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Featured stories in this issue...

Hazardous Chemicals in Synthetic Turf: Follow-up Analyses
  Some U.S. cities are replacing soil and grass with synthetic turf
  in parks, playgrounds and ball fields. Here two researchers report
  measuring toxic chemicals in sythetic turf at levels that exceed New
  York State's allowable standards for soil. This is a follow-up to an
  earlier study.
Toxic Waste and Race: Report Confirms No Progress Made in 20 Years
  More than 9 million people live within three kilometers of one of
  413 hazardous waste facilities nationwide. Where toxic facilities are
  clustered, people of color make up more than a two-thirds majority.
Step It Up: Action This Saturday, April 14!
  This Saturday, April 14, 2007, will be the biggest day of citizen
  action on global warming anyone has ever seen. Your participation will
  make it count all the more. Join the movement for climate justice!
GAO Says U.S. Put 'Unnecessarily at Risk' by Oil Decline
  A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- the
  research arm of the U.S. Congress -- says the nation has been put at
  risk because no one is planning for the arrival of "peak oil" -- the
  moment when half the oil in the ground has been pumped. After the peak
  oil moment passes, the price of oil will rise more or less steadily,
  causing price increases in everything made from, or transported by,
  oil -- which is just about everything we consider essential today.
An Open Letter to the International Nanotechnology Community
  In 2005, Environmental Defense (ED) partnered with DuPont to
  promote a "responsible" risk asssessment of nanotechnology products.
  This week, representatives of global civil society issued a resounding
  "No!" to the ED-DuPont plan.
Poor Countries Are Now Subsidizing Rich Countries
  Why do they hate us? One reason is because poor countries are now
  being forced to subsidize rich ones "at a skyrocketing rate." This is
  not very complicated: No justice, no peace.

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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #992, Apr. 12, 2007
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HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS IN SYNTHETIC TURF: FOLLOW-UP ANALYSES

By William Crain and Junfeng Zhang

Across the country, communities and private sports facilities are
installing the "new generation" synthetic turf. Compared to the old
AstroTurf, the new synthetic turf is springier and feels more like
natural grass. However, the new turf is being installed before there
has been thorough research on its health risks.

We have been especially concerned about the possibility that the
rubber granules that contribute to the new turf's resiliency contain
toxic chemicals. The granules rest between the plastic grass fibers,
but they also are common on the surface, so children and athletes come
into frequent contact with them. In fact, many players have told us
that the granules get into their shoes and wind up in their homes.

In the September 21, 2006 issue of Rachel's Democracy and Health News
(#873), we reported on our initial chemical analyses of rubber
granules in the new synthetic turf in Manhattan's Riverside Park.
Specifically, we wanted to see if the granules contained any of 15
polyclyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency priority pollutant list. The results revealed
worrisome levels of six PAHs: benzo(a)anthracene, chrysene, benzo(b)
fluoranthene, benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(k)fluoranthene, and dibenzo(a,h)
anthracene. These PAHs were in concentrations that the New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) considers sufficiently
dangerous to public health to require their removal from contaminated
soil sites.[1] Each PAH might well be carcinogenic to humans.[2]

In the above study, the brand of synthetic turf was A-Turf. We need to
know if PAHs are also present in other brands in other parks. In
October 2006 and January 2007, we analyzed additional samples of
rubber granules-two samples from the large playing fields in the
Parade Grounds in Brooklyn and one sample from the small Sara D.
Roosevelt Park in Manhattan. The manufacturer of these artificial
fields was FieldTurf, the country's most popular brand
(www.fieldturf.com). The Parade Grounds fields were over three years
old; the Roosevelt Park field was five months old. As in our earlier
investigation, a Soxhlet apparatus with organic solvents was used to
determine the maximum extractable amounts of the 15 PAHs.

Using the DEC's contaminated soil site standards[1] as our benchmark,
we found three PAHs to be at hazardous levels in at least one sample.
The concentrations of these three PAHs are listed in Table 1.

