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Severe labor shortages in the southwest may add

A society that relies on cheap food also relies on cheap labor. Look at the meat-processing industry.

Worker conditions are so wretched, so little changed from Jungle days, that Human Rights Watch saw fit to issue a scathing report on the industry last January.

Because meat is perishable and prohibitively expensive to keep frozen over long journeys, meat processing cannot readily be sent overseas -- unlike, say, manufacturing. So the trick, as the Human Rights Watch report shows in wrenching detail, is to recreate working conditions prevalent in places like Guatemala, here.

Things are different in the large-scale fruit/vegetable business. Tomatoes, for example, can be picked green, shipped long distance with minimal refrigeration, and gas-ripened near the point of sale. Will vegetable farming move overseas?

Ever thought about the toxins in your sex toys?

So you’re an Enlightened Green Consumer. You buy organic food and carry it home from the local market in string bags. Your coffee is shade-grown and fair-trade, your water’s solar-heated, and your car is a hybrid. But what about the playthings you’re using for grown-up fun between those organic cotton sheets — how healthy and […]

New Jersey proposes major expansion of renewable energy mandate

The words "New Jersey" rarely conjure thoughts of environmental leadership. In fact, the state's reputation gives rise to visions better described by "industrial wasteland" or "toxic miasma."

Think again. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has recently proposed a major expansion of its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a regulation requiring utilities to buy renewable energy.

The proposed rule would require that 20% of the electricity provided by the state's utilities come from new renewable energy sources by 2020, up from the current standard of 4% by 2008. This is a major expansion that puts the state in the upper echelon of renewable-energy leaders.

And make no mistake -- the environmental impacts would be enormous. Emissions from electricity generation are not only the single largest cause of global warming, but also toxic to human health, killing over 30,000 Americans a year, according to a recent study by Abt Associates. By 2020, this proposal would prevent annual emissions of 15.3 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, 29.1 million pounds of nitrogen oxides, and 44.4 million pounds of sulfur dioxide.

In addition, the proposed rule would require that 2% come from solar-electric resources -- a development that would result in about 1,500 MW of solar electricity. To put this in perspective, in 2004 the world market for solar photovoltaics was 927 MW. New Jersey's effort would be the most ambitious solar program currently on the books in the U.S. (take that, California!), and would go far in building the economies of scale necessary to bring solar into the mainstream.

Traditionally hostile interests are working to squelch this bold proposal. If you are into it, take a moment to tell the BPU Commissioners that their leadership is appreciated, and the proposed expansion of the RPS should be adopted.

Peak Oil hits the hill

Peak Oil will get its first-ever Congressional hearing tomorrow in the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It kicks off at 9:30 am EST and you can watch it live!

Witnesses for those truly interested after the jump.

Humanity’s worst invention

City Hippy brings word of a nifty essay contest run by Ecologist magazine, which I hadn't heard of until now:

What is humanity's worst invention?

The winning entry will receive a cheque for £2,500 and publication in the Ecologist magazine

Essay criteria: responses must be in English, up to 2,000 words. Entries will be judged on originality, critical thinking, clarity and the ability to spark debate.

Deadline for entries: 15 March 2006

Please submit entries to: essay2006@theecologist.org

(A "cheque"? A "£"? What are these things they speak of?)

Go ahead and write your essays, but before you do, leave your candidates in comments.

The Man watching you drive

Via Hit & Run, a piece in CNET ponders the troubling privacy implications of nascent federal plans to track all vehicles with GPS in order to institute "mileage-based road user fees."

Details of the tracking systems vary. But the general idea is that a small GPS device, which knows its location by receiving satellite signals, is placed inside the vehicle.

Some GPS trackers constantly communicate their location back to the state DMV, while others record the location information for later retrieval. (In the Oregon pilot project, it's beamed out wirelessly when the driver pulls into a gas station.)

The problem, though, is that no privacy protections exist. No restrictions prevent police from continually monitoring, without a court order, the whereabouts of every vehicle on the road.

No rule prohibits that massive database of GPS trails from being subpoenaed by curious divorce attorneys, or handed to insurance companies that might raise rates for someone who spent too much time at a neighborhood bar. No policy bans police from automatically sending out speeding tickets based on what the GPS data say.

I'm very much in support of congestion pricing and similar schemes to reduce driving in general and peak-hour driving in particular. But I must confess that my civil-libertarian absolutism twitches at the very thought of this sort of thing. What do y'all think?

Not well.

A few months ago, I swore off New Orleans stories for a while. It was just too depressing. But now I'm back in the saddle. Depress me, baby!

So how's the whole rebuilding thing going?

The first thing to read is Mike Tidwell's short but devastating piece in Orion. His point is simple: Unless we restore the coastal islands and wetlands that cushion New Orleans from storm surges, all other efforts are futile -- but Bush isn't going to do it.

A $14 billion plan to fix this problem -- a plan widely viewed as technically sound and supported by environmentalists, oil companies, and fishermen alike -- has been on the table for years and was pushed forward with greater urgency after Katrina hit. But for reasons hard to fathom, yet utterly lethal in their effect, the administration has turned its back on this plan. ...

...

... in its second and final post-Katrina emergency spending package sent to Congress on November 8th, the White House dismissed the rescue plan with a shockingly small $250 million proposed authorization instead of the $14 billion requested.

Without restored wetlands, says Tidwell, sending thousands of people back to New Orleans amounts to "an act of mass homicide."

Ouch.

From there we continue to an L.A. Times piece that offers a view behind the scenes on why New Orleans is getting shortchanged. It appears the blame lies with Louisiana public officials. They're just too uppity and demanding:

Christian Peacemaker Team members being held hostage

The Green Party of the United States just sent out a press release alerting enviro groups to the situation of four Christian Peacemaker Team members being held hostage in Iraq. One of the CPT-ers is also a member of the Virginia Green Party.

CPT "places violence-reduction teams in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world at the invitation of local peace and human rights workers." Delegates, traveling unarmed and without bodyguards, are not there to evangelize or "fix" anything, but to be a peaceful presence. They understand the inherent risk of visiting violent zones and willingly take it in their conviction to make a peaceful difference.

This hits close to home for me as I've had close friends, a pastor, and an uncle go on CPT delegations in the recent past. If you pray, please pray -- if you petition, please petition.

José A. Zaglul, EARTH University prez, answers questions

José A. Zaglul. What work do you do? I am the president of EARTH University, a private, not-for-profit, international institution. What does your organization do? Our mission is to promote sustainable development in the tropics through the creation of professionals with strong values, solid technical and scientific skills, entrepreneurial spirit, and social and environmental consciousness. […]

Come Sale Away

NPS proposal would make corporate donors more visible in parks Because a thank-you letter just won’t cut it, the National Park Service has proposed putting brass nameplates, markers, or banners in national parks to honor donor corporations. “We are looking to find ways to appropriately recognize the time and dollars contributed” by companies, says an […]