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God Hates BP

BP hits more snafus in Prudhoe Bay Beleaguered oil giant BP has halted leak testing on pipelines in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field after learning that workers may have been exposed to asbestos. Since a major spill in the oil field in early March, as many as 200 workers have been stripping insulation off of […]

Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One

EPA must consult wildlife officials about pesticide use Yesterday a federal judge overturned a two-year-old regulation that allowed the U.S. EPA to approve pesticides without consulting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about toxic impact on rare animals and plants. Ruling in favor of nine environmental groups, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenor declared that […]

Fear and environmentalism: a quote on the side

Says Chris Hedges ...

Shags in the wild

While it is not about a strictly environmental topic, I nonetheless feel duty-bound (and proud) to point out that our very own Sarah van Schagen -- author of the wildly popular Something Fishy column -- has a new piece up on CampusProgress.org. Check it out.

Non-“environmental” environmental policies

It's funny -- on the way to work today, I was thinking about a post on policies that would help the environment but are not traditionally thought of as "environmental." Then John pops up this morning with something very similar. So I guess it's in the air.

One of the common accusations against the environmental movement in the whole death debate was that enviros conceive of "the environment" too narrowly, and thus conceive of their political mandate too narrowly. They focus on technocratic policies about PPB of contaminants in water or new-source regulations on coal plants, instead of trying to build a broad progressive movement.

So. What are some policies that most people would not label "environmental," but which would benefit the environment? Off the top of my head I'd cite:

The best ways to “fix” agriculture

Agricultural presents a particularly challenging set of environmental issues because of its complexity and the myriad ways agriculture affects environmental variables; from pesticides to soil erosion to water use, agriculture is by far the greatest human-induced alteration of the natural environment on the planet.

TerraPass and verification

TerraPass, sellers of carbon offsets, has undergone its first verification report:

Based on an agreement with Center for Resource Solutions (CRS), creator of the Green-e program, this report details our impact for the year, the sales-supply balance and our distribution of offset projects. The good news, in case you’re wondering, is that we passed!

Big deal, you think? Perhaps for this individual company, but it's quite important that the carbon offsets industry -- which seems to be capturing public attention and taking off -- establish some shared standards of accountability. TP's Tom Arnold says:

We, along with CRS, hope to extend this pilot program into an industry-wide program. That means attracting other industry participants as well as getting feedback on what types of projects qualify for a Green-e like program. The CRS announcement went out this morning and I'm happy to say that NRDC, WRI, Interface Fabrics, climate change experts Seth Baruch and Terry Surles, and others will also participate in a new GHG Advisory Group to help shepherd through a program.

Cool.

(Here's the Green-e press release on the formation of the advisory group.)

Komanoff on wind

Don't miss an excellent piece in Orion on the fevered debate over wind power. It's by Charles Komanoff, who you know as a periodic Gristmill contributor.

To Russia with love, again

Seems another Chinese chemical spill is on its way to the Russian Far East (RFE). ITAR-TASS out of Moscow reported today that "a five kilometre-long benzol slick resulting from another dumping of chemicals into the Sungari river from a plant in the Chinese province of Jilin is expected to reach Russia's city of Khabarovsk on September 7-8." The story goes on to say that the benzol may evaporate before it reaches the Amur River, the same one that was poisoned last winter by a chemical spill from a factory in the same Chinese province.

Not everyone has a China environment guru to consult on such stories, but luckily I do. She is my colleague, Dr. Jennifer Turner, who directs the China Environment Forum here at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Here is an email where she puts the spill in context:

Top environment reporters talk about journalism vs. activism

With global warming, biodiversity loss, peak oil, and other environmental problems looming large, those who report on the issues face a dilemma: Do they report the facts dispassionately, or shift to advocacy? How do mainstream reporters deal with this issue? To find out, we asked a few of them.   As you’ve covered environmental issues […]