===================================================


Table 1. Concentrations of PAHs in Rubber Granules (ppm*)

....................... Sample... Sample.. Sample... DEC
....................... 1**...... 2**..... 3***..... Contaminated
.................................................... Soil Limits

Chrysene .............. 1.96..... 1.34.... 0.06..... 1.0
Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene. 0.71..... 0.52.... 1.43..... 0.33
Benzo(b)fluoranthene... 1.08..... 0.58.... 0.20..... 1.0

* ppm = parts per million

** Parade Grounds in Brooklyn
*** Roosevelt Park in Manhattan


===================================================

As we can see in Table 1, the PAH that exceeded the DEC's tolerable
level in all three samples was dibenzo(a,h)anthracene. The
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) considers this PAH
to be one of the most dangerous. Although more is known about PAH
toxicity to nonhuman animals than to humans, the IARC lists
dibenzo(a,h)anthracene as a probable human carcinogen. It lists
chrysene and benzo(b)fluoranthene as possible human carcinogens.[2]

In conclusion, the present study found fewer PAHs that were at
hazardous levels, compared to the previous study. Even so, the
presence of any hazardous PAH concentration is a cause for concern.

Additional evidence of elevated PAHs in rubber granules comes from a
2004 study in Norway. Analyzing other brands of synthetic turf, the
investigators found several PAH concentrations that were above
Norway's land use standards.[3]

The next step is to study the bioavailability of PAHs -- that is, the
likelihood that they can be absorbed into the bodies of children and
athletes through pathways such as skin contact and ingestion. Thus
far, the research on this topic is very limited,[4,5] and the major
study was apparently industry-funded.[4] Until much more research is
conducted, a moratorium on new synthetic turf installations would be
prudent.

References

[1] 6 NYCRR Subpart 375-6, Remedial Program Soil Cleanup Objectives,
Effective Dec.14, 2006. Department of Environmental Conservation,
Tables 375-6.8 (a) and (b).

[2] International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs on
the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk to Humans, PAHs, Vol. 95, 2006,
p. 18.

[3] Norwegian Building Research Institute. Potential health and
environmental effects linked to artificial turf systems -- final
report, 2004.

[4] Birkholz, D. A., K. L Belton, and T. L. Guldotti, Toxicological
evaluation for the hazard assessment of tire crumb for use in public
playgrounds. J. Air & Waste Manage. Assoc., Volume 53, July 2003.

[5] Nilsson, N. H., A. Fielberg, and K. Pommer. Emission and
evaluation of health effects of PAHs and aromatic amines. Survey of
Chemical Substances in Consumer Products, no.54. Danish Ministry of
the Environment, 2005.

==============

Note on authors' affiliations:

William Crain, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at The City College
of New York and president of Citizens for a Green Riverside Park.
Billcrain@aol.com

Junfeng (Jim) Zhang, Ph.D. is professor and acting chair, Department
of Environmental and Occupational Health, the School of Public Health,
the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rutgers
University. Jjzhang@eohsi.rutgers.edu

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From: University of Michigan, Apr. 10, 2007
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TOXIC WASTE AND RACE: REPORT CONFIRMS NO PROGRESS MADE IN 20 YEARS

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Environmental injustice in people-of-color and
poor communities is as much or more prevalent today than 20 years ago,
say researchers commissioned to conduct a follow-up to the 1987
landmark study, "Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States."

The new report, "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007:
Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism in the United
States," [3.5 Mbyte PDF] shows that 20 years later,
disproportionately large numbers of people of color still live in
hazardous waste host communities, and that they are not equally
protected by environmental laws.

"People of color across the United States have learned the hard way
that waiting for government to respond to toxic contamination can be
hazardous to their health and health of their communities," said
Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center
at Clark Atlanta University. Bullard was the principal investigator
for the study.

The 160-page report, which was commissioned by the United Church of
Christ and produced by scholars at Clark Atlanta University, the
University of Michigan, the University of Montana and Dillard
University, points to the dismal post-Katrina response in New Orleans
as one poignant example of unequal treatment of minorities in
hazardous waste emergencies. The findings also show that environmental
laws don't protect communities of color any more than they did 20
years ago when the original report was commissioned.

