Diesel exhaust pollution may disrupt honeybee foraging

A colony of honeybees swarm on the ledge of a window outside the Media Centre, in Bern June 17, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Ruben Sprich

By Kate Kelland

LONDON | Thu Oct 3, 2013 9:07am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Exposure to pollution from diesel exhaust fumes can disrupt honeybees' ability to recognize the smells of flowers and could in future affect pollination and global food security, researchers said on Thursday.

In a study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, scientists from Britain's University of Southampton found that the fumes change the profile of the floral odors that attract bees to forage from one flower to the next.

"This could have serious detrimental effects on the number of honeybee colonies and pollination activity," said Tracey Newman, a neuroscientist who worked on the study.

Bees are important pollinators of flowering plants, including many fruit and vegetable crops.

A 2011 U.N. report estimated that bees and other pollinators such as butterflies, beetles or birds do work worth 153 billion euros ($203 bln) a year to the human economy.

Bee populations have been declining steadily in recent decades but there is scientific disagreement over what might be causing it. Much attention has been focused on whether a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids may be the culprit.

A report from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in January said three widely-used neonicotinoids, made mainly by Switzerland's Syngenta and Germany's Bayer, posed an acute risk to honeybees.

EU leaders voted in April to ban three of the world's most widely-used pesticides in this class for two years because of fears they could be linked to a plunge in the bee populations.

But the British government, which recommended abstaining in a previous EU vote in March, argues the science is inconclusive and advises caution in extrapolating results from laboratory studies to real-life field conditions.

SENSITIVE SMELL

Guy Poppy, an ecology professor who worked with Newman, said to be able to forage effectively, honeybees need to be able to learn and recognize plants - a process their results showed could be disrupted by so-called NOx gases, particularly nitrogen dioxide, found in diesel exhaust and other pollution.

For their study, the scientists took eight chemicals found in the odor of oil rapeseed flowers and mixed them in one experiment with clean air and in another with air containing diesel exhaust.

They found that six of the eight chemicals reduced in volume when mixed with diesel fumes, and two disappeared completely within a minute - meaning the profile of the chemical mix had changed. The odor mixed with clean air was unaffected.

When the researchers used the same process with NOx gases - nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide - found in diesel exhaust emissions, they saw the same results, suggesting NOx is key to how and why the odor's profile was altered.

When the changed chemical mix was then shown to honeybees - which are known to use their sensitive sense of smell to forage for flowers - they could not recognize it.

Giles Budge of Britain's Food and Environment Research Agency said Newton's study highlighted "a fresh issue to add to the many problems facing our insect pollinators".

But he said that since the study was based in the laboratory, more research is needed to see if the problem is occurring in the wider environment.

(Editing by Pravin Char)

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Chevron grills U.S. lawyer in $19 billion Ecuador pollution case

Gas prices are displayed at a Chevron gas station in Los Angeles, California October 9, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK | Tue Apr 16, 2013 4:45pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chevron Corp on Tuesday sought to persuade a New York federal judge to punish a U.S. lawyer representing Ecuadorean villagers who won a $19 billion environmental damages award, saying the lawyer is withholding documents from the oil company.

In an unusual court proceeding, a Chevron lawyer sharply questioned Steven Donziger, who represents residents of the Lago Agrio region who claim the company is responsible for contamination that sickened people in the Ecuadorean Amazon area.

At issue is the extent to which Donziger and others acted in bad faith by failing to turn over files and documents that Chevron claimed it needed for its case.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan is holding the hearing as part of a 2011 lawsuit in which Chevron accused Donziger and other defendants of racketeering and extortion. That case is scheduled to go to trial in October.

The two-decade fight between Chevron and Lago Agrio residents has included aggressive litigation tactics and accusations of coercion and bribery that each side has denied.

Under questioning from Chevron lawyer Randy Mastro, Donziger denied having directed his Ecuadorean counterpart Pablo Fajardo to keep documents from Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company.

"Mr. Fajardo's view is that responding to your document request would violate Ecuador law," Donziger told Mastro.

Donziger admitted that he lacks access to many documents, including documents stored on Fajardo's computers, and thus could not speak to their importance.

Mastro, meanwhile, sought to discredit Donziger's contention that he worked for Fajardo, not the other way around.

Donziger stands to earn more than $1 billion if the $19 billion judgment were upheld, while Fajardo would make just under one-third that amount, Mastro said.

"So you make more than three times as much as Mr. Fajardo does for working on this case, but you testify that you work for him?" Mastro said.

Chevron's lawyer also introduced other evidence suggesting that Donziger was in fact calling the shots, noting that Fajardo has sometimes called Donziger "Commander."

Donziger said that moniker should be seen "as a term of affection, not as a term of hierarchy."

NO CONTROL?

In 2011, the Lago Agrio plaintiffs won an $18.2 billion judgment in Ecuador, which has since grown to the $19 billion, on claims that San Ramon, California-based Chevron is responsible for contamination of their water and soil.

The environmental damage was supposedly caused by Texaco, which operated in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992. Chevron took on Texaco's liabilities when it bought the company in 2001.

Chevron says the Ecuador ruling is unenforceable. The Ecuadorean residents have yet to collect on the award and are trying to enforce the judgment in countries where Chevron operates.

Donziger has led that charge in the United States. Under questioning from his lawyer, John Keker, he said his authority has been reduced in recent months, furthering his argument that he lacked control to get the documents Chevron wants.

The Lago Agrio plaintiffs "wanted an adviser, not a person in control or in command of their decisions," Donziger said. "It's preposterous to think I can order Pablo Fajardo to turn over his case files to me."

Kaplan regularly chastised lawyers at the hearing for interrupting one another.

