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Two things I learned from Grist readers this week — repeatedly

1. Breeds are different from species.
2. The Stellar Steller sea cow went extinct before the baiji dolphin.

New California power regs might hurt coal … or not

Good news! California has moved to curb the spread of coal-fired power plants. This is a really big deal, since energy companies have been vying to build as many as 35 of the carbon-spewing facilities in western states, largely to feed California's growing demand for electricity.

But California state regulators -- justifiably concerned about the climate impacts of burning so much coal -- got tricky: they prohibited the state's utilities from buying power from any plant that emits more carbon than a super-efficient natural gas power plant.

In other words, new coal-fired power is a no-go for the California market, unless plant operators somehow figure out a way to burn coal without emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.

That's the theory. But the western power market may actually work to undermine California's good intentions.

Heat, hotness, and hotitude

Here are the second five of my "Top 10 climate stories of 2006," in no particular order. (The first five are here.)

2005 was hot: In early 2006, it was revealed that 2005 was a statistical tie with 1998 for the hottest year of the past 400. However, 1998 was warmed by the biggest El Nino of the 20th century, while 2005 had no such help. That means something else contributed to making 2005 so warm, and that something was almost certainly human activity. With a mild El Nino going on right now, my prediction is that 2007 will eclipse 1998 and 2005 as the hottest year of the instrumental record.

Blow and Behold

World’s biggest offshore wind farm given OK in England The world’s biggest offshore wind farm has been given the go-ahead and will soon be built 12 miles off the coast of southeast England. The quaintly named London Array, being developed by a consortium that includes Shell WindEnergy, will consist of 341 turbines. A separate 100-turbine […]

Relax, It’s Just Pollution

EPA relaxes industry pollution-reporting rules In a holiday gift to industry, the U.S. EPA has relaxed rules on reporting toxic pollution. Under rule amendments approved yesterday, industrial plants will not have to file detailed public Toxic Release Inventory reports unless they spew 2,000 pounds of pollution or more, four times the previous limit, and they’ll […]

Borneo to Be Wild

Scientists discover 52 new species on the island of Borneo Over the last 17 months, scientists have identified 52 new plant and animal species in the rainforests of Borneo, a Southeast Asian island, the World Wildlife Fund announced yesterday. The finds include 30 unique species of fish, two tree-frog species, three new trees, a plant […]

Page Advice

What are the top environmental books? Just in time for slackers who haven’t finished their holiday shopping, Gristmill columnist Peter Madden of Forum for the Future has surveyed his colleagues and other smart green Brits to come up with a list of the most important environmental books. Classics Silent Spring and Small Is Beautiful made […]

Cheap forests and carbon sinks

Holy cow:

A recently formed company ... has purchased 440,000 acres of timber land in southern Oregon for $108 million, officials said. [Emphasis added.]

Just in case you were wondering how much land that is: the sale covers nearly 700 square miles, an area well over half the size of the state of Rhode Island. Of course, Rhode Island is tiny, as states go. But it seems like a lot of land, and at a bargain basement price, to boot. At $245 per acre, even I could afford to become a real estate mogul. Heck, some houses cost more than $108 million.

Silliness aside, this sale makes me wonder whether a carbon trading system -- where polluters have to pay for emissions reductions or sequestration -- might create huge opportunities for ecosystem restoration.

Like a Top 10 list, without 10

This isn't a top ten list -- I couldn't find that many signs of hope! And yes, I realize that some items on the list are only holding actions. The exercise was a little depressing; I had to wade through a year's worth of stories describing ecological devastation to come up with these.

Given all that, I would still say that 2006 was the best year the cause of environmentalism has seen in decades. I suspect that Grist, along with its readers and commenters, played a bigger part in that than most realize. May that trend continue and accelerate through 2007 and beyond. The list begins below the fold:

A top ten list from the U.K.

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

What are the most important environmental books? At Forum for the Future, we polled 100 staff and colleagues from around the U.K. for the green books that had most influenced us, and came up with our top 10. The list spans the last 50 years, and contains the usual suspects -- as well as a few surprises.

Small Is Beautiful and Silent Spring are the runaway winners, and the top 10 also contains one novel, one children's book, and one autobiography. While a couple of titles on the list are peculiarly British, others have had a global impact.

It's interesting to see what didn't get the votes. There are no wildlife or wilderness classics, and no overt spirituality. Would that be different if this were an American list, I wonder?

And there's no place for a number of classic reference texts -- no Limits to Growth, Our Common Future, or State of the World. This might have something to do with the fact that great sources of information are not always the most riveting of reads.

Here's the top 10 in full: