international politics

Chertoff lies, wildlife dies

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced yesterday that he's going to just waive the Endangered Species Act, the Toxic Waste Disposal Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (among many others) in order to plough ahead with building a wall along the Arizona-Mexico border in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.

He repeated his rationale that the wall could be good for the environment because migrants leave behind trash:

But there are also environmental reasons to stop illegal crossings in the SPRNCA. Illegal entrants leave trash and high concentrations of human waste, which impact wildlife, vegetation and water quality in the habitat. Wildfires caused by campfires have significantly damaged the soil, vegetation, and cultural sites, not to mention threatened human safety.

As anyone who's spent any time along the border (or, really, anywhere on the planet) can attest, this statement is a complete lie. A little pile of trash in the wilderness might be unsightly, but it has nowhere near the effect of a giant, honking, double layered concrete wall. (Which, um, is a little more unsightly, if that's the standard we're going by.)

Since when is a wall a solution to trash anyway? I think usually, Mr. Chertoff, the way people clean up trash is by picking it up. What jaguars and bobcats and Sonoran pronghorn antelope and ocelots need is not a trash-free wilderness, but a wilderness that doesn't cut them off from the breeding populations on the other side of the border. Increased Bush administration border activity and the climate crisis have already reduced populations of the endangered Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope from 500 to below 25.

A new sustainable development report from an international panel — only sexy and exciting!

The InterAcademy Council, a group representing 150 scientific academies around the world, has just issued a new report: "Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future." I know what you’re thinking: hot damn, a long-ass new PDF! The report, commissioned by the governments of Brazil and China, "lays out the science, technology and policy roadmap […]

HSA waives environmental and social laws to keep the Mexicans out

Attentive readers of Grist’s news feed will know that yesterday Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff waived a few laws in order to get going on the 700-mile border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. A judge ruled a few weeks ago that Chertoff was steamrolling the environmental review process and should halt construction immediately, but […]

Soviet-induced water crises push Eastern European nations to consider solutions

The following is a guest essay from Eric Pallant, professor of environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water Resources Management. He is reporting from the National Disasters and Water Security conference in Yerevan, Armenia.

-----

October 19, 2007

I have to hand it to NATO for dishing out money to sponsor Advanced Research Workshops on environmental security. And I must congratulate Armenia for organizing Natural Disasters and Water Security: Risk Assessment, Emergency Response, and Environmental Management. It shows recognition on the part of both parties that security involves more than advanced weaponry. Conference Director Dr. Trahel Vardanian, in a wide-wale pinstripe suit, does not speak English -- but he must have realized how valuable it would be to host this international meeting. Armenia is a country in transition.

At street level, it seems as if half the city is torn asunder by cranes and bulldozers busily replacing the old Soviet cement-block architecture with sparkling new parks, scalloped stone boulevards, broad-windowed import shops, and new Armenian cement-block high-rises. I see 30-year-old Soviet Ladas and glossy new Nissans side-by-side. Young women in tight jeans and heels, gossiping in Armenian, skitter past old women in babushkas and heavy grey sweaters. Their grandmothers are still selling sunflower seeds on the sidewalk.

Yerevan woman selling bread on the street. (Photo: Eric Pallant)

Overlap in supervision allows sea turtles to slip through the cracks

Ask any number of surfers, divers, and ocean-goers of all stripes what one of their favorite ocean critters is, and chances are a good percentage of them will mention sea turtles.

Sandalow explains the ins and outs of oil dependency

For years, I have been looking for a good, readable book on the oil problem and its solution -- just as I'd been looking for a good book on clean technology. Well, I found the Clean Tech book in August, and now I've found the oil book.

It is Freedom from Oil, by Brookings scholar and White House veteran David Sandalow. It is an unqualified success -- cleverly told as a series of policy memos from the cabinet of a near-future President, who begins the book by telling his staff:

I plan to deliver an address from the Oval Office one month from today. The topic will be oil dependence.

In the breathless narrative that follows, you learn the stripped-down facts about oil dependency, plus the growing strategic and environmental danger posed by oil dependency -- and key solutions like plug-in hybrids and revised CAFE standards (as well as stories of fascinating figures in the oil game). You get a "unique window into the White House at work" from a former assistant secretary of state and senior director on the National Security Council staff.

Sandalow's President ultimately offers an aggressive plan to free the country from oil dependence, which includes:

The green movement of the Rio Grande

Yesterday, Grist published my investigation of why the environmental movement has been relatively slow and cautious in fighting the U.S.-Mexico border wall, one of the greatest manmade disasters to ever strike the Western landscape and Western wildlife.

Of course, these articles have to be readable, so I wasn't able to delve into all the details of the politics of the border wall. But I wanted to share with Gristmill readers the part of the investigation that didn't make it into the article -- about how stopping the border wall could represent a major opportunity for environmental groups to build alliances and members in a region of the country that, despite strong pro-environment sentiment, hasn't traditionally been thought of as the environmental movement's heartland. Enjoy (and I'd love your thoughts in the comments section).

Stopping global warring and global warming

Ted Glick is on the 44th day of his fast, by my count, as part of his effort to bring awareness to and demand action concerning global warming. On Sunday through Tuesday, October 21 to 23, there will be a series of protests and actions grouped under the name "No war, no warming." It is an attempt to bridge the two issues of ending the war in Iraq and global warming by taking immediate action to:

Stop the war in Iraq and future resource wars by ending our addiction to fossil fuels;

Shift government funding to rebuild New Orleans and all communities suffering from racism and corporate greed;

Go green and promote environmental justice with new jobs in a clean energy economy.

In my last post, I argued that it is important for environmental activists to build coalitions with others that are working for progressive change, for instance among European-Americans and African-Americans. In this post, I want to discuss the meaning of peace, war, and the military, and how integrating these issues might help in the fight to save the biosphere -- and how people might understandably feel that such issues might hurt such efforts as well.

In this era of an alleged "war on terror" (really more of a police investigation of terror), people are skittish about criticizing the military. Taking on the military might seem futile, might seem to alienate a large constituency of people open to action on global warming. While I don't hope to change that perspective with this post, I want to at least offer a few ideas to think about.

First of all, the long-term military capability of the U.S. is dependent on our ability to produce the machinery that is used by sustainable energy, transportation, and agricultural sectors of the economy. The reason: the military depends on a healthy manufacturing sector in order to produce its tanks, jets, and ships.

On how to divvy up responsibility for climate change

((equity_include)) This is a guest essay by Andrew Pendleton. Pendleton leads the climate change policy work at Christian Aid. The essay is part of a series on climate equity. —– 1. What would climate equity look like? What’s the end state we’re aiming for? There are many truths in the climate change debate — almost […]