ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE.

* Climate change report released: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) officially released its latest report on global warming on January 22, citing "new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" (see "Leaked report says climate scientists now see higher projected temperatures," January/February 2001). Based on new data and extensive computer modeling, the IPCC, a U.N.-sponsored group of hundreds of scientists, significantly increased its earlier projections of the Earth's average surface temperature rise. The new study projects that temperatures will increase by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius, or 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2100 (the IPCC's 1995 study projected an increase of only 1 to 3.5 degrees Celsius). The report details a number of adverse effects that are likely to occur as the climate changes, including a rise in sea levels by 0.88 meters (about 34 inches) by 2100 and an increase in extreme weather events. For a copy of the report go to: www.ipcc.ch

Curtis Runyan

* Lab falsified thousands of tests: Thousands of U.S. toxic waste sites certified as safe may not be safe after all, because the environmental laboratory that tested them apparently falsified its test results to satisfy industrial and government clients. As a consequence, according to an indictment brought by U.S. prosecutors last fall, many of the "endusers" of resources in or from some 59,000 sites across the United States could be unaware that their drinking water, irrigation water, air, or soil may be contaminated. Those users include not only local residents and farmers, but consumers elsewhere, who might have bought contaminated farm products. The pollutants for which soil, water, and air samples were supposed to have been tested include pesticides, explosives, and "nerve/chemical agents" from military sites.

The indictment was brought against 13 chemists and supervisors who worked at the Richardson, Texas lab of the London-based Intertek Corporation between 1996 and 1997. One of the 13, Martin Dale Jeffus, was still the company's vice president for North America, at the time of this writing. Intertek chairman Richard Nelson recently told the Wall Street Journal that he wasn't aware that any of the defendants still worked for his company.

Jeffus was alleged to have "personally directed and trained chemists to falsify results to meet customers' quality control specifications," according to the Journal. Former Intertek chemist Alan Humason reported that Jeffus informed him of a way he could "lie" about data on a compound called thiodiglycol, a byproduct of toxic sulphur mustard gas...