to the right wing in Congress.

Senate OKs Alaska wildlife refuge drilling

Well, I actually called up Florida's senators and delivered the message MoveOn asked its supporters to give. I left the message with an intern. I wonder what they do with those messages anyhow? I can't believe the vote was so close too. I hate that Bush and his supporters just keep on winning their proposals on all fronts. Why can't this land be kept off limits? Why is there no limit to how much profit can be made by these oil barons? I just don't understand this govt. and I'm so very disappointed.


from the March 17, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0317/p02s01-uspo.html

Senate OKs Alaska wildlife refuge drilling
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

In a major victory for President Bush's energy policy, the Senate voted Wednesday to open Alaska's wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

The 51-to-49 Senate vote moves the prospect of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) closer to reality after two decades of debate. It comes as oil and gas prices are approaching new highs.

While Wednesday's vote marked a major defeat for environmentalists, it doesn't mean drill bits will be sinking into the Alaska tundra anytime soon. The measure will still have to be approved by the House, which is far from certain. "There's a lot of moving parts in this thing," says Peter Rafle, communications director of The Wilderness Society. "It's far from over."

The fight over ANWR - which may or may not have a significant amount of oil beneath its surface - is one of the longest-running environmental dramas in recent history.

For years, Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress have been able to fend off oil exploration and development there by threatening a filibuster. But now, GOP leaders in the Senate have succeed in attaching it to the 2006 budget resolution as a potential source of revenue. The move sidestepped a filibuster by Democrats which would require 60 votes. The budget resolution required only a 51-vote majority.

The House is still working on its budget resolution for 2006, and the two legislative chambers will have to reconcile whatever differences remain - including oil exploration in Alaska.

From an environmental standpoint, the debate is over whether advanced "directional" drilling methods would allow for a much smaller "footprint" (drill rigs, roads, etc.) impacting wildlife. Advocates say they can do this with minimum damage to the fragile tundra; activists say it's a sham. Meanwhile, oil companies themselves reportedly have lost interest in the project.

So why are President Bush, the Alaska delegation, and others pushing this controversial proposal? Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney - both former oil men - see it as an important part of the effort to reduce US dependence on foreign oil. Unlike politicians in California and Florida, including the President's brother Gov. Jeb Bush, who resist unsightly oil rigs off their coasts, the Alaska congressional delegation is all for drilling in a remote part of their state. If nothing else, ANWR symbolically focuses the broader debate over natural resource extraction in wild areas around the country.

Without more exploration, even the best estimates of oil in ANWR are educated guesses. The US Geological Survey (USGS) figures the amount of "technically recoverable oil" to be between 5.7 billion barrels (95 percent probability) and 16 billion barrels (5 percent probability) with a mean value of 10.4 billion barrels.

"Economically recoverable oil" is the more relevant figure, according to USGS officials, meaning a company would find it financially worth the effort. But that's even harder to determine because it depends on fluctuating oil prices, a yet unknown accumulation size, recovery technology, and proximity to pipelines and other existing infrastructure.

What all of this means, claim drilling opponents, is that ANWR likely contains less than a year's worth of oil - none of it reaching the US market for at least 10 years.

As an officially designated wildlife refuge, ANWR would have been off-limits to drill rigs. But when the 19 million-acre refuge was established in 1980, and in recognition of the potential for oil and gas there, the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain along the Arctic Ocean was left open to leasing and exploration.

Oil there may be, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service says the drillable area "is critically important to the ecological integrity of the whole Arctic Refuge, providing essential habitats for numerous internationally important species."

Most Americans will never see the place or the caribou, polar bears, muskoxen, arctic foxes, wolverines, grizzly bears, snow geese, and other migrating birds that inhabit its tundra just north of the Brooks Range. But for much of the public this "American Serengeti," as environmentalists call it, represents an ideal of natural wildness that must remain pristine.

While the fight in Congress over ANWR may be a close one, public opinion weighs heavily against drilling.

A recent survey conducted jointly by Republican and Democratic pollsters asked simply, "Should oil drilling be allowed in America's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?" The results: 53 percent against, 38 percent in favor. Regarding the current effort to attach ANWR to a budget resolution rather than vote directly on its merits, a whopping 73 percent agreed that drilling there "is too important to the American public and future generations to be snuck through."

More broadly, according to this survey, Americans favor conservation (34 percent) and alternate forms of energy (39 percent) over domestic oil production (18 percent) as "the best way to reduce US dependence on foreign oil."

Meanwhile, industry interest in the politically charged Arctic refuge seems to have waned as well.

