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Su Thieda, EarthCorps program director, answers questionsSu Thieda, EarthCorps program director, ans

Su Thieda. What work do you do? I am director of programs for EarthCorps. What does your organization do? EarthCorps’ mission is to build global community through local environmental service. EarthCorps restores native habitat while training young leaders and engaging volunteers in hands-on environmental service. On a day-to-day basis, EarthCorps crews can be found in […]

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Gaggin’

China’s economic boom leading to dreadful air quality China’s zooming economy is a wonder of the modern world, but the eco-toll is becoming increasingly severe. Acid rain affects about a third of the country, approximately 70 percent of its lakes and rivers are polluted, and more than 400,000 Chinese a year are estimated to die […]

The Old Munitions and the Sea

U.S. Army dumped heaps of chemical weapons in Davy Jones’ locker Between 1944 and 1970, the U.S. Army secretly dumped about 64 million pounds of chemical warfare agents, plus over 400,000 mustard-gas-filled munitions, off several state shores — and more than that in the waters around 11 other nations. A fair amount of the dumping […]

Submit your thoughts on the latest SCOTUS nominee

Well, Bush has done what he always does when he's in trouble: Made a move designed to be maximally divisive, maximally partisan. The nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court is a declaration of war, an explicit statement that Bush intends to stand with the Angry White Men of the far right to the very end.

Much has already been said about Alito's retrograde positions on abortion and commerce-clause related matters. I'm reading around for news on his environmental record. But we can probably guess, right?

If you know of environment-related Alito cases, describe them in comments. More later.

Update [2005-10-31 10:55:17 by David Roberts]: Here's some good info from EarthJustice.

Update [2005-10-31 11:8:3 by David Roberts]: Good collection of links on Alito from Scott Lemieux.

Update [2005-10-31 11:28:11 by David Roberts]: As always, tons of great info on Wikipedia and SCOTUSblog.

Brazil/Seattle

One easy way to get rid of a tire is to toss it over a bridge. In Costa Rica, crocodiles can be seen sunning themselves amid thousands of discarded tires. Not an option here in Seattle where stopping on a bridge long enough to hurl a tire will cause a traffic jam.

I took a load of junk to Seattle's north end transfer station the other day. An employee was standing at the entrance to brief clientele on Seattle's new recycling ordinance. Apparently, it is no longer adequate to voluntarily point-sort our trash and laboriously drag multiple containers to the curb every week to protect our environment and lower the cost of waste disposal. Our wise leaders have decided it's time to take it to another level and make it illegal not to recycle. Why? According to the official site, this ordinance "aims" to save residents and businesses as much as $2 million a year, enforcement "with consequences" beginning January 1, 2006. Contractors will not pick up garbage cans that have "significant" amounts of recyclables.

Mayor on a Vespa

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has gone one better than those governors who've been feeling so smug about giving up their SUVs. He's tooling around town on a Vespa.

Help the oil companies spend their lucre, won’t you?

At a press conference this afternoon, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton came up with another creative reason to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling: The oil companies need some place to invest their record profits!

(Or so I'm inferring from this E&ENews PM headline "ANWR: Oil industry needs places to invest profits, Norton says." I can't get the full story because I have no subscription.)

Why not spend the rest of Friday afternoon thinking of better ways for the oil companies to spend their profits? Leave your bright ideas in comments or send them to Sec. Norton.

Readers talk back about synthetics in organic food, gay jokes, and snottiness

  Re: O Brother, Where Artificial Thou? Dear Editor: I am skeptical of the sturm und drang surrounding the 38 “synthetic ingredients” that the National Organic Standards Board allows in processed foods that wear the “USDA Certified Organic” label. Of the three examples cited in your article [xanthan gum, ammonium bicarbonate, and ethylene], none is […]

Won’t Take N.O. for an Answer

Final batch of brains weighs in on rebuilding New Orleans Should New Orleans be rebuilt on floating barges? Or on elevated platforms? Should old, drowned neighborhoods be turned into new, green parks? How can the wetlands surrounding the city be revitalized? How can materials from wrecked buildings be reused? How can the citizens who are […]

What to do about Wal-Mart

So, it looks like Wal-Mart's green turn has some meat on its bones (to mix metaphors). As we noted in DG, CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. announced some fairly specific programs the other day around energy-efficient stores, greenhouse-gas reductions, truck fleet fuel efficiency, packaging reductions, and pressure on overseas suppliers to follow suit.

It remains to be seen whether the company will release specific targets and timetables, regularly report its progress, and generally go about this in a transparent way. But it certainly looks, at least at this early stage, like this is a serious company-wide effort.

On the other hand, Scott also announced a new employee healthcare plan, only to have a fateful memo leak days later -- a memo that revealed the frighteningly cold calculations behind the company's healthcare policies. Clay Risen has an excellent piece on the memo and related matters at TNR, saying "the thrust of the plan, then, is to slash benefits but make superficial changes to mask the impact of those cuts."

Pretty nasty stuff.

Now, my question is: How should environmentalists and environmental groups react to all this?