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Parkinson’s Lot

Evidence grows linking Parkinson’s disease to pesticide exposure Put down the Raid and back away slowly: Scientists are growing more confident that long-term exposure to toxic substances, notably pesticides, is implicated in most cases of Parkinson’s disease. Researchers first made a link between Parkinson’s and paraquat, a weedkiller long popular around the world, in the […]

See the Forest for the Fees

Tropical nations want payment for protecting carbon-sinking rainforests “Cough up the dough, Mr. West, or the forest gets it!” OK, we’re being a little dramatic. But a group of 10 developing nations has made it clear this week at the U.N. climate summit in Montreal that it wants a little … inducement … to preserve […]

Indulge Us

Grist comes up with another creative way to ask for money If there’s one thing environmentalists are good at, it’s feeling bad. As 2005 comes to a close, are you fretting about that cruise you took, that car you bought, those plastic bags you tossed? Well, here’s a way to feel better: buy a Grist […]

Eco-terrorist

The Seattle PI found one.

(via Judith Lewis)

Late soul

Some six months after the cool kids did it, the American Prospect gets around to running an excerpt from The Soul of Environmentalism.

I'm not saying. I'm just saying.

BP gives carbon cutting tips

Oil companies have started to hint in their advertising that easy oil will not last forever. Still, I was a little surprised to find that BP's site has a cheeky little Flash-based household carbon emissions calculator (complete with animated Fisher-Price men), advertised online with a tagline of "Small carbon footprints can make a big difference."

Despite a recent crackdown, Washington State’s raw-milk policy might point way forward.

In a nation riddled with diet-related maladies like obesity and diabetes, the official fear that greets raw milk is impressive.

You can waltz into any convenience store and snap up foods pumped liberally with government-subsidized high-fructose corn sweetener, deep-fried in government-subsidized partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Yet in many states, teams of bureaucrats devote themselves to "protecting" us from raw milk -- and imposing onerous fines on farmers who dare sell it.

Some states ban raw milk outright; others have erected elaborate barriers between farmer and consumer. Here in North Carolina, for example, I have to pretend I'm buying animal fodder when I visit a nearby dairy farm to pick up a gallon or two of raw milk.

Even so, consumers are increasingly demanding it, banding together with farmers to form Prohibition-like cells from New York City to Portland. To me, it tastes better, more alive, than even the best pasteurized milk; and I tend to believe the health claims made for it.

According to this AP article, Washington State is stepping up enforcement of its raw-milk restrictions, which are actually relatively enlightened.

Lewis on nuclear

I highly recommend everyone read the Judith Lewis story (cited by Biodiversivist below): "Green to the Core?"

It's as fair and comprehensive a look at the resurgent nuclear question as anything I've read.

Oddly, despite the subtitle -- "How I tried to stop worrying and love nuclear power" -- one reaches the end of the piece not at all sure that Lewis has stopped worrying. In fact she seems more worried than ever.

I have but one (rather large) quibble with the piece. Here's how it reads: It's a long examination of the very real dangers and pitfalls of nuclear power; and then, looming on the other side, you have Stewart Brand saying, "global warming would be worse."

Almost all green pro-nuclear arguments amount to this environmental Sophie's choice. Either you accept nuclear power or you get global warming. Pick your poison.

But Lewis doesn't really examine the very first and most important question: Must we accept that choice?

Is it really true that only nuclear power can ramp up fast enough to roll back CO2 emissions? Is coal the only other realistic alternative?

Lewis breezes past the question with a single quote from James Lovelock:

"We cannot continue drawing energy from fossil fuels, and there is no chance that the renewables, wind, tide and water power can provide enough energy and in time ... we do not have 50 years."

Why should we simply accept what Lovelock says?

It's fashionable to say something along these lines: To get the power we now get out of coal from wind you'd have to "carpet the Midwest with wind turbines" or some such. But this is a rhetorical gambit, not an argument.

The real question is: Could we achieve the same power shift, with the proper investment of resources, with a combination of conservation, wind, solar, and hydrokinetic power?

I'd like to think so. And I've yet to see a convincing argument that we couldn't. Shouldn't it be incumbent on advocates of nuclear power to make that argument convincingly before we hand over the keys to the shop?

Peak oil: Not an environmental silver bullet

Something's been bugging me about peak oil, and today we got a letter to the editor that crystallized it. I put it below the fold -- give it a read.

It's this: Environmentalists seem to have a somewhat naive faith that once the concept of peak oil sinks in, people will move -- as though by the force of tides -- to support renewable, decentralized energy.

But why should that be true? A much more natural, predictable reaction would be to push like mad for more drilling and for more coal gasification. Both more drilling and more coal-to-liquid-fuel production would fit better with our existing infrastructure and practices, however environmentally malign they may be.

The economics of peak oil will scare and motivate people, but there's no particular reason the environmental aspects of it will grip them. You know?

Anyway, read the letter.

Terry Kellogg, director of 1% for the Planet, answers questions

Terry Kellogg. What work do you do? I’m the executive director of 1% for the Planet. What does your organization do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute “mission accomplished”? 1% is a rapidly growing network of companies (more than 200 with a few more every week) that commit to giving at least 1 percent […]