Prometheus 6 - The Environment

Signing that treaty would make Bush's domestic forestry plans illegal

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:51:09 -0500

US tries to sink forests plan
British initiative on illegal logging opposed
Paul Brown and Roger Harrabin
Wednesday March 16, 2005
The Guardian

The US plans to wreck a British initiative to commit the G8 states to combatting illegal logging in the world's threatened rainforests, a leaked memorandum revealed last night.

The development secretary, Hilary Benn, wants G8 environment and development ministers meeting in Derby tomorrow and on Friday to insist that all timber bought by official bodies in rich nations comes from properly managed forests.

Convinced yet Mr. Bush?

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 13:31:41 -0500

Photos Show Climate Change; Ministers Meet in UK
Mon Mar 14, 2005 08:54 AM ET
By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - A photo of Mount Kilimanjaro stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years will be used as dramatic testimony for action against global warming as ministers from the world's biggest polluters meet Tuesday.

Gathering in London for a two-day brainstorming session on the environment agenda of Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight rich nations, the environment and energy ministers from 20 countries will be handed a book containing the stark image of Africa's tallest mountain, among others.

A law that was worse than no law at all

Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:42:13 -0500

Clear Skies, R.I.P.

Barring a cave-in by Democrats who have so far kept the bill bottled up in committee, President Bush's Clear Skies initiative appears dead for this session of Congress. This is no great loss to the nation. Clear Skies is a bad bill, which in the name of streamlining current law would offer considerably more relief to the industries that pollute the air than to the citizens who breathe it.

Because Clear Skies was one of Mr. Bush's signature initiatives, and the first proposed overhaul of the Clean Air Act since his father's landmark reforms of 1990, it is worth reflecting on its troubles. Clear Skies originally came attractively dressed as a grand bargain under which a market-based system of pollution control would replace the cumbersome regulatory mechanisms in existing law - resulting in less litigation, more regulatory certainty for industry and cleaner air for everybody.

I never thought I'd be looking back nostalgically at 41's staff

Sat, 5 Mar 2005 06:04:08 -0500

U.S. Must Address Global Warming, Bush Ally Says
Thu Mar 3, 2005 08:20 PM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former Secretary of State James Baker, a close ally of the Bush family, broke ranks with the Bush administration on Thursday and called for the United States to get serious about global warming.

Baker, in a speech to an audience that included a number of oil company executives, said "orderly" change to alternative energy was needed.

"It may surprise you a little bit, but maybe it's because I'm a hunter and a fisherman, but I think we need to a pay a little more attention to what we need to do to protect our environment," he told the Houston Forum Club.

So...why is Bush still pushing this?

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:57:53 -0500

Big Oil Steps Aside in Battle Over Arctic

By JEFF GERTH

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - George W. Bush first proposed drilling for oil in a small part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska in 2000, after oil industry experts helped his presidential campaign develop an energy plan. Five years later, he is pushing the proposal again, saying the nation urgently needs to increase domestic production.

But if Mr. Bush's drilling plan passes in Congress after what is expected to be a fierce fight, it may prove to be a triumph of politics over geology.

Once allied, the administration and the oil industry are now far apart on the issue. The major oil companies are largely uninterested in drilling in the refuge, skeptical about the potential there. Even the plan's most optimistic backers agree that any oil from the refuge would meet only a tiny fraction of America's needs.

Right-to-lifers should be environmentalists

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:55:37 -0500

Air Pollution Can Affect Fetal Development, Scientists Say

Exposure to urban air pollution can affect the chromosomes of a developing fetus, a new study suggests. Babies born to mothers exposed to high levels of urban air pollution appear to have a greater chance of chromosomal abnormalities than those whose mothers breathed cleaner air.

Frederica P. Perera of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health and her colleagues studied 60 infants born in New York City to nonsmoking mothers who were participating in an ongoing study that started in 1998. The team analyzed exposure rates to airborne pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)--which are present in vehicle exhaust, power plant emissions and tobacco smoke--in three low-income areas. "Although the study was conducted in Manhattan neighborhoods, exhaust pollutants are prevalent in all urban areas, and therefore the study results are relevant to populations in other urban areas," Perera notes.

