Latest Articles

Chat with Simmons

The Washington Post is hosting a live chat with Matt Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert.

It starts three minutes ago. Check it out.

New Asia-Pacific climate pact is long on PR, short on substance

Staunch U.S. allies, enviro activists, and just about everyone else was caught flat-footed last week when the U.S., Australia, and four Asian countries unveiled a new pact intended to help curb greenhouse-gas emissions. In the days since, some details about the surprise alliance have trickled out, but its mission and intended impact remain murky. Known […]

Is P&G’s Tide Coldwater just more greenwashing?

Everyone who listens to Umbra knows you should wash your clothes in cold water. Sounds like the folks over at Procter & Gamble might be listening.

I give you Tide Coldwater.

Here is the marketing spiel from the Tide website:

Tide Coldwater provides a deep clean in the care of cold water, making it the coolest way to clean. When used in a cold water wash, Tide Coldwater can:

• Remove even stubborn stains better than the leading competitive liquid detergent in warm water
• Save energy and money by lowering your heating bills
• Help colors stay brighter and whites stay whiter
• Provide a cool new scent experience

Though I missed it, my TV-watching buddy tells me that they specifically mentioned the eco-friendly aspects of Tide Coldwater in a commercial. So, do we applaud or boo?

Oh, and you gotta love how they're trying to appeal to those outdoorsy types with their two scents: "Glacier -- a classic floral scent linked with fruity, woody, and citrus elements" and "Fresh Scent -- a modern floral scent combined with fresh, crisp herbal notes."

Update [2005-8-4 13:53:46 by Chris Schults]: Ok, so I found the TV commercials online here. While they don't specifically mention any environmental benefits, they do promote the energy and money saving aspects of washing with cold water. And we all know that reducing energy consumption is good for the environment. Though, who knows what chemical nastiness is in this version of Tide.

Weigh in on NEPA

Task force takes aim at NEPA, freaks out environmentalists

Rep. Richard Pombo meets the press in April. Photo: U.S. House of Representatives. You have to want to get to Nacogdoches, a Texas town that’s not on the way to anywhere. This eastern outpost, nearly 150 miles from Houston, is the oldest town in the state, with enough lore to fill volumes. It’s the site […]

Hybrid Fidelity

Toyota plans 10 new hybrids, invites automakers to eco-summit Toyota is developing 10 new hybrid models and aims within the next few years to be selling 1 million of the gas-electric vehicles annually worldwide. That, says the company’s U.S. head, Jim Press, will mean about 600,000 new Toyota hybrids each year on American roads, including […]

Spruce Almighty

Federal judge says Bush rule change on logging illegal The Bush administration broke the law last year when it changed the rules on logging in the Pacific Northwest, a federal judge ruled this week. The Northwest Forest Plan of 1994 requires the government to survey many proposed timber sales for the presence of rare plants […]

Two Chevrons Don’t Make a Right

Chevron may have paid agents of Nigerian military to attack villagers On Jan. 3, 1999, a number of residents of Opia, Nigeria, visited a Chevron oil rig to demand compensation for fishing gear destroyed by the oil company’s operations. On Jan. 4, Nigerian military personnel attacked and burned the villages of Opia and Ikenyan, leaving […]

Author declines to make pun, citing ‘posting rules’

The Milltown Dam at the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers near Missoula, Mont., will be removed, returning the rivers to their original flow by 2009, according to an agreement reached this week.

The folks over at Environmental Economics recently ran a post connecting such dam removals with cost-benefit analyses, pointing to a Time article, archived but available in PDF here.

The case of the Milltown Dam has an interesting additional layer to it, as the dam is also the largest Superfund site in the country. Toxic waste has piled up behind the dam as a result of mining in the area, to the tune of 6.6 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. Some waste will be completely removed while the rest will remain and be controlled at the site.

Strangely enough, $5 million of the $286.5 billion highway bill will be used to finance a park at the site, according to a New York Times article this morning.

Does respect for the former help the latter?

A while ago I posted about environmentalism and the religious worldview. I'm afraid that post was overbroad and led to a discussion about whether one can be a religious environmentalist (of course one can) and, more tediously, whether religion is "good" or "evil" overall.

But I had a more specific question in mind. Let me approach it from another direction.

This week Bush came out in favor of teaching "intelligent design" alongside evolution in school science classes.

I've been debating whether to post about this. This is an environmental blog. Is it an environmental issue?

I think it is, if only indirectly, if you accept the following three propositions: