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From Libretto to Liquor

Truth or falsetto An Inconvenient Truth gives its encore performance — at the Milan opera house. Climate change ain’t over ’til the fat Albert sings. Photo: Gil Cohen Magen / Reuters Lookin’ fin Feel like a fish out of water? Slip into an itsy bitsy teeny weeny salmon skin bikini. Made from discarded scales and […]

New report calls for climate action, but not everyone’s listening

With more coastline than any state in the lower 48 and about a tenth of its economy ($65 billion a year) based on tourism, Florida has more to lose than any other state from the threats of global warming. Rising sea levels creep closer to coastal development. Warmer tropics fuel stronger hurricanes. And higher ocean temperatures kill coral and harm fish populations, threatening the state's $4.5 billion sportfishing industry.

Plenty of reasons that a report released yesterday should serve as a call to action on preparing for inevitable changes from global warming and cutting emissions now to avoid the worst impacts. Preparing for a Sea Change in Florida was produced by a broad coalition of environmental groups.

The report makes several key recommendations:

What a ranking of cities can tell us — and what it can’t

There's a big carbon footprint report out yesterday from Brookings. It ranks cities [PDF] according to their per capita carbon emissions. Sort of, anyway.

Before I pick on it a little, I guess I should mention that Pacific Northwest cities do exceptionally well. Out of the 100 cities in the analysis, Portland ranks 3rd, Boise is 5th, and Seattle 6th. There's very little difference between them.

That's wonderful and all, but the analysis only covers about 50 percent of emissions. It excludes, for instance, commercial and industrial energy, maritime and aviation emissions, and some other significant pieces of the pie.

So says U.K. study

Another study has confirmed that organic milk, from cows that feed on pasture, delivers significantly more nutrition than feedlot milk. The U.K. Independent reports that grass-fed cows offer “60 per cent higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA9), which has been linked to a reduced risk of cancer.” Omega-3 fatty acids (39 percent higher) and […]

E.U. will cut fishing quotas

The European Commission will make deep cuts in fishing quotas in 2009, it announced Friday. Eighty-eight percent of E.U. fish stocks are overexploited, the commission says, as compared to 80 percent a year ago. Total allowable catches for some species will be sliced by more than 25 percent. Scientists have advised that fishing for some […]

Overdue federal report acknowledges climate-change realities

Under pressure from a court order, the Bush administration put out a new report on climate change yesterday that comes to the conclusion that “most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.” The report covers familiar (to anyone who’s been paying attention) ground — the impacts […]

More than 1,700 scientists and economists call for deep cuts in U.S. emissions

You know how some wackadoo rightwing group is always touting a new list of scientists who don’t believe in global warming? And it always turns out the list is populated with a bunch of random people who either don’t know they’re on it or don’t have the first bit of expertise on the subject? Well, […]

Peru’s guano supply threatened by overfishing

Peru is in deep shit. No, seriously: thanks to an exceptionally dry climate, islands off the Peruvian coast are awash in preserved bird guano, which the country has long exported as non-chemical fertilizer. But while 60 million seabirds were pooping on Peru in the 19th century, the birds now number 4 million; with synthetic-fertilizer costs […]

The WSJ on fertilizer markets so manipulated, they might make a Saudi prince blush

For all the misery it has caused, the global food-price crisis has at least forced people to think more seriously about food production. I can think of few things more taken for granted in modern post-industrial society than fertilizer. Few people know people know what fertilizes the fields that produce the food they eat — […]

EPA gives manufacturers three years to adjust to new regulations designed to protect children

The U.S. EPA announced today that it would be tightening up the safety requirements on ten nasty rodenticides that are blamed for poisoning around 10,000 children -- mostly black and Latino inner-city kids -- every year. Those ten chemicals will no longer be available in the form of little pellets that look like candy, and that small children are so prone to stick in their mouths. The new rules will require non-agricultural users of rat poison to use it only inside tamper-resistant bait stations designed to protect kids.

This is great news, and a long time in coming. There's just one catch: These new safety requirements aren't going into effect for a while. Manufacturers get three years to change their practices. EPA has determined a final "release for shipment" date for the last batch of deadly pellets on June 4, 2011.

Three years ... let's see, three years times 10,000 poisonings a year ... let me get my calculator ... That means about 30,000 more sick kids before we clean this mess up. You've got to be kidding me.