"The enthusiasm of government officials about ANWR exceeds that of industry because oil companies are driven by market forces, investing resources in direct proportion to the economic potential, and the evidence so far about ANWR is not promising," oil industry consultant Wayne Kelley told The New York Times recently.



History of the Refuge:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 · Last updated 4:51 p.m. PT

Arctic Drilling Timeline

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

An Arctic National Wildlife Refuge timeline:

-1960: President Eisenhower declares that 8.9 million acres of tundra and mountains in the northeastern corner of Alaska be set aside as a protected wildlife refuge.

-1980: Congress expands the refuge to 19 million acres and declares part of it wilderness. Also proclaims that potential oil reserves in the refuge's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain be considered for development, but only if Congress specifically authorizes it.

-1995: Congress, using the budget process, authorizes oil drilling in the coastal plain, but President Clinton vetoes it.

-2002-2003: The House repeatedly approves drilling in the refuge as part of broad energy legislation, but the Senate rejects drilling, unable to overcome a Democratic-led filibuster.

-November 2004: Republicans gain four seats in the Senate, expanding their majority to 55. ANWR drilling advocates predict the increased GOP strength will help to open the refuge to oil development.

-March 2005: The Senate inserts into the budget a revenue provision that anticipates oil lease sales in ANWR. A Democratic-led attempt to strip the provision from the budget measure falls short 51-49. The budget document becomes a vehicle for authorizing ANWR oil drilling.

Agent Orange Case for Millions of Vietnamese Is Dismissed

Unbelievable. I'm so angry about this. And the injustice continues to roll on. I hate the U.S. govt. for ever having released such poison on the world. There is so much retribution this country has to go through to wash away the destruction it created during Vietnam. Sadly, I see the same situation happening now in Iraq as in Vietnam. That is, the U.S. has no business being involved in such a horribly unjustified war. Period. Fuck war and fuck the U.S. govt. for never representing their citizens. It's this govt. who decides to have a war and it's humanity that pays the price. Man, I hate war so much. Arghh!


Agent Orange Case for Millions of Vietnamese Is Dismissed
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Published: March 10, 2005

In a decision that could close a controversial Vietnam-era chapter of American history, a federal judge in Brooklyn today dismissed a damage suit filed on behalf of millions of Vietnamese that claimed American chemical companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with the defoliant Agent Orange.

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The civil suit, filed last year, had sought what could have been billions of dollars in damages and the environmental cleanup of Vietnam. The suit drew international attention for its claims about Agent Orange, which was widely used by the American military to clear the jungle until 1971.

The suit claimed that the defoliant, which contained the highly toxic substance dioxin, left a legacy of poison in Vietnam that caused birth defects, cancer and other health problems and amounted to a violation of international law.

But Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the United States District Court sided with the chemical companies and the Justice Department, which argued that supplying the defoliant did not amount to a war crime.

"No treaty or agreement, express or implied, of the United States," Judge Weinstein wrote, "operated to make use of herbicides in Vietnam a violation of the laws of war or any other form of international law until at the earliest April of 1975."

Because of sovereign immunity, the United States government was not sued.

In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford adopted a national policy renouncing the first use of herbicides in warfare. Also in 1975, the Senate ratified an international Geneva accord dating from 1925, which outlawed the use of poisonous gases during war.

The suit claimed that because of the dioxin in Agent Orange, spraying it amounted to the use of poison during war.

But Judge Weinstein concluded in a 233-page decision that even if the United States had been a Geneva signatory during the Vietnam War, the accord would not have barred the use of Agent Orange.

"The prohibition extended only to gases deployed for their asphyxiating or toxic effects on man," said the decision, issued in response to a motion for dismissal by the defendants, "not to herbicides designed to affect plants that may have unintended harmful side-effects on people."

William H. Goodman, a lawyer for an association of Vietnamese that filed the suit as a class action, said the decision would be appealed. He said the United States Supreme Court could eventually decide the issue.

"The judge missed the point," Mr. Goodman said. "He ruled as a matter of law that what these defendants manufactured was not a poison, whereas even these manufacturers recognized that it was at the time."

The companies have long said that dioxin was an unwanted byproduct of the manufacture of Agent Orange, but claimed that there was no conclusive link to the many serious health problems blamed on Agent Orange.

Over many decades, American veterans of the Vietnam War filed suits making health claims similar to those now being pressed by the Vietnamese. Judge Weinstein also handled those cases.

Seven American chemical companies settled the veterans' cases for $180 million in 1984.

