P
H
O
TO
S:
(
TO
P
TO
B
OT
TO
M
)
©
M
A
X
I
M
Z
M
E
YE
V/
R
EU
T
E
R
S;
AI
G
HD/A
M
C;
©
E
R
I
K
D
E
C
AST
R
O/
R
E
U
T
E
RS
/C
O
R
BI
S
AROUND THE WORLD
Australia scraps carbon tax
CANBERRA | Bucking global efforts to
curtail carbon pollution, the Australian
government last week abolished a
national carbon tax. The move to “ax the
tax” makes Australia the first country
in the world to abolish a functioning
carbon pricing scheme. Energy researchers condemn the move. The tax repeal
is a “dereliction of duty with respect to
the rights of young people and future
generations,” says energy research expert
Hugh Outhred of the University of New
South Wales in Sydney. The centerpiece
of Australia’s Clean Energy Act passed
in 2012, the carbon tax required 350 of
the nation’s biggest polluters to purchase
carbon credits, valued at AU$23 per ton,
if they exceeded their allotted targets. The
legislation sparked significant reductions
in Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions,
analysts say.
http://scim.ag/Auscarbtax
Lawsuit over golden rice paper
WOBURN, MASSACHUSETTS | Tufts
University nutrition scientist Guangwen
Tang is suing the American Society for
Nutrition (ASN) and Tufts to prevent the
retraction of her 2012 nutrition study of
golden rice in Chinese children, published
in The American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition. The study aimed to find out
how well the body converts golden rice—a
Melbourne, Australia, this week, was overshadowed
by the death of leading researcher Joep Lange and
five other delegates who perished when Malaysia
Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine
on 17 July. Colleagues praised Lange (left), who was
head of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health
and Development, for his leadership and vision. In a speech at the
meeting, David Cooper, head of the Kirby Institute for Infection and
Immunity in Society in Sydney, Australia, noted that Lange early
on recognized that a single drug against HIV likely would fail. “He
single-handedly convinced the pharmaceutical industry that combi-
nation chemotherapy was the way to go,” Cooper said. Lange then
made it his mission to bring the treatment to the world’s poor, proba-
bly saving “tens of thousands of lives,” he said. Also killed in the crash
were Lange’s partner, Jacqueline van Tongeren, who was communica-
tions director at his institute; three others working in the Dutch HIV/
AIDS community; and World Health Organization spokesman Glenn
Thomas.
http://scim.ag/LangeMH17
AIDS researcher dead in Ukraine crash
Malaysian Airlines flight
MH17 was shot down over
Ukraine last week.
Golden rice may help vitamin A deficiency in children.
19,000,000
Hectares of land needed for new U.S. energy sites by 2040, estimated
at the North America Congress for Conservation Biology.
