The Daily Grist / Week ending 1-14-06

I've been neglectful in getting out the weekly compilations. My schedule has been very hectic. I hope that I can get back on track this year. Thanks for your patience and support.............PEACE..................Scott


The Wind and the Willful
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other enviros face off over Cape Cod wind farm

The future of Nantucket Sound? Photo: NREL. "This is a very badly sited project that will end up hurting the battle against global warming, not advancing it," Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Grist in an interview about a plan to build a wind farm near Cape Cod. Many environmental activists disagree, and some 150 of them recently sent a letter to Kennedy urging him to reconsider his position. Muckraker takes a look inside this increasingly heated debate. And in a separate piece, Bill McKibben argues that the Cape Cod wind installation and other clean-energy projects should trump all local environmental concerns.

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new in Muckraker: The Wind and the Willful

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new in Soapbox: No More Mr. Nice Guy

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The Joy PUC Club
California regulators approve landmark solar-power plan

With one eco-tastic vote, California is set to become a global clean-energy leader: Yesterday, the state's energy regulators approved about $3 billion in subsidies to promote solar power. Rebates will be paid to residential and business utility customers to encourage installation of enough rooftop solar-power systems by 2017 to generate 3,000 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power about 2.2 million homes, and the equivalent of six new power plants. The 3-1 vote by the California Public Utilities Commission is a major victory for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who took the issue to the PUC after his "Million Solar Roofs" plan died in the state legislature last year amid partisan squabbling. Said one delighted clean-energy activist, "We have a big, bold, meaningful solar program that's going to reduce costs and make this more than just a boutique technology for millionaires and backward hippies."

straight to the source: The Mercury News, Paul Rogers, 13 Jan 2006

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Douglass, 13 Jan 2006

get the backstory, in Gristmill: Sunrise from the West





You Can Grow Your Own Way
GM crops advance on the world's arable acreage

Genetically modified crops are taking over the world. [Evil laugh here.] The acreage devoted to biotech crops jumped 11 percent last year. Biotech varieties of rice -- the world's most important food crop -- are poised to take off in China, a development that would put GM crops into the hands of tens of millions of small farmers who grow nearly half the calories eaten by the human race. Acres devoted to GM crops still cover a small percentage of the world's total arable land, but they've been growing fast -- from 4.3 million acres in six countries in 1996 to 222 million acres in 21 countries last year. Industry supporters hail these and other findings in a new report as proof that despite controversy about their viability and safety, biotech crops are becoming the preferred way to grow food and fiber. Critics, including Friends of the Earth, believe the jury is still out.

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Justin Gillis, 12 Jan 2006

straight to the source: Financial Times, Jeremy Grant, 11 Jan 2006


Clean Energy: The New Merger
Renewable power gets ever more hip with corporate America

The Man just can't get enough clean energy. This week, Walgreens and FedEx Kinko's joined Whole Foods as corporate boosters of renewable power. The drugstore chain will install solar-power systems at 96 stores and two distribution centers in California, along with 16 stores in New Jersey. Relatively, it's a drop in the bucket -- Walgreens runs over 5,000 stores. But the systems are expected to replace dirty-energy use equivalent to over 22 million gallons of gas. Meanwhile, FedEx Kinko's announced that it is increasing the company's green-power purchases to about 40 million kilowatt-hours -- enough to prevent more than 26,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

straight to the source: Denver Business Journal, 11 Jan 2006

straight to the source: Memphis Business Journal, 11 Jan 2006



OK, We'll Just Drill Over Here Instead
Bush administration opens up Alaska wildlife habitat to drilling

The Bush administration's lust for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge having gone unrequited, it's going to stick its derricks in some sloppy seconds: The Department of Interior is opening up hundreds of thousands of acres of other Alaskan wildlife habitat to drilling. The land around Teshekpuk Lake, about 200 miles west of the refuge, is part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska; it may contain up to 2 billion barrels of "economically recoverable" oil and 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The area is so rich in migratory waterfowl and caribou that even the Reagan administration protected it, as did the Bush the Elder and Clinton administrations. Staff at the Bureau of Land Management say the decision to clear the way for drilling was made at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney's super-secretive energy task force, which never met an ecosystem it wouldn't treat like a two-bit hooker.