The same chemical companies, including Dow, Monsanto and Hercules, were sued in the Vietnamese case.

Spokesmen for some of the companies applauded the decision today.

"We believe the defoliant saved lives by protecting allied forces from enemy ambush and did not create adverse health affects," said Scot Wheeler, a spokesman for the Dow Chemical Company.

Glynn Young, a spokesman for Monsanto, said Judge Weinstein's decision was correct.

"The judge said they didn't make the case," Mr. Young said. "That's a very difficult message for a lot of people to understand because there's so much emotion wrapped up in cases like this one."

Though he ruled against the Vietnamese plaintiffs, Judge Weinstein agreed with many arguments put forth by their lawyers. He rejected arguments of the Justice Department that the court had no place in reviewing military strategies adopted by President John F. Kennedy and his successors.

Saying "presidential powers are limited even in wartime," Judge Weinstein said American courts had the power to decide whether presidential decisions about the conduct of a war violated international law.

"In the Third Reich," the decision said, "all power of the state was centered in Hitler; yet his orders did not serve as a defense at Nuremberg," where war crimes trials were conducted after World War II.

Similarly, he rejected an argument from the chemical companies that they were shielded by rules that typically protect military contractors from suits for providing war materiel.

Clearly writing to influence courts in the future, Judge Weinstein used sweeping language and employed extensive citations to historical, military, scientific and legal writings.

If supplying contaminated herbicide had been a war crime, Judge Weinstein wrote, the chemical companies could have refused to supply it. "We are a nation of free men and women," he wrote, "habituated to standing up to government when it exceeds its authority."

Taco Bell deal will cost company $100,000 per year


What the fuck? Taco Bell only has to fork over only 100 grand more per year?!!! That's so unfair. And it's only benefiting 1,000 workers? C'mon this is not justice. This is a farce. Yes, it's a great victory for this organization but only a small wave in the ocean. I am so happy for them as a long time supporter but I'm also angry that this corporation doesn't feel the need to give more than this after all the profits the make. We never needed corporate accountability more than now. The age of the robber barons has never ceased in my opinion. Still, I'm very excited to attend the celebration rally whenever it's held. Yeah!

The Daily Texan - University
Issue: 3/10/05

Taco Bell deal will cost company $100,000 per year
By Jeff squire


Taco Bell's agreement with Florida tomato pickers to pay more for its tomatoes will cost the company an additional $100,000 a year.

Taco Bell made more than $1 million in sales in 2003, and its parent company, Yum! Brands Inc., earned more than $1 trillion. Profits for the companies have only increased since the workers began a three-year boycott of the company, and the decision has nothing to do with money, according to Taco Bell spokeswoman Laurie Schalow.

The company declared sympathy for the tomato pickers from the beginning, Schalow said, and only waited until now to make a deal because it finally secured assurances from its suppliers, who employ the pickers, to pass the additional money directly to the roughly 1,000 workers.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, who led the boycott, asked for a penny more per pound of tomatoes. The workers currently earn approximately 1.25 cents per pound for a mean income of $7,500 a year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The figure had not changed since 1978, and it constitutes a decrease of 65 percent in 27 years when adjusted for inflation. The current poverty threshold for a one-person household in Florida is $9,570.

Taco Bell recently secured an agreement with several of its tomato suppliers to pass the penny raise to pickers, and the company said it will monitor those suppliers to ensure this arrangement. The raise will nearly double current wages, according to CIW, bringing them almost to the poverty level.

The company's first attempt to appease the pickers came last year when it issued a $110,000 check to CIW. The company wanted the money, equal to the amount of a 1-cent per pound yearly increase, dispersed among the workers, but CIW refused.

"It wasn't systemic change. That's what we wanted," said Julia Perkins, CIW spokeswoman.

Now, with the support of the CIW, the company will give roughly that amount every year and has pledged to encourage similar efforts within the industry. Until Tuesday, the company maintained throughout the boycott that any solution must be industry-wide and resisted unilaterally raising rates in the Florida market, where it buys less than 1 percent of tomato crops.

"One thousand dollars just isn't going to help a lot of people," said Schalow, which is why the company wants other industry leaders to follow suit.

CIW leader Lucas Benitez called the company's change of heart a "new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry." Organizers of the nation-wide boycott attribute the company's reversal to rising social pressure, advanced in large part by students.

At the University, efforts to expel Taco Bell from the Texas Union failed, though the organization spearheading the move on campus, the Student Labor Action Project, continued efforts to boycott the restaurant.

