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Dumping chemical weapons in the ocean: never a good idea

The Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy blog ... has the longest name ever. It also has a post up drawing attention to a report that's not easily available in the public domain: "U.S. Disposal of Chemical Weapons in the Ocean: Background and Issues for Congress" (PDF). Here's an excerpt from the summary:

The U.S. Armed Forces disposed of chemical weapons in the ocean from World War I through 1970. At that time, it was thought that the vastness of ocean waters would absorb chemical agents that may leak from these weapons. However, public concerns about human health and environmental risks, and the economic effects of potential damage to marine resources, led to a statutory prohibition on the disposal of chemical weapons in the ocean in 1972. For many years, there was little attention to weapons that had been dumped offshore prior to this prohibition. However, the U.S. Army completed a report in 2001 indicating that the past disposal of chemical weapons in the ocean had been more common and widespread geographically than previously acknowledged. The Army cataloged 74 instances of disposal through 1970, including 32 instances off U.S. shores and 42 instances off foreign shores. The disclosure of these records has renewed public concern about lingering risks from chemical weapons still in the ocean today.

Lovely.

(hat tip: reader KR)

Mining company returns funds to tribe

In the midst of our Poverty & the Environment series, we published a walking tour of Wisconsin's Sokaogon Chippewa community, which had partnered with another tribe to buy a nearby zinc and copper mine and keep it from reopening. At the time of our interview with tribe member Tina van Zile, the Sokaogon Chippewas -- one of the poorest tribes in the nation -- were struggling to raise funds to pay their share and save their community from being overrun by miners and the accompanying land degradation and pollution.

The Sokaogon tribe just made their final $8 million mortgage payment to the BHP Billiton mining company -- and BHP is donating the $8 million back to the tribe in a trust fund.

[Tribe administrator Tony] Phillippe said Tuesday the land will be used for conservation purposes, such as public trails and parks, and the mining project will never be developed.

"The minerals underneath it are basically sacred from now on into eternity," he said. "We own it all."

Woo hoo! A bit of good news, and just in time for World Environment Day!

Ethanol sucking up corn

AP:

Ethanol production in the United States is growing so quickly that, for the first time, farmers expect to sell as much corn this year to ethanol plants as they do overseas.

"It's the most stunning development in agricultural markets today - I can't think of anything else quite like this," says Keith Collins, the U.S. Agriculture Department's chief economist.

The amount of corn used for ethanol, estimated at 2.15 billion bushels this year, would amount to about 20 percent of the nation's crop, according to department projections.

And remember, this is with ethanol still serving only a tiny fraction of our liquid-fuel needs. What if there really were an E85 station on every corner?

Unseen Al Gore campaign video

On a blog about "professional presentation design" -- yes, there is such a thing -- Garr Reynolds posts about Duarte Design, the outfit that helped Al Gore design his now-famous climate-science slideshow. It includes a short interview with Nancy Duarte, the co-founder. Quite interesting.

Even better, the post led me to "Unseen Al Gore Campaign Video" (part one; part two), which consists of footage director Spike Jonze shot just before the 2000 campaign started in earnest. I can't recommend the videos highly enough -- they're fascinating. They show Gore at home, flirting with his wife, getting razzed by his daughters, joking about the campaign ... it's the first thing I've seen that really shows him as he is: a middle-aged family man who cares about public service. I wish they could have gotten circulated more widely in 2000. Check them out.

Top ethical businesses

Business Ethics magazine has posted its list of the 100 best corporate citizens. Here are the top 10:

Cold Rush

Greens worry as countries scurry to set up camp in Antarctica Several dozen countries have set up camps and research stations in Antarctica, giving greens short-term fears that development will damage fragile ecosystems and long-term fears that the continent will soon be pillaged for oil, gas, and minerals. A 1959 Antarctic Treaty declares Earth’s driest, […]

Kyle Smith’s review of An Inconvenient Truth

In the right-wing tabloid New York Post, movie critic Kyle Smith has a review of An Inconvenient Truth that virtually defies mockery. It almost invites sympathy.

Right off the bat, there's this:

But there is wide disagreement about whether humans are causing global warming (climate change preceded the invention of the Escalade) and about whether we should be worried about the trends.

Um, no there isn't.

His implication that he is our only hope ... is ridiculous.

What implication? What possible fever dream did Smith pull this from?

For jaw-dropping ignorance, this is probably the coup de grace:

Americans and Climate Change: The affliction of partisanship II

"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.

Yesterday we heard a theory about why and when climate change became a highly partisan issue (in short: when Clinton started championing it). Today we hear mixed feelings from conference participants. Should Democrats simply try to win, and thereby establish a mandate for change? Or should they try to lure Republicans into bipartisan consensus through incremental measures? I know where I come out on this question, but I'm curious to hear what you think.

The Environmental Wars covered

DeSmogBlog and The Commons Blog are just wrapping up their coverage of "The Environmental Wars," a conference put on by the Skeptics Society. The conference drew quite a bit of flack for featuring Michael Crichton and John Stossel as keynote speakers, but it sounds like aside from that press-hungry stunt, there was a lot of good stuff going on.

Gore interviews

There are tons and tons of Gore interviews out there -- the guy gets around -- but two in particular stand out as unusually substantive. First is this one on NPR's Fresh Air; the other is this one with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. Stephanopoulos is frequently annoying, but it's long and Gore is allowed time to flesh out many of the points he's been trying to make.