Articles by Geoff Dabelko

Future funding fortunes

According to analysis by the National Committee on Science and the Environment, budgets for the EPA and most non-defense science agencies would be cut under the Omnibus Appropriations bill Congress passed over the weekend. NCSE says:

...the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would decline by approximately $345 million or 4.1 percent to $8.02 billion in FY 2005. EPA's Science and Technology account would decline by approximately 4.9 percent to $744 million.

You can access more of NCSE's budget analysis of the supposedly 1,689 page document.

NCSE puts on a good annul conference in Washington by the way -- next year's is entitled Forecasting Environmental Change and runs 3-4 February 2005. Register by December 3 for a cut rate registration fee.

Kyoto Kicks In

Mark your calendar -- the U.N. has designated February 16, 2005, as the day the Kyoto Protocol comes into force. The Russians gave U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan their official notice of ratification today in Nairobi where the Security Council is meeting.  Read more from BBC or the U.N.

Watch Water Wiz

Fresh water continues to fight for a fraction of the attention and resources commonly devoted to Northern favorites biodiversity and climate change. It shouldn't be a zero sum game, but that is a rant for a different day.

If you want to hear one of the world's water experts, tune in on-line Wednesday, November 17 at 10 am EST to hear Dr. Peter Gleick, director of the Pacific Institute and MacArthur genius award winner, discuss his new book The World's Water 2004-2005: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Every two years Peter and his colleagues put out a new World's Water volume with a mix of critical topics. This year's edition covers the inadequate commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, the myth and reality of bottled water, the privatization controversy, the economic value of water, the unsustainable use of groundwater, and climate change's effect on water resources.

This session with Peter Gleick is the first of many webcast meetings here at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, my home institution, which I will occasionally plug.  
UPDATE: A summary of this meeting including Dr. Gleick's powerpoint slides is now available.

Pandas versus people?

In the current issue of World Watch Magazine, Mac Chapin throws down the gauntlet to the biggest of the bigs in the conservation world -- The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and the World Wildlife Fund. This piece is bound to stir up a heated debate about conservation organizations taking private sector and government funding and about how they are using it. The abstract reads:

As corporate and government money flow into the big three international organizations that dominate the world's conservation agenda, their programs have been marked by growing conflicts of interest--and by a disturbing neglect of the indigenous people whose land they are in the business to protect.