The boycott really had no financial effect in Austin, said Don Barton, vice president of Austaco, which runs some 70 Taco Bells in Central Texas, including the one in the Union. He said he just didn't believe it was large enough to have an impact, though he said his company will be glad to pay its part of the agreement, which amounts to roughly $1,000 a year.

COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS, TACO BELL® REACH GROUNDBREAKING AGREEMENT

Man, I can't believe this has finally happened! After so much work and years. So much struggle for just a penny more. It seems so long ago when I joined the march; that must have been 5 years ago. Change sure is slow, indeed.



COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS, TACO BELL® REACH GROUNDBREAKING AGREEMENT

CIW to end Taco Bell boycott; Taco Bell to pay penny-per-pound surcharge demanded by workers, will work with CIW to raise farm labor standards in supply chain, across industry as a whole

March 8, 2005 (IMMOKALEE/LOUISVILLE) – In a precedent-setting move, fast-food industry leader Taco Bell Corp., a division of Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), has agreed to work with the Florida-based farm worker organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), to address the wages and working conditions of farmworkers in the Florida tomato industry.

Taco Bell announced today that it will fund a penny per pound “pass-through” with its suppliers of Florida tomatoes, and will undertake joint efforts with the CIW on several fronts to improve working conditions in Florida’s tomato fields. For its part, the CIW has agreed to end its three-year boycott of Taco Bell, saying that the agreement “sets a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry.”

“As an industry leader, we are pleased to lend our support to and work with the CIW to improve working and pay conditions for farmworkers in the Florida tomato fields,” said Emil Brolick, Taco Bell president. “We recognize that Florida tomato workers do not enjoy the same rights and conditions as employees in other industries, and there is a need for reform. We have indicated that any solution must be industry-wide, as our company simply does not have the clout alone to solve the issues raised by the CIW, but we are willing to play a leadership role within our industry to be part of the solution,” Brolick added.

Taco Bell has recently secured an agreement with several of its tomato-grower suppliers, who employ the farmworkers, to pass-through the company-funded equivalent of one-cent per pound directly to the workers.

“With this agreement, we will be the first in our industry to directly help improve farmworkers’ wages,” added Brolick, “And we pledge to make this commitment real by buying only from Florida growers who pass this penny per pound payment entirely on to the farmworkers, and by working jointly with the CIW and our suppliers to monitor the pass-through for compliance. We hope others in the restaurant industry and supermarket retail trade will follow our leadership.” Yum! Brands and Taco Bell will also work with the CIW to help ensure that Florida tomato pickers enjoy working terms and conditions similar to those that workers in other industries enjoy. CIW/Taco Bell Resolution Page 2

“We are challenging our tomato suppliers to meet those higher standards and will seek to do business with those who do,” said Jonathan Blum, senior vice president, Yum! Brands. “We have already added language to our Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure that indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden, and we will require strict compliance with all existing laws. Finally, we pledge to aid in efforts at the state level to seek new laws that better protect all Florida tomato farmworkers,” added Blum.

The Company indicated that it believes other restaurant chains and supermarkets, along with the Florida Tomato Committee, should join in seeking legislative reform, because “human rights are universal and we hope others will follow our company’s lead.”

“This is an important victory for farmworkers, one that establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry and makes an immediate material change in the lives of workers. This sends a clear challenge to other industry leaders,” said Lucas Benitez, a leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

“Systemic change to ensure human rights for farmworkers is long-overdue. Taco Bell has now taken an important leadership role by securing the penny per pound pass-through from its tomato suppliers, and by the other efforts it has committed to undertake to help win equal rights for farmworkers,” Benitez added. “We now call on the National Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights and other organizations to join the CIW and end their boycott of Taco Bell, and to recognize the Company by supporting its ongoing leadership in our fight against human rights abuses. But our work together is not done. Now we must convince other companies that they have the power to change the way they do business and the way workers are treated.”

Representatives from the Carter Center assisted the discussions and resolution between the two organizations. “I commend the Coalition of Immokalee Workers for their principled leadership in this very important campaign. I am pleased Taco Bell has taken a leadership role to help reform working conditions for Florida farmworkers and has committed to use its power to effect positive human rights change. I now call on others in the industry to follow Taco Bell’s lead to help the tomato farmworkers,” said former President Jimmy Carter.

Taco Bell Corp., based in Irvine, California, is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. and the nation’s leading Mexican-style quick service restaurant chain serving tacos, burritos, signature Quesadillas, Border Bowls®, nachos and other specialty items. In 2004, Taco Bell purchased approximately 10 million pounds of Florida tomatoes, representing less than one percent of Florida’s tomato production. Taco Bell serves more than 35 million consumers each week in more than 6,500 restaurants in the U.S.