straight to the source: Anchorage Daily News, Wesley Loy, 12 Jan 2006

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Janet Wilson, 12 Jan 2006


Doin' What Comes Dastardly
Not-Kyoto climate pact meeting ends with much hot air

The U.S. and Australia today marked the end of the Asia-Pacific climate summit in Sydney by pledging $127 million to support technology projects that would lower greenhouse-gas emissions. Climate activists derided the commitment from the two big polluters as laughably small; the Kyoto Protocol, which both the U.S. and Australia have spurned, is expected to result in up to $12 billion being spent on clean-technology projects in developing countries by 2012. Enviros also say much of the newly announced funding will go to propping up dirty energy industries rather than promoting clean power sources like solar. The U.S. and Australia, for their part, contend the world should trust big business to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without any strong government regulations. Said U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, "The people who run the private sector ... also have children and grandchildren, and they too live and breathe in the world and would like [climate change] dealt with effectively." Despite all evidence to the contrary.

straight to the source: Financial Times, Fiona Harvey and Leora Moldofsky, 12 Jan 2006

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Associated Press, 11 Jan 2006

straight to the source: The Sydney Morning Herald, Wendy Frew, Jamie Freed, and Stephanie Peatling, 12 Jan 2006


Damn You, Bush!
Plants are major methane producers, new research says

Methane: it's not just from cow farts anymore. Apparently, ordinary plants emit significant amounts of the potent greenhouse gas. Clearly, all cows and plants must be killed. For the health of the planet! Ahem. Writing in Nature, German researchers suggest that the never-before-noted phenomenon -- which they stumbled on almost accidentally -- could account for 10 to 30 percent of the world's methane emissions. That might confound the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, which allow countries and companies to offset greenhouse-gas emissions by funding new forest planting and reforestation. There may already be some on-the-ground corroboration: Soon-to-be-released research reports high and heretofore unexplained levels of methane in the Brazilian Amazon. But that study's author, U.S. Forest Service researcher Michael Keller, is cautious about what it all means. "Until we know how this process works," says Keller, "it is really unwise to come to any conclusions."

straight to the source: New Scientist, Zeeya Merali, 12 Jan 2006

straight to the source: BBC News, Tim Hirsch, 11 Jan 2006


Croak and Dagger
Mass frog die-offs linked to global warming

The mass disappearance of colorful harlequin frog species in Central and South America has long puzzled biologists, but research published in the latest issue of Nature fingers a culprit: global warming. (When in doubt ...) The deadly chytrid fungus that's killing off the tiny amphibians is flourishing in places where it's gotten warmer at night and cooler during the day -- conditions the study's authors say have most likely been created by increased cloud formation due to large-scale, human-caused global warming. The fungus is implicated in amphibian die-offs around the world. "Disease is the bullet killing frogs," says lead researcher J. Alan Pounds, "but climate change is pulling the trigger."

straight to the source: The New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 11 Jan 2006

straight to the source: Nature.com News, Lucy Odling-Smee, 11 Jan 2006


It's a Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping!
Algae being harnessed to combat climate change and other eco-woes

Consider the algae. Three years ago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology rocket scientist Isaac Berzin had an idea: use the slimy plants to clean up emissions from power plants. Today, at a power plant next to MIT, tubes of healthy algae slurp up 40 percent of carbon dioxide and 86 percent of nitrous oxide before power-plant emissions are released into the atmosphere. Not only that, but harvested algae will squeeze out a combustible biofuel. The right type of algae can produce 15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre, compared to soybeans' measly 60 gallons. What to do with the dried algae flakes left over from biodiesel squeezing? Process them into ethanol. And -- wait for it -- Berzin claims that the whole shebang can make a profit. His company, GreenFuel Technologies, is currently conducting trials and hopes to be in full production by 2009. Not bad for a plant with just one cell.

