The world population can feed itself, concluded participants in the first World Food Summit, held in Rome 13-17 November 1996 and sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. Whether humanity can ensure the political will and the economic opportunity to distribute available food supplies most effectively and without destroying the environment is another question.
There is enough food produced in the world to feed the current population of about 5.8 billion, but it is estimated that by the year 2025 the number of people on the planet will reach about 8.3 billion. The FAO wants to create what it calls "food security" by making optimal use of the 11% of the planet's surface area that is amenable to crop production, as well as by sustaining global forests and fish stocks.
Summit participants from 186 countries heard addresses by Pope John Paul II, Cuban president Fidel Castro, and former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The participants adopted by acclamation the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the Summit Plan of Action. This document lists seven commitments that participants are willing to make, including steps toward resource sustainability and reduction of environmental degradation. The summit members also pledged to halve the number of hungry people in the world by the year 2015.
Environmental health concerns are more often voiced in developed countries such as the United States and Australia than in developing countries, where there is great pressure to make high yields the top priority, according to Nils Daulaire, deputy assistant administrator for policy and program coordination at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Human-created pollution is a relatively minor cause of world hunger, Daulaire added. "The major reasons for hunger among the 840 million chronically malnourished people in the world have to do with fundamental issues of poverty, inequality, and conflict," he said.
Consequently, while the summit plan of action includes a commitment to practice sustainability in agricultural and natural resources, it places political and economic issues far ahead of environmental ones. The specific environmental threats to food supplies listed by the plan include drought and desertification, pests, erosion of biological diversity, and degradation of land and water resources. Of these, the leading problem is pests and, in terms of environmental health, the use of pesticides.
The summit participants endorsed the FAO policy of integrated pest management (IPM), which shifts the focus toward use of natural pest predators, pest-resistant crop varieties, and crop rotation, reserving chemical pesticides for severe situations.
IPM has been shown to be effective. In 1987, after years of indiscriminate pesticide use, Indonesia suffered a devastating outbreak of an insect known as the brown hopper. The Indonesian government abruptly changed its pesticide policy, officially endorsing IPM and banning 57 pesticides. Despite this often-cited success story, an FAO document posted on the World Wide Web warns that IPM faces strong opposition from major chemical companies who manufacture and sell pesticides. Although many such companies officially endorse IPM, they also support hard-sell tactics by their distributors in the field, and offer premiums and price incentives for insecticide purchase.
This is an example of the sort of political and economic obstacles the world faces in changing its food production practices. Although the summit participants were unified on the goals of the plan of action, the summit itself lacks power to enforce the goals. The plan does not change current funding arrangements in individual countries or in the United Nations, and, because of the plan's reliance on recommendation and suggestion rather than strong policy changes, protesters demonstrated for more stringent action on the last day of the summit. In addition, the Vatican protested the plan's call for family planning, and the United States disagreed with the plan's endorsement of a global right to be fed.
According to Tim Lavelle of USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Response, these two issues were the focus of great contention among the 1,200 nongovernmental organizations attending the summit. Other issues of concern to these organizations were biodiversity and the conversion of community genetic resources into intellectual property.
Communicating Risk in a Changing World
Representatives from government, academia, and industry gathered recently at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI) in Piscataway, New Jersey, to share ideas about how changes in the environment relate to risk and how to improve the effectiveness of science-based communications with the public. The symposium, entitled Communicating Risk in a Changing World, was sponsored by the Subcommittee on Risk Communication and Education (a division of the U.S. Public Health Service's Environmental Health Policy Committee), along with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation. Recommendations from the meeting will be used by the subcommittee to develop guidelines on contemporary risk communication issues for use by federal agencies.
The symposium began with a briefing on the May 1996 report of a federal risk commission, which recommended that the public be more involved in risk assessment processes. "The government has been focusing on risks, options, and decisions," said Bernard Goldstein, director of the EOHSI and a member of the commission. "We've ignored that all [decision making] should be done with the stakeholders."