CIW is a membership-led organization of agricultural workers based in Immokalee, Florida, that seeks justice for farmworkers and promotes their fair treatment in accordance with national and international labor standards. Among its accomplishments, the CIW has aided in the prosecution of five slavery operations by the Department of Justice and the liberation of over 1,000 workers. The CIW uses creative methods to educate consumers about human rights abuses in the U.S. agriculture industry, corporate social responsibility, and how consumers can help workers realize their social change goals.

World marks International Women's Day

How come women are still not in power yet? Don't we make up more than half the world's population? There is still so much more to do. Ay.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 · Last updated 11:35 a.m. PT

World marks International Women's Day

By EDITH M. LEDERER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

UNITED NATIONS -- Leaders of the fight for women's equality say there is no going back on the revolution that began 30 years ago, though the challenges ahead are immense.

The comments came at a U.N. meeting to evaluate the world's progress toward gender equality. Now in its second and final week, the gathering has drawn delegates from 130 countries and 6,000 representatives from women's and human rights organizations.

Commemorating Tuesday's International Women's Day, Rachel Mayanja, the secretary-general's top adviser on women, warned that "the task ahead is not going to be any less difficult than it has been during the past decades."

She stressed that world leaders cannot view poverty, armed conflict and violence in isolation.

"The eradication of poverty and disease is as important as dealing with the criminal networks that traffic in women and children," she said.

Nafis Sadik, a special adviser on AIDS to Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former head of the U.N. Population Fund, said governments spend more than $900 billion on the military while the world's richest countries spend less than $70 billion on development assistance - and only about $3 billion of that amount goes to gender equality programs.

"What contributes more to security, $3 billion invested in women or the $900 billion squandered on weapons?" Sadik said to loud applause. "It is time for political leaders to stop talking about peace and really start investing in it."

At a commemoration held Friday before most of the ministers and VIPs left, two Nobel Peace Prize winners and the heads of the four U.N. conferences on women since 1975 spoke of progress and challenges ahead. The four conferences built the global women's movement.

Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, last year's Nobel laureate, said women must celebrate their achievements, including her prize, but must fight poverty by championing debt relief and open markets, and tackle climate change and deforestation.

"It is us who will eventually have to convince our governments that women need to be given equal space, to be given an opportunity to exploit their potential, and that it is not a gift for women to participate in decision-making - it is a right," Maathai said.

Rigoberta Menchu, the Indian rights activist from Guatemala who won the peace prize in 1992, said women should be "a beacon of hope" to change systems promoting racism, discrimination, exclusion and the lack of economic opportunity.

"We women have to give the example of being inclusive, of fighting exclusion, of fighting racism," she said. "That is why I'm here."

Helvi Sipila, secretary-general of the first U.N. women's conference in Mexico City in 1975, said in a video message from her home in Finland that women have made "considerable strides toward gender equality" but not enough has been done to advance peace.

"Today ... we must ask ourselves more seriously and with greater determination than ever what we can do in order to end violence, to enhance national and international understanding, and to secure world peace," said Sipila, 89.

Gertrude Mongella, secretary-general of the 1995 Beijing conference and now president of the Pan-African Parliament, recalled that in her final speech in Beijing she said: "A revolution has begun and there's no going back."

Ten years later, she said, women are more visible, gender equality "has become a working concept worldwide," and "women and men are now mobilized to see women's issues as societal issues, whether they like it or not."

"We are here to set a new speed," Mongella said. "We are here to remove the remaining obstacles. ... We are on the right track of our revolution. There is no going back."

Former U.N. assistant secretary-general Angela King, who was Annan's top adviser on women and organized the 2000 U.N. conference that reviewed Beijing, said the challenges of five years ago are the challenges of today.

She said an increasing number of women live in poverty, lag behind in economic advancement, are hurt by globalization, are contracting HIV/AIDS in greater numbers and are increasingly subject to violence in armed conflicts and through trafficking, she said.

King noted there are only four women prime ministers of independent countries and few women are at peace tables, citing them as the difficulty in changing stereotypes of women's limited roles.

"In 1975, the Mexico conference ignited a spark of awareness among women of their shared hopes and common problems," King said. "With each successive conference, the spark grew.

"Let us pledge today as the United Nations community, as governments, regions and individuals, that the flame for women's freedom and equality become a shining beacon for action to fully realize gender equality, development and peace