Gristmill

NYT on DoE

Many of you have probably already seen this, but the New York Times covered the "Death of Environmentalism" controversy on Sunday. Grist's coverage and online "forum" were mentioned prominently in the story, appearing on the front page of the national edition.

No real point to this post, other than to preen a little. Don't hate us because we're beautiful.

If not dead, then illin’

Michael Milstein of the Portland Oregonian delves into the sickly state of the environmental movement, focusing in on the Beaver State. It's the Death of Environmentalism quandary distilled down to the state level -- and it's a bummer.

"The environmental community seems to be at a new low for the amount of influence it has," said Noah Greenwald, a biologist based in Portland for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Dancing ladies bring joy to wee island

No, not that kind of dancing lady. We're talking wind turbines.

In the ongoing saga of how they do it better in the U.K., the scrappy residents of Gigha, a tiny island in Scotland's Inner Hebrides, built themselves three turbines. They partnered with a company called Green Energy U.K., and a couple of weeks ago, this greenpower project saw its first green. Profits from the community enterprise, expected to reach the equivalent of $140,000 a year, will go toward housing and other improvements. The 98-foot-tall turbines, fondly known as "dancing ladies," can also provide two-thirds of the island's energy.

To give you an idea what kind of place Gigha is, check out how its 100-odd residents approved the turbine project: "The decision to go ahead on Gigha was made via a unanimous show of hands, by islanders, in the village hall."

It's not the first time these activist islanders have rallied 'round a cause. In 2002, when a private owner put the seven-mile-long chunk of land on the block, residents decided to buy it, with the help of grants and a million-pound loan. To pay back the loan (nearly $2 million), they held quiz nights, soup 'n' sandwich days, and rows around the island -- oh yeah, and sold a huge 19th-century mansion now open as a B&B. See the whole story, including drawings of the turbines by some of the island's 13 schoolchildren. Yeehaw, Gigha!

An interview with Michael Pollan

The always interesting TomDispatch is reprinting an interview with Michael Pollan, author of the widely hailed Botany of Desire. It's good reading.

Benign biotech

The environmental movement's opposition to genetically modified foods has always struck me as rather sloppy and knee jerk. While there are certainly evil corporations involved and real harmful effects possible, the issue seems to call for pragmatic approach, concerned with technique rather than good and evil. Perhaps the problem with GMO crops is not inherent in the very notion of genetic manipulation, but rather in the way they are developed, who owns the results, and who profits. (The same might be said of any number of technologies that enviros have typically recoiled from.)

For instance, I'm a big fan of open-source biotech.

The whole corporatized system [of biotechnology], however, rests on the ability to hoard information. The information and its dissemination have to be owned through government-granted patents and licenses, if the discoverer is to make big money on it. In one way, that's fine. The prospect of profits inspires research and our increasingly corporatized system has produced some notable medical breakthroughs and innovations....
...
But hoarding information clashes directly with another imperative of scientific progress: that information be shared as quickly and widely as possible to maximize the chance that other scientists can see it, improve on it, or use it in ways the original discoverer didn't foresee.
...
A small but growing number of scientists, most of them funded by the National Institutes of Health, are conducting cutting-edge research into the most complex problems of biology not in highly secure labs but on the Internet, for all the world to see. Called "open-source biology," this work is the complete antithesis of corporatized research. It's a movement worth watching--and rooting for.

Indeed. Not only are there considerable scientific and health benefits possible, but it also opens the way for local populations to develop solutions to their unique problems, particularly in developing nations.

Worldchanging has covered this before, and now they bring word of a concrete example: NERICA.

Developed by Dr. Monty Jones of the West Africa Rice Development Agency (WARDA), NERICA is a hybrid strain of rice, developed using biotech by West African researchers, which is on its way to bettering the health of West and Central African citizens, restoring agricultural sustainability, and improving the economics of food importation for the region.

Go check it out. This is something for future-minded enviros to keep their eyes on.

Enron

One often hears from opponents of renewable energy that wind, solar, biodiesel, etc. are not ready to compete in the market. Let us never forget, then, that the energy market is woefully rigged in a thousand different ways. What renewables lack is not economic potential but political patronage.

For a particularly galling vignette from that rigged market, read this NYT story on Enron.

Hybrid ceiling?

Interesting.  J.D. Power and Associates has released a report saying that the market for hybrids will top out at a 3% share in 2010, primarily due to the three or four thousand dollar premium consumers have to pay above a comparably non-hybrid.  Green Car Congress has some reflections.

Last Crichton post, I promise. Probably.

OK, I really shouldn't be giving Crichton this much attention for writing a dumb book, but just two more items. First, I forgot to draw attention to a great article by Seth Borenstein (whom I heart) on scientists' reactions to State of Fear. As usual, Borenstein doesn't pussyfoot around.

Second, just one last observation about the book. It starts with a series of vignettes in which nefarious characters -- a beautiful, raven-haired European woman, a broad-shouldered man in glasses, etc. -- buy, steal, and occasionally kill for the equipment they need to engineer huge natural disasters. You're reading this, wondering who these people are, how their stories will play out. But then... they don't show up again after the first chapter! Seriously! They just vanish, never to be heard from again. It's like Crichton started writing a complicated, intricate thriller, but after a chapter or two just couldn't be bothered. Amazingly lazy. Just astonishing.

OK, I'm done.

Tell us about your favorite eco-magazines made of paper

Advice guru Umbra Fisk seeks your suggestions on good green-themed dead-tree publications. A New Zealander wrote in saying her kids won't listen to anything she says about the internet -- that would be like wearing clothes she picked out! They will, however, read print (yeah, we had to look it up too) magazines that she leaves lying around. So she asks Umbra about good print magazines on environmental and social issues.  Umbra's print experience is limited to the weighty reference volumes in her basement stacks, so she's turning to you, readers. Submit your recommendations as comments. Tell Umbra and other readers what print mags you like, and while you're at it, remind us why you still read print mags.