straight to the source: The Christian Science Monitor, Mark Clayton, 11 Jan 2006



So Fresh, So Clean
Whole Foods makes record-setting wind-power purchase

Whole Foods Market, mega-purveyor of organic and free-range foodstuffs, plans to purchase a jaw-dropping 458 million kilowatt-hours of wind-energy credits. It will be the largest-ever such purchase in North America, enough to offset the entire company's projected energy use through 2006. The move will keep about 700 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions out of the atmosphere, according to the U.S. EPA, the equivalent of taking 60,000 cars off the road for a year or planting 90,000 acres of trees. Whole Foods is buying the credits from Boulder, Colo.-based broker Renewable Choice Energy. The purchase is not altruism, according to a Whole Foods director, but simply what the company's devoted customers expect. Says one outside strategist, "From a branding perspective, it's a stroke of genius." You listening, Safeway?

straight to the source: The Independent, Katherine Griffiths, 11 Jan 2006

straight to the source: USA Today, Bruce Horovitz, 09 Jan 2006

straight to the source: Houston Chronicle, Bloomberg News, Jim Polson, 10 Jan 2006

see also, in Grist: An interview with Whole Foods CEO John Mackey


The Green Mileage
Mileage estimates likely to decline under EPA's proposed new system

The U.S. EPA has proposed new standards for calculating auto fuel-economy ratings, expected to reduce by 5 to 30 percent the mileage estimates in window stickers on new cars and trucks. Ouch. It's the first ratings overhaul since 1985, intended to reflect changes in driving conditions (e.g., more stop-and-go traffic) and technology (e.g., more fuel-eating air-conditioners). The city-driving mileage estimates for hybrids -- including Toyota's hot-selling Prius, which gets a 60-mile-per-gallon estimate under the current system -- are likely to shrink an especially dramatic 20 to 30 percent. Environmental groups are voicing support for the proposal, but are disappointed that the new estimates won't be used when determining manufacturers' compliance with Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards -- and thus won't lead to real fuel efficiency gains. The proposed standards are open for 60 days of public comment and expected to take effect with 2008 model-year vehicles.

straight to the source: Detroit Free Press, Justin Hyde, 11 Jan 2006

straight to the source: The New York Times, Micheline Maynard, 11 Jan 2006



Comic Relief
Umbra on amusing questions

Every advice columnist must decide which reader questions to answer, and which to relegate to the recycling bin of history. Don't think that it doesn't pain advice maven Umbra Fisk to make these choices -- oh, it does. Today she runs one of her favorite "silly" questions from last year, and reminisces about some of the others that tickled her fancy.

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new in Ask Umbra: Comic Relief

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A Char, Char Better Thing That I Do
New study finds salvage logging bad for burned forests

The timber industry and Bush administration officials contend that salvage logging post-wildfire is the quickest path to reforestation, but a new study refutes that claim. Published in Science, it found that logging of burned trees after the 2002 Biscuit fire in Oregon -- the biggest wildfire that year in the U.S. -- killed about 70 percent of newly sprouted seedlings. After the Biscuit fire, enviro groups battled the Bush administration in federal court to limit salvage logging, but lost. Now greens hope the new study will help them make their case against bills in Congress that would speed up approval for salvage logging after wildfires.

straight to the source: The Christian Science Monitor, Brad Knickerbocker, 10 Jan 2006

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Associated Press, Jeff Barnard, 06 Jan 2006


Sicken-Me Elmo
California may restrict two chemicals used in plastic baby goods

In its continuing quest to make the rest of the country look environmentally retrograde, the California legislature is considering a bill that would ban the use of two controversial chemicals in baby products. Specifically, it would prohibit phthalates, used to soften plastic items like chew toys, and bisphenol A (BPA), used in polycarbonate plastic products like baby bottles. While phthalates are already banned in some countries, this would be the world's first restriction on BPA. Toy manufacturers and plastics-industry reps say both have proved safe in humans. But critics point to several studies implicating phthalates and BPA in hormonal and genital damage in lab animals -- as well as to some recent (and yes, controversial) research suggesting phthalates can hurt the sexual development of baby boys. With safer alternatives already available, ban supporters say, the state should take a "better safe than sorry" approach.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Marla Cone, 11 Jan 2006

