The Gaia Reports

By Theodora Filis UPDATE: July 3 (Reuters) - A pipeline burst in Russia's northwestern Komi Republic threatens to leak 1,000 cubic meters of oil into a nearby river and cause serious environmental damage, the head of the state environment watchdog Rosprirodnadzor warned on Monday. "There was a burst in an oil pipeline near Usinsk. According to our calculations, 1,000 cubic meters of oil could get into the Kolva River,"  the official, Svetlana Radionova, wrote on the Telegram messenger app.  The energy-rich region witnessed one of the worst oil spills in Russian history in August 1994, when its aging pipeline network sprang a leak that was officially said to have totaled 79,000 tonnes, or 585,000 barrels. Independent estimates put the figure at up to 2 million barrels .          _____________________ Rosneft, the Russian oil company worth an estimated $60 billion, is headquartered in a palace across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. Poised to become...

By Theodora Filis During the next decade, Russia will be unable to deal effectively with the formidable environmental challenges posed by decades of Soviet and post-Soviet environmental mismanagement and recurring economic crises.  Although the prolonged contraction in economic activity has resulted in significant drops in most pollution categories, substantial environmental improvement will depend on an array of socioeconomic, institutional, and cultural changes--facilitated by the international engagement that will only begin to develop sporadically and close to the end of our 10-year time frame at the earliest. Major progress is decades away. Among Russia's most serious environmental problems: Water pollution is the most serious concern. Less than half of Russia's population has access to safe drinking water. While water pollution from industrial sources has diminished because of the decline in manufacturing, municipal wastes increasingly threaten key water supply ...

by Theodora Filis A bill to introduce compulsory registration of all products containing genetically modified  components is in the final stages of adoption by the Russian parliament. Following an explosive French study suggesting a link between Monsanto’s (known now as Bayer)  controversial genetically engineered (GMO) corn and cancer, Russian authorities have suspended all imports and use of the US biotech GMO product until further safety testing can be performed.  Officials worldwide are also investigating the matter.  Researchers in France released the results of their two-year study, published in  The Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal . According to the scientists, both the genetically engineered corn and the herbicide Roundup were linked to early death, massive organ failure, tumor growth, and other serious health problems. US analysts and Monsanto have downplayed the significance of the Russian government’s decision, claiming t...

By Theodora Filis Until this week, Europeans had been enjoying an unusually mild winter with spring-like temperatures in many cities. Scientists say a string of freezing European winters, scattered over the last decade, has been driven in large part by global warming. The recent week-long cold wave, with temperatures plunging as low as minus 32 degrees Celsius, has claimed hundreds of lives so far. Snow has stranded travelers across the continent with roads blocked, airplanes grounded, and trains unable to move. The snow is forecast to intensify before easing on Saturday, February 4, 2012. Big Freeze tightens its grip on Europe Meteorologists blame the weather on a strong high-pressure system that has pushed cold Siberian air across the continent. According to a new study Arctic's receding surface ice, which at current rates of decline, could disappear entirely during summer months by century's end – tripling the chances that future winters in Europe and no...

By Theodora Filis In what is now northern Ukraine, in the small village of Pripyat, in the city of Chornobyl, a catastrophic nuclear meltdown occurred 25 years ago on April 26, 1986. Together with the recent nuclear crisis in Japan, we need to ask ourselves if the world has progressed toward safer nuclear energy. “ It was a massive explosion- ten times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. It flung into the air 120 Tons of red-hot nuclear fuel and more than 100 Tons of reactor graphite. The 500-Ton "biological shield" built over the reactor was hurled into the air, crashing back down at an angle, leaving the reactor core exposed- spewing massive amounts of radiation. Flames shot 600 feet into the air. Fires started. Pieces of radioactive material were mashed into the structural debris. Almost 50 Tons of nuclear fuel were evaporated into dust, blown by the wind northwest across Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Baltic States.”  The Truth About Chernobyl , by Grigori Medvedev Thir...

By Theodora Filis The world watched anxiously as a nuclear emergency unraveled at the Fukushima Daiichi complex, along with the ravaged northeastern coast of Japan, as operators dumped seawater into 2 reactors in a final cooling effort to prevent a nuclear meltdown after a massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake and 23-foot tsunami devastated Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011. With the Fukushima complex making headlines, White House officials hope to assure the American public that there is nothing for them to worry about. "The U.S. power plants are designed to very high standards for earthquake effects," said Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "All our plants are designed to withstand significant natural phenomena, like earthquakes, tornadoes, and tsunamis." Five of the six reactors at the Japanese plant, which suffered a second explosion Monday, use the same General Electric reactor that are 23 nuclear plants in North Caroli...