Paul Mohai, professor of environmental justice at the University of
Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment and a co-author
of the report, described the results as dismaying. "You can see there
has been a lot more attention to the issue of environmental justice
but the progress has been very, very slow," Mohai said. "Why? As
important as all those efforts are they haven't been well executed and
I don't know if the political will is there."

Bullard, Mohai and colleagues Robin Saha, assistant professor of
environmental studies at University of Montana, and Beverly Wright,
founding director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
at Dillard University and a Hurricane Katrina survivor, are jointly
releasing the full report. An executive summary of the report was
released in February at the annual meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.

"The cleanup and reconstruction efforts in New Orleans have been
shamefully sluggish and patchy, and the environmental injustice may be
compounded by rebuilding on poisoned ground," Wright said.

The report is the first known national study to use a new method of
data analysis that better locates people in relation to hazardous
waste sites, and uses 2000 census data to show that the racial
disparities are much greater than previously reported.

"We think this study and the findings in it, as well as the case
studies that show the human side to the national statistics, make a
really strong case for environmental injustice to be on the policy
agenda of Congress," Saha said. "It's clear the policies we are trying
aren't working and that something else needs to be done."

More than nine million people are estimated to live in host
neighborhoods within three kilometers of one of 413 hazardous waste
facilities nationwide. The study found that the proportion of people
of color in host neighborhoods is almost twice that of the proportion
of those living in non-host neighborhoods. Where facilities are
clustered, people of color make up over a two-thirds majority (69
percent).

Ninety percent of states with facilities have disproportionately high
percentages of people of color living in host neighborhoods. States
with the 10 largest differences in people-of-color percentages between
host neighborhoods and non-host areas include.

-- Michigan (66 vs. 19 percent)

-- Nevada (79 vs. 33 percent)

-- Kentucky (51 vs. 10 percent)

-- Illinois (68 vs. 31 percent)

-- Alabama (66 vs. 31 percent)

-- Tennessee (54 vs. 20 percent)

-- Washington (53 vs. 20 percent)

-- Kansas (47 vs. 16 percent)

-- Arkansas (52 vs. 21 percent)

-- California (81 vs. 51 percent)

Differences in these percentages range from 30 percent (California) to
47 percent (Michigan). Host neighborhoods are typically economically
depressed, with poverty rates 1.5 times that of non-host communities.

The report analyzed the percentages of all people of color in host
communities by EPA region and every region with commercial hazardous
waste facilities had a disproportionate number of minorities in host
neighborhoods. The study also looked at 80 selected metropolitan
areas.

In addition to analyzing the total percentage of people of color in
host communities, the report analyzes the percentages of
Hispanic/Latino, African American, and Asian/Pacific Islander
separately. For example in Michigan, which had the largest disparity
in the proportion of people of color living in host neighborhoods, the
majority of those minorities affected were African American.

The report also gives more than three dozen recommendations for action
at the Congressional, state and local levels to help remedy the
disparities. It also makes recommendations for nongovernmental
agencies and industry.

The report includes testimonials on the progress of the environmental
justice movement by some of its founders and key leaders. There are
also two detailed case studies, one on post-Katrina New Orleans, and
the other on toxic contamination of an African American community in
Dickson, Tenn. Finally, the report includes a timeline of milestones
in the environmental justice movement that Bullard solicited from
environmental justice leaders around the country.

For more information:

Robert Bullard, Clark Atlanta University; (404) 880-6920,
rbullard4ej@worldnet.att.net

Paul Mohai, University of Michigan; (734) 763-4598, pmohai@umich.edu

Robin Saha, University of Montana; (406) 243-6285,
robin.saha@umontana.edu

Beverly Wright, Dillard University; (504) 782-8989, bhwright@aol.com

Reference sites:

Clark Atlanta University: www.ejrc.cau.edu

University of Michigan: www.snre.umich.edu

University of Montana: www.umt.edu

Dillard University: www.dillard.edu

United Church of Christ: www.ucc.org

Contact: Paul Mohai, (734) 763-4598, pmohai@umich.edu; Laura Lessnau,
(734) 764-7260, llessnau@umich.edu

EDITORS: For a chart, visit:
http://www.snre.umich.edu/news/newsdocs/Mohai%20chart0407.gif

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From: The Nation, Apr. 9, 2007
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STEP IT UP: ACTION THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 14!

