After a brief break for the holidays, The Center will resume posting on 6 January 2009. In the coming month expect a look at China’s first plug-in hybrid car, Dupont’s appointment of its first female CEO, and the likely reversal of current stem cell funding restrictions. In the meantime, be sure to scan our archives and sign up for our RSS feed.

Most people have heard something over the past few years about experimental hydrogen-powered cars, but hydrogen airplanes? Does this sound like science fiction? Boeing recently built and flew an experimental aircraft powered by hydrogen fuel cells. It’s a light, propeller-driven craft using an electric motor powered by the cells. Besides being non-polluting, it has a much longer range than conventionally powered airplanes.

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The recent UN climate talks didn’t figure much into the U.S. news stream, buried in news of economic meltdowns and auto company bailouts and likely related to the fact that the United States didn’t send anyone to be present at the talks. Nonetheless, they did happen. And as the Guardian reports, the view from inside was dismal.

A poll conducted among those experts participating noted a dramatic downturn in optimism over the role that alternative energies can play in combating global calamities from climate change. They also worried that the global economic slump is going to make it harder to get countries on board with international treaties that are still viewed by many to compete with economic interests.

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This is the second of a two-part post about melamine. Read the first part here.

“Better Living Through Chemistry” used to be a DuPont tagline. The phrase certainly does not apply to adulterating protein-based products with melamine and the resulatant misleading chemical tests which account for the amount of nitrogen and not specifically protein. What is the future of the melamine-tainted food, and how does the FDA have a role in China?

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I had intended my first piece in the “Planet in Peril” series to focus on the ongoing (and still sorely needed) revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act. But when I saw the New York Times article “Coal Mining Debris Rule Approved,” I couldn’t avoid the topic of coal and mountaintop removal.

The rule, one of the many “midnight rules” being pushed through in the waning weeks and hours of the Bush Administration, makes it easier for coal-mining companies to deposit the “waste” they create (otherwise known as “mountain”) into adjacent valleys. For those not familiar with the practice of mountaintop removal (or MTR), perhaps there’s nothing strange about this. After all, where else should the waste go? It only makes sense to push it out of the way—which happens to mean off of what remains of the mountain.

To understand why this is a problem, we need to start at the beginning with a short primer on MTR.

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Leading up to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there was much discussion about whether or not China could present itself favorably on the largest of international stages. However, the official response in China to the horror of the 12 May Earthquake was swift and was praised internationally. Likewise, the opening ceremony of the Olympics displayed Chinese culture and history in one of the most elaborate and beautiful spectacles ever witnessed on television. With the air quality in Beijing cleaner than normal, the Olympic games, so soon after a national tragedy, were deemed a success. And yet almost one month after the closing ceremony, the brand “Made in China” was tainted with melamine. 

In early September, China announced that milk products had been adulterated with melamine, causing babies to fall ill from kidney stones and in rare cases to die. By the end of September the casualties were rising in China and abroad. Countries first in Asia and then in Europe began banning Chinese milk products. Now at the beginning of December, China has announced that a total of six babies have died, over 250,000 babies have fallen ill, and over 800 babies are still hospitalized.  

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