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How is environment going to play on Tuesday?

In mid-October, three headlines from around the country on the same day gave a clue. While the Chicago Tribune reported that the environment wasn't figuring at the national level, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Detroit Free Press reported that in New Mexico and Michigan, environmental issues could tip the balance. Similar coverage has come from Nevada, Maine, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. While Maine doesn't appear to be in play, the other states all are, for a total of 42 electoral votes.

At least in this electoral cycle, all environmental politics are local, but they may add up to significant national impact.

Where to go with this?  Every day, 7 days a week, 365/6 days a year, newspapers are covering stories around the country about how environment is affecting people's health. Little stories, big stories. Local. National. Human interest. Scientific revelations. Corporate misbehavior. Scandalous coverup. Bureaucratic shenanigans.

Stories about times and places where the steps needed -- and eminently feasible -- to protect people's health just aren't being taken. And also, examples (albeit fewer) of when the right thing was done, problems were eliminated or avoided.

These stories aren't about far-off places (although there are those, too ...). They're about what your family is breathing and your neighbors are drinking. The nasty ingredients in cosmetics that aren't disclosed. The unintended consequences of making consumer goods out of plastics that contain biologically-active molecules, turning on genes when they should be shut off, or preventing them from making proteins you need to resist disease.

About how all this is making people sick ... or worse.

So here we are, at the end of an electoral cycle in which in at least a few places, environmental issues, particularly related to health, may have affected the results.

It's the end of this one. Wednesday begins the next.  If the hints we have now prove true, then the stage is set for environmental health to emerge as a much bigger issue in 2008.

[For more coverage of this cycle, go here.]

Overpowering

Utilities seek to build power plants near national parks Visibility in many U.S. national parks is declining and demand for electricity is rising — two trends that are set to collide. Since 2000, the number of applications to build power plants within 62 miles of park boundaries has quadrupled, relative to the previous five years. […]

Photos of B.C.’s renowned — and threatened — Great Bear Rainforest

The Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia — home to the legendary white spirit bear, as well as huge grizzlies, rare wolves, countless salmon, and other wildlife galore — is one of the only remaining pristine regions of temperate rainforest left on earth. Take a virtual tour through this biological hotspot with the Raincoast Conservation […]

Pete Myers

What a great deal!  The American Chemistry Council, a large trade association of companies manufacturing chemicals, has entered into a partnership with the US EPA to measure how much of pesticides and other chemicals get into kids up to age 3 when homes are sprayed regularly.  

Participating parents get $970 over two years, if they consent to "routine spraying," although apparently "routine" includes "homes with potentially high pesticide use." EPA's fact sheet says they're only going to work with households that already use pesticides.  Let's hope the money doesn't lure some families in economic trouble into taking risks they wouldn't have.  

The press coverage (Chemical and Engineering News, The Washington Post) doesn't note if there is separate compensation for health care costs.  

Any university-based study would require informed consent by participants. Perhaps toddlers in Florida have already taken short courses in pesticide toxicity.

ACC is putting $2.1M into the funding pool, EPA another $6.9M. With all the recent furor over conflicts of interest at NIH, you'd think that the EPA would want to keep the fox out of the chicken coop.

Making the green with green

The World Resources Institute (WRI) teamed up a  while back with nine corporations based in the northeastern U.S. to form Climate Northeast, a kind of proof-in-the-pudding demonstration that corporate policies to meliorate global warming don't have to cost big -- in fact, they can be profitable.  You can download the case studies (PDF) from their site.

"We are undertaking these projects because they make business sense," said Randolph Price, vice president for environment, health and safety, Consolidated Edison Company of New York. "We hope our experiences will be useful for other businesses interested in getting started with greenhouse-gas management programs."

Some examples, from the press release:

Green building products

Those of you interested in eco-friendly building may want to check out the GreenSpec Directory, which "includes information on more than 1,750 green building products carefully screened by the editors of Environmental Building News, organized according to the 16-division CSI MasterFormat(tm) system." If you don't know what the 16-division CSI MasterFormat(tm) system is, well dude, get with it!  You can find it over on BuildingGreen.com -- like all their stuff, it's got no advertising or sponsorships, so it should be the straight scoop.

Enviro journalist winners

I meant to mention this last week:  The Society of Environmental Journalists announced the winners of its third annual awards for excellence in environmental journalism.  Congrats to Seth Borenstein (who, you will recall, I heart) in print, Ilsa Setziol in radio, Ed Rodgers in television, and the many other winners. According to SEJ:

The number, quality, and diversity of entries vying for this year's awards signaled a renewed interest in environmental journalism after a year in which the nation's attention -- as well as the news media's -- had been focused on terrorism and war.

Wishful thinking? I hope not.

In the spirit of crazy horse …

Fans of The Snow Leopard, Killing Mister Watson, At Play in the Fields of the Lord -- or for that matter, anyone who cherishes good writing and clear thinking -- might want to check out Orion Online's three-part video interview with wise man Peter Matthiessen. The interview series is entitled "Our Political Environment:  Environmental Policy, Corporate Ethics, and Global Warming."

Cheers: Where Everyboy Knows Your Game

Study of chemical impacts on kids raises questions A study of pesticide and chemical exposures in children being conducted by government researchers is raising some disturbing — and by that we mean “outright creepy” — questions. For one thing, $2 million in funding will come from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group with, one […]

More power to the sweet stuff

A story in The New York Times last week reports the increasing popularity in Brazil of flex fuel vehicles that can use gasoline or ethanol interchangeably. Drivers with these snazzy cars can choose a fuel for the day's driving based on availability, price, or sheer whim. These flex fuel vehicles might have a market well beyond Brazil now that oil has hit $54 a barrel. While using ethanol as a transportation fuel won't solve all air quality problems, it can be part of the solution in many countries.