Best of EarthFirst’s Bizarre Green News

When it comes to green news, there’s certainly no shortage of bizarre stories to go around. But it’s not all about the latest weird green gadget or the strangest sources of renewable energy. Sometimes, the stories are just crazy in and of themselves, from the president of PETA requesting that her dead body be barbecued and eaten to honeybees getting addicted to cocaine.

We dug through the EarthFirst.com archives to find some of the most mind-boggling bizarro stories of the past year, and we’ve got some doozies to revisit. Check it out:

WTF, Broccoli?! Check Out This Cascadian Farms Package

Someone at Cascadian Farms has a great sense of humor. Bloggers Alicia Carrier and Summer Allen-Gibson of Bread & Honey noticed something funny recently on a bag of broccoli, and took to the web to share it with all of us. Read More

Student Group Eats a Cat in the Name of Animal Welfare

A group of students in Denmark have had their Facebook profiles suspended after uploading a video of them eating a cat. The students planned the cat-eating performance as a way to call attention to the plight of food animals such as pigs and cows. Read More

Dumped Corpses Give Sharks a Taste for Human Flesh

Experts believe that a pack of bull sharks in Mexico is intentionally targeting humans, after recent attacks have killed two surfers and injured another. A fourth swimmer is missing. The deadly 10-ft long sharks may have developed a taste for human flesh after feasting on corpses dumped by the mob. Read More

UK Wind Turbine Destroyed, Locals Claim UFO Did It

A 290-foot turbine was mysteriously mangled overnight on Sunday near Louth in Linconshire, United Kingdom with local residents claiming to have seen an octopus-like UFO. Experts have ruled out most of the more believable explanations, like a meteor or lightning strike. Read More

PETA President Wills Her Body to Become BBQ & Leather Goods

PETA did it again. Stomach-turning publicity stunts are nothing new to the animal rights organization, but the latest one will make you lose your lunch (fair warning). PETA President Ingrid Newkirk has willed her body to the group along with a gross list of instructions on what they should do with each body part after she’s dead. Read More

Shrimp on a Treadmill Helps Scientists Study Climate Change Effects

By now you may have seen the strange YouTube video that shows a shrimp inexplicably running on an underwater treadmill to the tune of ‘The Final Countdown’, the Benny Hill theme, the Rocky theme and several other humorous and inspirational anthems. Funny as it may be to see this little guy running with all its might, the shrimp on a treadmill is actually part of a serious science experiment. Read More

Honeybees Susceptible to Cocaine Addiction

Despite the fact that cocaine repels most insects, researchers have found that honeybees can become addicted to the substance and even suffer withdrawal symptoms. Bees on cocaine behave the same way humans do, throwing themselves into highly energetic dance routines and talking incessantly to their nest mates. Read More

Mother Nature’s Meth Mouth

When a methamphetamine laboratory is busted, DEA agents don hazmat suits and oxygen masks, protecting themselves against a host of extremely toxic substances with a thick barrier of tough plastic. But unwitting future occupants of these homes, hotel rooms and apartment complexes aren’t so lucky, and neither are the rest of us when the chemicals leak from equipment discarded in landfills around the country.

Meth is known as one of the world’s most destructive drugs. Its effects on the users’ bodies are so dramatic, so startling, that before-and-after photos are the main tool used to keep the public from ever trying it in the first place. A website called Faces of Meth shows one stomach-turning transformation after another, documenting extreme weight loss, skin sores and dental deterioration. What it doesn’t show are the psychological effects, which can include psychotic behavior, hallucinations, insomnia, confusion, delusion and paranoia.

However they came to be meth users, at least these people were volunteers. The same can’t be said for other victims, including property owners and residents who only learn of their homes’ secret pasts as meth labs once they’ve noticed a serious deterioration in their own health and that of their families.

Ether, paint thinner, freon and acetone. Ammonia, battery acid and brake cleaner. Explosives, heavy metals, iodine crystals and phosphorous… all of these common ingredients used to make methamphetamine permeate drywall, carpets, insulation, countertops and air ducts, causing health problems long after the labs have been dismantled. Cooking meth just one time contaminates a building enough to cause health problems.

