Abstract
In Australia and New Zealand, wine tourism brings in big money–and a potentially serious ecological hazard.
BIOSECURITY: Grapes of wrath
A little more than a decade ago, the Australian wine industry staged a world-wide tasting of sorts. With an aggressive charge into foreign markets, it hoped to attract an international following. The industry's hook: Good wine for cheap. It connected. Once global wine enthusiasts–especially those in the United States and Britain–imbibed Australian shiraz, chardonnay, and Riesling (which no less an authority than Wine Spectator magazine rated as “head-turning”), the wines sold briskly.
Today, wine exports continue to boom in Australia, and wineries and vineyards are popping up all across the country and in nearby New Zealand, which also produces well-regarded wine. At the same time, a budding wine tourism industry has developed symbiotically, with a growing number of domestic and international travelers visiting the most famous wine regions Down Under. In some of these regions, wine and wine tourists, who constitute a predominantly wealthy lot, power a significant segment of the local economy.
Therein lies the rub. Tourists bring money, but they also pose a unique threat to Australia and New Zealand's fragile ecosystems–especially so-called eco and cultural tourists (such as wine connoisseurs), who closely interact with the environment. If a stowaway, non-native pest such as the glassy-winged sharpshooter (a cicada-like insect from the southeastern United States that is a vector for the lethal grapevine malady Pierce's disease) were inadvertently introduced into the countries' agricultural sector, the wine-based local economies could topple. “If you had Pierce's disease and a vector, it could practically wipe us out,” says Tony Battaglene, the director of international and regulatory affairs at the Winemakers' Federation of Australia. “It's a very serious issue for us, and one that we've got to take seriously.”
They do so on two fronts. Along with the Australian government and the country's other agricultural industries, the wine industry has formed Plant Health Australia, which manages general crop security issues. In addition, the Australian wine industry has designed a grape-specific biosecurity plan to limit a major pest or disease outbreak. “It makes sure everyone gets together and gets together early,” Battaglene says, “which hasn't happened in the past.”
As for tourists, a rite of passage (literally) for getting into Australia is being sprayed with insecticides by a flight attendant. There is due cause. Biosecurity New Zealand, the country's lead bioprotection agency, lists “recreational equipment” (a polite way of implicating foreign fishermen) as a possible source of the recent emergence of a harmful algae usually found in the Northern Hemisphere. (A glassy-winged sharpshooter is much more likely to be introduced through table grape imports from California, which, despite widespread fears, has yet to happen.)
On a local level, simple awareness (for example, educational campaigns and increased signage) makes for better on-site biosecurity. For wineries in particular, keeping wine tourists out of the actual vineyards will help. “Visitors want to learn about vines and wine–that's an important part of the wine tourism experience,” says C. Michael Hall, the Department of Tourism head at the University of Otago in New Zealand. “But rather than taking them out into the vineyard, operators can have vines of each variety they grow planted beside the tasting room.”
Many already do. But no matter the breadth of protection, tourists shuffling from one winery to the next will always present a biosecurity challenge. “In a perfect society, we wouldn't allow anybody to leave their work or home,” says William Aley, an import specialist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plant Protection and Quarantine program. “But that's not a reality for most of the world. People have the freedom to move around. With that comes the risk that things might get moved inadvertently.”
NONLETHAL WEAPONS: Shoot to not kill
Talk about a ringing endorsement. When armed bandits attacked a U.S. cruise ship off of Africa's eastern coast in early November 2005, the crew deflected the attackers with the ship's onboard sound-wave gun (known euphemistically as the long-range acoustic device, or LRAD).
Whether to control crowds or stymie adversaries, U.S. officials insist the future of nonlethal weapons, such as LRADs, looks bright. Selections from a glossary of nonlethal weapons compiled by researchers at the Institute for National Security Studies lay bare the types of tools that might (and that's a big might) constitute a gentler force in the future.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: A sunny solution
Bringing the people of Iraq power–both Political and electrical–has always been an onerous task. During Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraq's dilapidated electrical grid went largely ignored, and only pro-Saddam strongholds received consistent service. Post-, Saddam, U.S. efforts to deliver power more equitably have been undermined by insurgents determined to hinder attempts to refurbish Iraq's infrastructure. This predicament has led to some unconventional problem-solving at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California.
THE NUMBERS: 11 to 15 $1 billion
The hours of electricity per day most Iraqis receive in post-Saddam Iraq.
What it would cost per year to provide continuous power to every Iraqi household.
SOURCE: CURTIS AUSTIN, RALPH BORJA, AND JEFFREY PHILLIPS, NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL, “OPERATION SOLAR EAGLE: A STUDY EXAMINING PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR POWER AS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR THE REBUILDING OF THE IRAQI ELECTRICAL POWER GENERATION INFRASTRUCTURE.”
In a recent master's thesis, three NPS students suggest that solar energy might serve as an important component to fixing Iraq's perpetual power troubles. “The use of solar [photovoltaic] systems could not only benefit residential housing, but could also contribute to the revitalization of communities and industries, as well as improving the overall well-being of the country,” they argue.