By Peter Rothberg

A new global warming report issued on April 5 by the United Nations
paints a near-apocalyptic vision of Earth's future: hundreds of
millions of people short of water, extreme food shortages in Africa,
billions of people in Asia at risk from flooding; millions of species
sentenced to extinction; rampant disease.

Despite its grim vision, the report was quickly criticized by many
scientists surveyed by the Los Angeles Times, who said its findings
were watered down by governments seeking to deflect calls for
immediate action. Even in diluted form, the report paints a bleak
picture, noting that the early signs of warming are already apparent.

The report is the second of four scheduled to be issued this year by
the UN, which assembled more than 2,500 scientists worldwide to give
their best predictions of the consequences of a few degrees' increase
in global temperature. The 1,572-page document was endorsed by
officials from more than 120 countries, including the United States.
The first report, released in February, said global warming was
irreversible but could be moderated by large-scale societal changes.

On Saturday, April 14, at more than 1,300 simultaneous events coast
to coast, Americans of different hues and views will call for such
large- scale changes by imploring Congress to enact immediate cuts in
carbon emissions and pledge an 80 percent reduction by 2050.

The true expression of a viral grassroots movement, organized online
through word of mouth, email outreach and the Internet community,
Step it Up! is the largest day of citizen action focusing on global
warming in our nation's history and the largest environmental protest
of any kind since Earth Day 1970.

Conceived by writer Bill McKibben and six recent graduates of
Middlebury College, the initiative has been embraced by environmental
organizations, religious networks, campus groups and individuals
from virtually all walks of life. The Sierra Club, the National
Resources Defense Council and the National Wildlife Federation have
all committed real efforts to organizing Step It Up! rallies. Student
groups have been particularly enthusiastic, led by Energy Action, the
PIRGs and the Campus Climate Challenge campaign, which has thrown
its organizational weight and energy behind Step It Up!, as well as
the evangelical student movement, which has also embraced the cause.

As McKibben writes in an open letter on the Step It Up! website,
"The enormous participation in today's movement is a wake-up call to
legislators from across the country. Their constituents are urgently
demanding that America get on the path towards reducing carbon
emissions before it is too late."

Along with lots of marches, rallies and concerts, some of the
activities this Saturday will creatively highlight the dangers and
losses of a rapidly warming earth. There'll be ski mountaineers in
Wyoming descending the shrinking Dinwoody Glacier; hikers ascending
Oregon's threatened Mt. Hood; scuba divers underwater photographing
the endangered coral reefs off Key West; rock climbers hanging banners
from Seneca Rocks in West Virginia; gardeners planting native trees,
shrubs, grasses and flowers in the Shartel median at 33rd Street and
Shartel Avenue in Oklahoma City; demonstrators painting a blue line
through downtown Seattle to illustrate how far the rising seas could
penetrate; activists on the levees in New Orleans' Ninth Ward and
Vermonters hauling sap from a maple sugar tree that is producing much
earlier than it ever has before.

Join your voice to this growing chorus of people determined to save
their planet. Find an April 14 event near you and help spread the
word.

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From: The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA) (pg. A10), Apr. 3, 2007
[Printer-friendly version]

AMERICA 'UNNECESSARILY AT RISK' BY LOOMING FALL-OFF IN PETROLEUM

The nation has been put "unnecessarily at risk," according to the
nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The reason: failure of federal agencies to have a "coordinated or
well-defined strategy either to reduce uncertainty about the timing of
a peak [in oil production] or to mitigate its consequences."

Peak oil is the point at which the production of "conventional" oil
reaches the highest level it will ever achieve. After that, it will
decline at a fairly rapid rate [and as supply dwindles, prices will
tend to rise].

In the absence of alternative fuels, peak oil poses enormous
consequences for our way of life, which is heavily dependent on
petroleum to move people and goods.

========================================================

Sidebar: GAO Testifies Before Congress on Peak Oil

The author of the GAO report testified before Congress February 28,
2007. Read the lengthy and informative statement of Jim Wells,
Director, Natural Resources and Environment, Government Accountability
Office (GAO), here.

