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Scientific American’s special issue on the environment

Now available on newsstands (and the Internets) is Scientific American's special issue titled "Crossroads for Planet Earth." In it you'll find: George Musser setting the stage, Joel E. Cohen on population, Jeffrey D. Sachs on extreme poverty, Stuart L. Pimm and Clinton Jenkins on endangered species, Amory B. Lovins on energy, Paul Polak on agriculture, Barry R. Bloom on public health, Herman E. Daly on economic growth and sustainability, and W. Wayt Gibbs on setting priorities.

Here's an excerpt from Musser's intro:

The 21st century feels like a letdown. We were promised flying cars, space colonies and 15-hour workweeks. Robots were supposed to do our chores, except when they were organizing rebellions; children were supposed to learn about disease from history books; portable fusion reactors were supposed to be on sale at the Home Depot. Even dystopian visions of the future predicted leaps of technology and social organization that leave our era in the dust.

Looking beyond the blinking lights and whirring gizmos, though, the new century is shaping up as one of the most amazing periods in human history. Three great transitions set in motion by the Industrial Revolution are reaching their culmination. After several centuries of faster-than-exponential growth, the world's population is stabilizing. Judging from current trends, it will plateau at around nine billion people toward the middle of this century. Meanwhile extreme poverty is receding both as a percentage of population and in absolute numbers. If China and India continue to follow in the economic footsteps of Japan and South Korea, by 2050 the average Chinese will be as rich as the average Swiss is today; the average Indian, as rich as today's Israeli. As humanity grows in size and wealth, however, it increasingly presses against the limits of the planet. Already we pump out carbon dioxide three times as fast as the oceans and land can absorb it; midcentury is when climatologists think global warming will really begin to bite. At the rate things are going, the world's forests and fisheries will be exhausted even sooner.

I personally enjoyed the Paul Polak piece titled "The Big Potential of Small Farms" which introduced me to the treadle pump and gave some great examples of how drip irrigation systems that use cheap rubber hoses can make a huge difference for poor families.

[editor's note, by Chris Schults] When I wrote "Internets" I really meant the Scientific American website, where only some of the content is freely available.

Pielke Jr. responds

Roger Pielke Jr. has made something of a career out of studying societal response to hurricanes (see him quoted liberally here). He's made something of a side career out of arguing that greens should -- as a matter of ethics, science, and policy -- refrain from using severe weather events like hurricanes to raise alarm over global warming and (thereby) advance their preferred energy policies.

I happen to disagree with him on that, but his position, being somewhat infuriating to greens, tends to get caricatured and vilified a lot. So, let's let him speak for himself.

He responded to my post on hurricanes and global warming with a post on his blog. I responded in turn with the following email:

Bombay Watch

Bombay bans plastic bags, saying they can clog drains and cause flooding Plastic bags are maddeningly ubiquitous and ugly as sin, but did you know they can cause flooding? According to India’s Maharashtra state government, millions of bags clogged up drains in Bombay’s slums during monsoon season, dramatically worsening the epic late-July flooding that killed […]

Tastes Like Chicken

Hong Kong becomes major outlet for trade in rare species Hong Kong has become a linchpin location for smuggling rare species into China, according to some opponents of the trade, who fear that huge demand may wipe out many animal and plant species. In just one notable raid, police discovered that numerous boxes of alleged […]

The Sum of Squall Fears

What’s the link between hurricanes and global warming? The devastation wreaked on the Gulf Coast this week by Hurricane Katrina is sure to reignite debate over hurricanes and global warming. The science linking the two is ambiguous and complex, but the need to spur action on climate change is urgent. Would activists be justified in […]

Worldchanging editor discusses optimism and technology

[editor's note, by Dave Roberts] This is part one of a three-part interview. Part two is here and part three is here.

In April, I sat down for a long, wide-ranging conversation with Alex Steffen, executive editor of the (now newly incorporated and redesigned) Worldchanging.com. Gristmill readers likely need no introduction to Worldchanging, an online salon of activists and thinkers dedicated to the proposition that "another world is here" -- that the tools and techniques we need to reverse the global malaise already exist and await only our imagination and willpower. If it isn't on your daily reading list, it should be.

Originally, I was going to run this interview alongside a rather ambitious long-form piece of my own, but as time has passed -- and I really can't believe how much time has passed -- it's become clear that said piece is indefinitely postponed. Since I have a baby due [checks calendar] three days ago, it's unlikely I'll soon have time to return to it.

Lest it get even older, I'm going to go ahead and run it here. There's lots of good stuff in it, but it's very long, so I've broken it into three parts -- I'll publish the first today and the others in coming days.

In part one, we discuss optimism, technology, and the open-source movement.

Indian movies need to take up the plastic-bag fight

Plastic bags may be banned in the Indian state of Maharashtra due to concerns that by clogging the city's drains they contributed to the floods that swept the coast last month and brought life to a halt in buzzing Bombay. There are protests from the predictable quarters; apparently, 20,000 people in the state are employed to painstakingly manufacture thin bags that are good for carrying one coconut for ten yards before stretching out and leaving you with a bag with a hole in it but no coconut.

Will Gucci be next?

Now that Chanel's off limits.

McDonough

Nothing new in this short profile of William McDonough, but as a confirmed McDonough fanboy, I feel obligated to link to it.

Nothing he wants to go affirming to the UN

Uh oh, this doesn't sound good.

The Bush administration, whose pro-business policies on climate change have long rankled environmentalists and U.N. delegates, has done it again. The United States is pressing to scrap a proposal to have world leaders gathering in New York next month express "respect for nature."

Eh, pardonne moi?

That phrase was included in a draft statement of principles to be agreed to by 175 heads of state and government attending a Sept. 14 United Nations summit on poverty and U.N. reform. The statement invited leaders to embrace a set of "core values" that unite the international community, including respect for human rights, freedom, equality, tolerance, multilateralism and respect for nature.

Is there some confusion in the Washington Post offices? Is this some kind of treaty? Mandated CO2 emissions cuts? Banning of toxic chemicals? Compensating poor nations for the effects of climate change?

The offending phrase would place no fresh legal or financial burdens on U.S. taxpayers...

WTF?!

...but the Bush administration voiced concern that it would distract attention from the main goal: reforming the United Nations.

WTF!?

Um, wait, so, 175 nations are gathering in New York to work on U.N. reform. To start off, they want to affirm their shared principles. Bush is okay with this. Human rights? Sure. Equality? Yup. Multilateralism? Ah, what the hell.

Respect for nature, though? C'mon. Let's not go off the rails!

Ric Grenell of the U.S. mission to the United Nations said the phrase "is too broad a subject, and if we had to define the multiple ways the U.S. government respects nature, the document would be too long and way off its original intent."

Oh, gosh, the ways we respect nature ... don't get us started!

No, really. Don't. We mean it.