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Brazil and Indonesia protect swaths of land

According to this article in World Magazine:

Brazil's Environmental Ministry said late Sunday that 84,000 square miles of the Amazon rain forest - an area about the size of Kansas - would be declared a protected zone over the next three years.

Time will tell if this declaration will amount to jack. A lot of soybeans are presently being grown in "protected zones." Striking while the iron was hot, the alpha politician in Brazil took the opportunity to shift the blame for the destruction of his country's rainforests to the rich nations:

Peak oil, coal, and bizarre optimism

So last week Salon ran a big story on peak oil by Katharine Mieszkowski. It was decent, though focused a bit too much on the loony fringes. I guess the temptation to do that is irresistible when trying to make a long story about the Hubbert Curve and Venezuelan oil reserves compelling.

In response, John Quiggen (at the usually excellent Crooked Timber group blog) wrote a response I can only characterize as bizarre. But the comments under the post don't treat it as bizarre. And Ezra Klein linked to it as though it proved something, and then ladled more bizarritude on top. So either these guys -- who I regard as considerably smarter than yours truly -- are missing something, or I am. Let's take a tour.

Quiggen's point, briefly, is this: Peak oilers falsely exaggerate the problem by conflating oil with fossil fuels generally, implying that running out of the former means running out of the latter. But there's actually tons and tons of coal left, and it wouldn't be too hard to do what we do with oil with coal instead. So, you know, global warming's a problem, but running out of oil isn't.

I think that's a fair summary. And I think it's nuts.

Having it both ways

Unfortunately, "social justice" is too often used as a code word for pouring tax dollars down a rathole; "curing" poverty.

Replacing or refurbishing the boarded-up and dilapidated buildings of a long-blighted neighborhood costs major money; so does creating greenspace from rust-belt industrial land. When you do so, the value of that neighborhood or that land increases manyfold: people who have jobs and pay taxes to support the improvements want to benefit from them. They buy homes in the restored neighborhoods, and the valuation of housing increases, which in turn raises taxes and rents. Housing near the new parks will escalate in value, because they are now more desirable, and again taxes and rents will go up.

An alternative to FEMA trailers

In Grist's November roundup of post-Katrina bills and plans, the Other Sarah mentioned October's Mississippi Renewal Forum, organized by Gov. Haley Barbour (R) and the Congress for a New Urbanism. As we (and when I say "we," I mean "we have the same name so I can refer to us in first-person plural") said then, "A comprehensive plan was produced; we're holding our breath for full follow-through."

Can you see where this is going already?

One of the outcomes of the forum was the Katrina Cottage, a compact, sturdy alternative to FEMA trailers. A two-bedroom cottage prototype was unveiled in Louisiana this week, joining the one-bedroom cottage being displayed in Mississippi. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco joined Barbour and other high state officials in asking FEMA to order Katrina Cottages instead of unstable trailers. Why, why would they want to do that?

Nukes in France

It's a Wall Street Journal kind of week. On the front page of today's edition is a story about nuclear energy in France. I've got no big take-home lesson from it, but some bits are interesting in their own right.

First, some incisive framing:

France's experience spotlights a daunting aspect of today's energy crunch: The world will have to face hard choices long before science comes up with definitive answers. There's mounting evidence that global warming is happening and that finding big new pools of oil is getting harder. But it's not yet clear how serious global warming will be or whether petroleum is running dry. If politicians and businesses act and these concerns prove overblown, they could waste vast sums of money. If they postpone action and the facts validate today's concerns, the future choices could be a lot harder.

Yup.

And here's something I didn't know. To kickstart its nuke industry in the '70s ...

The power is yours

Interested in how governments make the tough call between environmental risks and consumer costs when it comes to energy generation? Wish you could be in on those decisions? Now you can! Sorta.

Check out the BBC's energy calculator, which lets you (hypothetically) adjust the UK's energy use -- whether from nukes, fossil fuels, or renewables -- and find out the potential impact. Once your calculations meet projected UK needs for 2020, you can submit your choices, which the BBC will tally and analyze for trends.

Think it'll be as easy as reducing demand and increasing renewables to 100 percent? Not so easy when you see how much that'll raise costs -- for everyone, including low-income families already struggling to pay for electricity. So how would you keep the UK's lights on in 2020, if you had the power?

What will an Atlanta parks project mean for low-income residents?

Atlanta is embarking on a massive redevelopment project to transform a mostly unused railroad into a 22-mile, in-town loop of walking trails, bike paths, public transit, and more than 1,200 acres of parks. Sounds great. But Atlanta activist Na'Taki Osborne worries that for the city's poor and moderate-income residents, there might be a catch.

Will an Atlanta parks and redevelopment project benefit low-income residents?

Atlanta, Ga.: the famous “Hot-lanta” of Southern heat and hospitality, home of “down-home” fried chicken and a growing black middle class, cradle of the largest historically black college community in the world, hotbed of the civil-rights movement, and … the sprawl capital of the South. As Atlanta gets greener, who will benefit? Photo: iStockphoto. As […]

Hospitals and doctors’ offices look to cure their environmental ills

The irony is almost too obvious to state: tens of thousands of hospitals, doctors’ offices, medical laboratories, and assorted other health-care providers spew toxic substances into the environment, or dispose of trash containing a noxious mix of contaminated or infectious waste. Some of it will make its way into the air, water, and soil. All […]

Zoned Out

Over on Environmental Economics, there's an interesting review of what looks like an interesting book: Zoned Out: Regulation, Markets, and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land Use, by Jonathan Levine. It directly addresses some of the questions raised in this much-discussed post on new urbanism.

Here's how it starts: