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More Marburger

I'd highly recommend this public presentation by and interview with White House science advisor John Marburger. Roger Pielke Jr.'s got some excerpts. Marburger's a bit of an enigma to me -- the interview is alternately thoughtful, thought-provoking, and maddening. Here's one excerpt:

Upcoming mercury policy

When the history of the Bush administration environmental record is written, there will be plenty of dark chapters. With the exception of its inaction on climate change, however, none will be so dark as its treatment of mercury.

We know that its handmaidens in Congress have distorted the science on mercury emissions. But there has also been a steady trickle of stories about its attempts to bias the policy-making process in favor of industry. In short: the Bushies favor a weak cap-and-trade program over the more traditional "maximum achievable control technology" approach. In endeavoring to justify this preference -- that is, to give it some justification other than "industry contributors favor it" -- they have done economic assessments that both the GAO and the EPA's own inspector general have found wanting.

Chris Mooney sums up the sordid episode. Go read it.

Let's be clear about what's happening. Later this week the Bush administration will announce a new cap-and-trade program to limit mercury emissions. That program will be based on economic analyses that have been publicly exposed as fraudulent. Power plants will save some money in the short-term; the economy as a whole will lose money in the long-term.

But more to the point: children will suffer unnecessarily.

So tell me -- I don't want to be "alarmist" -- what is the "reasonable" thing to say about this?

The argument

How did Dave Pollard get in my dome?

Acronym Soup

Oh yes, he’ll be back

Cali Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (whose name, bizarrely, I now know how to spell from memory) has his first challenger in the 2006 gubernatorial race.

This is so naive it's cute:

But some political observers say the question of whether Angelides, or any Democrat, can unseat Schwarzenegger in 2006 will turn on the events of the rest of this year.

Yes, if there's one thing the 2004 election showed, it's that "events" make or break a candidate!

First 2006 political prediction: Arnold is a lock.

Global Spillage

Pollution from around the globe taints U.S. air and water Even as battles rage in Washington, D.C., over controlling air pollution from domestic sources, dirty emissions from overseas are complicating the problem. Some 30 percent of the ozone in the U.S. may be drifting in from other countries, says NOAA scientist David Parrish. Dust from […]

Things to Do in Denver When You’re Ill

Newmont Mining fights off lawsuit over mercury pollution in Peru Continuing its energetic pursuit of the Worst Global Corporate Citizen Award, Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp. is headed into legal battle with Peruvian peasants suffering long-term health consequences from mercury contamination around one of the company’s gold mines. In June of 2000, a truck carrying canisters […]

Response to “Death”: Part I

We're going to try a little experiment here. Recently we received a response to "The Death of Environmentalism" from longtime green activist Ken Ward. We're going to publish it here in the blog, in sections -- one section a day, throughout the week.

In today's introduction, Ken agrees with The Reapers about the problems facing the green movement, but calls their proposed solution "foolishness." Your responses are welcome in comments.

Don't forget to read Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.

Norton and the 1002 — I mean the Arctic Refuge

In her New York Times op-ed ballyhooing the Bushies' plans to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Gale Norton uses an interesting new tactic.  

I'm not talking about arguing that the drilling footprint would be small. (Though she's quite crafty about making that claim, noting that "the world of Arctic energy exploration in the 21st century ... is as different from what oil exploration used to be as the compact supercomputers of today are different from the huge vacuum tube computers of the 1950s. Through the use of advanced technology, we have learned not only to get access to oil and gas reserves in Arctic environments but also to protect their ecosystems and wildlife.")

Rather, I mean her repeated reference to the "1002 area," which she describes as "a sliver" of the refuge. Some enviros get pissed when the refuge is referred to as ANWR, believing that the acronym depersonalizes it and strips it of evocative power. (If you can't manage to get out all four words, they say, shorten it to Arctic Refuge.) The administration, in referring to the tract where drilling would take place as the "1002 area," sucks even more life from it. Really, how riled up are the masses going to get about protecting a four-digit sliver?  

Norton manages to squeeze five mentions of "1002" into a brief 650-word op-ed. This is just the beginning of a new admin framing strategy. Expect lots more 1002 in the future.

(Media Matters for America, in a post from earlier this month, refutes some of the refuge-related arguments put forth by Norton, other admin officials, and their cronies at Fox News.)

Get your assessment

Get a sneak peek at the massive Millennium Ecosystem Assessment before its official launch on March 30 in nine cities around the world. Billed as the most comprehensive assessment ever of the world's ecosystems and the impacts of those ecosystems on human health, the four-year study was written by 1,300 experts from 95 countries with another 900 serving as editors and reviewers. The hope is that like the consensus-driven Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the pains taken at inclusive and comprehensive scientific assessment will bring more political as well as scientific heft to the conclusions.  With the report embargoed until its release March 30, it is hard to say more. But there is something for everyone in this effort.