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And Squad Said, Let There Be Blight

Judge orders dam spills in Northwest; critics may call on higher power Just two weeks after ruling that the Bush administration plan to protect Northwest salmon was inadequate, on Friday U.S. District Judge James Redden issued an order for large-scale spilling of water at a number of dams that are hindering the ability of juvenile […]

Who’s Minding the Shore?

Senate measures threaten to open U.S. coasts to drilling The battle to open up U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas drilling is escalating, with supporters in Congress pushing a number of pro-drilling bills and amendments. An energy-bill provision up for debate this week would mandate the first complete oil and gas inventory of all […]

If the Suit Fits, Wear It

BT and other multinationals call for action on climate change More and more prominent suits are issuing calls to action on global warming. The latest is Ben Verwaayen, chief exec of U.K. telecom company BT, who this week became the first Brit corporate bigwig to say publicly that climate change is hurting his business — […]

Environmentalism and liberalism shouldn’t be joined at the hip.

A couple of quick prefatory remarks -- several readers interpreted my earlier posting as an attack on liberalism. That was not my intent at all: While I am not a liberal, as the saying goes, "Some/most of my best friends are liberals." The only goal of the previous posting, and the one that follows, is to suggest the harm that comes from automatically coupling liberalism with environmentalism.

In my previous post, I discussed our movement's international problems. But back in America, we're not doing much better. When the American environmental movement began, Lake Erie was on fire, the bald eagle was on the verge of extinction, and L.A. was choking on its own smog. When environmental regulations seemed to reduce these problems, the public was all for them. But as regulations multiplied, environmentalism became associated in many minds with costly regulatory expenditures, failed Superfund clean-ups, and lots of bureaucratic red tape. Big government enviroliberalism took over a grassroots movement.

Why should liberalism be the Siamese twin of environmentalism? If I am pro-life, against affirmative action, or for private accounts in Social Security, does that mean I don't care about protecting forest ecosystems or saving blue whales?

Cities vs. those suburbs

Last week certainly was a "week to rejoice" if you love cities, although I think John Tierny missed the boat on exactly why. With the Accords signed, the sustainable (and not so sustainable) ranked, and the cul-de-sac revived and debunked, it was enough to give any aspiring urban planner a headache.

The statistics getting tossed around are staggering too. Just the first clause of the Urban Environmental Accords contains two rather impressive facts:

• The majority of the planet's population now (well, almost now) lives in cities;
• continued urbanization will result in one million people moving to cities each week.

And that got me thinkin': Whaddaya mean, "city?"

In search of the answer to this eloquent question, I headed to the webpages of the UN, since it is their Environment Program after all. Turns out that:

Because of national differences in the characteristics that distinguish urban from rural areas, the distinction between the urban and the rural population is not yet amenable to a single definition that would be applicable to all countries or, for the most part, even to the countries within a region.

Don't worry, our hero will not give up that easily; more below the fold.

Porous pavements potentially prevent problems

NPR's Living on Earth ran an interesting story this Saturday about porous pavements such as Ecocreto. In places where a good deal of the land surface area is made of impervious materials like regular concrete or pavement, rainwater can sometimes go unused, be discharged to the sea (think Los Angeles or Mexico City), and contribute to flash floods along the way. By absorbing the water and slowly releasing it, permeable concrete is designed to alleviate these issues.

Also available on their website is an interview [mp3] with Bruce K. Ferguson, director of the School of Enivironmental Design at the University of Georgia, on the same subject.

Environmentalism should look in the mirror to find the source of its troubles.

Hi ... my name is Jeremy Carl, and I'll be guest-blogging here for the next couple of weeks.

I'm currently a Visiting Fellow in resource and development economics at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi, India. I spent several years in the private sector and then a few more working with various environmental organizations in the states before moving here, where I spend my time researching and writing about various aspects of the enormous environment/development conundrum in India and China. In the fall, I'm leaving India to head off to Stanford to do a doctorate, continuing the work I have begun here.

For now, I'm going to use my bully pulpit to talk a little bit about my frustrations with our movement, where I think we are going wrong, and hopefully, what we can do to get back on the right track. I imagine I may tread on some toes -- but I hope we can have a spirited and respectful discussion.

I think modern American environmentalism commits two deadly sins: First, we are way too focused on domestic problems (thinking only locally and acting only locally). And second, I think environmentalism is far too monolithically liberal, which both hurts us politically and also impedes our ability to come up with good policy solutions. I'll focus on the first problem today and the second in a follow-up tomorrow.

Cooney resigns

Well I'll be damned. Philip Cooney, the White House operative at the center of the recent hullabaloo over editing government climate-change reports, has resigned.

Why, you ask?

Wait for it ...

wait for it ...

To spend time with his family!

Anybody wanna lay bets on how long it takes Cooney to find another lucrative lobbying job for the Fossil Faction?

Nanotech protestors get naked.

I'm not sure what to think of these boob-and-butt-baring environmental protests against nanotechnology by the creatively named THONG: Topless Humans Organized for Natural Genetics. I know very little about nanotech -- nor, I suspect, do the protesters, who as far as I can tell are from a reflexively luddite wing of the green movement that I don't have much brief for. I'm not entirely sold on the "precautionary principle" either. But I am fond of these sorts of flashy, media-baiting direct actions. So color me ambivalent.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I love the word "nanopants."

Friday link dump

I hate these link-dump posts. Really I do. But I only get to spend about half my time working on the blog, and so much good stuff rushes past ... whaddya gonna do? I don't want my faithful reader(s?) to miss any of it. So here goes:

• Moving Ideas (from The American Prospect) has set up a site on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (which they lamentably call ANWR), including tons of info and links to action. Check it out.
• From -- no kidding -- Cheese Market News, word that demand for organic milk is outstripping supply -- of course, I can't link directly to the story, because the site uses frames. Who still does that? But you can read the piece here. (via Jeff)
• A fascinating BBC story about the rise and fall of ethanol in Brazil in the 70s serves as a great lesson on how vulnerable green energy initiatives are to (among other things) the fluctuating price of oil. (via Mike)
• The Oil Drum briefly summarizes a radio interview with James Kunstler.
• Biomimicry is one of the things I'm fascinated by that, for whatever reason, I never get around to writing about here. The Economist has a nice, brief description of the phenomenon and some of its successes. (via TH)
• From Treehugger, word that Patagonia and Merrell are teaming up for a line of shoes (speaking of Patagonia, don't miss our interview with Yvon Chouinard, the company's founder), and an interesting piece on guilt-free biodiesel.
• Alex Steffen links to the video of a townhall discussion involving him, Andrew Light (who was once our InterActivist), Terry Tempest Williams (who once wrote us a series of Dispatches), Stuart Cowan, and David Conrad. Very interesting.
• And finally, a Yale poll reveals that the public overwhelmingly supports an energy policy that moves us toward energy independence.