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Green quid pro quo for Liberia

William Powers has an intriguing editorial in the New York Times today arguing that Bush should help Liberia institute a sort of "Peace for Nature swap, based on the Debt for Nature model in which third world countries receive debt relief for conserving their natural heritage." The idea is that Liberia has something lots of folks want -- intact rain forest -- and they desperately need something we can help provide: stability. In exchange for setting its rain forest aside as a United Nations biosphere reserve, Liberia would receive U.N. peacekeeping, electricity and water, and training in new jobs based around ecotourism and limited logging. I think enviros should be skeptical about these schemes, vigilant against their historical tendency to value the rain forest over the long-term health and development of indigenous populations, but this sounds like an excellent plan to me, particularly given the grim alternatives Powers describes. An example of economic development driven by preservation of natural resources rather than exploitation thereof, sitting in the heart of Africa, would be, as Martha Stewart says, a good thing.

Deconstructing Inhofe

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.) is the chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. He thinks global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." He recently gave a speech on the floor of the Senate summarizing new science that he says supports his position. Chris Mooney utterly dismantles it.

UPDATE: Ah, yet another dismantling, more technical in nature, from the folks at RealClimate.

Umbra on plastic water bottles, again

Dear Umbra, After slurping away from a Nalgene bottle all summer, you struck me with the fear of petrochemicals. So I did some quick research on my own. My conclusion is that your Aug. 2 column is misleading, even though I’m very sympathetic to your argument regarding plastics. Upon inspection, I learned that most of […]

2004 climate change and energy wrap-up

An interesting summary of climate change and energy news from 2004 over on EDIE. (See also their contaminated land news round-up.)

UPDATE: A similar round-up of clean energy news from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Happy Monday!

A Somalian mother has to choose which of her children to save. Meanwhile, Americans knowingly and deliberately poison their children.

How toxic is your breast milk?

A nice treatment of this topic in today's New York Times Magazine, from Florence Williams.

When we nurse our babies, we feed them not only the fats, sugars and proteins that fire their immune systems, metabolisms and cerebral synapses. We also feed them, albeit in minuscule amounts, paint thinners, dry-cleaning fluids, wood preservatives, toilet deodorizers, cosmetic additives, gasoline byproducts, rocket fuel, termite poisons, fungicides and flame retardants.

If, as Cicero said, your face tells the story of your mind, your breast milk tells the decades-old story of your diet, your neighborhood and, increasingly, your household decor. Your old shag-carpet padding? It's there. That cool blue paint in your pantry? There. The chemical cloud your landlord used to kill cockroaches? There. Ditto, the mercury in last week's sushi, the benzene from your gas station, the preservative parabens from your face cream, the chromium from your neighborhood smokestack.

Williams very effectively uses the personal angle of breastfeeding her daughter to approach the larger topic of toxic substances in our environment, brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) in particular. Yes, it's a highly approachable article on flame retardants -- imagine that.

The North knows best?

DDT is very effective at killing the mosquitoes that carry malaria.  Malaria kills 2 to 3 million people a year.  These people, the bulk of whom are children and the elderly, live in the global South, the tropics of the developing world.

DDT doesn't just hurt mosquitoes. The United States and most Northern countries have banned its usage because of its threat to animal and human health.  These bans are extended to the foreign assistance that flows North to South.

Is the ban the "best" thing for those facing the imminent threat of malaria in developing countries?

Re-Bay

eBay joins tech companies to launch electronics recycling program Wondering what to do with that old Commodore 64 or Macintosh II gathering dust in your basement? According to an eBay survey, you’re not alone — some 50 percent of American households have unwanted PCs in storage. That’s why the online auction giant has launched an […]

Rocky Road-Widening

Tragic accident pits Virginia town against strip mine The small town of Appalachia, Va., in the heart of coal country, seemed an unlikely spot for an outbreak of public opposition to strip mining. But that changed in the dark early-morning hours of Aug. 20, 2004, when a bulldozer widening a road to a strip mine […]

Father of the Bribe

Monsanto agrees to pay $1.5 million in penalties for Indonesian bribes When agrochemical giant Monsanto’s bid to introduce genetically modified cotton to Indonesia was met with widespread protests from farmers and activists, it bribed a government official in order to avoid having an environmental impact study conducted on its GM crop. Yesterday Monsanto agreed to […]