Technologically, their findings hinge on the Photovoltaic Power Conversion, a heretofore unknown 2-inch circuit that a Northern California engineer built by hand in his garage. After conducting numerous technical reviews on the circuit, NPS found that it converts much more solar energy to electricity than other current solar technologies–less expensively, too.
Although still in the research phase, such a solution could have far-reaching implications. “If we manage to power up a major city [with solar energy] inside a country that has oceans of oil,” says the students' thesis adviser Ron Tudor, “then why couldn't U.S. metropolitan areas start looking more closely at transitioning to renewable energy?”
Q+A Norman Anderson
The founder of the Viral Defense Foundation discusses his proposal for a Manhattan Project on biodefense, dubbed the Virome Project.
In any organization, the more pieces that need to interact and talk to each other, the greater the risk for error. It's like our intelligence agencies. We've got all these people, but so much falls through the cracks.
RE: RUSSIAN MILITARY: With God on their side
Russian strategic bombers now have divine protection. In late September 2005, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexi II, designated Saint Fyodor Ushakov (below) as the bomber force's patron saint, promising that the divine figure would provide mission guidance. Naming Ushakov–a navy admiral who led victorious and, no doubt, bloody campaigns against the Turkish Navy in the late eighteenth century–as a patron saint may sound a bit incongruous. But it's par for the course in Holy Mother Russia.
“[In Russia], the church and the state have been hand-in-hand for almost a thousand years. … It makes perfect sense,” says Thomas J. Craughwell, the author of Saints for Every Occasion. Even in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, when religious repression was widespread, the church played a significant role in supporting Soviet troops during World War II–going so far as to finance a tank column. Now that's meaningful benefactor.
LEISURE: Toyland security
Forget about playing cowboys and Indians; 9/11 has changed even the toys kids play with. Take, for example, Playmobil's “Security Check-In” toy set–complete with guards, guns, a metal detecting-wand, an X-ray machine, and smiling traveler. (Online retailer Amazon.com humorlessly suggests pairing the item with the “Airport Terminal” set; Playmobil also offers a “Hazmat Crew” toy set.)
“I was a bit disappointed in the toy's lack of realism,” the web site Homeland Stupidity (ioerror.us) wryly notes. “There was only one passenger to be screened. Where were the long lines? … The passenger's shoes couldn't be removed either…. And there was no No-Fly List or Selectee List included.”
Sarcasm aside, kids can benefit from such toys. “My first thoughts were like anybody's–‘Oh my god, do we really need to have toys about this?’” says Chris Lucas, child psychiatrist and director of New York University's Child Study Center. “But play has a number of different functions, think these toys are actually incredibly useful in helping children make sense of scary situations that are now part of today's life.”
That said, Lucas cautions that mom and dad should take the lead from their kids and wait for questions to arise naturally. “Buying it and saying, ‘Look John, now we need to have a talk about homeland security,’ is not necessarily the way to go.”
WEBWATCH COLORADO.EDU/JOURNALISM/CEJ/EXHIBIT/INDEX.HTML
As Rocky Flats transitions from a former nuclear bomb-building site into a wildlife refuge, its legacy stands to be altered by fading perspective. Hoping to preserve one aspect of the plant's complicated history, the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Journalism recently debuted the inaugural exhibit of its Rocky Flats virtual museum.
The online presentation, entitled “The 1969 Fire,” describes how plutonium flecks at Rocky Flats spontaneously combusted on May 11, 1969. Although a large-scale disaster was averted, the accident started a fire that threatened to expose the Denver area to vast amounts of radiological contamination. The exhibit uses first-person accounts, video clips, newspaper articles, and government reports to explain what caused the fire and to contradict official statements that no plutonium ash entered the atmosphere.
“Plutonium production hasn't gone away,” says Len Ackland, the exhibit's creator and former Bulletin editor. “With Los Alamos now producing pits and the Modern Pit Facility-‘Rocky Flats 2’–still on the books, it continues to be a live issue.”
RE: CULTURE: Hug an A-bomb
Does the threat of nuclear annihilation have you down? Looking for a way to feel secure in a world with enough nuclear firepower to destroy humankind? Placating your fears could be a bear hug away.
At New York City's Museum of Modern Art, a recent exhibit, Safe: Design Takes on Risk, tackled the age of heightened threat awareness by featuring hundreds of products that “protect body and mind from dangerous or stressful circumstances … ensure clarity of information, and provide a sense of comfort and security.”
Among the objects exhibited was the Priscila Huggable Atomic Mushroom, a Yoda-sized pillow shaped like a mushroom cloud (right). Cuddling up with the aftermath of a nuclear explosion may seem irrational, even nonsensical, but according to exhibit curator Paola Antonelli, doing so could help visitors embrace their vulnerability. “The function might be farfetched, or emotional, or psychological, still the object works because it really serves a purpose,” she says.
Though some of the items in the exhibit seem whimsical, Antonelli argues that they catch people's attention and force them “to think of the way they deal with their fears … and the destinies of the world.” And maybe, just maybe, even make them feel safer.
an iron chain made of heart-shaped links
giant plush stuffed microbes (left)
a parka that inflates into a mattress
spiked drink-detector solution
a corporate fallout detector