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Ansje Miller sends a dispatch from a conference on transportation and justice

Ansje Miller is a program director for Redefining Progress and staffs the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, a consortium of environmental-justice, religious, and policy groups. Sunday, 20 Feb 2005 LOS ANGELES, Calif. Driving down California’s Interstate 5 from Oakland to Los Angeles, the need for a new vision for the future of transportation was […]

Still more vision talk

The discussion described in this post and this post, about whether there's a need in environmentalism, and progressivism more broadly, for a uniting narrative or Grand Vision is continuing. I don't know if anybody but me is interested or following this, but if there are fellow wonks out there, let me catch you up (start by reading the two posts linked above).

Contest: sustainability for college students

Joel Makower (yes, yes, I know I link to all his posts) has a bit of a contest running. He received this query from a reader:

I am teaching a college course this semester on Sustainable Science and Technology and was wondering if you had any suggestions for a one-hour activity that would engage students to learn and possibly apply some of the fundamentals of sustainability.

He's soliciting ideas and offering a nice prize for the best one. Go brainstorm with him.

The gall of Small

A little over a year ago, federal investigators found that Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence Small's private collection of Amazonian artifacts contained several hundred items (mostly feathers) that violated, among other laws, the Endangered Species Act. He was convicted in Jan. 2004 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

He is now arguing that he should be allowed to use those 100 hours to read books on, chat with politicians about, and lobby to change what he calls an "outmoded" law.

U.S. Attorney Frank Whitney told U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle, who is handling the case, that Small shouldn't be allowed "to satisfy his obligations to the community for his criminal conduct by reading and chatting with prominent political figures. To do so would minimize his criminal activities and remove any deterrent value of his sentence."

Allowing Small "to spend time learning about the Endangered Species Act so that he may change the law he violated fails to promote respect for the Endangered Species Act."

You think?

(Via Kevin Drum via Sam Heldman)

Sustainability Sunday

Sustainability Sunday over on Worldchanging is always good reading, but today's is particularly meaty. Don't miss Gil Friend on Kyoto and sustainable business, Mike Millikin on the state of sustainable transportation, and Jamais Cascio on the need for distributed computing systems to run future energy grids:

... distributed energy is currently more costly than centralized power (PDF). Some of that cost comes from managing the complexity of variable power generation, changing usage patterns, and a multiplicity of sources. Distributed energy resources will have to be managed more like a computer network, complete with abundant routers and switches. The success of distributed energy is ultimately dependent upon the increasing availability of computer-enabled power networks, or "smart grids." And smart grids for distributed power, in turn, will increasingly rely upon the availability of distributed computing.

Also, while you're over there, you might as well check out the Jon Lebkowsky post on efforts by telecom corporations to shut down municipal provision of free wireless service, and the larger implications thereof.

Easterbrook’s lies on “Clear Skies”

Ever since his 1995 book A Moment on the Earth I have been disappointed by Gregg Easterbrook's message that because we have made so much progress in cleaning up our environment, we need not remain vigilant in fighting to protect our air, water, and natural places from those who would profit from their destruction. During the Bush administration's tenure, for the first time since our environmental laws were passed, key environmental indicators (such as urban air quality and rate of cleanup of our toxic waste sites) are reversing.

Easterbrook's latest missive, "Clear Skies, No Lies," regurgitates arguments and statistics fabricated by the nation's largest polluters and oft cited by the Bush-Cheney administration in its war on our environmental protections -- particularly when touting its "Clear Skies" bill.

Markets, etc.

I agree with every word of this post on the Commons blog, and almost every word of the Michael DeAlessi-authored report to which it points (thought admittedly I only read the short version (PDF)). It also met with approval from Sustainablog and EnviroPundit. The basic point is that private efforts at conservation are often more flexible and effective than government programs. An ancillary point is that mainstream environmentalists often resort reflexively to government when looking to address environmental problems. Both true.

Commons is, of course, written by libertarians -- or as they call themselves, "free market environmentalists" -- and I usually disagree with them. If I'm behind private conservation efforts, why do I disagree with them?

The hockey stick

The folks over at the Indispensable RealClimate.org set out to write a "Dummies Guide to the Latest 'Hockey Stick' Controversy" "in language even our parents might understand." It's a great read, as always, but all I can say is, they must have really smart parents.

Cities Slicker

Seattle, other U.S. cities to hammer out their own Kyoto-like reductions The Kyoto Protocol has arrived, and though the Bush administration has opted out, others in the U.S. are not so climate oblivious. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced Wednesday he’s leading an effort to get major U.S. cities to agree to Kyoto-like reductions of their […]

It Takes a Pillage to Raze the Wild

Illegal logging operation in Indonesia feeds China’s appetite for wood A three-year investigation of some of the last remaining intact tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region has revealed an enormous international smuggling ring, possibly the largest in the world involving a single type of wood, says a report from two enviro groups. In a billion-dollar-a-year […]