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‘Eco-terrorism’: Careful with that website, Eugene

Here's a story that should help every environmental and animal-rights activist sleep a little easier.

Kevin Kjonaas was just convicted. What was his crime? Setting up a website -- a website with details on companies that support animal testing, and some raucous message boards where some dumb things were said.

Wind will save the ruralites

Wind is the fastest-growing source of electricity in the world. One of the coolest things about it, from my perspective, is the possibility that wind turbines could serve as a lifeline for the rural residents and family farmers America claims to love but in actual fact arranges policy as though deliberately to destroy.

I expect we'll be seeing more stories like this one in the NYT.

This new wind farm, called Maple Ridge, is already the largest alternative-energy project east of the Mississippi, and a second phase, which will include 75 more windmills, is scheduled to be built this year, starting in the spring.

Mr. Burke, 58, has pinned the security of his fifth-generation dairy farm on the seven turbines that he allowed to be built on his 600 acres last fall. Each one will generate an annual lease payment of $5,000 to $10,000, based in part on the electricity generated, that will allow the Burkes to stay on their land after they retire.

"For me, this project is an excellent exit strategy," Mr. Burke said. "Having the towers will allow us, when the time comes, to sell the cows, lease the land and keep the farm."

Norton’s successor

Says The Christian Science Monitor:

Business and property-rights groups are pressuring the White House to name a replacement who will act as vigorously on their behalf as Norton did. "Anything less ... may generate opposition to the nomination from the president's own supporters," says Chuck Cushman, executive director of the American Land Rights Association.

Says The Denver Post:

President Bush will abide by tradition and name a Westerner to replace Interior Secretary Gale Norton, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said.

And the White House will look for a successor whose views mirror those of the pro-development Norton, Card said.

The latest in bad news

The 2006 hurricane season in the U.S. is going to be awful, another drought is heading for Europe, and Exxon still owes money to the communities around Prince William Sound. Happy Monday!

Decoupling Katrina and climate change

Based on his (and his colleagues') research, here's what Roger Pielke Jr. thinks:

1. Anthropogenic climate change is real.
2. Greenhouse gas reductions make good policy sense.
3. But there is no evidence that energy policies focused on climate change can be an effective tool of disaster mitigation.
4. There is currently no evidence that allows us to attribute to human-caused climate change any part of the decades-long trend of a rising toll of disasters, a record which is dominated by floods and storms.
5. More people are beginning to conduct research in this area and perhaps future research results will tell a different story, but 1-4 above are what can be said today and supported by scientific research.
6. Given the state of the literature, this should not be a controversial conclusion.
7. There are better justifications for GHG reductions than disasters, and there are far better options available to policy makers than energy policies to make a material difference in future impacts of climate and weather extremes.

The reception he's gotten for this line of thinking from climate scientists has been, shall we say, less than enthusiastic.

Francisca Porchas, clean-bus campaigner, answers Grist’s questions

The city of Los Angeles has 10 million people, 8 million cars, and a heck of a lot of pollution -- pollution that disproportionately affects low-income communities of color. Francisca Porchas, an organizer with the Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses Campaign, is working to change that. As InterActivist this week, Porchas chats about the city's car culture, her trip to New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, why she hearts the people of Tuvalu, and more. Send her a question of your own by noon PST on Wednesday; we'll publish her answers to selected questions on Friday.

Francisca Porchas, clean-bus campaigner, answers questions

Francisca Porchas. What work do you do? I am a lead organizer with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union‘s Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses Campaign, based in Los Angeles. How does it relate to the environment? The Strategy Center has engaged in environmental-justice and civil-rights campaigns for the last 17 years, […]

Silly Rabbit, Toxics Aren’t for Kids!

Parents strive to protect kids from everyday chemical hazards There may be no more powerful force for social change in the world than worried parents. And they’re turning their attention to lead in lunchboxes, bisphenol A in plastic, and other eco-nasties in their children’s daily lives, switching to greener-seeming products — like cloth totes and […]

The U.S. needs a food bill more than a farm bill

<img src="http://grist.org/images/home/2006/03/13/farmer-on-tractor_150.jpg" class="blog4" width="150" height="100"

America is scheduled to write a new farm bill in 2007. With the World Trade Organization ruling that our farm subsidies distort trade, and public expenses for flood relief and the war effort taxing the treasury, this could be a time of interesting shifts in how we view farm policy.

Moreover, both farmer and consumer groups say subsidies are harming Americans and developing nations (see Tom Philpott's fine story "I'm Hatin' It").

On the other hand, there are also signs that the same coalition of grain traders and producer groups will persuade Congress to extend the provisions of the existing farm bill for a few more years.

This gets me thinking about what a proper farm bill should do.

The first thing to note is: We don't need a farm bill in 2007. We need a food bill, or a rural development bill. We need to invest in communities, not commodities.

When the world comes together

In the spirit of using film and television to make a difference, I introduce you to 2006 Ted Prize winner Jehane Noujaim:

In her moving acceptance speech, TED Prize winner, Jehane Noujaim described her wish for using film to bring people together in a more meaningful way. Jehane is the award-winning filmmaker behind Control Room and Startup.com. Jehane's wish is to create a worldwide cinema event for one day each year with programming that highlights the themes of unity, the common ties that bind us into a global culture, a film festival called "Pangea Cinema, the day the world comes together." "Pangea" refers to the single land mass that broke up millions of years ago to create the disparate continents we know today.

Pangea Cinema is still very much in the brainstorming phase but the hope is to develop the idea well beyond the act of showing films. The goal is to invite the viewers of these films to join a global conversation about the issues that affect us all.

Watch Jehane's acceptance speech and proposal here.

And as for the subject matter for this day of film? May I suggest climate change.