The New York Times recently delved into the horrors faced by people who move into meth-contaminated homes. Newlyweds Jason and Rhonda Holt, who started their family in a Tennessee home they purchased soon after getting married, couldn’t understand why their children were so weak and pale, with breathing problems that required respirators and frequent trips to the emergency room. And it wasn’t just the kids. Rhonda, a nurse, started experiencing crippling migraines and her husband, a factory worker, developed kidney problems.

For five years they lived in that house without knowing that the previous occupant, who had been dragged from the attic by police, had used the home as a meth lab. With that discovery came another big shock: it was up to them to clean it up, to the tune of at least $30,000. Some would call the Holt family lucky, considering that cleanup can cost up to $100,000 and sometimes, contamination is so bad that the entire structure must be demolished.

Another occupant of a former meth lab, Francisca Rodriquez, had her home tested after her dog began having seizures and her son developed respiratory problems. The home was so contaminated that it couldn’t be cleaned, and the Rodriquez family had to let it go into foreclosure. The former owner had checked ‘no’ on a disclosure form asking whether the house had ever been in a meth lab, but the family had no recourse because he’s already in prison for meth-related offenses.

“It makes you crazy,” Rodriguez told The New York Times. “Our credit is ruined, we won’t be able to buy another house, somebody exposed my kids to meth, and my dog died.”

Almost all states with laws requiring meth contamination cleanup hold the property owners financially responsible once contamination is discovered, and only one – Colorado – helps innocent property owners with the costs. Though the EPA was ordered to publish national cleanup standards by the end of 2008, the agency is still reviewing a draft version.

Once known as “poor man’s cocaine”, meth use was once mostly relegated to the West Coast and Southern states, but has now spread across the country like wildfire. More than 12 million Americans have tried it and 1.5 million are regular users according to 2005 federal estimates.

All fifty states have had meth lab busts, with the highest number found in Missouri – though it’s unclear whether the state has more labs and users, or more enforcement. A number of cities have been called “the meth capital of America”, from Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, Alaska to Tulsa, Oklahoma, but statistics don’t show a clear winner of that dubious title.

It’s the sophisticated “superlabs”, mostly located in California, which have the biggest environmental impact. Smaller labs located in homes, apartment complexes, hotels, businesses and even vehicles have a smaller impact, but dumping is still a concern. The three meth ingredients that cause the most damage are ether, acetone and white gasoline.

Topsoil and groundwater, including drinking water wells, are often contaminated when the chemicals are dumped down drains or onto the ground outside homes. There are five pounds of waste for every pound of meth produced, and meth cookers sometimes go to extremes to get rid of it – like dumping it in public places including parks and waterways. Meth cookers moving from one site to another don’t exactly go through the same clean-up process as certified meth lab cleanup crews: they just toss everything in the trash.

And when a meth lab is identified, authorities have no choice but to throw everything last item in the home away. Clothing, wallpaper, photographs, alarm clocks, kitchen appliances – every single possession in the home is tossed into a padlocked bin so residents can’t get to them before they’re taken to the dump.

Some hazardous waste facilities don’t even want to take trash labeled as meth waste because it’s so dangerous. What happens to the waste in these cases isn’t always clear. Local officials are responsible for proper disposal, but when there are no clear national guidelines to adhere to, some of it is bound to end up in places it doesn’t belong.

Unfortunately, law enforcement authorities aren’t able to devote the kind of energy and manpower needed for a successful fight against meth – in large part, because of the fact that they’re too busy busting non-violent marijuana users.

Marijuana has been under siege since President Roosevelt signed the first federal anti-marijuana law 70 years ago, and the Bush administration made it the focus of its ‘war on drugs’, spending billions of dollars on catching and jailing pot smokers and dealers while more dangerous drugs like meth proliferated.

