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Decoupling Katrina and climate change

Based on his (and his colleagues') research, here's what Roger Pielke Jr. thinks:

1. Anthropogenic climate change is real.
2. Greenhouse gas reductions make good policy sense.
3. But there is no evidence that energy policies focused on climate change can be an effective tool of disaster mitigation.
4. There is currently no evidence that allows us to attribute to human-caused climate change any part of the decades-long trend of a rising toll of disasters, a record which is dominated by floods and storms.
5. More people are beginning to conduct research in this area and perhaps future research results will tell a different story, but 1-4 above are what can be said today and supported by scientific research.
6. Given the state of the literature, this should not be a controversial conclusion.
7. There are better justifications for GHG reductions than disasters, and there are far better options available to policy makers than energy policies to make a material difference in future impacts of climate and weather extremes.

The reception he's gotten for this line of thinking from climate scientists has been, shall we say, less than enthusiastic.

Is convenience the drug that salves commuting guilt?

I sometimes catch the bus at the busy Fremont intersection of 34th and Fremont here in Seattle. I'd estimate that at least 90 percent of the vehicles heading west over the Fremont Bridge have one occupant. This, of course, frustrates me to no end.

Here are all these people heading in the same general direction, at the same time. I've often wanted to stand on the side of the road with a sign that reads, "Your car seats four, why are you driving alone?"

So, why are they driving alone? Richard Seven attempts to answer this question in the most recent edition of The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine.

Francisca Porchas, clean-bus campaigner, answers Grist’s questions

The city of Los Angeles has 10 million people, 8 million cars, and a heck of a lot of pollution -- pollution that disproportionately affects low-income communities of color. Francisca Porchas, an organizer with the Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses Campaign, is working to change that. As InterActivist this week, Porchas chats about the city's car culture, her trip to New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, why she hearts the people of Tuvalu, and more. Send her a question of your own by noon PST on Wednesday; we'll publish her answers to selected questions on Friday.

Francisca Porchas, clean-bus campaigner, answers questions

Francisca Porchas. What work do you do? I am a lead organizer with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union‘s Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses Campaign, based in Los Angeles. How does it relate to the environment? The Strategy Center has engaged in environmental-justice and civil-rights campaigns for the last 17 years, […]

Silly Rabbit, Toxics Aren’t for Kids!

Parents strive to protect kids from everyday chemical hazards There may be no more powerful force for social change in the world than worried parents. And they’re turning their attention to lead in lunchboxes, bisphenol A in plastic, and other eco-nasties in their children’s daily lives, switching to greener-seeming products — like cloth totes and […]

Sand Trap

Cancers, other diseases rising near Alberta oil sands Illnesses including leukemia and lymphomas are cropping up at greater than expected rates in a First Nations community near oil sands in Canada’s Alberta province. Elders at Fort Chipewyan say incidence of disease started rising when the oil industry started extracting and processing hundreds of thousands of […]

Lease and Desist

House reps blow taxpayer dough on pricey gas-guzzlers It’s almost April; do you know where your taxes are? Last year, at least $1.05 million in public money went to leasing SUVs, luxury cars, and other vehicles for members of Congress — just as the Founding Fathers intended. Members of the House are legally allowed to […]

The U.S. needs a food bill more than a farm bill

<img src="http://grist.org/images/home/2006/03/13/farmer-on-tractor_150.jpg" class="blog4" width="150" height="100"

America is scheduled to write a new farm bill in 2007. With the World Trade Organization ruling that our farm subsidies distort trade, and public expenses for flood relief and the war effort taxing the treasury, this could be a time of interesting shifts in how we view farm policy.

Moreover, both farmer and consumer groups say subsidies are harming Americans and developing nations (see Tom Philpott's fine story "I'm Hatin' It").

On the other hand, there are also signs that the same coalition of grain traders and producer groups will persuade Congress to extend the provisions of the existing farm bill for a few more years.

This gets me thinking about what a proper farm bill should do.

The first thing to note is: We don't need a farm bill in 2007. We need a food bill, or a rural development bill. We need to invest in communities, not commodities.

When the world comes together

In the spirit of using film and television to make a difference, I introduce you to 2006 Ted Prize winner Jehane Noujaim:

In her moving acceptance speech, TED Prize winner, Jehane Noujaim described her wish for using film to bring people together in a more meaningful way. Jehane is the award-winning filmmaker behind Control Room and Startup.com. Jehane's wish is to create a worldwide cinema event for one day each year with programming that highlights the themes of unity, the common ties that bind us into a global culture, a film festival called "Pangea Cinema, the day the world comes together." "Pangea" refers to the single land mass that broke up millions of years ago to create the disparate continents we know today.

Pangea Cinema is still very much in the brainstorming phase but the hope is to develop the idea well beyond the act of showing films. The goal is to invite the viewers of these films to join a global conversation about the issues that affect us all.

Watch Jehane's acceptance speech and proposal here.

And as for the subject matter for this day of film? May I suggest climate change.

Charisma

I walked into the study this morning to find my wife and youngest daughter watching an eagle on a wildlife webcam. They asked me if male eagles sit on eggs. No sooner had I said, "Pfft, I seriously doubt it," than another eagle appeared. The one sitting on the eggs flew off, allowing its partner to take over. Hey, roosters don't sit on eggs! Where would conservation (a major branch of environmentalism) be without charismatic wildlife? Speaking of which, Luna, the killer-whale orphan, was just killed by a boat.

Later, while poking around on the webcam site, I discovered a cool video of a black snake making short work of a nest of baby robins (click on the picture of the robin). I watched the exact same thing happen on my uncle's farm when I was a kid in Indiana. Black rat snakes can get up to six feet long. They are the generalists of the snake world, known to eat just about anything: rodents, amphibians, birds, other snakes, and even eggs. I was glad the webcam owner, obviously a bird lover, allowed nature to take its course. I bet that wasn't easy.