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U.S. states face water shortages

The catastrophic California wildfires got all the press, but it’s worth paying attention to an equally intimidating but slower-moving threat: water shortages. From Georgia to Massachusetts, Florida to New York, the Great Lakes to the West, U.S. states are getting thirstier. In fact, the government predicts that at least 36 states will face challenges from […]

Vicious attack ends up undermining Russian environmental movement

A vicious attack on anti-nuclear protesters in Russia this summer has had the unexpected outcome of undermining the country’s environmental movement, after the son of a high-profile green leader confessed to having a role in the melee. Marina Rikhvanova had been successful at inspiring grassroots activism in Russia — particularly against the government’s plans to […]

Nearly one-third of world’s primates at risk of extinction, report says

About 29 percent of the world’s 394 primate species are at risk of extinction, according to a report by the World Conservation Union. Threats to primates include hunting for primate meat and bones, the trade in wildlife body parts, and habitat destruction mostly from logging and clearing land for agriculture. The report focused on the […]

Cockatoo gets his groove on

It is, after all, the weekend:

B.C. considers a carbon tax

In 1998, shortly after Sightline (then Northwest Environment Watch) published Tax Shift (PDF), Gordon Campbell, then BC's opposition leader, invited me for a sit-down to discuss the book. He had read it and said he loved it. At the time, the New Democratic BC government was gearing up to do a pilot tax shift, inspired by the book. It was also about to be routed in provincial elections, to be replaced by Campbell's Liberals.

Campbell said, "In our first term, we're not going to shift taxes. We're going to lower them. But in our second term, we might." I didn't put much stock in his words.

Maybe I should have.

Friday's Globe and Mail reports that Campbell's Finance Minister Carole Taylor is seriously considering introducing North America's first real carbon tax, paired with reduced income taxes. She calls it a "tax shift."

Imagine that.

Fish living in trees and underwater pumpkin carving

... in his weekly radio address, President Bush spoke on conserving fisheries. "The most important thing is not the size of your catch but the enjoyment of the great outdoors," he said ...

... conservationists said that talks at a recent international convention devoted to bluefin tuna recovery were derailed by Japan, resulting in no meaningful progress ...

... an MIT researcher designed new equipment to gather scallops from the sea floor with hopes that it would be less damaging than the dredges in use now ...

... the U.S. Senate approved a resolution directing the government to negotiate an international agreement for managing fish stocks in the Arctic Ocean ...

... the U.S. Congress considered a bill that would reduce the debt of Caribbean nations that pledge to protect coral reefs and marine ecosystems, as well as forests ...

... scientists have discovered that the mangrove killifish, found in the Caribbean, can modify its biological makeup so it can breathe air and live in trees for months at a time ...

Friday music blogging: Ryan Adams

I wasn’t much into the alt country thing until I met my wife. I’m still not the huge fan she is, but I’ve found a lot of stuff in the vicinity I enjoy. By far the biggest discovery for me was Whiskeytown, which made some flawless, classic albums back in the ’90s. (Get Faithless Street […]

Canada announces protections for Lake Superior

Canada will protect nearly 4,000 square miles of Lake Superior and its northern shores, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday. The announcement creates the world’s largest freshwater marine protected area; no word on how the shrinkage of Lake Superior will affect that record.

U.N. report says world environment doing quite poorly

Just in case you thought the world’s environment might be doing well, the United Nations Environment Program released a comprehensive 550-page, 5-year report this week declaring that things are officially not OK, environment-wise. The UNEP’s Global Environmental Outlook attempted to strike that rare balance between cataloguing the world’s substantial eco-ills without making the situation seem […]

Tell BioD what car to buy

My beater has passed 170,000 miles. I couldn't get the key to turn the other day, and the steering column wouldn't lock.