straight to the source: The Argus, Douglas Fischer, 11 Jan 2006



Been There, Bumped That
Whaling and protest ships collide in Antarctic waters

Japanese officials are claiming that a Greenpeace ship intentionally hit a whaling ship in the Southern Ocean on Sunday. But crewmembers of the protest vessel say the whaler rammed their smaller ship, and they've posted video of the incident on the Greenpeace blog. The collision left a big dent in the activist ship's hull, damaged a mast, and scared the bejeezus out of the Greenpeacers, who say they practice only nonviolent protest. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, meanwhile, has taken full and unapologetic credit for intentionally sideswiping a whaling supply ship yesterday. Vessels from the two activist groups have been harassing Japanese whaling ships as they hunt for 850 minke and 10 fin whales in the Southern Ocean this season. Japan claims it's legally hunting the cetaceans for scientific research, but the eco-groups -- as well as some countries that are members of the International Whaling Commission -- counter it's really an illegal commercial hunt for whale meat.

straight to the source: The New Zealand Herald, New Zealand Press Association, 10 Jan 2006

straight to the source: The Australian, Matthew Denholm, 10 Jan 2006

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, MSNBC News Services, 09 Jan 2006

straight to the video: Greenpeace's video of the collision with the whaling ship


Forest Trump
Judge halts more than 140 Northwest timber sales to protect rare species

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman has reinstated the "look before logging" rule on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest -- abolished in 2004 by the Bush administration -- and ordered a halt to 144 timber sales in California, Oregon, and Washington that might imperil about 300 rare animal and plant species. Federal lawyers had argued that reinstating ecological surveys would cost the government about $2.7 million a year, but Pechman ruled that the potential for environmental harm outweighed the burden and costs on both the government and timber companies. Although logging interests say they may restart a lawsuit to have the ecological surveys declared illegal, environmentalists are relieved by the ruling. Said Pete Frost of the Western Environmental Law Center, the law firm representing environmentalists in the case, "I think it's a small investment to make to preserve old-growth forests and the species that live in them."

straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Robert McClure, 10 Jan 2006

straight to the source: The Seattle Times, Associated Press, Gene Johnson, 10 Jan 2006



Apocalypse How?
Don't let catastrophic visions get you down ... well, not all of them

If you're like us, you spent New Year's Eve sipping bubbly, chatting with friends, and obsessively worrying about the end of the world. No? Well next year, you'll have to come to our party. In the meantime, check out Lou Bendrick's cheery rundown of all the ways our planet could meet its doom, and find out -- straight from the experts -- which ones you really need to worry about.

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new in Soapbox: Apocalypse How?


You Be Spillin'
China faces two more toxic river crises

Two new toxic spills have hit rivers in central China. Last week, cadmium seeped out of silt dredged in a cleanup effort on the industrialized Xiangjiang River, contaminating a 60-odd mile stretch of the waterway, and a broken pipe at a power plant dumped six tons of diesel fuel into a tributary of the Yellow River. Chinese officials are downplaying both incidents, saying that they're using chemicals to neutralize the spills, and that drinking water supplies are safe. But with some 70 percent of China's rivers polluted, more and more citizens are feeling that the country is paying too heavy an environmental price for its economic boom. "Some local authorities only pay attention to the environment when problems arise," says local legislator Wang Guoxiang, "and sometimes then they still respond carelessly." China has meanwhile announced that it will spend more than $3 billion over five years to clean up November's massive benzene spill on the Songhua River.

straight to the source: China Daily, Fu Jing, 10 Jan 2006

straight to the source: Reuters, 10 Jan 2006

straight to the source: BBC News, 09 Jan 2006

straight to the source: USA Today, Associated Press, 08 Jan 2006


Ape of Good Hope
King Kong director campaigns to save wild gorillas

The original 1933 King Kong gave gorillas a bad rep and inspired an upsurge in gorilla hunting, but the director of the 2005 remake hopes to use his blockbuster's appeal to help keep the apes from going extinct. Peter Jackson is backing efforts by the International Gorilla Conservation Program to save Kong's smaller and less terrifying prototypes. Jackson's contributions include charity premieres of the film, which have raised $100,000, and plans for the King Kong DVD to include a documentary film about the mountain gorilla of central Africa. "Gorillas are truly amazing animals -- without them there wouldn't be entertainment like King Kong," says Jackson. Um ... true. Another good reason to protect gorillas is that all wild ones are considered endangered, some species critically so. Mountain gorillas could die out within the next few decades, scientists say.

straight to the source: The Independent, Jonathan Owen, 08 Jan 2006

discuss in Gristmill: Monkey see, monkey do



Get Richard or Die Tryin'
Enviros plot to beat Pombo in November

Photo: AP/Katie Falkenberg. We're just one week into this election year and already a cadre of D.C.-based environmental leaders is elbow-deep in plots to green Congress come November. Top priority: defeating Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), chair of the House Resources Committee and champion of a lengthy list of environmental rollbacks, from weakening the Endangered Species Act to selling off national parks. Muckraker examines Pombo's prospects.

