Mongo and Found uncover the hidden pleasures of reduce-reuse-recycle

Flo and Channing, a pair of occasionally employed, twentysomething hipsters in lower Manhattan, live well. At least, they eat well. They favor sushi and vegetarian pizza and soy milk and artisan bread, and they also like to indulge in custard pastries, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate croissants, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. They're especially fond of waffles. And they eat it all for free. All they have to do is spend a few hours each night lurking outside restaurants, rescuing their favorite menu items from the trash. "Sometimes, people see what we're doing and say, eee-yew, how gross," says Flo. "Other times they offer to buy us a meal. We just say, no thanks, we have plenty of food here."

Bjorn again

Bjorn Lomborg has an editorial in yesterday's L.A. Times, presenting -- in extremely rudimentary form -- the results of his already notorious Copenhagen Consensus. While the composition of Lomborg's group and its specific conclusions have been harshly criticized -- in particular see John Quiggin's blog here, here, here, and here, and also this Disinfopedia entry -- it's worth saying that the enterprise itself is entirely worthy, if done properly and honestly.

It is true that aid money is not spent rationally. If it were possible to get a serious, empirical accounting of the world's problems from a wide variety of experts and use it to rationalize and prioritize spending, every enviro should be foursquare behind it, even if some enviro priorities get bumped down the list.

Sadly, Lomborg's enterprise bears little resemblance to that ideal.

Consensus

Via Chris Mooney: Naomi Oreskes has a short paper in the recent issue of Science in which she reports on her review of peer-reviewed climate science papers from 1993 to 2003.

Her results are stark: Not a single peer-reviewed scientific paper challenged the consensus that climate change is being driven by human activities. Not a single one. She concludes:

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

Smokestacks off the hook?

A flurry of stories today -- see, e.g., here -- report the results of a study that claims carbon (read: auto emissions) is at fault for pollution-related heart problems. The study lets sulfates (read: power plants) off the hook.

Reuters calls the Electric Power Research Institute, which conducted the study, an "independent, non-profit center for public interest energy and environmental research." According to Geoffrey Johnson over at The Green Life Blog, a little more skepticism is warranted.

An excerpt from The War Against the Greens takes a hard look at the Wise Use movement

In 1988, the Wise Use movement was founded out of fear that George Bush Sr. was going to live up to his campaign pledge to be "the environmental president." This cabal of anti-environmental activists, organized by federally subsidized industries dependent on public lands, issued a natal document, the Wise Use Agenda. It called for, among other things: drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, logging Alaska's Tongass National Forest, opening wilderness to energy development, gutting the Endangered Species Act, and privatizing national parks. Today, the reactionary Wise Use Agenda has become the environmental policy of the administration of George Bush Jr.

Organic is becoming popular … the horror!

An article in CorpWatch adeptly summarizes what strikes me as a classic dilemma facing enviro(nmentalist)s: Organic food is becoming more popular and the organic food industry is growing.  As it grows, large corporations are taking an interest, buying small organic companies, and attempting to supersize organic farming operations. By some estimates the percentage of organic food sold by organic markets has fallen from over 60 percent to just over 30 percent -- the rest taken up by Wal-Marty type stores (and a miniscule percentage by farmers' markets, food-buying clubs, and the like). Organic is going corporate.

Reactions, as you would expect, are split.

John Emory Parks, international marine expert, answers questions

What work do you do? I’m an international affairs specialist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal...

McCain ruffles GOP feathers with continued calls for action on climate change

McCain gets heated up. Presiding over his final hearing as chair of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee last...

Worldwatch kerfuffle

World Watch magazine's controversial article by Mac Chapin on how the Big Three conservation organizations are shafting indigenous peoples roiled the waters not just at those groups (World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International) but at Worldwatch itself. The upshot: The magazine's editor is fleeing the coop.