Gristmill

Top 10 sustainable biz stories of 2004

I find myself tempted to link to just about every post on Joel Makower's blog, and this list of the ten biggest stories in green business in 2004 is no exception. As he says:

The bottom line: amid steady declines in ecosystem indicators and devastating rollbacks by the Bush Administration in environmental laws and enforcement, there's some good news to report. Companies seem to be stepping up to the plate -- or are being forced to do so by shareholders, activists, or competitors.

Glass half full and all that ...

UPDATE: If you'd like to get involved in green investing and "build a sustainable portfolio," check out this guide from Sustainable Business Insider and this gloss on it from Treehugger.

Dumb mongering

I don't want to get into the habit of flagging every piece of writing by a climate change skeptic -- it's a mug's game. But this column by Debra Saunders goes beyond the usual selective emphasis and obfuscation and crosses the line into, well, stupidity.

She starts by pointing out that no enviro has blamed global warming for the recent tsunamis. Right. That would be dumb. But, it seems, some have pointed out that rising sea levels -- which are attributable to global warming -- are likely to increase the damage done by future tsunamis. Saunders calls this "capitalizing on the tragedy." Uh ... what? Are the people pushing for the creation of a better early-warning system also capitalizing on the tragedy? How about the people advocating for a stable international aid organization? How exactly does pushing for action to reduce the impact of future tragedies amount to capitalizing on current ones?

Capitalizing on the tragedy would mean using it to make cheap political points against strawman opponents, and so far that seems to be a climate change skeptic's game. See Joel Makower and Chris Mooney for other examples.

After a jaw-droppingly uncritical paean to Michael Crichton's new book and the work of the well-funded skeptics upon which it is based, Saunders concludes with this gem:

On Dec. 29, National Geographic's Web site reported that while media accounts "frequently assert that climate change is uncertain," a UC San Diego professor read 928 scientific papers and found, "Not one of the papers refuted the claim that human activities are affecting the Earth's climate." (Funny, Crichton's 20-page bibliography found contrary opinions.)

The piece that Saunders didn't take the time to track down is here, and it refers to papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Yes, Crichton found plenty of skeptical sources, but none that had survived the process of peer review. That might have meant something to Saunders, were she not simply filling column inches with vapor to get to her risible, utterly unsupported concluding accusation:

...some global-warming true believers argue things that they know aren't true. And that makes them dangerous.

One can only shake one's head in wonder at the sight of the scientific community and environmental activists being branded "dangerous" by a group that includes a best-selling author, several mega-billion dollar industries, the think tanks they fund to produce and disseminate skeptical chaff, and a party that controls all three branches of government.

UPDATE: More on this from Chris Mooney.

Blair keeps warning of warming

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is keeping up attempts to push climate change at the next G8 meeting. His latest high profile statement is a by-invitation piece in the Dec. 29 issue of The Economist. He sets out the rationale for tackling climate change and African poverty and health challenges as Britain assumes the chair of the G-8 this month.

I fear he goes off track in dealing with the United States, however, when he says, "Through the G8, we have the opportunity to agree on what the most up-to-date investigations of climate change are telling us about the threat we face."

It is not about the science with the Bush administration. It is hard to conceive of an IPCC consensus that would change minds on Pennsylvania Ave. It will be the states, the private sector, and/or the faith-based communities that produced a changed policy. International conferences to debate what we know and what we don't know just offer more opportunities for opponents of action to emphasize scientific uncertainty.

Blair needs to adopt the winning U.S. election strategy of getting out the bases -- red states, big money, and the faithful.

Tsunami response

If you're wondering what to do about the Indian Ocean tsunami, here is some advice I trust from my friend Vicki Robin of the New Road Map Foundation and Conversation Cafe: make a donation to the Sri Lankan grassroots development movement Sarvodaya. (Back when I studied such things -- a dozen or more years ago -- I regarded the organization as among the best in Asia.)

Vicki passes along a note from a friend of hers named Sharif Abdulla:

BINGOs talk back about World Watch article

The debate rages on. World Watch magazine's new issue contains a whopping 16 pages of letters [PDF] in response to Mac Chapin's controversial article "A Challenge to Conservationists" [PDF], which accused big international conservation NGOs of trampling indigenous people's rights as the groups work to put ever-larger chunks of land under protection.  

“Climate variability”

Global warming, climate change, global climate change -- so 2004. The hipsters are now calling it "climate variability." Or, well, at least a few Bush admin spinmeisters are hoping they will be 'ere long.

In Buenos Aires earlier this month, when they weren't busy stymieing progress on Kyoto, U.S. reps were trying to get folks jazzed about the fresh coinage "climate variability." So much more pleasing to the ear than those stilted, passe climate phrases of yore. After all, variety is the spice of life!

Look forward to a lot of spicy weather ahead.

Top 100 science stories of 2004

Discover Magazine's January 2005 issue features a list of the 100 most important scientific discoveries and developments of 2004. The number one story? Global warming. Called "Turning Point," the magazine's three-page feature says that climate change evidence became overwhelming in 2004, and recalls many of the year's headlines, including Russia's signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the premiere of the blockbuster movie The Day After Tomorrow, and Schwarzenegger's vow to defend California's limits on CO2 emissions. It claims hopefully that "it's only a matter of time before the rising tide of evidence washes over the last islands of resistance in Washington." Well, I don't know about that, but greenies should feel heartened to know that a good number of environmental stories are represented in the top 100. Perhaps someone out there is listening.

Going local

The Bush Administration's plan to put greater control of National Forests into the hands of local forest rangers is provoking cries of outrage from the environmental movement and Democrats, as reported by many publications just before Christmas. I share the discontent but, unlike many of my mainstream environmental associates, I am attracted to one rather un-green reordering of public-lands governance. Just not this one.

Is “Clear Skies” really so ghastly?

David Whitman, in a compelling article in the Washington Monthly, argues that Bush's Clear Skies initiative is getting a bum rap from enviros. (He also argues that the much-vilified Jeff Holmstead, the Bush appointee who heads the EPA's Office for Air and Radiation, doesn't wholly deserve his anti-green rep.) Whitman asserts that the bill would do some real good, and debunks the widely repeated claim that the proposal would permit more pollution than the Clean Air Act. (Turns out there was more than met the eye to that bit about a secret EPA PowerPoint slide asserting that Clear Skies would make compliance cheaper and easier for utilities.)