Uncategorized

Author declines to make pun, citing ‘posting rules’

The Milltown Dam at the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers near Missoula, Mont., will be removed, returning the rivers to their original flow by 2009, according to an agreement reached this week.

The folks over at Environmental Economics recently ran a post connecting such dam removals with cost-benefit analyses, pointing to a Time article, archived but available in PDF here.

The case of the Milltown Dam has an interesting additional layer to it, as the dam is also the largest Superfund site in the country. Toxic waste has piled up behind the dam as a result of mining in the area, to the tune of 6.6 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. Some waste will be completely removed while the rest will remain and be controlled at the site.

Strangely enough, $5 million of the $286.5 billion highway bill will be used to finance a park at the site, according to a New York Times article this morning.

Does respect for the former help the latter?

A while ago I posted about environmentalism and the religious worldview. I'm afraid that post was overbroad and led to a discussion about whether one can be a religious environmentalist (of course one can) and, more tediously, whether religion is "good" or "evil" overall.

But I had a more specific question in mind. Let me approach it from another direction.

This week Bush came out in favor of teaching "intelligent design" alongside evolution in school science classes.

I've been debating whether to post about this. This is an environmental blog. Is it an environmental issue?

I think it is, if only indirectly, if you accept the following three propositions:

Individual legislatures take up eminent domain laws

For all the hubbub about the Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. City of New London -- that eminent domain could be applied to cases where "economic development" was the public use in question -- the response of state legislatures has been swift. The decision did not prevent states from making their own laws regarding the scope of eminent domain, and public opposition to the ruling has been widespread and bipartisan. An article in USA Today detailed the states' responses and had this to say:

In Washington, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said his office received more calls from constituents angry about this case than it did for the Supreme Court ruling that limited displays of the Ten Commandments on public property
...
"We don't like anybody messing with our dogs, our guns, our hunting rights or trying to take property from us," says [Alabama] state Sen. Jack Biddle, a sponsor of the law.

Reasonable people largely agree about what we should be doing

There's a short-but-great exchange today in the Wall Street Journal on the subject of peak oil. You have to subscribe to read it there, but PeakOil has reprinted it in full.

It's a conversation between James Hamilton, an economist at UC San Diego (blog here), and Robert Kaufmann of Boston U's Center for Energy & Environmental Studies (what, no blog?!). Generally speaking, Kaufmann favors government intervention in markets to prepare for peak oil, and Hamilton favors letting the free market sort it out. But neither is dogmatic or shrill, and the exchange is quite enlightening, ending in a surprising degree of agreement.

Below the fold is a play-by-play.

WSJ, USA Today highlight dangers

The Wall Street Journal astounded many in the green community last week when it launched a series on toxic chemicals with an in-depth page A1 story on endocrine disruptors, which, even in teeny-tiny amounts, muck up the functioning of human bodies, according to an ever-growing body of scientific studies.

Now USA Today is getting in on the game with "Are our products our enemy?" Here, reporter Elizabeth Weise's delightfully melodramatic lead:

Like the glint of a knife in the dark, a laboratory accident in 1998 helped scientists realize that some chemicals commonly used to make life more convenient can be health hazards.

Since what they still call "the disaster" in geneticist Pat Hunt's lab, more scientists have come to suspect that, even in tiny amounts, some of the chemicals that keep our food fresh, our hair stylish, our floors shiny and our fabrics stain-free might be confusing our hormone systems and derailing fetal development.

From what I can discern, there's not much real, breaking news in these stories; rather, the real, breaking news is these stories. Which news outlet will jump on board next?

Let’s save our environment

Funniest thing ever? Possibly.

(Thanks to reader Brian B.)

We Hear Helsinki Is Beautiful This Time of Year

The desertification of southern Europe may be under way With 2003’s deadly European heat wave still lingering in memory, this summer’s spiking temperatures, rampant forest fires, and record droughts along […]

Britty Twister

Estrogen exposure blamed for upswing in male chest-reduction surgery British men are flocking to clinics for surgery to reduce their man mammaries. Here we pause a moment to savor that […]

Gonarezhou National Park

Writer Robert Neuwirth, author of Shadow Cities, recently traveled the world to write on the "squatter cities" that spring up in the world's largest developing urban areas. His blog has also been chronicling Robert Mugabe's campaign to "drive out the rubbish" in Zimbabwe, Mugabe's term for the government-run destruction of thousands of homes in the country.

Sokwanele is one of the resistance groups that have formed against Mugabe. In their last email (and on their website), they highlight some of the environmental effects of Mugabe's campaign. In addition to the massive human toll, the displaced residents have moved to Gonarezhou National Park, and many have begun poaching the previously protected game and using the grasslands for domesticated animals to graze.

The previously undisturbed ecosystem was part of a plan for a regional Transfrontier National Park, as it borders parks in Mozambique and South Africa. Sokwanele says the invasion of the park by displaced settlers has now scuttled any such plans.

Bottled v. tap

Tom Standage, technology editor of The Economist, writes in the New York Times op-ed pages on the lack of difference between bottled and tap water.

He notes that for less than a quarter of global annual spending on bottled water, clean water and adequate sanitation could be provided for everyone on earth. Standage recommends that instead of buying bottled water, people donate the money to water charities to achieve this goal.