"Look Mr. Keker, I'm going to run this courtroom, and you're not going to tell me how," he told Keker, who had objected to what he thought was Mastro's interrupting an answer by Donziger.

Last month, in challenging other rulings by Kaplan, the Lago Agrio plaintiffs urged a federal appeals court to replace him with a different judge, citing his alleged "contempt" for Ecuador and its courts and "ill will" for Donziger.

Chevron won a victory on Monday when U.S. Magistrate Judge James Francis recommended the dismissal of counterclaims by Donziger accusing the company of harassment and trying to block enforcement of the judgment.

Kaplan will review the recommendation. The hearing that began on Tuesday is expected to last several days.

The case is Chevron Corp v. Donziger et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-00691.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Martha Graybow and Andrew Hay)

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Jury finds Exxon liable for $236.4 million in U.S. pollution suit

The Exxon corporate logo is pictured at a gas station in Arlington, Virginia January 31, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

By Jason McLure

LITTLETON, New Hampshire | Tue Apr 9, 2013 5:32pm EDT

LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) - A New Hampshire jury on Tuesday found Exxon Mobil Corp liable for $236.4 million in a civil lawsuit that charged the oil company had polluted groundwater in the state with a gasoline additive used to reduce smog in the 1970s and 1980s.

Following a three-month trial, jurors deliberated less than two hours before finding that the world's largest publicly traded oil company acted negligently in contaminating the groundwater with the additive MTBE, said Jessica Grant, a lawyer who represented the state.

"We're very pleased that the jury held Exxon accountable for the harm its defective product caused to the state's groundwater resources and that they also held Exxon responsible for its negligence," she said.

Originally filed in New Hampshire court in 2003, the state charged that Exxon and other major oil companies knew that MTBE was likely to contaminate groundwater and was more difficult to clean up than other pollutants. Some damages from the suit will help pay for the costs of testing and cleaning affected water supplies.

Exxon vowed to appeal.

"MTBE worked as intended to improve our air quality and the benefits of its use substantially outweighed the known risks," said spokeswoman Rachael Moore. "MTBE contamination in New Hampshire is rapidly decreasing and the state's current system for cleaning up gasoline spills ensures safe drinking water."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today considers MTBE a potential human carcinogen, though much of the research on the chemical has focused on the health effects of inhaling it rather than drinking it. New Hampshire banned MTBE in the state in 2007.

Exxon was the only one of the 22 original defendants in the original suit to go to trial. Other defendants either had the suits against them dismissed or agreed to settlements.

Those included Canada-based Irving Oil Co, which agreed to pay $57 million last year, and Venezuela's state-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp, which struck a $16 million agreement as the trial began.

The three-month trial on the suit, filed in state court, was moved to the state's federal courthouse in Concord to accommodate the large number of witnesses, lawyers and exhibits. The jury found that MTBE contamination had caused $816 million in damages in the state. Exxon's market share of 29 percent was used to compute damages, Grant said.

(Reporting by Jason McLure; Editing by Scott Malone and Tim Dobbyn)

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Air pollution scourge underestimated, green energy can help: U.N.

Artist Matt Hope adjusts the helmet linked to his air filtration bike in front of the China Central Television (CCTV) building on a hazy day in Beijing, March 26, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Petar Kujundzic

OSLO | Tue Apr 9, 2013 12:02pm EDT

OSLO (Reuters) - Air pollution is an underestimated scourge that kills far more people than AIDS and malaria and a shift to cleaner energy could easily halve the toll by 2030, U.N. officials said on Tuesday.

Investments in solar, wind or hydropower would benefit both human health and a drive by almost 200 nations to slow climate change, blamed mainly on a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from use of fossil fuels, they said.

"Air pollution is causing more deaths than HIV or malaria combined," Kandeh Yumkella, director general of the U.N. Industrial Development Organization, told a conference in Oslo trying to work out new U.N. development goals for 2030.

Most victims from indoor pollution, caused by wood fires and primitive stoves in developing nations, were women and children.

He suggested that new U.N. energy goals for 2030 should include halving the number of premature deaths caused by indoor and outdoor pollution.

A 2012 World Health Organization (WHO) study found that 3.5 million people die early annually from indoor air pollution and 3.3 million from outdoor air pollution. Toxic particles shorten lives by causing diseases such as pneumonia or cancer.

"The problem has been underestimated in the past," Maria Neira, the WHO's director of public health and environment, told Reuters. Smog is an acute problem from Beijing to Mexico City.

The data, published as part of a global review of causes of death in December 2012, were an upwards revision of previous figures of 1.9 million premature deaths caused by household pollution a year and 1.3 million outdoors, she said.

The revision reflects better measurements and changes in methods, such as including heart problems linked to pollutants, she said. The numbers cannot be added together because they include perhaps 500,000 from overlapping causes.

SIX MILLION

"Still, it means more than 6 million deaths every year caused by air pollution," she said. "The horrible thing is that this will be growing" because of rising use of fossil fuels.

By comparison, U.N. reports show there were about 1.7 million AIDS-related deaths in 2011 and malaria killed about 660,000 people in 2010.

Solutions were affordable, the experts said.

"If we increase access to clean energy ... the health benefits will be enormous. Maybe the health argument was not used enough" in debate on encouraging a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energies, she said.

Almost 200 governments have agreed to work out by the end of 2015 a deal to combat climate change. But negotiations have stalled, partly because of economic slowdown and divisions between nations about how to share out the burden of cuts.

Yumkella also urged the world to build 400,000 clinics and medical units in developing nations by 2030 as part of U.N. energy and health goals. Vaccines, for instance, are often useless without refrigeration, which depends on electricity.

The United Nations has previously urged 2030 targets for universal access to energy, doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy in global consumption.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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