========================================================

There is little public awareness of the phenomenon of peak oil and the
gravity of its conse quences, potentially making it the sleeper issue
of all time. There are, to be sure, any number of supposedly well-
informed experts who portray peak-oil believers as alarmist. But as
the GAO report points out, the consensus, even among informed
skeptics, is that peak oil will occur sometime before 2040.

There are a few knowledgeable experts who believe peak oil already has
been reached globally.

The endless calls by politicians for "energy independence" are perhaps
the most striking example of how little this issue is understood by
the people in charge.

Former oil men George W. Bush and Dick Cheney cannot be among those in
the dark on this, though they clearly have chosen not to make it an
issue for reasons we may not find out until they publish their
memoirs. By then, they may have a lot of explaining to do.

Everyone in the industry knows that the United States cannot drill
itself to energy independence. There simply is not enough oil left in
the ground.

U.S. domestic oil production peaked in 1970. Not even the subsequent
pumping of oil from the large North Slope fields of Alaska was
sufficient to bring U.S. production back to where it had been.

Production in most oil producers outside the Middle East also has
peaked, including Norway, Great Britain, Mexico and Indonesia.

Complicating the picture is that much of the remaining oil is in
countries at high risk of political volatility. In addition, these
countries' oil reserve calculations are not transparent or
independently verified, and may not be as much as claimed. That may be
particularly true for Saudi Arabia, which ostensibly presides over the
world's largest oil reserves.

Major oil-producer Kuwait recently dramatically revised downward its
remaining oil reserves.

For a variety of reasons, alternative fuels may not be sufficiently
available to make up for any drop in petroleum. That's particularly
true, the GAO report notes, if peak oil occurs in the next decade or
so.

Alternative fuels currently provide only the equivalent of 1 percent
of petroleum consumption in the U.S. and are projected to displace
only 4 percent of petroleum by 2015. That's why the push for
conservation and pumped up investment in alternative energy is so
urgent. A transition away from oil can't be accomplished overnight.

U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., one of the few individuals in
Congress who has been sounding the alarm on peak oil, called the GAO
report "a clarion call for leadership at the highest level of our
country to avert an energy crisis unlike any the world has ever before
experienced and one that we know could happen at any time."

But is anyone listening?

Copyright 2007 The Patriot-News Co.

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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #992, Apr. 12, 2007
[Printer-friendly version]

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE INTERNATIONAL NANOTECHNOLOGY COMMUNITY

Civil Society-Labor Coalition Rejects Fundamentally Flawed Framework
Proposed by DuPont-Environmental Defense

Urges All Parties To Reject The Public Relations Campaign

To All Interested Parties:

We, the undersigned, submit this open letter to the international
nanotechnology community at large. We are a coalition of public
interest, non-profit and labor organizations that actively work on
nanotechnology issues, including workplace safety, consumer health,
environmental welfare, and broader societal impacts.

DuPont Chemical Company (DuPont) and Environmental Defense (ED)
jointly have proposed a voluntary "risk assessment" framework for
nanotechnology. These groups intend to circulate their proposed
framework both in the U.S. and abroad for consideration and/or
adoption by various relevant oversight organizations, including the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

We reject outright the proposed voluntary framework as fundamentally
flawed. We strongly object to any process in which broad public
participation in government oversight of nanotech policy is usurped by
industry and its allies. We made the decision not to engage in this
process out of well-grounded concerns that our participation -- even
our skeptical participation -- would be used to legitimize the
proposed framework as a starting point or ending point for discussing
nanotechnology policy, oversight and risk analysis. The history of
other voluntary regulation proposals is bleak; voluntary regulations
have often been used to delay or weaken rigorous regulation and should
be seen as a tactic to delay needed regulation and forestall public
involvement.

