Tuesday, 25 Jul 2006

Reps Gone Wild

House approves new wilderness areas in California, Oregon, and Idaho

The U.S. House yesterday unanimously approved bills that would create over 1,000 square miles of new wilderness areas and protect 47 miles of rivers in California, Oregon, and Idaho. A bill to ban drilling in New Mexico's Valle Vidal also passed. All of the bills are compromises hammered out over several years, involving the disparate interests of business owners, ranchers, local governments, recreationists, conservationists, and Indian tribes. The Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Act would protect more than 277,000 acres as wilderness, and designate about 79,000 acres as a recreation area for off-road vehicles and mountain bikes. The Oregon bill would establish 77,200 acres of wilderness in the Mount Hood National Forest, and the Idaho legislation would create three new wilderness areas in the mountainous portions of the Sawtooth and Challis national forests, protecting a total of 315,215 acres. The bills now go to the Senate.


Already this summer, flames have consumed tens of thousands of acres around the American West, and scientists have pinned the country's increasingly lengthy and voracious fire seasons on climate change. So why, Maywa Montenegro wonders, is no one getting, well, fired up? In an op-ed today, the science writer describes these troubling trends, and some reasons to hope that they might kindle change.

'Cane Do Spirit

Hurricane researchers unite in call to curb coastal development

The media has made much of the disagreement among hurricane researchers about the effects of global warming on storm strength. So much, in fact, that it's starting to annoy the hurricane researchers. Yesterday, 10 prominent experts in the field -- who have disagreed among themselves about the climate question -- released a statement saying that the media should pay more attention to the real problem, about which there is broad consensus: vulnerable coastal areas of the country are being overdeveloped. Death and financial ruin are sure to follow, they say, and the government should quit subsidizing the whole mess: "We call upon leaders of government and industry to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of building practices, and insurance, land-use, and disaster-relief policies that currently serve to promote an ever-increasing vulnerability to hurricanes." Word.


After hearing from environment-related employers struggling to fill open positions and green job-seekers receiving multiple offers, Kevin Doyle of the Environmental Careers Organization decided to do some job searching of his own. An examination of job postings at government agencies, nonprofits, green businesses, and environmental consulting firms in the U.S. revealed that the green job market may be just as hot right now as the summer temps outside. What skills are in highest demand and who's hiring whom? Doyle sums up his research in his latest column on eco-careers.

Maybe I'm Amazoned at the Way I Really Need You

Drought could turn Amazon into desert, researchers warn

The Amazon rainforest -- soon to be called The Artist Formerly Known as the Amazon Rainforest, and then just some weird little symbol -- appears to be undergoing a second year of drought, and that has researchers seriously alarmed. Starting in 2002, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center simulated drought on a small section of the Amazon and found that after two years, the trees began to die, fall, and release more than two-thirds of their lifetime storage of carbon dioxide. Widespread desertification of the rainforest would likely spread drought into the northern hemisphere; the Amazon contains 90 billion tons of CO2, enough to accelerate global warming by 50 percent, spinning it out of control and eventually making the world uninhabitable. Computer models predict that harm to 50 percent of the Amazon would represent a tipping point -- after that, the whole thing starts going down the tubes. Today, about 20 percent has been totally razed and 22 percent has been harmed by logging. Oy. It's only Tuesday and we're already doomed.

Soycott

Big soy companies pledge not to source from recently deforested Amazon

Now for some Amazon news that won't make you want to slit your wrists: Soy producers operating in Brazil -- including U.S. agribiz giants Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland -- announced yesterday that they will put a two-year stop to buying soybeans grown in recently deforested areas of the Amazon. They also said they won't buy soybeans from plantations that use slave labor. During the moratorium, producers will work with the Brazilian government and non-governmental organizations to develop new rules for operating in the Amazon region. An in-depth Greenpeace investigation published earlier this year found that many businesses sourced their soy from illegal Amazon plantations. Unnerved by the report, top European supermarkets, food manufacturers, and fast-food chains began pushing soy producers to clean up their act, and the soy companies relented. Greenpeace applauded the moratorium as a good first step, but said better long-term systems for preserving the Amazon need to be put in place.