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And other thoughts from a ‘clueless’ enviro.

As political junkies know, Grover Norquist -- a major player in the Republican establishment -- holds weekly breakfast meetings, attended by everybody-who's-anybody on the right. This is where much of the famed "message coordination" happens. It would take a brave Democrat to venture into that lion's den.

I guess Al Gore is brave (stupid? foolhardy? running for president?).

He attended last week's meeting to give a version of his basic PowerPoint presentation on global warming. According to Steve Hayward's account (via Ezra), Gore was charming and the presentation was impressive, but the Q&A session failed to dazzle.

What bugs me about Hayward's post is this:

The real environmental debate

The stereotypical environmental debate is between people who favor "command and control" regulation (big government) and those who favor market mechanisms (small government). Democrats and most environmentalists are thought to be on one side, Republicans and "free market" environmentalists on the other.

This is a woefully imprecise and outdated way of describing the current political landscape. It's a large and complex topic, too much to chew over in one blog post. But Kevin Drum, writing on an unrelated subject, nails perhaps the most salient fact:

One of the underreported stories of the past few years is the evolution of the Republican Party from being the party of capitalism and free enterprise to being merely the party of whichever business interests can help Republicans get reelected. There's a big difference between being pro-market and being pro-business -- in fact, they're often diametrically opposed ....

Polar bears

As if it wasn't enough that the huge reduction in the polar ice cap has caused polar bears to drown at an alarming rate, now tourists can pay to shoot them in Greenland.

Binky, polar bear of tourist chewing fame at the Anchorage Zoo, was just getting in his last licks while he still could ...

Umbra on hyped-up verbiage

Dear Umbra, Surely you must have noticed that ubiquitous cliché of environmental reportage: the alarming rate. Forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, coral reefs are being destroyed at an alarming rate, global warming is increasing at an a.r., and so forth. Clearly, the use of “alarming rate” is itself growing at an alarming rate. […]

Now That’s Intelligent Design

Schools curbing energy costs by building green School officials in Oregon are learning a thing or two from a prototype uber-green classroom near Salem, which uses a large skylight and other technologies to enhance and regulate the natural light coming into the space. With energy bills eating up millions of dollars from school budgets, the […]

Supply and the Land

Cities spending millions on land to protect water supplies Many U.S. cities are discovering they have a choice: Build huge, multibillion-dollar water-treatment plants, or buy up land around water supplies to prevent them from being polluted in the first place. More and more, they are choosing the latter option — derailing sprawl and protecting open […]

Let Them Eat Hake

International caviar trade halted to save sturgeon Oh, man, this is going to cramp our style at Grist staff parties: A global ban on international export of wild caviar — salty black sturgeon eggs prized by gourmets — took effect on Tuesday. The U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species nixed the lucrative trade, […]

Callahan leaves LCV

Deb Callahan, 10-year president of the League of Conservation Voters, announced today that she is resigning.

Conservationists vs. indigenous peoples?

Conservation Refugees is a gutsy feature from the November/December issue of Orion Magazine, describing how the biodiversity-preservation efforts of the world's biggest conservation groups are getting indigenous peoples thrown off their ancestral lands.

It's no secret that millions of native peoples around the world have been pushed off their land to make room for big oil, big metal, big timber, and big agriculture. But few people realize that the same thing has happened for a much nobler cause: land and wildlife conservation. Today the list of culture-wrecking institutions put forth by tribal leaders on almost every continent includes not only Shell, Texaco, Freeport, and Bechtel, but also more surprising names like Conservation International (CI), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Even the more culturally sensitive World Conservation Union (IUCN) might get a mention.

Rebuilding New Orleans: Corps can’t fix levees by hurricane season

Just in case you missed it: A fascinating and sobering feature ran a few days ago on National Public Radio on promises vs. reality in rebuilding New Orleans.

As Dave notes in his Top Five of 2005, a big facet of the Katrina story is how unprepared we are for climate disasters. Daniel Zwerdling's report from New Orleans suggests that's sinking in at the local level in The Big Easy, despite Bush administration attempts at spin. Walter Maestri, the man who runs emergency operations in New Orleans' biggest suburb, Jefferson Parish, where there was a major levee failure, doubts that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can fulfill their promise that the levees will be rebuilt -- properly -- in time for 2006's hurricanes. In fact, his whole sense of who and what he can believe has been upended:

The Army Corps took decades to design and build the New Orleans levee system -- and that system failed in spectacular ways. Given that fact, Maestri questions how the Corps can assert that they already know how to fix those past mistakes. Pointing to a new steel wall that the Corps is erecting along the 17th Street Canal, Maestri notes that similar walls crumpled like tin foil during Katrina along other parts of the levee.

"We really felt all along that the Corps was a group that we could absolutely trust," Maestri says. "They wouldn't do sloppy work, or allow sloppy work. They realized that this community basically lives and dies on the strength of those levees. Now, what's happened -- it's like finding out that your mother lied to you all the years of your life."

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