Nanotechnology's rapid commercialization requires focused
environmental, health and safety research, meaningful and open
discussion of broader societal impacts, and urgent oversight action.
Unfortunately, the DuPont-ED proposal is, at best, a public relations
campaign that detracts from urgent worldwide oversight priorities for
nanotechnology; at worst, the initiative could result in highly
reckless policy and a precedent of abdicating policy decisions to
industry by those entrusted with protecting our people, communities,
and land. We strongly urge all who have an interest in
nanotechnology's future to reject this proposed framework. Respect for
adequate worker safety, people's health, and environmental protection
demands nothing less.

Respectfully submitted,

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
Beyond Pesticides
Brazilian Research Network in Nanotechnology, Society and Environment
Center for Environmental Health
Center for Food Safety
Corporate Watch
Edmonds Institute
Environmental Research Foundation
ETC Group
Friends of the Earth Australia
Friends of the Earth Europe
Friends of the Earth United States
Greenpeace
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
International Center for Technology Assessment
International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant,
Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sciencecorps
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
Third World Network
United Steelworkers of America

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From: The New York Times Magazine (pg. 16), Mar. 25, 2007
[Printer-friendly version]

REVERSE FOREIGN AID

By Tina Rosenberg.

For the last 10 years, people in China have been sending me money. I
also get money from countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa
-- really, from every poor country. I'm not the only one who's so
lucky. Everyone in a wealthy nation has become the beneficiary of the
generous subsidies that poorer countries bestow upon rich ones. Here
in the United States, this welfare program in reverse allows our
government to spend wildly without runaway inflation, keeps many
American businesses afloat and even provides medical care in parts of
the country where doctors are scarce.

Economic theory holds that money should flow downhill. The North, as
rich countries are informally known, should want to sink its capital
into the South -- the developing world, which some statisticians
define as all countries but the 29 wealthiest. According to this
model, money both does well and does good: investors get a higher
return than they could get in their own mature economies, and poor
countries get the capital they need to get richer. Increasing the
transfer of capital from rich nations to poorer ones is often listed
as one justification for economic globalization.

Historically, the global balance sheet has favored poor countries. But
with the advent of globalized markets, capital began to move in the
other direction, and the South now exports capital to the North, at a
skyrocketing rate. According to the United Nations, in 2006 the net
transfer of capital from poorer countries to rich ones was $784
billion, up from $229 billion in 2002. (In 1997, the balance was
even.) Even the poorest countries, like those in sub-Saharan Africa,
are now money exporters.

How did this great reversal take place? Why did globalization begin to
redistribute wealth upward? The answer, in large part, has to do with
global finance. All countries hold hard-currency reserves to cover
their foreign debts or to use in case of a natural or a financial
disaster. For the past 50 years, rich countries have steadily held
reserves equivalent to about three months' worth of their total
imports. As money circulates more and more quickly in a globalized
economy, however, many countries have felt the need to add to their
reserves, mainly to head off investor panic, which can strike even
well-managed economies. Since 1990, the world's nonrich nations have
increased their reserves, on average, from around three months' worth
of imports to more than eight months' worth -- or the equivalent of
about 30 percent of their G.D.P. China and other countries maintain
those reserves mainly in the form of supersecure U.S. Treasury bills;
whenever they buy T-bills, they are in effect lending the United
States money. This allows the U.S. to keep interest rates low and
Washington to run up huge deficits with no apparent penalty.

But the cost to poorer countries is very high. The benefit of T-bills,
of course, is that they are virtually risk-free and thus help assure
investors and achieve stability. But the problem is that T-bills earn
low returns. All the money spent on T-bills -- a very substantial sum
-- could be earning far better returns invested elsewhere, or could be
used to pay teachers and build highways at home, activities that bring
returns of a different type. Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government, estimates conservatively that
maintaining reserves in excess of the three-month standard costs poor
countries 1 percent of their economies annually -- some $110 billion
every year. Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia University economist, says
he thinks the real cost could be double that.

In his recent book, "Making Globalization Work," Stiglitz proposes a
solution. Adapting an old idea of John Maynard Keynes, he proposes a
sort of insurance pool that would provide hard currency to countries
going through times of crisis. Money actually changes hands only if a
country needs the reserve, and the recipient must repay what it has
used.