Symposium attendees examined six areas including environmental justice, comparative risk assessment, broadening stakeholder involvement, the role of the media, educational strategies, and community and worker right-to-know issues. For each area, they attempted to identify changing forces and trends, determine how these changes affect risk communication processes, and formulate future responses to these changes. According to Barry Johnson, assistant administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the participants addressed the six areas in a "comprehensive, exciting, and thorough" manner.
In the area of environmental justice, the participants determined that fairness, rather than risk, is the main issue and that, although community members are not currently included in evaluation efforts, they should be. In order to involve neighborhoods in the risk assessment process, leaders should recognize that responsiveness and the building of trust are essential.
Comparative risk assessment was loosely defined at the meeting as a methodology to identify and rank issues. Participants determined that, in developing comparative risk assessment, scientists need to include outside viewpoints and to make the process more easily understandable to the public.
Stakeholder participation was a major topic of discussion, with the consensus being that more attention should be focused on defining exactly who stakeholders are in order to facilitate their involvement in risk decisions. The group suggested that identifying and addressing peer group leaders is the best way to communicate with public groups and communities.
In discussing the role of the media, participants pointed out the need for better communication between scientists and members of the media, and suggested that risk issues could be linked to social, economic, and political issues to illustrate risk's relevance to the public. However, they warned that repeatedly presenting the public with extensive information on risk could result in a sort of information burnout.
Cooperation and trust are the keys to handling right-to-know issues with workers and communities, the group stated, particularly in the areas of training and educating both workers and the community. In addition, participants said, it is important to assess the needs of a community and determine who is being educated and how. The group also suggested that, once a community has been educated on risk issues, it is important to provide risk updates in order to maintain community involvement.
One consensus reached at the conference was that, in communicating to the public, each situation must be assessed differently because different sectors of the public have diverse perspectives, interests, and needs. Most importantly, the public must be included in risk decision making. Paul Schulte, director of the Education and Information Division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said the symposium "shows that the field [of risk communication] is maturing. The biggest lesson learned is the realization that communication is a two-way street; we need to involve the people that we're communicating with [in risk making decisions]." Maria Pavlova, a medical officer with the Office of Occupational Medicine and Medical Surveillance of the Department of Energy noted that the symposium was successful as a collaborative effort. "We worked together and put into practice what the . . . administration is talking about--sharing experience so we don't duplicate efforts. This results in creating new partnerships. The rich mixture of people involved will impact the field of risk communication for years to come."
Airports in the United States are major sources of pollution and in many cases are among the top polluters in major metropolitan areas, according to a report released in October by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). According to the report, Flying Off Course: Environmental Impacts of America's Airports, these facilities produce air, water, and noise pollution that can be hazardous to people in the surrounding area, and they are a significant source of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which contribute to global warming.
"Living near an airport is like having a power plant as a neighbor, only power plants are subject to stronger pollution controls and disclosure requirements," Jonathan Trutt, one of the authors of the report, told the Associated Press. The NRDC report notes that airports are often governed by different rules than smokestack industries. Airports are given special consideration under the Clean Air Act, and, unlike other industries, they are not required to report their pollution in toxic release inventories (TRIs).
In particular, the report concluded that John F. Kennedy International Airport and La Guardia Airport are among the 10 largest sources of smog in the New York City area and that Los Angeles International Airport is second only to Chevron Corporation as a source of smog in the Los Angeles area. Chicago O'Hare International Airport was found to be the fifth largest source of pollution in the Chicago area, and National and Dulles International airports ranked between two incinerators as the fourth and sixth largest sources of smog in the Washington, DC, area.
In response to these findings, Cora Fossett, a spokesperson for Los Angeles International Airport, told the Associated Press that the airport had won a "Clean City" Award for 1996 from the U.S. Department of Energy for its use of natural gas-powered buses, vans, trucks, and cars. Similarly, Alan Morrison, a spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said that significant steps had been taken by New York and New Jersey airports to protect the environment. Both said that they had not seen the NRDC report and could not comment on it specifically.