In fact, the argument that methamphetamine should be given priority over marijuana when it comes to law enforcement has an unlikely ally: Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. Meth has hit his state hard, and he wrote to the Bush administration in 2005 to request a shift in resources from pot to meth.

“While we agree that any drug use is harmful to users and those around them, the problems associated with marijuana are not comparable to methamphetamine in terms of cost to society. We know that different drugs have different rates of use. Marijuana is a much more popular drug in terms of the number of people who use it,” Grassley wrote. “However, methamphetamine causes much more destruction in a much shorter period of time than marijuana.”

“We believe that reducing drug use is not just about reducing the number of users of a drug, but reducing the overall harm to society caused by the drug.”

Luckily, meth use seems to be declining among at least one large segment of the population – teenagers. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America found in February of 2009 that teen meth use was down 25% from 2005 levels.

That doesn’t mean that meth isn’t still an extremely worrisome problem, both for human health and the environment. However, there’s a glimmer of hope in drug policy changes being made by the Obama Administration. By scaling back the war against legitimate medical marijuana in states like California and Nevada, the DEA may end up with more funds to focus on more important things.

Photos: Faces of Meth, NowPublic, maveric2003

Pablo Escobar’s Fugitive Hippo Killed in Colombia

It’s the sort of headline that you’d expect to see in one of those trashy black-and-white tabloid magazines claiming to have found the secret island home of Elvis, Tupac and Marilyn Monroe – but believe it or not, it’s true.

Famed cocaine baron Pablo Escobar had an exotic collection of animals on his ranch in Colombia, and three hippos escaped almost three years ago. One was just shot and killed.

From The Telegraph:

Authorities ordered that the hippos, two adults and a calf, be hunted down and killed amid concerns they were damaging crops and endangering humans, the Guardian reports.

“It was only a question of time before those animals hurt someone,” the environment minister, Carlos Costa, said. “After more than two years of trying to capture them, the decision [to kill them] was a sound one.”

Escobar was cornered and shot dead in 1993.

Hippos weren’t the only exotic creatures kept on Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles ranch – there were also kangaroos, elephants and rhinos. After Escobar’s death, the state took over the ranch and most of the animals went to zoos. Strangely, about two dozen hippos were left to themselves on the ranch and in 2006, a male and a female escaped and produced a calf.

We’ll spare you the photo of the dead hippo, because it’ll only give you a major case of the sads. Why do narcissistic rich people insist on using exotic animals as a status symbol? It’s sickening.

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: elespectador.com

Top Compounds in U.S. Drinking Water Include Pharmaceuticals, Hormones

What’s lurking in your drinking water? According to a recent study, we’re all imbibing low levels of pharmaceuticals and hormonally active chemicals every time we use water from our taps. The Southern Nevada Authority in Las Vegas screened tap water from 19 US water utilities for 51 different compounds between 2006 and 2007, and gave us the lowdown on the 11 most frequently detected compounds.

From New Scientist:

• Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular disease

• Atrazine, an organic herbicide banned in the European Union, but still used in the US, which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behaviour

• Carbamazepine, a mood-stabilising drug used to treat bipolar disorder, amongst other things

• Estrone, an oestrogen hormone secreted by the ovaries and blamed for causing gender-bending changes in fish

• Gemfibrozil, an anti-cholesterol drug

• Meprobamate, a tranquiliser widely used in psychiatric treatment

• Naproxen, a painkiller and anti-inflammatory linked to increases in asthma incidence

• Phenytoin, an anticonvulsant that has been used to treat epilepsy

• Sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic used against the Streptococcus bacteria, which is responsible for tonsillitis and other diseases

• TCEP, a reducing agent used in molecular biology

• Trimethoprim, another antibiotic

Shane Snyder of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and Christian Daughton of the EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory say that these compounds don’t pose a significant public health threat because they’re found in concentrations that are millions of times lower than in a medical dose. Still, several point to potential for risk, says Daughton, especially for the fetus and those with severely compromised health.

