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Free market forces can save some species, but habitat is still crucial

A success story:

Instead of unboxing box turtles, maybe WildAid should consider setting up a cell tower and some motion sensitive digital cell cameras to keep the wildlife traffickers out of the preserves. It is a lopsided struggle. One side stands to profit while the other relies on donations and volunteers. Find a way to make it more profitable (or fun by harnessing some aspect of human nature) to preserve biodiversity and you will win every time. My youngest daughter owns a New Caledonian Crested Gecko (named Elvis). Like the Ivory Billed woodpecker (coincidentally also code-named Elvis), the lizards were thought to be extinct until their rediscovery a decade ago. At that time, a few legal crested specimens were collected for study and breeding, followed by a totally predictable binge of illegal collecting for profit.

New National Park Service guidelines proposed

Dueling stories in the NY Times and LA Times today on a document that would loosen restrictions on what qualifies as recreation and is allowed in national parks. The changes, which would allow snowmobiles, cell phone towers, and low-flying tour planes, are the "brainchild" of Paul Hoffman, a "high-ranking appointee at the Interior Department" according to the Times.

The change that's getting the most attention is the insertion of "irreversibly" into the language describing what makes a use illegal, to the effect that a use that harms the park's resources but does not do so "irreversibly" would be just fine.

400 Park Service employees have started a campaign to block the plan.

Marketplace has a slightly more humorous title.

Review of car safety and gas mileage somehow fails to include hybrids

CNN's Gas Gripes page includes a link to a review of "safe" cars that "save on gas." The "safe" label is based on the results of side crash tests, and the article assumes 27.5 mpg on the highway to be "reasonably good." Somehow, neither article includes the word "hybrid" anywhere in it...

Oiloholics

The Economist has on its cover this week a not-so-flattering caricature of Uncle Sam and a dragon, both sipping down oil like there's no tomorrow. The article is "The Oiloholics."

Why do I mention this now? Usually you have to subscribe to the magazine to read this article. But today you can promise to watch an ad and do something else for 30 seconds watch an ad and get access for free.

Chain restaurants stake out turf near schools

Wait, why are we all getting fat?

Check a real person out from a Swedish library

Did anyone else spot this amazing (and amazingly to-the-point) article?

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AFP) -- If you're one of those people who thinks all lesbians are sexually frustrated or all animal rights activists aggressive, then a Swedish library project that allows you to "borrow" a real live human being rather than a book may provide some useful insight.

Wow. My mind quickly jumps to bridge-building applications in the U.S.: Borrow A Conservative for a Day, Borrow a Tree Hugger, Borrow a Logger, Borrow a Freakin' Yankees Fan.

Readers talk back about poverty, population, and biodiesel

  Re: Forgive Us Our Debts Dear Editor: I was angered by Jon Christensen’s assertion that conservationists and environmentalists are sitting on the sidelines while others are supposedly doing all […]

Gorge Push

Northwest’s Columbia River Gorge challenged by smog, acid fog Hundreds of miles north of California’s cow-poot-clogged San Joaquin Valley (yes, that was just an excuse to mention cow poots), the […]

What are ‘price caps’

Hawaii has responded to soaring gas prices by capping wholesale prices at $2.74/gallon including taxes, starting September 1st. This would put the retail cap at about $2.86, slightly higher than the state-wide average but significantly lower than prices in Maui, which are over $3/gallon.

Africa goes cellular

One in eleven Africans is now ... a mobile phone subscriber.

Africa has an average of just one land line for every 33 people, but cellphones are enabling millions of people to skip a technological generation and bound straight from letter-writing to instant messaging.

Sound familiar?