Latest Articles

How a plan to return big beasts to North America raised hackles and hopes

Every damn kid in the U.S., son of cabbie or Catholic, knows and cares about dinosaurs. But few have heard of gomphotheres, which lived here much more recently. Cheetahs never win. In the late summer, this North American elephant — along with some of its contemporaries, like American camels, cheetahs, lions, and giant tortoises — […]

Biodiversivist

Word has it that the city of Seattle is planning to expand its north-end transfer station (garbage relay pit) to include a recycling center. They intend to invoke imminent domain on the old bakery just to the east of the existing facility. I surely hope their plans include a better way to collect hazardous waste.

Tonight on Wife Swap

Oh dear ...

Monday, November 7, 8/7c, "Heiss/Kestrel"
A woman who does everything and more for her three super-indulged children and her "man-of-the-house" husband swaps lives with an energy-conserving, hippie mom whose family does all housework together and whose husband likes to wear a skirt.

Via TH.

Unlikely allies send a dispatch from an enviro-justice tour in MichiganLynn:

Lynn Henning (left) is a farmer whose family grows corn and soy on 300 acres in Hudson, Mich. She is an organizer with the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels program, testing local rivers and creeks for contamination from factory farms. Rhonda Anderson (right) is a single mother and longtime community activist in Detroit. She is an […]

A southern Idaho reservoir is contaminated with mercury

Yoiks: A southern Idaho reservoir is contaminated with mercury at levels up to 180 times higher than those found in lakes in the Northeast U.S. From the Idaho Statesman:

"Nobody's ever seen a hot spot like this before," said Mike DuBois, an air quality analyst at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

The likely culprit: four gold mines across the border in northern Nevada, which emitted 15,000 pounds of mercury in 2002 alone. Of course, the mines are patting themselves on the back for reducing their mercury releases to just a couple of tons per year as of 2004. But that's still a huge amount of mercury for just a handful of mines. The 1,000-odd coal-fired electricity industry generators in the U.S. emit a total of 48 tons of mercury each year; so those few Nevada mines make up a disproportionately large share of the nation's total mercury output.

And just in case you need a reason to care about this: mercury contamination early in life can knock a few points off a kid's IQ, which, in addition to being grossly unfair, costs nearly $9 billion a year in lost earnings.

Sunday night television

There was some interesting television on last night.

First, there was the live (fictional) presidential debate on The West Wing, wherein the two candidates tossed out the rules in an effort to give viewers the type of debate that they've yearning for since the last round of real presidential debates. And according to a MSNBC/Zogby poll (!), Rep. Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), D-Texas, edged out Sen. Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), R-Calif.

I'm not sure how viewer submitted questions worked into the show, but they did manage to field a few energy questions, which prompted a brief exchange on global warming. And speaking of global warming ...

Afterwards, on CBS, Category 7: The End of the World was airing. Now I know I'm advocating for more enviro themes in television and film, but I expect such attempts to be well-produced. Sadly, I had to force myself to watch.

Junk food: The Senate trashes organic standards

The Senate succumbed last week to food-industry pressure and approved a rider that would water down organic standards. (Grist's Amanda Griscom Little a few weeks ago ably laid out the context behind the Senate's surrender.)

This AP article states that a Senate vote last Thursday ...

... unravels a court ruling on whether products labeled "USDA Organic" can contain small amounts of nonorganic substances. Earlier this year, an appeals court ruled that nonorganic substances such as vitamins or baking powder can't be in food bearing the round, green seal.

As I understand it, the real issue isn't that baking powder and vitamins will be allowed in food labeled "USDA organic." Ominously, the Senate's act would strip power to decide which synthetic substances can and cannot be used from the National Organic Standards Board, a 15-member panel made up of  a mix of farmers, processors, retailers, scientists, consumer advocates, environmentalists, and certifying agents. Although the board is appointed by the USDA chief, it has acted independently -- and by most accounts, responsibly -- in its ten-year history, approving only 38 synthetic ingredients.

If the Senate bill becomes law, the power to decide what synthetics can go into "organic" food would be shifted directly to the USDA -- that bastion of food-industry flackery.

The greening of San Fran

I knew some cool stuff was going on down in San Francisco, but this report from Clean Edge is pretty amazing. Apparently, when mayor Gavin Newsom said last year that he wanted to implement Clean Edge's recommendations, he wasn't kidding. Joel Makower reports on the past year's progress:

• The Mayor has named a clean-tech manager, Jennifer Entine-Matz, to coordinate citywide clean-tech initiatives, market and execute San Francisco's clean-tech business attraction strategy, and work with the new advisory council.

• The Board of Supervisors last month approved a payroll tax exemption for qualified clean-tech companies doing business in San Francisco.

• Several city agencies are working to create a fast-track permitting program for new commercial buildings that meet the LEED green-building standards.

• The Mayor recently signed the Precautionary Purchasing Ordinance, which creates a comprehensive system for the city to identify, purchase, and use environmentally preferable products. San Francisco is the first city in the U.S. to adopt an ordinance of this kind.

There's plenty more -- check out Joel's post and the report.

Looks like San Fran is on track to become the country's greenest city, and Newsom is on track to become one of my political heroes.

Steve Blackmer, founder of the Northern Forest Center, answers questions

Steve Blackmer. What work do you do? I’m the president of the Northern Forest Center, based in Concord, N.H. What does your organization do? We work to revitalize the rural economy and communities and conserve the forests of the 30-million-acre Northern Forest region of northernmost New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine — the largest […]

Umbra on waiting for warm water

Dear Umbra, You know how, when you turn on the hot water in an old building, it usually takes a while for it to kick in? Well, my question is, if I turn on the tap full blast, will the hot water come sooner? Is it the amount of water you let run, or the […]