Latest Articles

Six Nations, Under Siege

Native Canadians fight for land rights Suburban sprawl has encroached on the once-pristine wilderness of southern Ontario’s Six Nations Reserve — and the residents of Canada’s First Nations that live there have had enough. Since February, hundreds of Native protestors have blocked roads, lit bonfires, confronted police, raised traditional First Nation flags, destroyed national flags […]

In Clemente Conditions

Radioactive, cancer-causing tritium leaks into California groundwater Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that can cause cancer, miscarriages, and birth defects, has leaked from a nuclear power plant near San Clemente, Calif. Groundwater tested at up to 330,000 picocuries of tritium per liter; we don’t know what a picocurie is, but California’s public-health goal for […]

Smoky Chokey

National parks aren’t breathing easy From California to Maine to Alaska — sea to shining sea, as it were — almost a third of America’s national parks suffer poor air-quality conditions, says a new study by the National Parks Conservation Association. Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury threaten wildlife, plants, visitors, and staff, and can […]

Dodge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

Court rules with EPA on power-plant pollution controls Imagine that gavel sound from Law & Order, and here we go: In 1999, the U.S. EPA sued Cinergy Corp. for modifying several coal-fueled power plants without following Clean Air Act pollution-control requirements. (Moment of silence for the days when eco-laws were enforced.) One month before President […]

Still have glimmers of childlike wonder and hope?

Well, time to give 'em up. Dolphins are stupid.

(Thanks to reader ET -- or should I say, "thanks.")

Werbach and Wal-Mart

Lest I let a single article about Wal-Mart pass by without notice: check out the San Francisco Bay Guardian's long look at Wal-Mart's greening and the company's hiring of Adam Werbach.

(And lest I let you forget that I wrote an op-ed on the subject: here's my op-ed on the subject -- and a bloggy follow-up.)

Listen to Werbach:

A new natural capitalism

I'm going to sit the fence on Kit's poll by saying that reigning in climate change will require both a re-envisioning of capitalism and a revision of our core values.

An excellent professor of mine at MIT introduced our class to the concept of "natural capitalism," pioneered by Paul Hawkins and Amory and L. Hunter Lovins. Their 1999 book on the subject, probably familiar to many of you, was an eye-opener for me at the time. Here is a short synopsis of the book from Publisher's Weekly:

Capitalism v. environmentalism: a poll

Don Boudreaux, an economist, argues that doing nothing is the best policy for global warming.

As David, biodiversivist, Tim Lambert, and ThinkProgress point out, this argument has a lot of screws loose. (ThinkProgress also has a picture of Boudreaux, who looks slightly insane. He is also, by sheerest chance, with the Cato Institute, which according to a book by two University of Colorado law school scholars, "receives most of its financial support from entrepreneurs, securities and commodities traders, and corporations such as oil and gas companies, Federal Express, and Philip Morris that abhor government regulation.")

Just for a moment, let's ignore the whiff of prostitution. Let's ignore the alarming changes that global warming is expected to bring to climate, and the worsening of drought, floods, forest insect pests, hurricanes, species extinctions, among other aspects of life on earth.

Let's focus instead on the politics of the claim.

Water scarcity will cause lots of scary things to happen.

In anticipation of World Water Week next week, news on aqueous gloom and doom abounds. This is, um, not comforting:

Cholera may return to London, the mass migration of Africans could cause civil unrest in Europe and China's economy could crash by 2015 as the supply of fresh water becomes critical to the global economy.

That's nearly as frightening as Snakes on a Plane (all the hype surrounding it, not the movie itself).

But seriously. By 2015? That's damn soon.

Analysts from 200 of the world's largest companies, brought together by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, made the grim forecast, also predicting (hoping?) that water scarcity will spur better management and water-saving technologies. As a third of the world's population already lives where water is overused or inaccessible, future conflicts over water are virtually inevitable.

The analysts, who took three years to study future water availability, came up with three potential future scenarios:

Restaurants substitute cheap fish to unknowing diners

Yesterday, NPR ran a great seafood story. It seems that restaurant-goers in Florida are ordering one fish and being served another. The St. Petersburg Times surveyed 11 restaurants that boasted grouper on their menus; DNA tests revealed that nearly half were serving cheaper substitutes. Who needs cleverly deceptive sales techniques -- like bait and switch -- when you can just use an oldie but goodie: lying?