Articles by Geoff Dabelko

Russian hot air

Irony of ironies: The early 1990s collapse of Russian industry positions it well to collect on the Kyoto-inspired carbon trading market. Speculation is the boon could be as big as $1 billion. The Europeans are looking eastward to upgrade Russian facilities and count carbon credits towards meeting their Kyoto goals. This NY Times business piece shows there is at least one environmental topic Putin and company actually like.

The trend otherwise has been to criminalize environmental activism and accuse whistle blowers of treason. Read about Alexandr Nikitin's time locked up by the FSB as a case in point. The former Russian submarine captain was working at the time for the Norwegian NGO the Bellona Foundation, an outstanding source for information on Russian environmental conditions and politics.

Foreign aid shuffle?

The Washington proclivity for moving bureaucratic deck chairs around can lead many to tune out.

But give a look-see to today's Financial Times piece on emerging plans to overhaul the organizational architecture of U.S. foreign assistance. Lots of details to work out, obviously, but changes to better coordinate U.S. foreign assistance with the administration's democracy priorities would likely hold real implications for some of the less sexy environmental, health, population, and development programs among the affected portfolios.

Toxic blubber

Killer whales have beaten out polar bears to win the dubious honor of Most Polluted Arctic Mammal. You are what you eat, and it seems the orcas are putting away some lovelies that include PCBs, pesticides, and good old fashioned flame retardants. What a diet! But it's pretty hard for them to push back from the table. Read about the Norwegian study on BBC.

Glaciers, what glaciers?

Here's a new one to me. When glaciers get in the way of mining gold, move them. When public outcry won't let you move the glaciers, redefine them. Harder to get worked up about moving "ice reservoirs," after all.

Here's the November 18 story about mining company Barrick Gold's plan for its Pascua-Lama project in Chile, found in your favorite source and mine, The Mining Journal:

BARRICK Gold Corp has submitted revisions to its environmental-impact assessment (EIA) for the Pascua-Lama gold development project to the Regional Environmental Commission of Chile's Atacama region.

The commission had asked for amendments to the company's plans for the project, including possibly using underground mining for a portion of the mine which would otherwise require the removal of glaciers in the area.

However, Barrick says "studies by international glaciologists redefine "the accumulations of ice" as "ice reservoirs" rather than glaciers.

The company says the resubmission of the EIA, which still includes the planned removal of the ice, contains improvements in monitoring of water quality, treatment of acid runoff, water management, solid-waste management, dust treatment, and protection of flora and fauna.