No one planned the rapid swelling of reserves. Other South-to-North
subsidies, by contrast, have been built into the rules of
globalization by international agreements. Consider the World Trade
Organization's requirements that all member countries respect patents
and copyrights -- patents on medicines and industrial and other
products; copyrights on, say, music and movies. As poorer countries
enter the W.T.O., they must agree to pay royalties on such goods --
and a result is a net obligation of more than $40 billion annually
that poorer countries owe to American and European corporations.

There are good reasons for countries to respect intellectual property,
but doing so is also an overwhelming burden on the poorest people in
poorer countries. After all, the single largest beneficiary of the
intellectual-property system is the pharmaceutical industry. But
consumers in poorer nations do not get much in return, as they do not
form a lucrative enough market to inspire research on cures for many
of their illnesses. Moreover, the intellectual-property rules make it
difficult for poorer countries to manufacture less-expensive generic
drugs that poor people rely on. The largest cost to poor countries is
not money but health, as many people simply will not be able to find
or afford brand-name medicine.

The hypercompetition for global investment has produced another
important reverse subsidy: the tax holidays poor countries offer
foreign investors. A company that announces it wants to make cars,
televisions or pharmaceuticals in, say, east Asia, will then send its
representatives to negotiate with government officials in China,
Malaysia, the Philippines and elsewhere, holding an auction for the
best deal. The savviest corporations get not only 10-year tax holidays
but also discounts on land, cheap government loans, below-market rates
for electricity and water and government help in paying their workers.

Rich countries know better -- the European Union, for example,
regulates the incentives members can offer to attract investment. That
car plant will most likely be built in one of the competing countries
anyway -- the incentives serve only to reduce the host country's
benefits. Since deals between corporations and governments are usually
secret, it is hard to know how much investment incentives cost poorer
countries -- certainly tens of billions of dollars. Whatever the cost,
it is growing, as country after country has passed laws enabling the
offer of such incentives.

Human nature, not smart lobbying, is responsible for another poor-to-
rich subsidy: the brain drain. The migration of highly educated people
from poor nations is increasing. A small brain drain can benefit the
South, as emigrants send money home and may return with new skills and
capital. But in places where educated people are few and emigrants
don't go home again, the brain drain devastates. In many African
countries, more than 40 percent of college-educated people emigrate to
rich countries. Malawian nurses have moved to Britain and other
English-speaking nations en masse, and now two-thirds of nursing posts
in Malawi's public health system are vacant. Zambia has lost three-
quarters of its new physicians in recent years. Even in South Africa,
21 percent of graduating doctors migrate.

The financial consequences for the poorer nations can be severe. A
doctor who moves from Johannesburg to North Dakota costs the South
African government as much as $100,000, the price of training him
there. As with patent enforcement, a larger cost may be in health. A
lack of trained people -- a gap that widens daily -- is now the main
barrierto fighting AIDS, malaria and other diseases in Africa.

Sometimes reverse subsidies are disguised. Rich-country governments
spent $283 billion in 2005 to support and subsidize their own
agriculture, mainly agribusiness. Artificially cheap food exported to
poor countries might seem like a gift -- but it is often a Trojan
horse. Corn, rice or cotton exported by rich countries is so cheap
that small farmers in poor countries cannot compete, so they stop
farming. Three-quarters of the world's poor people are rural. The
African peasant with an acre and a hoe is losing her livelihood, and
the benefits go mainly to companies like Archer Daniels Midland and
Cargill.

Most costly to poor countries, they have been drafted into paying for
rich nations' energy use. On a per capita basis, Americans emit more
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere -- and thus create more global
warming -- than anyone else. What we pay to drive a car or keep an
industrial plant running is not the true cost of oil or coal. The real
price would include the cost of the environmental damage that comes
from burning these fuels. But even as we do not pay that price, other
countries do. American energy use is being subsidized by tropical
coastal nations, who appear to be global warming's first victims. Some
scientists argue that Bangladesh already has more powerful monsoon
downpours and Honduras fiercer cyclones because of global warming --
likely indicators of worse things ahead. The islands of the Maldives
may someday be completely underwater. The costs these nations will pay
do not appear on the global balance sheets. But they are the ultimate
subsidy.

==============

Tina Rosenberg is a contributing writer for the magazine.

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