Latest Articles
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An interview with Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists
The Bush administration is gearing up to push for second-term priorities — including an energy bill, power-plant emissions legislation, and amendments to the Endangered Species Act — under a cloud of accusations that it has manipulated federal scientific research on these and other issues to support its agenda. These arguments have been voiced most prominently […]
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True preparedness
Most of the Northwest's coast is equipped with early warning systems for tsunamis. (See, for example, this article from the Newport (Oregon) News-Times.) But that doesn't make us immune from giant earthquakes and the resulting tsunamis. The 1964 Alaska earthquake was actually bigger on the Richter scale than the recent Indonesian temblor, and it set off a giant wave that swept a few Oregonians and Washingtonians to their deaths. A similar-scale quake and wave with more-local origins likely occurred around 1700, according to a good article in the Coos Bay (Oregon) World.
Flooding rivers pose a similar threat. They're typically not as sudden as tsunamis, but far more northwesterners are exposed to them. And unlike tsunamis, river flooding is an annual occurrence, with massive floods coming once or twice in a lifetime. (As climate changes, the severity of flooding may be accelerating.)
And though we have more systems in place, preparedness in the form of disaster kits, escape routes, and early-warning sirens is still a pale imitation of true preparedness for high waters.
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Adieu, Adieu, to You and You and … No, Not You, Missouri
United States of Grist fund-raiser draws to a semi-triumphant close Our United States of Grist fund-raiser is over. The great news is, we met — nay, exceeded! — our goal of $50,000, coming in with an impressive (to us) $56,276. Many thanks to everyone who donated. We’re going to earn it — wait ’til you […]
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Hunted Like the Wolf
Wolf population controls shifted to states, landowners Wolves in Idaho and Montana will soon be easier to kill, thanks to new regulations requiring them to run more slowly through livestock areas. Ah, we kid. In fact, new federal rules will give landowners in the two states the OK to fire on wolves they reasonably believe […]
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Traders to the Cause
E.U. launches mandatory carbon-trading market With the new year began a “new era for European business,” according to Peter Koster, head of the fledgling European Climate Exchange, the world’s first mandatory market for carbon emissions trading. Under the Kyoto Protocol, ratified in October and set to go into force in February, the European Union agreed […]
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Darling Nikki
EPA inspector general making enemies on Capitol Hill Nikki Tinsley, the inspector general of the U.S. EPA, is ruffling feathers in Washington, D.C., these days. A registered independent appointed by President Clinton in 1999, she has developed a reputation for integrity, professionalism, and steely resolve. She views her job not simply as monitoring for fraud […]
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Batting a Thousand
Bats dying in worrying numbers at Appalachian wind farms Unexpectedly high numbers of bat deaths at wind farms in West Virginia and Pennsylvania have caught scientists by surprise and made conservationists anxious. Whether the spinning turbines entice the bats or confuse their sonar navigation is unclear, but researchers say an estimated 1,500 to 4,000 bats […]
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Ending global poverty
Environmentalists are often hamstrung by their own category, prevented by the narrow confines of what counts as "environmental" from commenting on subjects that have immense, if indirect, environmental effects. (This is one of the principal critiques of the movement in "The Death of Environmentalism" (PDF), about which Grist will have much, much more to say in coming weeks.)
Case in point: global poverty. While not directly "environmental," the persistance of extreme poverty in several parts of the world leads directly to deforestation, water table depletion, and a host of other eco-ills.
With this in mind I recommend this Alex Steffen post on ending global poverty. It's not a pipe dream -- not even, as it turns out, very expensive. And the environmental (not to say simple human) benefits would be legion.
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NYT bashes new forest-management rules
The New York Times editorial page has a lucid take on the Bush admin's new forest-management rules. Daily Grist summarized the basic news here, but the NYT digs a little deeper into the likely ramifications of the policy overhaul -- and the Gray Lady doesn't like what she sees:
The ostensible purpose of the change is to streamline a cumbersome management process and give individual forest managers more flexibility to respond to threats like wildfires and the increasing use of the forests by off-road vehicles. But the new rules would also eliminate vital environmental reviews, as mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, jettison wildlife protections that date to President Ronald Reagan, restrict public input, and replace detailed regulations, like those limiting clearcuts and protecting streams, with vague "results-based" goals. These are unacceptably high costs to pay for regulatory efficiency.
More broadly, the whole idea of giving local managers more flexibility defies history, however reasonable it appears on the surface. The main reason Congress enacted the National Forest Management Act in 1976 was that the public had lost confidence in the Forest Service, not only local foresters but also their bosses in Washington, who seemed mainly interested in harvesting timber no matter what the cost to the forest's ecological health.
