Uncategorized

Check out Business Ethics’ list

Via TriplePundit, check out Business Ethics Magazine's new list of the "100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2005."

Buzz Kill

The Soviet Union’s collapse led to a revolution in Cuba’s farming system

Speaking of the latest issue of Harper's, it also contains a great piece by frequent Grist contributor Bill McKibben called "The Cuba Diet." (It's reprinted in full on this blog.) Dang, the dude can write.

The piece begins as a sort of anthropological meander through Cuba's agricultural system. Turns out, when the Soviet Union fell, Cuba's heavily-subsidized, mechanized, chemical-soaked farm system collapsed. It was a huge and sudden economic change probably without precedent in the modern world. Since Castro wouldn't/couldn't open up trade, the whole country basically had to shift to a small-scale, localized, de facto organic farming system, almost overnight. Now they've got their crop load more or less where it was, with almost no use of petroleum-heavy pesticides or huge farm machinery. Pretty interesting.

McKibben pivots very subtly from this story to a meditation on our current agricultural system. It's worth reading the whole thing. Here's a tasty bit:

Johnson Pulls Out

EPA scraps controversial pesticide study Just two days after Senate Democrats announced they would block Stephen Johnson’s confirmation as U.S. EPA administrator until the contentious Children’s Health Environmental Exposure Research […]

You Deserve a Breykjavik

Grist dangles prize, nakedly pursues more readers Other folks will claim to love you, but will they send you to a remote northern island? We didn’t think so. That’s the […]

Oklahoma Senator kicks off series of speeches

Chris Mooney, indefatigable chronicler of science politicization (say that five times fast!), draws our attention to the kick-off of Oklahoma Sen. and unrepentant flat-earther James Inhofe's promised series of speeches debunking mainstream climate science. It is, predictably enough, chockablock with misrepresentations, cherry-picked facts and phrases, and outright falsehoods. Head to Mooney's for the details, and if you have the stomach for it, read the speech itself.

Someday, our children will find this in the history books and marvel at how truly bizarre our political culture was in this transitional phase at the end of the oil economy.

Arni Finnsson of the Iceland Nature Conservation Association answers questions

Arni Finnsson. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? Iceland Nature Conservation Association. We are the biggest member-based NGO in Iceland with 1,300 members. What does your organization do? What, […]

The Bush administration’s grumbling about Iran is ultimately about energy

TomDispatch is running a fascinating essay by Michael T. Klare, author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Oil. It's about the role oil plays in the growing discord between the U.S. and Iran -- which in the mainstream press, as always, is covered credulously as a question of WMD (namely Iran's nuclear program) alone. But Iran has more untapped oil reserves than any country other than Saudi Arabia, and more untapped natural gas than any country outside of Russia.

It might seem fantastical that this same administration could once again invade an oil-rich Middle Eastern country on the pretext of removing WMD, but ... well, lots of fantastical things have happened since 2000. There are signs that preparations are underway, best summarized in the important reporting of the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh.

Those concerned about global warming, or the direction this country will take when the coming oil shocks hit, would do well to educate themselves on these sorts of geopolitical issues.

Anyway, check out Klare's essay. Here are the two money shots:

EPA drops CHEERS study; Johnson confirmation to proceed

Score one for the Dems. Stephen Johnson on Friday agreed not to poison infants and toddlers with pesticides in exchange for Senate confirmation of his appointment to head the EPA.  

Johnson -- a generally unobjectionable nominee, especially by Bush admin standards -- was expected to glide on through the confirmation process, but Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) threw a wrench into matters on Wednesday, demanding that Johnson, who's now acting administrator of the EPA, permanently cancel the notorious CHEERS research. The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study had, according to the New York Times, "offered $970, a free camcorder, a bib and a T-shirt to parents whose infants or babies were exposed to pesticides if the parents completed the two-year study. The requirements for participation were living in Duval County, Fla., having a baby under 3 months old or 9 to 12 months old, and 'spraying pesticides inside your home routinely.'" Oh, and a couple mil in funding for it was being put up by the American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing, among others, pesticide manufacturers.  

After the study drew highly critical press (imagine that), Johnson last fall suspended it pending ethical review (which you would think would take, oh, about 20 seconds). Now, the study's dead for good.

And this is what counts as an environmental victory these days -- managing to thwart research that would use poor kids as guinea pigs for the pesticide industry.  

The founder of Earth Day reflects, 35 years later

There's not a whole lot new in this essay by Earth Day founder Denis Hayes, but it's good reading as that day approaches. I would just echo Jeff in saying that Hayes focuses a little too exclusively on politics. The business and cultural realms are if anything more fecund sources of creative green ideas these days.

Below the fold, I reproduce an exerpt from a Robert Kennedy speech, taken from Hayes' essay. As an exercise for readers, imagine George W. Bush -- really picture the posture, the intonations, the accent -- speaking these words: