Uncategorized

Men pollute so they can take over the world

Men: Can't live with them. Can't overpopulate without them.

A new study of Swedish fishermen suggests that pollution alters the ratio of chromosomes in sperm. But the news isn't half-bad: those in the study -- which focused on exposure to POPs, or persistent organochlorine pollutants -- harbored more Y chromosomes than X. Which means, if any of them settle down with a Swedish fisherlass, they might just create more boys than girls.

Dudes, we're on to you. Pollute this place with your "mercury's good for you!" logic and feeble regulations. Mess with your own sperm. Then make more of you to inherit the earth.

Hell, you can have it.

You Just Keep on Pushing My Love Over the Borderline

Former Iron Curtain may become continent-spanning greenbelt The fabled Iron Curtain that separated Western Europe from the communist countries of Eastern Europe was once one of the most dangerous places on earth. But in the post-Cold War era, a coalition of conservation and community-development groups has ambitious plans to transform it into a string of […]

Woodpecker long thought extinct shows back up!

Chris Mooney is following the breaking story of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Everyone thought it was extinct, but apparently one has been spotted (grainy video here). Cool!

Start here and keep scrolling.

Is the ‘creative class’ driving green building?

Worldchanger Jamais Cascio has a long, linktastic post about Richard Florida and his argument that there is an identifiable "creative class" of mobile workers that values, well, urbanism: a high quality of life, culture diversity and tolerance, thick labor markets, etc.

I live in Pittsburgh, where Florida got his start, so I'm well acquainted with his ideas and his, ahem, penchant for self-publicity. Unfortunately, Florida doesn't actually delve into the relationship between the environment and thriving cities; instead he uses a generalized quality of life measure of somewhat dubious reliability (it's hard to quantify this stuff).

So I'm glad that Jamais is looking beyond Florida's initial focus and talking about sustainability and the prospect that the "creative class is taking on a distinctly Viridian shade of green." Jamais looks at the top cities on Florida's creative index and wonders if it's the creative class that's driving the growth of LEED-certified green buildings. From my experience here in Pittsburgh, where the city recently unveiled a massive and beautiful LEED-certified convention center, it's actually the presence of several likeminded progressive foundations that has been decisive in these early years. The irony is that the wealth built up during Pittsburgh's famous period of rapid industrial growth--which led to Pittsburgh's equally-famous moniker as the "Smoky City"--is now the primary catalyst for a green renaissance.

What do we stand for that our opponents don’t?

So remember that whole "Elevator Pitch" thing that American Prospect started and I basically copied?

Well, Markos over at Daily Kos took a swing at it. Ezra Klein decried his attempt as pabulum. Matt Yglesias agreed, and went on to say that he was pretty disappointed in the results of the Prospect's contest (as you may recall, I felt more or less the same way about ours):

Largely, as with the example Ezra takes down, the problem was that people didn't even seem to understand the right kind of thing to be doing. What makes the conservative pitch work is that while it's general enough to be broadly appealing, it's specific enough that liberals will have to reject it. The submissions we got tended to either operate at an overly-broad level ("we're for good things happening and against bad ones") or else to just be policy laundry-lists.

Kevin Drum agrees, and takes the bold step of actually trying to do better, trying to put concrete form to a few principles that are specific enough to have policy content, but broad enough to be appealing and serve as a jumping-off point or frame for future efforts.

Looking back in light of this discussion, the problem with most of the elevator pitches we got is that they were hopelessly broad and mushy. We can say we're for "clean air and water" or "future generations," but then, who exactly is against those things? Nobody. What policies follow from them? It's wide open.

Where's the beef (er, tofu)? What will happen if environmentalists gain the political power to implement an agenda? Why should your elevator-mate work to make that happen?

Phrased that way, it occurs to me that it might be hopeless trying to find one pitch for "environmentalism," since there are so many different kinds, pushing for such different things. Perhaps "environmentalism" is a meaningless generalization and we should stop talking about it.

But I would prefer that it mean something -- in particular, I would prefer that it mean what I mean by it. I would like to get rid of some of the old stereotypes about environmentalists and define a new sort.

So with that, I'll bite the bullet and offer my own pitch:

Clean, renewable energy in abundance; prosperity without waste; equitable distribution of our shared resources; and preservation of our remaining natural heritage.

It ain't perfect ... but it's only 21 words!

I'm not going to start another contest, but for those who have read through the discussion: Would you care to offer one of your own? Or thoughts on the matter?

Okay, maybe not, but they’re showing signs of progressivity.

Today in Daily Grist we pointed to a story by Joan Lowy on the momentum building in the U.S. business community toward taking global warming seriously. And Monday, we noted a Joel Makower post making the case for environmental optimism based on action in the business world.

Via Gil Friend, an article in MarketWatch (protected behind a stupid registration wall, but there's always this) makes a broader point:

Oil Wednesday

Macroeconomic analyst Barry Ritholtz is blogging about oil and markets over at The Big Picture. And he's got investment advice: cancer treatment in China is going to be big business sometime in the near future. He's got a lot of charts and posts, so be sure to look around.

The Air Force is the country’s biggest purchaser of green power.

Sitting atop the EPA's "Top 25 Green Power Partners" is ...

Ceci N’est Pas une Wipe

Disposable wipes not just for baby bums anymore The season of spring cleaning is upon us, and for many Americans that means taking to dirty surfaces with a few — or a few million — disposable wipes. With varieties specially made for scrubbing, dusting, disinfecting, and buffing everything from microwaves to granite countertops to leather […]

Indoor ski slopes are the desert’s hot new thing

A while back, I wrote about indoor ski slopes blooming in countries including Japan, England, and the U.S. of A. Seems it's an upward trend: The United Arab Emirates has just joined the herringboning hordes. Yes, that's right, the world will soon have its first desert skiing area, thanks to enterprising developers in Dubai.

Will we end up in a world where all the snow and ice is gone, and the only way to ski is indoors, in the desert? Will the desert still be the desert? And in the meantime, how much power does it waste to run these mounds of gluttony?

Suddenly I feel like Andy Rooney.