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The Bane in Spain Falls Mainly on the, Um, Construction

Spanish coast being ravaged by development The Spanish coast is being ravaged by a decade-long building boom, and there seems to be no end in sight. About 3 million houses have been started or built in the country in the past four years, with as many as half of them along its famed 3,100-mile coastline. […]

Junk in the Trunk

American food-guzzling leads to more gas-guzzling Here’s more motivation to go on that diet: You’ll use less gasoline. Non-commercial U.S. vehicles are using at least 938 million more gallons of gasoline annually than they did in 1960 because drivers and passengers are considerably heavier and are dragging down fuel economy, says a University of Illinois […]

It’s about risk

No, the lesson is not that Katrina was caused by or made worse by global warming. There is, at present, no evidence that Katrina was meteorological payback for our ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Rather, the lesson of Katrina is about risk.

The possibility of a large hurricane wreaking havoc on the Louisiana coast has been known for years. Everything from infrastructure damage to long-term flooding of New Orleans to the enormous refugee problem was foreseen in excruciatingly accurate detail.

We also knew the things we could do to reduce the impact of a killer hurricane. We could shore up the levees, for example, or work to recover the disappearing wetlands and barrier islands that shield New Orleans from storms. But these were deemed "too expensive" and postponed. We rolled the dice.

Now, our country is going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild New Orleans and surrounding areas -- at least ten times more than the cost of mitigating the catastrophe in the first place.

What does this have to do with global warming?

Why not more solar power in Tucson?

I did not see a single cloud in my four days in Tucson last week. But what really surprised me was that I also did not see a single solar panel. The University of Arizona, which I suspect may be an intellectual bubble in the middle of Tucson, did spawn a large number of Priuses. Most people drive pickup trucks. The strip malls and subdivisions stretched out until they bumped up against a national park or a mountain range.

If there ever was a place suited for solar power, it is Tucson.

Massey Energy CEO is a really bad dude

The venerable print magazine Old Trout was recently relaunched with a splashy issue on "The Thirteen Scariest Americans." I was asked to write up the scariest American from an environmental point of view.

The choice was not difficult. The scariest polluter in the U.S. is Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy. The guy is evil, and I don't use that word lightly.

The issue is out now. (Look for it on a newsstand near you!) The folks at Old Trout have given me permission to publish an expanded version of the piece after a suitable period of exclusivity. So watch for that at the beginning of December.

In the meantime, check out three things.

It’s, um, slogan-y

Grist's fair HQ of Seattle has revealed a new city slogan, posted prominently on top of the famous Space Needle. And that slogan, my friends?

METRONATURAL.

As defined by Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau:

adj. 1: Having the characteristics of a world-class metropolis within wild, beautiful natural surroundings. 2: A blending of clear skies and expansive water with a fast-paced city life.

n. 1: One who respects the environment and lives a balanced lifestyle of urban and natural experiences. 2. Seattle.

Mmmmkay. First of all, "metrosexual" is so last year. Second of all, to some people, including myself, it's not eliciting the response the tourism bureau hoped for ("Wow, it's a city and it's nature!"). One Pike Place Market vendor says, "How do you use that in a sentence? 'Welcome to Metronatural.' ... It's an airport where you can buy organic bananas."

Yes, it beats See-@-L. But what doesn't?

BioDee was in Arizona

Kaela was able to deduce where I was with very few clues because this ecosystem in Arizona is so unique. Would developers cover the Saguaro National Park in subdivisions given the opportunity? Sure they would. The only reason they don't is, they can't. This is another function of government -- protecting biodiversity from the profit motive.

This time, the lovely hand model holding the flying grasshopper is my youngest daughter. We didn't see many hummingbirds, but at one bush I counted five butterfly species.

Peter Madden ponders the upsides and downsides of CO2 offsetting

This is the second installment of a monthly column on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe, from Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, Britain's leading sustainable development charity. Read the first column here.

We have gone offset-crazy in the U.K. Open any newspaper or magazine at the moment and you'll see full-page advertisements from oil giant BP offering the chance to "neutralize the impact of your car's CO2 emissions."

Buy a new Range Rover, book a holiday with First Choice, or pay for a flight with British Airways and you are given the chance to offset. Even this year's World Cup declared itself "carbon neutral."

Government has got in on the act too, with a clutch of departments promising to offset their impacts.

For some environmentalists, though, this is all a dangerous distraction from the need to reduce emissions at source. Kevin Anderson, a climate-change scientist, argues, "Offsetting is a dangerous delaying tactic because it helps us to avoid tackling that task. It helps us to sleep well at night when we shouldn't sleep well at night."

Charles Liesenberg, an offset provider, argues the opposite: that because climate change is a global problem, "it doesn't matter where you reduce emissions, as long as you do it."

Won’t give interviews

Rep. Richard "Dick" Pombo has decided that the way to win his race is to clam up, avoid the media, and allow his name recognition and the native conservatism of his district to carry the day. He figures that's enough.

Others disagree.

Iceland resumes commercial whaling

The recent decision by Iceland to resume whaling, and to blatantly ignore the nearly two-decade-old moratorium established by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), is infuriating and puzzling.

Iceland's Ministry of Fishing justified its decision by arguing that the "catches are clearly sustainable and therefore consistent with the principle of sustainable development," but conveniently left out the fact that the fin whales now on their whaler's list are also on the International Conservation Union's "red list" of endangered species.

Within hours of the decision, the first harpooners were off on their mission of "sustainability," and the first two fin whales have already been caught.

Iceland's actions make the next IWC meeting all the more important. In the meantime, let's tell Iceland to call the fleet back in.