It seems inevitable that a slow buildup of such compounds in our bodies over time would cause some problems, however. Daughton emphasizes that the presence of such pharmaceuticals in our drinking water and in the environment should make us acutely aware of the chemical sea that surrounds us. We’re exposed to unprecedented levels of chemicals that may ultimately have profound effects on the entire planet.

Snyder tells us that “contamination is a fact of modern life”, but that doesn’t mean we should continue to allow these compounds to build up in our drinking water. The US government doesn’t even regulate the presence of pharmaceuticals and other compounds in our water, and it’s hard to trust an agency that has allowed safety issues to go unchecked in the past.

Link [New Scientist]
Photo credit: Flickr user aka Kath

Honeybees Susceptible to Cocaine Addiction

Despite the fact that cocaine repels most insects, researchers have found that honeybees can become addicted to the substance and even suffer withdrawal symptoms. Bees on cocaine behave the same way humans do, throwing themselves into highly energetic dance routines and talking incessantly to their nest mates.

From The Guardian:

The research, carried out at Macquarie University in Sydney, examined the behaviour of the bees after returning from a trip looking for food.

“When foraging honeybees discover a particularly good source of pollen or nectar, they fly back to the hive and perform a symbolic dance for their nest mates,” said Dr Andrew Barron. “This is a specialised form of communication to tell their nest mates about the rewards they have found.”

But after dabbing low doses of cocaine on the bees’ backs before they went out, the researchers observed that when they returned they were more likely to dance for their nest mates, and performed particularly vigorous routines explaining where the food was located.

The dance language gave Barron and his colleagues an indication of what was going on in the bees’ brains. Rather like a cokehead in a crowded nightclub, cocaine made the bees much more enthusiastic communicators. This was not simply because they were generally more energetic: the extra enthusiasm was in order to communicate with nest mates.

When the researchers forced the bees to go ‘cold turkey’ by removing the cocaine, the bees displayed withdrawal symptoms. Given a learning test to see how they were doing, the bees’ performance crashed.

The researchers said that the bees’ dance moves weren’t wild and out of control, but actually rigidly structured. And, they didn’t begin their frenzied dancing during inappropriate times or in inappropriate places. No word on whether they’ve begun pacing and fidgeting or frantically organizing their kitchens at 3am.

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: Flickr user david.nikonvscanon

250 Million Pounds of Drugs Flushed Annually

In yet another amazingly stupid example of how we’re killing ourselves and destroying the planet, it’s been revealed that health facilities around the world send an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals down the drain every year. Those drugs end up contaminating our water supply, and even small traces can cause serious cell abnormalities in humans – let alone the effects they have on other living things.  The discarded meds are expired, spoiled, over-prescribed, unneeded or otherwise unused.

From USA Today:

Few of the country’s 5,700 hospitals and 45,000 long-term care homes keep data on the pharmaceutical waste they generate. Based on a small sample, though, the AP was able to project an annual national estimate of at least 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging, with no way to separate out the drug volume.

Researchers are finding evidence that even extremely diluted concentrations of pharmaceutical residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs.

One of the dangers of this is the fact that drug dumping has been linked to virulent antibiotic-resistant germs as well as genetic mutations that may promote cancers.  Tests of sewage from hospitals in Paris and Oslo have revealed hormones, antibiotics, heart and skin medications and pain relievers.  Though most drugs end up in landfills, the ones frequently flushed are the ones most susceptible to abuse.  The EPA is reportedly considering whether to impose a national standard for how much drug waste can be released into waterways by the medical services industry, but a decision isn’t expected until next year at the earliest.

Things like this are terrifying – what are we doing to ourselves? How could people think that things like this won’t have negative consequences? We’ve already learned that the EPA doesn’t necessarily have the people’s best interests in mind, so we can’t count on them to protect us.  When our water is polluted with cancer-causing drugs and we’re creating super bugs that could wipe us all out in a flash, you know that we need to make big changes and we need to make them NOW.

Link [USA Today]
Photo credit: Flickr user newtype2011

Rising Food Prices May Help U.S. War on Drugs

In a strange and unexpected twist, the rising costs of food may help the United States on its long-running battle against illegal drugs. Farmers in Bolivia are replacing coca, cocaine’s raw ingredient, with food crops in many instances. The United States has long tried to get Bolivian farmers to substitute coca crops with food crops, providing incentives, but Bolivian president Evo Morales fought the attempts. Morales defends the right to grow the plant, which has a traditional use as a mild stimulant with medicinal qualities. However, farmers are beginning to see benefits to growing food.

From The International Herald Tribune:

The Chapare region’s coca growers’ union, of which Morales is still president, is requiring each of its 35,000 members to plant one hectare of rice this year as part of a government plan for coca farmers to plant 50,000 hectares of rice. The region, a stretch of central Bolivian foothills, now raises just 9,000 hectares of coca.

If they limit their coca crop to a cato, growers are entitled to loans of 3,600 bolivianos to plant rice, corn and other increasingly lucrative foodstuffs, and even a grant of 14,400 bolivianos to build a house.

The amount of rice that the coca union is requiring could earn the same as a cato of coca, though it requires six times the land and a lot more labor. But the price of rice has tripled in Bolivia since last year and is continuing to rise.

Rice also feeds a hungry domestic market, whereas the U.S.-backed crop replacement efforts promoted export products like bananas and pineapples and pitted the Chapare’s poor farmers against global agribusiness giants like Dole and Chiquita.

If the farmers find that producing domestic food crops rather than coca is profitable, more may abandon coca growing. That would ease pressure on the United States government, who have long tried to find ways to beat cocaine at the source.

Well, rice and cocaine are both white, and both come in plastic baggies…

Link [International Herald Tribune] via [Wannabe Hippy]
Photo credit: Flickr user azrainman

FYI: Wildlife Refuges are the Place to Go for Illicit Hookups

So, the men’s restrooms at your local park are now infested with undercover cops who stick out like a sore thumb, given that they don’t have a leash connecting their junk to a collar around their neck. What do you do? The rest stops aren’t safe anymore. Airport bathrooms are now too conspicuous, thanks to that sellout Senator Craig. Fear not, trollers: you can now have anonymous unprotected sex at wildlife refuges without fear of getting caught. You might have to drill some new glory holes, but it will be totally worth it.

From MSNBC:

America’s wildlife refuges are so short of money that one-third have no staff, boardwalks and buildings are in disrepair, and drug dealers are using them to grow marijuana and make methamphetamine, a group pushing for more funding says.

A decrease in law enforcement has left the refuges vulnerable to criminal activity, including prostitution, torched cars and illegal immigrant camps along the Potomac River in suburban Washington, D.C.; gay sex hookups in South Carolina and Alabama; methamphetamine labs in Nevada; and pot growing operations in Washington state.

This is just what you’ve been hoping for. Not only are wildlife refuges free of cops and large enough to have huge meth-fueled gay sex parties, you can enjoy the scenery as you partake in the debauchery. Aww, look, it’s a cute little chipmunk!

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Flickr user Ed_45

LSD Inventor Albert Hofman Dies, Treehugger Gives Props, Treehugger Readers Freak Their Shit Out

Man, Treehugger readers can be a bunch of bitchy squares.

The inventor of LSD, Albert Hofman recently died. Mr. Hofman’s invention was a major influence (mostly positive, some negative) in the lives of millions of artists, philosophers, deadheads, green bloggers, and yes, even treehuggers. LSD’s ability to show people planes of thought outside the normal everyday consciousness is one of the undertold stories of modern history.

Poor Lloyd Alter over at Treehugger posted a Happy 100th Birthday post a few years back when Mr. Hofman ticked over the century mark and got flamed in the comments for it. His recent post giving props to the deceased Swiss chemist was again flooded with uptight squares saying stupid things like comparing Hofman to Pablo Escobar (Escobar got WAY richer).

Someone needs to drop hit of cool on those squarebots. You’re giving us treehuggers an uptight name.

Link [Treehugger] & [Guardian]