According to the report, airplanes released 350 million pounds of smog-forming gases into the atmosphere in 1993. De-icing fluids from airports have contributed significantly to water pollution, the report states, citing a 1992 study that found that up to 80% of the 600,000 gallons of fluid used to de-ice New York City airports is discharged untreated into Flushing and Jamaica bays. In addition, the report says, over 250,000 people residing near JFK, La Guardia, and Newark airports are subject to noise levels higher than those deemed safe for residents by the Federal Aviation Administration. The report notes that as air travel becomes increasingly popular, these pollution problems, if left unchecked, could become much worse.
In order to reduce the flow of pollution from U.S. airports, the report recommends several changes in airport practices, such as encouraging pilots to shut down as many engines as possible when idling and taxiing, and collecting de-icing chemicals for treatment.
The report also recommends that the EPA require airports to notify the public of harmful emissions through toxic release inventories, and that the EPA revise provisions in the Clean Air Act that prevent states from implementing smog-reduction plans for airports.
However, Bryan Manning, a mechanical engineer in the EPA's Office of Mobile Sources, says that the Clean Air Act deals with airports differently for many "common-sense reasons." Among these is that allowing states to create pollution laws for airports that are stricter than the federal government's standards could give airlines incentive to base their fleets in states with the least rigid laws. In addition, Manning said, most emissions standards for airplanes are set by the International Civil Aviation Organization and adopting more stringent pollution controls for U.S. airlines would hurt them in competition with airlines based in other countries.
The NRDC study recommends that the 10% domestic airplane ticket tax be replaced with an aviation fuel tax, which would encourage airlines to use newer, more fuel-efficient airplanes. It also recommends that more stringent standards be adopted for nitrogen oxide emissions and that measures be taken to control noise pollution from airports. "We're not saying don't fly," said Richard Kassel, the NRDC's airport project coordinator. "We're saying adopt control measures on the ground that would reduce emissions so that airports can do their fair share."
Silicon Lungs
Two organizations that critique sites on the World Wide Web recently lauded the American Thoracic Society (ATS) for its dissemination of free, useful information over the Internet. Located at http://www.thoracic.org/ , the ATS site provides updates on advances in respiratory and critical care medicine and on the legislation that affects health care in the United States. It is also a good source of information on training, research, and conferences sponsored by the society.
Founded in 1905 as an organization committed to the eradication of tuberculosis, the ATS now serves as the medical branch of the American Lung Association and has over 12,500 members. The breadth of the society's research activities has expanded, with members investigating respiratory ailments such as pneumonia and occupational lung disease as well as methods to improve the critical care received by hospitalized patients. Two journals published by the society reflect these activities, and the contents and abstracts from each can be accessed via the ATS Web site.
The ATS Publications link on the society's homepage connects users to the homepages for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology. Through the Contact Information link on this page, users can access subscription and submission information for each journal. There are also links that connect users to the tables of contents for the current issues of the journals. Abstracts from papers in the four most recent issues of each journal can be accessed through the Abstracts link on the ATS Publications page.
Through the ATS Publications page, users can access ATS position papers on a range of topics including pulmonary function testing, pulmonary infection, respiratory disease, and environmental and occupational health. Other resources accessible from the ATS Publications menu include a list of CD-ROM publications that can be ordered from ATS and the on-line edition of the ATS News, which announces awards, conferences, and courses relating to the society's work.
The Washington Reports link on the ATS homepage connects to a resource that allows scientists and health professionals to keep abreast of the legislative decisions that affect their work. The Legislative Update link provides information on the latest public policy issues, while a separate link connects to a 12-month legislative archive.
For those who are members or who are interested in joining the ATS, membership information is available through the society's homepage, including a map to make finding the nearest ATS chapter easier, membership statistics, and an e-mail link for the organization. The Assemblies link on the homepage connects users to information on the structure of the ATS and the necessary guidelines and forms for requesting ATS research funding. Information on the society's major conference, the Second ATS State-of-the-Art Review Course in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, is also linked to the homepage.
Other information available on the ATS site can be located by using the internal search engine accessible through an icon at the bottom of the homepage. The homepage of the society's sister organization, the American Lung Association, is accessible by following either the General Public Information link or the Research link.
Last Update: March 7, 1997