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Sinks a lot?

A quick vacation to Washington's Olympic Peninsula reminded me of two things. First -- dang, those trees are huge!

And second -- dang, there's a lot of clearcut coastal forestland that's still just basically sitting there: no trees, just scrub and piles of decaying stumps.

Which got me to thinking: How much CO2 could the clearcut land store if returned to its full rainforest glory? Enough to take a serious bite out of our climate-warming emissions?

Bob Edwards special on mountaintop removal mining

Tomorrow, beloved ex-NPR host Bob Edwards -- who now has a show on XM satellite radio -- will be doing an hour-long special on mountaintop removal mining. (A weekend version is also distributed by PRI, so check your local public-radio listings.)

I chatted with Mr. Edwards about the program yesterday, and asked him what drew him to the subject. He said:

Some inconvenient truths

With the release of Al Gore's movie, global warming awareness has gone mainstream and the consensus among environmentalists is that now is the time for drastic action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. On Gristmill, we are witnessing calls to turn combating global warming into a "moral crusade" in order to enlist religious-minded folks and to elevate the issue to a debate about right and wrong conduct. Unfortunately, I think many environmentalists are repeating the mistakes of past environmental campaigns.

XONSUX update

For all of you worried sick about it, I'm happy to report that the State of Alaska has withdrawn its attempt to revoke the personal license plate of Annette Nelson-Wright: XONSUX. (Background on the case here.) To quote from the decision:

I find that the combination XONSUX is not used in the common vernacular to describe a sexual act or is vulgar in any way. I find that a person of reasonable sensibilities would not be offended by the license plate XONSUX, thought provoking yes, but not offensive.

The tide is turning, friends!

Break in Doha talks leaves fate of fisheries uncertain

One of this week's dramas on the world stage was the news from Geneva that the World Trade Organization was forced to break off the trade negotiations known as the Doha Development Round. Key players had reached an impasse on ever-prickly agriculture tariffs and farm subsidies, and it was clear a breakthrough was not in sight. So the Director-General of the WTO recommended the move, which he later likened to a "time out" at a sporting event.

We can only hope that this is merely a time out. That's because the Doha Round contains what is in our view the single biggest thing that could be done right now to save world fisheries from irreversible collapse: eliminating government subsidies that build overcapacity and drive overfishing around the globe.

The Air of Their Ways

EPA falling short on clean-air protection, GAO says The Government Accountability Office is on the U.S. EPA’s case again, reporting that the agency has, and we quote, “not reduced human […]

Cotton a Trap

GM cotton doesn’t cut pesticide use long term, new research indicates Biotech giant Monsanto touts its genetically modified cotton seed — spliced with the bollworm-killing Bt toxin — as money- […]

Cascadia scorecard

Great excerpt from Sightline's Cascadia Scorecard on Worldchanging.

freecycle: TM, and R.I.P.

I've got a funny story for you. Here's a preview of the punchline: freecycle, once a clever, idealistic way to prevent material from entering landfills, has been made by its leadership into a clown show.

Some background.

Way back in May 2004, we did a (glowing) story on the new freecycling movement, whereby people give stuff away rather than throwing it away, via internet-based networks.

Roughly a year later, in May 2005, we did a follow-up story about freecycle's growing pains. Freecycle founder and executive director Deron Beal had accepted corporate sponsorship, attempted to secure a trademark on the freecycle name, and started exercising what some group moderators saw as dictatorial control over regional and local freecycle networks.

In Gristmill, there was a looong and heated debate over the article. Looong. And heated.

Shortly thereafter, Grist received a letter from the freecycle media relations people, urging us in unctuous tones to always capitalize the word "freecycle," never use such bastardized constructions as "freecycler" or "freecycling," and always use the trademark symbol when referring to the entity as a whole: The Freecycle Network^TM. The letter deserved, and received, mockery.

But tinpot tycoons can never get enough mockery. Which brings us to the present.

Bombing yields massive oil spill off Lebanon beaches

The Mother Jones blog has a bit of a scoop, plucked from the Arabic-language press:

It looks like an eco-nightmare is taking place on the beaches of Lebanon. Reports coming in say beaches are being clogged with oil because five out of six oil tanks at the electricity plant in Jiyeh were destroyed by Israeli bombs.

The Lebanese Embassy in Washington confirmed the spill.