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So, I am totally not a fan of Wife Swap -- the TV show that takes two very different households and has the two wives change places for two weeks. And I definitely did not see last night's episode where Susan Heiss, who lives in an upscale neighborhood in Rhode Island in a house with nine (9!) televisions and her husband Big "Bada bada bing!" Ed, switched lives with Sienna Kestral, an eco-conscious, dreadlocked freegan from Virginia.

Therefore I cannot report on how upset I was at the first half-hour of the show, wherein Susan Heiss ridicules the environmental lifestyle (no dishwasher or other modern appliances, baking soda and water for cleaning supplies, the "if-it's-yellow-let-it-mellow-if-it's-brown-flush-it-down" toilet mantra, etc.) of the Kestrals. When reading the first sentence of the Kestral family manual: "We are a community-minded, left-activist, eco-oriented ... radical family"; Susan responds, "I have no idea what those words mean." Oh, we have a looong way to go, middle America.

The two families couldn't have been more different at the outset, as demonstrated in their post-switch analysis:

Roman Catholic church in the UK teaches that Bible can be factually inaccurate

Here's an interesting development, from the U.K. Times Online:

The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church [in England, Scotland, and Wales] has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.

This includes the first 11 chapters of Genesis, wherein the earth and humankind are created in six days. It's a rebuttal to strict creationism.

Sometimes I have a sneaking suspicion that this is still news to some people: There are lots of different Christians, and they believe lots of different things. So in a sense, the publication of this teaching document doesn't really mean anything -- I'm pretty sure we're all going to keep on believing what we're believing. But it seems significant to me, and potentially to the environmental community, since, as the article points out, the Church has historically condemned those who don't take the Bible as the literal word of God.

Anyway, I just thought that was interesting (as did Matthew Wheeland at Alternet, who beat me to the punch.)

Is Kucinich politicizing science?

Last week, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced to the Congressional record a Resolution of Inquiry (H. Res. 515), cosigned by around 150 House Democrats, "demanding that the White House submit to Congress all documents in their possession relating to the anticipated effects of climate change on the coastal regions of the United States." (Press release; PDF of the resolution.)

The idea, according to InsideEPA.com (as quoted by Roger Pielke Jr. -- I don't have the required subscription), is to put pressure on moderate Republicans, who are increasingly coming around on the climate-change issue.

Observers say the ROI will present House Science Committee Chairman SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R-NY), Rep. VERNON EHLERS (R-MI) and Rep. WAYNE GILCHREST (R-MD) with a critical choice between siding with their party in deflecting attention from the president's climate policies and their environmental records, which have won them praise and endorsements from environmental groups. Their decisions on the matter may prove crucial during their 2006 primaries, where at least one is expected to face a tough fight against a more conservative GOP candidate.

What to make of this?

Shanghai Hopes

China plans even bigger expansion of its clean-energy capacity China yesterday announced plans to more than double its clean-energy capacity — from 7 percent of electricity production today to about 15 percent by 2020, up from a previous goal of 10 percent. While this could make the country a leading global player in the hydropower, […]

Placing monetary value on eco-resources helps more than it hurts

This is the second part of a two-part essay by Jason Scorse, Assistant Professor of International Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Go here to read an introduction and part one.

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Does this mean private property rights solve everything? Of course not; however, the worst forms of environmental abuse generally occur in areas where property rights and markets are non-existent, or where the market is distorted by perverse subsidies that encourage over-exploitation. Even with enforceable property rights and a solid system of environmental accounting, markets are not perfect and are subject to unintended consequences.

Global warming presents a particularly difficult challenge. The atmosphere is the world's preeminent open access resource, and exclusion is impossible. Some of the solutions currently being discussed for long-term climate management are enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions through a system of tradable atmospheric pollution permits. While some environmentalists oppose pollution permits on the grounds that they establish a "right to pollute," all industrial activities require some level of greenhouse-gas pollution and tradable permits may provide both the cheapest and most equitable way of achieving targeted reductions (big greenhouse polluters like the U.S. would likely end up buying credits from less-polluting nations).

One concern many people express regarding private property is that resources that typically were free or available at little cost to almost everyone are now being "commodified." Common examples include water and botanical genetic resources. While we can all agree that everyone should have access to clean drinking water, the fact is that billions of people, for a variety of reasons, do not. Sometimes the water has been contaminated, the aquifers have been depleted, regions have suffered droughts, or the public agency in charge is corrupt. In addition, water purification and delivery are extremely expensive and entail complex systems of infrastructure and maintenance. Privatization of water systems in many instances can bring much needed capital into areas that lack infrastructure and actually improve people's access to clean water, including the poor. There are other instances where privatization has led to large rate increases and lower levels of access. The appropriate response is to ask why privatization has worked well in some areas and not in others, not to condemn it across the board. (Consider: food is also necessary for life, but no one is waging a battle against farmers who happen to be in the private business of bringing food to your table.)

How a plan to return big beasts to North America raised hackles and hopes

Every damn kid in the U.S., son of cabbie or Catholic, knows and cares about dinosaurs. But few have heard of gomphotheres, which lived here much more recently. Cheetahs never win. In the late summer, this North American elephant — along with some of its contemporaries, like American camels, cheetahs, lions, and giant tortoises — […]

Biodiversivist

Word has it that the city of Seattle is planning to expand its north-end transfer station (garbage relay pit) to include a recycling center. They intend to invoke imminent domain on the old bakery just to the east of the existing facility. I surely hope their plans include a better way to collect hazardous waste.

Tonight on Wife Swap

Oh dear ...

Monday, November 7, 8/7c, "Heiss/Kestrel"
A woman who does everything and more for her three super-indulged children and her "man-of-the-house" husband swaps lives with an energy-conserving, hippie mom whose family does all housework together and whose husband likes to wear a skirt.

Via TH.

A southern Idaho reservoir is contaminated with mercury

Yoiks: A southern Idaho reservoir is contaminated with mercury at levels up to 180 times higher than those found in lakes in the Northeast U.S. From the Idaho Statesman:

"Nobody's ever seen a hot spot like this before," said Mike DuBois, an air quality analyst at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

The likely culprit: four gold mines across the border in northern Nevada, which emitted 15,000 pounds of mercury in 2002 alone. Of course, the mines are patting themselves on the back for reducing their mercury releases to just a couple of tons per year as of 2004. But that's still a huge amount of mercury for just a handful of mines. The 1,000-odd coal-fired electricity industry generators in the U.S. emit a total of 48 tons of mercury each year; so those few Nevada mines make up a disproportionately large share of the nation's total mercury output.

And just in case you need a reason to care about this: mercury contamination early in life can knock a few points off a kid's IQ, which, in addition to being grossly unfair, costs nearly $9 billion a year in lost earnings.

Sunday night television

There was some interesting television on last night.

First, there was the live (fictional) presidential debate on The West Wing, wherein the two candidates tossed out the rules in an effort to give viewers the type of debate that they've yearning for since the last round of real presidential debates. And according to a MSNBC/Zogby poll (!), Rep. Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), D-Texas, edged out Sen. Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), R-Calif.

I'm not sure how viewer submitted questions worked into the show, but they did manage to field a few energy questions, which prompted a brief exchange on global warming. And speaking of global warming ...

Afterwards, on CBS, Category 7: The End of the World was airing. Now I know I'm advocating for more enviro themes in television and film, but I expect such attempts to be well-produced. Sadly, I had to force myself to watch.