• 
• Rubbish left at one of Mount Everest’s base camps.
  Image: Mary Plage

  

  By Brian Koerber2 days ago
  Nepal has a stinky situation on its hands.Human waste left by climbers on Mount Everest has become a major problem, and is even threatening the spread of disease, Ang Tshering, the chief of Nepal’s mountaineering association, said, The Associated Press reports.Everest’s climbing season only lasts a measly two months, but nearly 700 climbers brave the world’s tallest peak and not all of them dispose of their trash, urine and feces properly.

  See also: The Deadly Mountains: Why More Inexperienced Climbers Are Dying

  None of Mount Everest’s four base camps, which are located at 17,380 feet, have proper facilities. The camps have tents, equipment, supplies and even cooks, but no toilets. The waste is collected in a drum in a toilet tent, where it is then carried to a lower altitude and disposed.

  But not all climbers use the camps’ facilities to do their business.

  “Climbers usually dig holes in the snow for their toilet use and leave the human waste there,” Tshering told The Associated Press, adding that waste around the base camps has been accumulating for years.

  Away from the base camp, as climbers head toward the 29,035 foot summit, human waste is also an issue.

  “It is a health hazard and the issue needs to be addressed,” said Dawa Steven Sherpa, who has been at the forefront of Everest cleanup expeditions since 2008. Some climbers carry disposable toilet bags with them to the higher camps that don’t have any facilities, Sherpa said.

  

  Image: Dave Watson/Associated Press

  Last year the Nepalese government imposed new rules, which requires climbers to return to the base camp with 17.6 pounds of waste. The weight is an estimate of the average amount of trash climbers accumulate en route.

  The government does not currently have plans to deal with the human waste issue

  The government does not currently have plans to deal with the human waste issue, however Puspa Raj Katuwal, the head of the government’s Mountaineering Department, said officials will strictly monitor it, adding that climbing teams must submit a $4,000 deposit that they will lose if regulations are broken.

  Human fecal waste and trash isn’t the only thing left on the mountainside. According to an article released in 2012 by Smithsonian Magazine, more than 200 human bodies remain frozen on the mountain. Some of them are even used as landmarks.

  More than 4,000 climbers have braved the mountain since its first expedition in 1953.

MORNING MESSAGE

Robert Borosage

Greece’s Agonies, Europe’s Shame

The Greeks have been badly served by their oligarchs who avoid responsibility and taxes and by their governments that have been corrupt and incompetent. But this catastrophe is Europe’s failure. It is a failure, as economists from Paul Krugman to Milton Friedman argue, of design: a monetary union without a political union to provide unified fiscal policies. And it is a failure of ideology: a rigid insistence on austerity policies even after their failure has been acknowledged.

Greece Goes Over The Edge

Greece misses IMF payment. W. Post:“The $1.67 billion missed payment to the IMF was unlikely by itself to spur immediate problems for the global economy, since it affected only a government-backed institution, not private investors. But if Greece is ultimately forced off the euro, other troubled euro-zone economies such as Portugal could be seen as more vulnerable. The exit could also weaken the goal of ever-closer European integration.”

Tsipras extends olive branch. NYT:“…Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Greece was ‘prepared to accept’ a deal set out publicly over the weekend by the creditors, with small modifications to some of the central points of contention on issues like pension cuts and tax increases. Mr. Tsipras linked Greece’s acceptance of the terms to a new package of bailout aid that would need to be negotiated.”

Germany PM Merkel says that offer now off the table. NYT:“‘With the expiration of the program, the basis for the offer has been removed,’ Ms. Merkel said.”

Poll shows Greeks will vote “No.” Bloomberg:“. The survey, in Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper, showed 54 percent would vote ‘no’ — rejecting austerity in exchange for aid — and 33 percent would vote ‘yes’ — accepting austerity as the price of staying in the euro.”

Push To Secure Overtime Rule

EPI encourages public comments in support of Obama’s overtime rule:“The Department of Labor just proposed a plan to protect an estimated 5 million additional workers from overtime abuse. And now they need to hear from you.”

Overtime rule “only scratches the surface of the bigger problem” says NYT:“… the affluent have captured a rising share in recent decades, leaving the wages of everyone else to stagnate … there are two main approaches that promise to increase middle-class wages considerably. The first would be to improve the bargaining power of workers … The second type of policy change would be to limit the incomes of those nearest the top of the ladder…”

Unskilled labor seeing wage gains. Bloomberg:“Average hourly earnings in industries paying less than $12.50 an hour a year ago rose 3.2 percent in the 12 months through April, about 1 percentage point more than wage growth for the job market as a whole … It is being driven in part by state governments raising their minimum wages, and also through voluntary decisions by companies to raise employees’ pay.”

Scott Walker’s union busting hasn’t helped workers. The Atlantic’s Donald Kettl:“The $3 billion he saved in his first term was certainly something. But that amounted to less than 1 percent of overall state and local government spending over that time period. Those savings came from the pockets of teachers and other public servants who are also taxpayers and whose compensation, by most measures, was not out of line. The law Walker signed didn’t contribute to the fiscal health of the state’s public pension fund.”