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XONSUX update

For all of you worried sick about it, I'm happy to report that the State of Alaska has withdrawn its attempt to revoke the personal license plate of Annette Nelson-Wright: XONSUX. (Background on the case here.) To quote from the decision:

I find that the combination XONSUX is not used in the common vernacular to describe a sexual act or is vulgar in any way. I find that a person of reasonable sensibilities would not be offended by the license plate XONSUX, thought provoking yes, but not offensive.

The tide is turning, friends!

Break in Doha talks leaves fate of fisheries uncertain

One of this week's dramas on the world stage was the news from Geneva that the World Trade Organization was forced to break off the trade negotiations known as the Doha Development Round. Key players had reached an impasse on ever-prickly agriculture tariffs and farm subsidies, and it was clear a breakthrough was not in sight. So the Director-General of the WTO recommended the move, which he later likened to a "time out" at a sporting event.

We can only hope that this is merely a time out. That's because the Doha Round contains what is in our view the single biggest thing that could be done right now to save world fisheries from irreversible collapse: eliminating government subsidies that build overcapacity and drive overfishing around the globe.

Green-burial movement gets more ambitious

Resting in peace at Ramsey Creek. Photo: Memorial Ecosystems. “I’d prefer to be put in the ground, under a tree,” says Joe Sehee, contemplating his inevitable demise. “But I don’t want to go in the ground with anything, I just want to be buried in a simple pine box or shroud, and that’s it.” If […]

Docket Science

Global warming likely to spur litigation against polluters As global warming’s effects reverberate across the planet, expect an uptick in litigation against governments and companies. Pacific Islanders whose homes are being swallowed by the ocean, African farmers with withered crops, and ski-resort owners resigned to offering mountaintop waterskiing may seek redress. “If the evidence [of […]

The Air of Their Ways

EPA falling short on clean-air protection, GAO says The Government Accountability Office is on the U.S. EPA’s case again, reporting that the agency has, and we quote, “not reduced human health risks from air toxics to the extent and in the time frames envisioned in the [Clean Air] Act.” The EPA has largely failed to […]

And the Wind Cries Scary

Pacific Northwest ocean dead zone getting larger Researchers believe global warming is behind a recurring low-oxygen “dead zone” in the Pacific Northwest ocean. Triggered by north winds, a process called upwelling encourages the growth of phytoplankton blooms; when the water calms, the phytoplankton die for lack of nutrients, sink to the bottom, and rot, using […]

Cotton a Trap

GM cotton doesn’t cut pesticide use long term, new research indicates Biotech giant Monsanto touts its genetically modified cotton seed — spliced with the bollworm-killing Bt toxin — as money- and earth-saving, because it lowers the need for pesticide use. Funny story about that: a new study found that cotton farmers using the seed soon […]

Learning to love Wal-Mart

We've done some good stuff on Wal-Mart's greening, but Marc Gunther's cover story in Fortune this week pulls it all together better than any single story I've seen, and advances it in some interesting ways.

Particularly in reference to our ongoing debate over morality, listen to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott:

To me, there can't be anything good about putting all these chemicals in the air. There can't be anything good about the smog you see in cities. There can't be anything good about putting chemicals in these rivers in Third World countries so that somebody can buy an item for less money in a developed country. Those things are just inherently wrong, whether you are an environmentalist or not.

He later says:

I had an intellectual interest when we started. I have a passion today.

What moved him from intellectual interest to passion? Morality.

I hadn't realized how big a role a Walton played in the story. This line sounds like the beginning of a joke:

Cascadia scorecard

Great excerpt from Sightline's Cascadia Scorecard on Worldchanging.

freecycle: TM, and R.I.P.

I've got a funny story for you. Here's a preview of the punchline: freecycle, once a clever, idealistic way to prevent material from entering landfills, has been made by its leadership into a clown show.

Some background.

Way back in May 2004, we did a (glowing) story on the new freecycling movement, whereby people give stuff away rather than throwing it away, via internet-based networks.

Roughly a year later, in May 2005, we did a follow-up story about freecycle's growing pains. Freecycle founder and executive director Deron Beal had accepted corporate sponsorship, attempted to secure a trademark on the freecycle name, and started exercising what some group moderators saw as dictatorial control over regional and local freecycle networks.

In Gristmill, there was a looong and heated debate over the article. Looong. And heated.

Shortly thereafter, Grist received a letter from the freecycle media relations people, urging us in unctuous tones to always capitalize the word "freecycle," never use such bastardized constructions as "freecycler" or "freecycling," and always use the trademark symbol when referring to the entity as a whole: The Freecycle Network^TM. The letter deserved, and received, mockery.

But tinpot tycoons can never get enough mockery. Which brings us to the present.