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new in Muckraker: Get Richard or Die Tryin'

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Where There's Smokescreen There's Ire
U.S. and Asia-Pacific countries gear up for not-Kyoto climate meeting

The first meeting of the Asia-Pacific climate partnership will kick off this Wednesday in Australia. The six participating nations -- Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. -- will emphasize the transfer of clean technologies to developing countries, instead of Kyoto-style emissions caps. But eco-advocates -- who are being excluded from the confab -- say the meet's a smokescreen for some of the globe's biggest polluters. "It's about how big business and bureaucrats can best ensure that the climate-change agenda and the politics of confronting ... global warming doesn't derail their profit taking," says Greenpeacer Danny Kennedy. Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell counters that public-private collaboration is crucial to curbing climate change. But now that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has opted to remain in Washington (to monitor developments in the Middle East) instead of jetting to Sydney, some think the meeting may already be a bust.

straight to the source: Terra Daily, Agence France-Presse, 09 Jan 2006

straight to the source: ABC, Louise Yaxley, 09 Jan 2006

straight to the source: The China Post, Associated Press, 08 Jan 2006

get the backstory in Muckraker: Asia-Pacific climate pact is long on PR, short on substance


Spencer for Tire
Kipchoge Spencer, cycling enthusiast and Xtracycle prez, InterActivates

Photo: iStockphoto. As president of sport-utility-bike company Xtracycle and cofounder of a nonprofit that provides load-carrying bicycles to workers in the developing world, Kipchoge Spencer is a big fan of the two-wheeled transit alternative. This week's InterActivist, Spencer chats about owning three bikes and no car, working on an MTV reality show, scheming to wheel Cameron Diaz to the Oscars, and more. Send him a question by noon PST on Wednesday; we'll publish his answers to selected questions on Friday.

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new in InterActivist: Spencer for Tire


Northern Blights
Flame retardants are yet another toxic threat to polar bears

New research confirms that polar bears -- for years known to be victims of northward-spreading toxic substances -- are accumulating in their bodies worrying levels of flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers. The effects of this PBDE contamination are unknown, but similar chemicals are believed to be weakening the bears' immune systems, changing their bone structure, and skewing their sex hormones. According to research published in December in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, polar bears in eastern Greenland and Norway's Svalbard islands are the most highly contaminated of all Arctic populations. Scientists believe that most of the PBDEs are coming from northwestern Europe and the east coast of North America. In the U.S., they're widely used in manufacturing furniture, carpet padding, electronics, and plastics.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Marla Cone, 09 Jan 2006


When the Rubber Hits the Road
On recycling condoms

Ah, those wacky green dilemmas. Today, a reader from Italy wonders if condoms are recyclable. Advice maven Umbra Fisk cuts to the chase, then spins the question into an opportunity to review the success of her 2005 New Year's resolutions.

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The Mod Quad
Green buildings, sustainability studies going mainstream on campus

More than 110 colleges and universities around the U.S. have or are building eco-friendly structures, saving on energy costs and attracting students who want to go to a school that "gets" being green. At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, for example, students designed a green roof that now features prominently in class projects, and a recently constructed green dorm -- billed by school officials as the first in the country -- has become a living lab for students, architects, and engineers studying energy use and sustainable construction. Carnegie Mellon is integrating sustainability into coursework, and leading in a national effort to green up the nation's 1,500-odd engineering programs. The idea is "to take some of the ideas of sustainability out of the fringes and put them into the mainstream," says engineering professor and green advocate Cliff Davidson.

straight to the source: The New York Times, Timothy Egan, 08 Jan 2006