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Random thought of the day

In talking with Anthony Flint and reading Big Coal, a parallel occurred to me.

I asked Flint about the historical roots of single-use development -- the kind that separated out residential areas and led to the sprawl we now know and love. He told me that such zoning measures were originally passed by progressives, in an effort to move the dirty, disease-causing elements of urban life -- e.g., slaughterhouses and factories -- away from where people live. It was concern for the health of the underclass that led to single-use development.

Similarly, when coal turbines were first developed, one business model was to build them small and make them residential appliances (to sell machines rather than electricity, in effect). But the early turbines were dirty. So eventually, savvy businessfolk moved the turbines far out of town and made them huge.

Early on in America's industrial development, the impetus was to separate and spread out the various functions of human community, because the industrial functions were filthy and unhealthy. But we got stuck with that dissipation.

A principal part of this century's environmental fight is to reintegrate and condense the functions of human community.

Mackey v. Pollan

Foodie journalist Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (review here; interview with Pollan here) makes some disturbing points about the increasingly industrial character of organic agriculture. It uses as its exemplar of "industrial organic" the burgeoning Whole Foods Market.

Whole Foods founder and CEO John Mackey took quite a bit of umbrage at that, and responded with a long, passionate letter about the work his store has done to nurture the organic movement and local agriculture.

On his blog (which is stupidly behind the NYT $elect wall), Pollan responds at some length.

Both letters are interesting reading, but the dispute basically boils down to Mackey saying "we do buy local" and Pollan saying "it doesn't really seem that way, but I sure hope you move in that direction." They are more or less in agreement on the direction things need to go.

I thought this point by Pollan was apt:

Jim Hansen in NY Review of Books

In the latest issue of the The New York Review of Books (not yet online here), legendary climate scientist Jim Hansen leaves behind the cozy confines of technical scientific writing and launches into the world of book review prose. He does remarkably well.

The books at issue are Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers, Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes From a Catastrophe, and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but Hansen mostly uses the books as a pretext to lay out the basic state of conventional wisdom on the climate issue, namely: Things are bad and getting worse, species are set to die out and sea levels are set to rise, we can either continue on with business as usual or set a new course, and we really should set a new course, because within 10 years we'll pass a point of no return. Regular Grist readers will find it all quite familiar, but Hansen does a nice job of presenting the information in a compact, dispassionate, and frightening form.

Perhaps more juicy, from a purely tabloidy perspective, are some nuggets about Gore and Hansen's relationship toward the end of the piece. To wit:

Readers talk back about organic food, eco-sabotage, canvassing, and more

  Re: The Price Is Wrong Dear Editor: Umbra asserts that “organic food is more expensive because it costs more to produce.” This is a dangerous generalization that is not supported by many scientific studies. The data argue that costs are generally comparable, only organics have a greater labor input while industrials have a greater […]

Seedom Is on the March

Millions of seed varieties to be secured in new Arctic vault Construction kicked off yesterday on a high-security vault to be dug into a frozen mountainside on a remote Norwegian island in the Arctic, to protect that most precious of commodities: seeds. The vault will be sized to hold 3 million seed varieties, the source […]

What jobs are included in the environmental field?

As director of program development at The Environmental Careers Organization, Kevin Doyle knows a thing or two about job searching. In this recurring column for Grist, he explores the green job market and offers advice to eco-job-seekers looking to jumpstart their careers.

I received an email the other day from a professor who wanted fresh, expert-certified information about the green job scene. (No snickering about the abysmally low standards for "expert" status, please.) His college planned to offer a new environmental studies degree, and the state legislators wanted to know whether graduates would become gainfully employed in exchange for their four years and $80,000. Picky, picky, picky.

"It'll be a slam dunk!" the prof answered. "Employers will greet our graduates like liberators, throwing flowers at their feet when they enter the lobby!" It was a powerfully convincing argument, but unlike some government leaders we can think of, the governor required actual data before ponying up the taxpayer's cash. This is the kind of limited, inside-the-box, "reality-based" leadership our nation's professors must contend with.

At any rate, an academically rigorous search for verifiable numbers set sail. (Translation: an intern typed keywords into Google.) Immediately, the project ran into an iceberg of a question: How does one define "environmental" jobs in 2006?

Park de Triomphe

Interior Dept. unveils new conservation-minded park policies New Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne scrapped predecessor Gale Norton’s proposed policy changes to national-park management yesterday, issuing a revised draft with much greater emphasis on conservation. Reflective of policies already in place, the new draft de-emphasizes recreation, allows park managers to consider the effects of outside pollution on […]

Employ Story

What counts as an “environmental” job? It used to be that environmental jobs were easy to identify, involving folks working directly with the land, air, and water. But today, says Kevin Doyle of the Environmental Careers Organization, all manner of occupations can be thought of as green. That’s great news, of course — unless you’re […]

Muddy Waters

Supremes divided on wetlands protection under Clean Water Act The Supreme Court ruled yesterday neither to sharply restrict the Clean Water Act nor to leave its current broad interpretation untouched. Instead it did … something else. Spurred by two Michigan property-rights cases, the high court’s contentious decision states that wetlands must at least be adjacent […]

How a business can pick the best packaging

You’ve created the World’s Greenest Product, and you’re shipping it off to your first big customer. You’ve made it from the most environmentally sensitive materials, using only renewable energy. It’s the pinnacle of eco-friendly everything. Special delivery. Photo: iStockphoto. So what are you going to pack it in, cardboard or plastic? And how are you […]