Uncategorized

A must-read investigation into the lives of foreign guest workers in America’s public forests

Speaking of must-read pieces of journalism, don't miss the Sacramento Bee's three-part story about pineros.

Pineros ("men of the pines") are the Latinos that do the dirty, exhausting work in America's forests.

A nine-month Bee investigation based on more than 150 interviews across Mexico, Guatemala and the United States and 5,000 pages of records unearthed through the Freedom of Information Act has found pineros are victims of employer exploitation, government neglect and a contracting system that insulates landowners - including the U.S. government - from responsibility.

The treatment of these workers is bad enough on its own, but is particularly egregious in the context of a government-run guest-worker program, on public land.

The Bee's package is not just a superior piece of journalism but a fine piece of web design -- it's an attractive site with judicious use of flash, audio, and video. Really a model to aspire to for all you budding environmental journalists out there.

Read it.

Into Thin Bear

New Jersey bear hunt gets under way New Jersey’s second bear hunt in 35 years kicked off yesterday despite last-minute attempts by activists to halt the six-day season. By Monday afternoon, 54 bears had been killed. Joisey’s growing bear population is estimated at 2,000 to 3,000, and human-bear encounters are increasing. Hunt advocates claim bear […]

Show Us the Money

Throw a little cash toward Grist and absolve your eco-sins Grist readers are a guilt-ridden bunch. Your environmental peccadilloes are many, and you feel awfully bad about them. “I use bleach, thus transferring stains from my clothes to my soul,” confesses one angst-ridden person. “I suck at ironing so I take some of my clothes […]

Things are a’changin’ in the business world

BusinessWeek has a large and informative package of stories on the changing climate (har!) around climate change, both in the business world and in the halls of government. There are too many stories even to summarize here -- just go browse around.

One positive notion that crops up in several stories is that federal limits on CO2 emissions are inevitable. The science is solid and public opinion is squarely behind it, and in those circumstances there's only so long politicians can drag their feet (though a shout out here to the Bush administration, which has been amazingly effective at stalling, a perverse accomplishment of sorts). Businesses are already busy planning for it.

By planning and preparing now, [Cinergy CEO Jim] Rogers believes he'll position his company ahead of its competitors and make a positive contribution to the environment. In the utility sector, where plants take years to build and remain online for five or six decades, that has long-ranging consequences.

"Rather than all of a sudden having huge increases [when regulation hits], we need to smooth it out over the long term," says Rogers. "I want to make sure the decisions I make today on this C02 issue ensure that leaders of this company five decades from now will look back and say 'I'm really glad that guy positioned us that way'."

Also of particular interest -- and a refreshing change from typical media reports that say "business is coming around" but provide only scattered anecdotes -- BusinessWeek, Climate Group, and a panel of judges ranked companies based on their action so far on climate change. You can see a list of the top 10 overall performers as well as lists of the best management practices, best individual performers, and best financial-services companies.

This is a fantastic, comprehensive, balanced set of stories, and hopefully it will reach the right people.

It's hard to see sometimes, especially weeks like this when the U.S. is busy shaming itself at the Montreal conference, but the tide really is turning on global warming.

Even climate-change is a gender issue

Well, now, here's something I hadn't thought about: the relationship between gender and climate change. Immediately I want to roll my eyes (too much time at a women's college), but there seem to be many serious studies out there on this topic. I will investigate further. Any thoughts?

Severe labor shortages in the southwest may add

A society that relies on cheap food also relies on cheap labor. Look at the meat-processing industry.

Worker conditions are so wretched, so little changed from Jungle days, that Human Rights Watch saw fit to issue a scathing report on the industry last January.

Because meat is perishable and prohibitively expensive to keep frozen over long journeys, meat processing cannot readily be sent overseas -- unlike, say, manufacturing. So the trick, as the Human Rights Watch report shows in wrenching detail, is to recreate working conditions prevalent in places like Guatemala, here.

Things are different in the large-scale fruit/vegetable business. Tomatoes, for example, can be picked green, shipped long distance with minimal refrigeration, and gas-ripened near the point of sale. Will vegetable farming move overseas?

New Jersey proposes major expansion of renewable energy mandate

The words "New Jersey" rarely conjure thoughts of environmental leadership. In fact, the state's reputation gives rise to visions better described by "industrial wasteland" or "toxic miasma."

Think again. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has recently proposed a major expansion of its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a regulation requiring utilities to buy renewable energy.

The proposed rule would require that 20% of the electricity provided by the state's utilities come from new renewable energy sources by 2020, up from the current standard of 4% by 2008. This is a major expansion that puts the state in the upper echelon of renewable-energy leaders.

And make no mistake -- the environmental impacts would be enormous. Emissions from electricity generation are not only the single largest cause of global warming, but also toxic to human health, killing over 30,000 Americans a year, according to a recent study by Abt Associates. By 2020, this proposal would prevent annual emissions of 15.3 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, 29.1 million pounds of nitrogen oxides, and 44.4 million pounds of sulfur dioxide.

In addition, the proposed rule would require that 2% come from solar-electric resources -- a development that would result in about 1,500 MW of solar electricity. To put this in perspective, in 2004 the world market for solar photovoltaics was 927 MW. New Jersey's effort would be the most ambitious solar program currently on the books in the U.S. (take that, California!), and would go far in building the economies of scale necessary to bring solar into the mainstream.

Traditionally hostile interests are working to squelch this bold proposal. If you are into it, take a moment to tell the BPU Commissioners that their leadership is appreciated, and the proposed expansion of the RPS should be adopted.

Peak Oil hits the hill

Peak Oil will get its first-ever Congressional hearing tomorrow in the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It kicks off at 9:30 am EST and you can watch it live!

Witnesses for those truly interested after the jump.

Humanity’s worst invention

City Hippy brings word of a nifty essay contest run by Ecologist magazine, which I hadn't heard of until now:

What is humanity's worst invention?

The winning entry will receive a cheque for £2,500 and publication in the Ecologist magazine

Essay criteria: responses must be in English, up to 2,000 words. Entries will be judged on originality, critical thinking, clarity and the ability to spark debate.

Deadline for entries: 15 March 2006

Please submit entries to: essay2006@theecologist.org

(A "cheque"? A "£"? What are these things they speak of?)

Go ahead and write your essays, but before you do, leave your candidates in comments.

The Man watching you drive

Via Hit & Run, a piece in CNET ponders the troubling privacy implications of nascent federal plans to track all vehicles with GPS in order to institute "mileage-based road user fees."

Details of the tracking systems vary. But the general idea is that a small GPS device, which knows its location by receiving satellite signals, is placed inside the vehicle.

Some GPS trackers constantly communicate their location back to the state DMV, while others record the location information for later retrieval. (In the Oregon pilot project, it's beamed out wirelessly when the driver pulls into a gas station.)

The problem, though, is that no privacy protections exist. No restrictions prevent police from continually monitoring, without a court order, the whereabouts of every vehicle on the road.

No rule prohibits that massive database of GPS trails from being subpoenaed by curious divorce attorneys, or handed to insurance companies that might raise rates for someone who spent too much time at a neighborhood bar. No policy bans police from automatically sending out speeding tickets based on what the GPS data say.

I'm very much in support of congestion pricing and similar schemes to reduce driving in general and peak-hour driving in particular. But I must confess that my civil-libertarian absolutism twitches at the very thought of this sort of thing. What do y'all think?