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Market mechanisms are the last best hope for many of the world’s most threatened animals.

In a few days, I will be off for a week of exploring/fact-finding in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. While I normally don't consider my personal travels to be newsworthy, I share this with Gristmill readers because Chhattisgarh is a classic example of why environmental governance in countries like India is so difficult -- and why government statistics about the environment in developing countries can rarely be relied on.

Chhattisgarh is one of the forgotten parts of India. Despite representing almost 1/10th of India's landmass and containing 22 million people, it might as well be in another universe -- not just from the perspective of the outside world (crack open your 1,000-page Lonely Planet or Rough Guide to India and you will be lucky to find even a page or two on Chhattisgarh) but to India's own government. Even the hyperactive newspapers in major metros rarely mention news from or post reporters in Chhattisgarh, which is India's most forested state (officially), with 44% forest cover, and has perhaps India's richest overall bounty of natural resources. The state is also home to a 32% tribal population, a community suffering some of the most extreme poverty and with among the lowest literacy rates in India, barely 20% in many areas.

Getting to the bottom of climate-change lingo

Remember when you first heard about that big hole in the ozone? Remember how they called it “the ozone hole”? Man, life was good then. Raise your hand if you’re sure … what you’re talking about. Now everyone’s talking about global warming. Or, actually, climate change. Or … uh … anthropogenic forcing? What we’ve got, […]

Hey, Drillers, Leave Our State Alone

Oil and gas inventory may come soon to a coastline near you The Senate effectively approved an inventory of oil and gas reserves in U.S. coastal waters yesterday, a move that could help open the door for offshore drilling to begin after a decades-long moratorium expires in 2012. The 52-44 vote defeated an amendment sponsored […]

A View to a Killing

Silicon Valley investors putting big bucks into clean-tech start-ups Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists are seeing green in clean energy — and we’re talking gobs of profit, not the whole planet-saving thing. Investor interest in clean-energy tech firms has jumped in the past year, fueled in part by escalating global demand for electricity and the rising […]

Stickin’ It to the Mandatory

Senate passes weak climate amendment Greens were struck with a severe case of mixed feelings yesterday, as the Senate passed an energy-bill amendment to address global warming (yay!) but passed over a different, tougher amendment (boo!). The latter, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), would have imposed mandatory controls on industrial greenhouse-gas emissions (though it […]

Umbra on shaving, part two

Dear Umbra, I just read your response about men’s shaving, but what about women? I don’t see many women shaving with straight razors, plus we have the depilatory cream and waxing options too. What’s our best option, especially for those of us who just hate dealing with it, but must? CatherineAppleton, Wis. Dearest Catherine, Although […]

Nuclear and drilling: whatever happened to NIMBY?

Today's LA Times headline should be no surprise by now: "Nuclear Industry Lays Foundation for Comeback." However, here's the opening paragraph:

CLINTON, Ill. -- Along the streets of this economically depressed farming town, optimism is running high that a proposed nuclear power plant could bring in new jobs, give a boost to local retailers and increase taxes for schools.

While the risks of a nuclear plant in your backyard are high, the benefits are great too. I personally know that Perry, Ohio has the nicest high school and athletic facilities around because of the revenue it got from the nuclear facility there.

Drilling in the Arctic Refuge also enjoys popular support from Alaskans.

If we are going to oppose these measures, what can be done to convince the people who will see the most benefits from such projects that it really isn't a good idea? We are facing an uphill battle when rebate checks or increases in school funding are so concentrated and have such a large impact on a small number of people.

Literally!

One of the charges leveled against New Urbanism and the idea of planned development in general is that it tries to sculpt cities in a way that the planners feel is appropriate, with little regard to what the people actually living in the cities might think. Ideally, perfectly informed people would express their preferences through a perfectly informed housing market, price signals would be sent and received, and the "correct" amount of "greenness" or sustainability or whatever would be determined by how much people were willing to pay for such things.

Of course, no such situation exists, in the housing or any other market. One part of the housing and development market that just screams "externality" is the issue of blight. Clusters of abandoned property are often seen as unrecoverable by the private sector, unless you're Donald Trump and have a lot of money to sink into it. I was at a lecture earlier this spring with a speaker (can't remember the name -- he worked in Trenton, NJ) who said that on half the property in Trenton, if you put a $100,000 house on the lot the property is still worth less than than that, usually around $75,000. I don't remember specifically that blight was the force at work there, but there are significant impacts on a lot when everything around it is abandoned; National Vacant Properties Campaign has some good statistics on the matter.

So, in a case of extreme blight we have a market failure on our hands. As long as government intervention is necessary anyway, why not let the "sculptors" go to town (!) and do some things that the free market doesn't do that well on its own, like plan for the long term and make things renewable? (Besides the fact that it's much, much easier said than done, that is.)

Can the moon provide infinite clean, cheap energy?

Ok, since no one else has been brave enough to post this one ... from Wired re: Chip Proser's new documentary, Gaia Selene:

The moon, the film argues, will provide the Earth with infinite clean, cheap energy. Our ailing globe will stabilize. Wealth and good fortune will spread throughout the planetary system.

Not sold yet? Nibble on this:

Gaia Selene begins by building a picture of an Earth on the verge of environmental collapse. Global demand for energy is spiking. Nukes (too dangerous) and fossil fuels (dirty and limited) are problematic. With no earthly solution on the horizon, Gaia Selene insists we look to space, where we'll find two sources of cheap, clean energy.

And once we establish our moon base, we'll head out to explore the galaxy using our no-energy-required solar sails!

Luna, here I come! Who's with me?

An interview with activists at the Prison Moratorium Project

Khaleaph Luis (left) and Prince S. Say “criminal justice” and very few people think of the environment. But in reality, there’s a complicated relationship between the work of environmentalists, who are trying to encourage a more responsible attitude toward our planet and everything on it, and those moving in and out of the prison-industrial complex, […]