El Nino Slows Earth's Spin

US: If the severe winter storms that lashed the US seemed to go on forever, there may have been a reason for it: NASA researchers report that the atmospheric drag from El Nino's fast-moving eastward winds actually slowed the planet's rotation, making the average day last longer by four-tenths of a millisecond. During a typical year, winds from the tropics generally blow from east to west. During the Northern Hemisphere's winter, the atmosphere speeds up and the Earth slows down. During the summer, the Earth speeds up. El Nino has reversed this pattern.

The South Pole Is Melting

Antarctica: The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) reported in February that the 8,000-square-mile Larsen B ice sheet is critically unstable and could break apart in as little as two years, triggering unpredictable weather events around the world. BAS scientists warn that Antarctic temperatures are rising five times faster than the global average and grass recently has taken root around the edges of the once ice-bound continent.

Pancake Motors

Israel: Samot Engineering Ltd., has designed the world's thinnest motor. Each half-inch-thick motor disk" produces 25 kilowatts. The disks can be stacked like pancakes to power anything from electric bikes to pickup trucks. Automotive News reports that these motors can achieve 85 percent efficiency, are maintenance-free and less expensive than other electric motors.

Scuttled Butt-head

Norway: Last October, Steinar Bastesen was elected to the Norwegian parliament. Bastesen, the flamboyant head of the Norwegian Whalers Association, is best known for dressing in seal-skin vests and drinking whale oil. When asked what he planned to do when parliament recesses for the summer, Bastesen bellowed, I think I'll go whaling. Those plans may be delayed, however. Last November, Bastesen's 45-foot whaling boat went to the bottom after his son, Stein Eirik, forgot to close some critical valves. The anti-whaling Sea Shepherd organization immediately named Stein Eirik "Crewman of the Year".

Your Moon: Our Dump

US: Yankee arrogance will reach new heights later this year when the US Lunar Prospector crashes into the moon. Environmentalists are offended that the moon has been targeted for mineral exploitation (as well as a dumping ground for old satellites, abandoned landing modules and discarded lunar jeeps). And Native Americans have expressed outrage that the moon held sacred by many indigenous cultures is to become the eternal resting place for the ashes of US scientist Gene Shoemaker. Shoemaker had always wanted to go to the moon, explained his NASA colleagues, who stowed his ashes aboard the Prospector.

De-Vend the Earth

Japan: City officials in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, have ordered all 103 vending machines removed from municipal buildings, beginning in April. The Ashahi Shimbun newspaper explains that the ban was ordered to prompt people to reassess their mass-consumption lifestyles and think more responsibly about the environment.

Jubilee Cry: Forgive the Debts

Canada: According to Biblical tradition, every 50 years the Children of Israel must celebrate a "jubilee" by forgiving debts and releasing slaves. "Jubilee stands in radical judgment over idolatry, condemning every economic system that results in slavery and indebtedness," notes Canadian biblical scholar Sylvia Keesmaat. The Jubilee 2000 Coalition [(202) 783-3566, coord@j2000usa.org, www.oneworld.org/jubilee2000] wants the International Monetary Fund to release millions of Third World people from the slavery of multinational debt by the year 2000. The campaign plans to present "the largest petition the world has ever seen" to the leaders of the world's seven largest industrial nations. As Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has declared: "This is the time to forgive each other, to realize that human selfishness might have led us too far from God."

The Rael Thing

Geneva - The Swiss-based Raelian Movement (a religious cult that believes that human life was created in test tubes by extraterrestrials) is offering to clone children for infertile or same-sex couples. An Internet ad for the cult's Valiant Venture Ltd. offers this "Cloneaid" service to "wealthy parents worldwide" for as little as $200,000 per clone. For $50,000, Valiant Venture's Insuraclones will permit the cloning of you and your loved ones in the event of an untimely (or timely) death.

Grannies Could Be Mommies

US - The same industry that responded to warnings of a population explosion by inventing fertility drugs is now hard at work on drugs that would permit women "to conceive and give birth throughout their lives." Harvard University scientists propose implanting fumonisin B-1 and sphingosine 1 in women's ovaries during their early 20s to prevent the onset of menopause. "The drug industry will love this," observes The Civil Abolitionist [PO Box 26, Swain, NY 14884-0026], since implanted women will "require contraception for the rest of their lives and perhaps further medication to treat blood clots."

Organ-ick! Gardening

Brazil - If a poor person dies in one of Brazil's crowded public hospitals, there's a good chance that his or her body will be spirited across town to a privately run hospital where the organs can be harvested for transplanting into a well-heeled paying customer. Brazil's poor were not reassured by a new law that took effect in January making organ "donation" mandatory. While the ruling does allow Brazilians to register as "non-donors," Britain's Financial Times calls the donor laws a symbol of "the stark difference between public and private health care in one of the world's most unequal societies."

Second-hand Smoke

Japan - Last December, thousands of delegates, activists and reporters flew to the climate summit in Kyoto in jet planes that spewed tons of greenhouse-warming gases. "If the issue of the jet fuel is not included in the [Kyoto] protocol, we regard the conference as a failure," said Danta Hani of ASEED Japan. Unfortunately, the summit failed to address the issue. Jet engines are expected to generate one-third of global CO2 by 2050. Only five percent of the world's people use jet planes. European Commission scientific adviser Dietrich Brockhagen notes that these high-fliers "are going to worsen the life of other people" on the planet.

Not a Cool Idea

US - The US Army's Individual Canteen Cup Cooler "a self-cooling drink bottle that releases a blast of HFC 134-A hydrofluorocarbon gas to quick-chill sodas to 30 degrees" is an idea that deserves to fizzle. HFC 134A is a powerful greenhouse gas - 1,300 times worse than carbon dioxide. Ozone Action notes that "opening a single self-chilling can would have the same effect on global warming as driving a typical car 200 miles." Pepsi, Coca-Cola and NASA have disavowed the technology, but the California-based Joseph Company plans to build a $20 million factory in Brazil to produce 800 million "chill-cans" a year. EPA approval of the chill-cans could reverse the world's gains on reducing greenhouse gases.