Invest in oxygen tanks

Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:23:09 -0500

Global Warming Could Worsen U.S. Pollution: Report
Sat Feb 19, 2005 03:57 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global warming could stifle cleansing summer winds across parts of the northern United States over the next 50 years and worsen air pollution, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.

Further warming of the atmosphere, as is happening now, would block cold fronts bringing cooler, cleaner air from Canada and allow stagnant air and ozone pollution to build up over cities in the Northeast and Midwest, they predicted.

"The air just cooks," said Loretta Mickley of Harvard University's Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "The pollution accumulates, accumulates, accumulates, until a cold front comes in and the winds sweep it away."

My point exactly

Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:16:22 -0500

Quote of note:

The denial of climate change, while out of tune with the science, is consistent with, even necessary for, the outlook of almost all the world's economists. Modern economics, whether informed by Marx or Keynes or Hayek, is premised on the notion that the planet has an infinite capacity to supply us with wealth and absorb our pollution. The cure to all ills is endless growth. Yet endless growth, in a finite world, is impossible. Pull this rug from under the economic theories, and the whole system of thought collapses.

Mocking our dreams
The reality of climate change is that the engines of progress have merely accelerated our rush to the brink
George Monbiot
Tuesday February 15, 2005
The Guardian

First rule of analyzing Republican initiatives: invert the meaning of the name

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 13:03:03 -0500

Of, By and For Corporate Lobbyists

The administration is set for a major push of its Orwellian "Clear Skies Act," which the National Academy of Sciences revealed last month would result in more air pollution than under current law. Yesterday, secret documents obtained by the National Resources Defense Counsel revealed the legislation was written by corporate lobbyists representing the industries it supposedly regulates. In April 2003, a group of eight power plant companies reviewed the administration's first draft and submitted a wish list of "essential" changes to further weaken already anemic pollution controls. The administration gave the polluters what they wanted. Now, Congress has to decide if it will join the charade. Apparently, the media can't be bothered to report on corporate control of administration policy. Thus far, this story hasn't been covered by a single major newspaper. Plenty of info, however, on Camilla Parker Bowles.

Coincidence??

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:20:52 -0500

On the one hand

2004 Was Fourth-Warmest Year Ever Recorded
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 10, 2005

Last year was the fourth warmest since systematic temperature measurements began around the world in the 19th century, NASA scientists said yesterday.

Particularly high temperatures were measured over Alaska, the Caspian Sea region of Europe and the Antarctic Peninsula, while the United States was unusually cool. But the global average continued a 30-year rise that is "due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said Dr. James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan.

On the other hand

They do everything else sneakily, so why not?

Tue, 1 Feb 2005 09:16:27 -0500

Quote of note:

The administration has already thrown open millions of acres of the American West to energy exploitation and more millions in the former national petroleum reserve west of the Arctic plain and Prudhoe Bay. Some of the openings make sense, others don't. The latest ruckus is over allowing oil and gas wells on desert grassland in New Mexico, putting water supplies at risk. State officials solidly opposed the drilling but got a brushoff at the Interior Department.

A Sneaky Bid for Arctic Oil
February 1, 2005

Drill for oil in Yosemite Valley? A geothermal steam plant near Old Faithful? A hydroelectric dam on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon? Even the Bush administration would not go that far in search of energy sources because law bans such exploitation in the national parks. But its zeal for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is nearly as dumb. The refuge should have been made a national park in 1980, when Congress considered the designation. But for the oil industry, it would have been.

But there's no proof global warming is real, right?

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:44:12 -0500

Climate Change Desiccating the Planet, Researchers Conclude

The portion of our planet affected by serious drought has doubled in the last three decades, a new study suggests. Findings to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in San Diego, Calif., indicate that the fraction of global land characterized as "very dry" has increased from 10 to 15 percent in the 1970s to nearly 30 percent in 2002.

...The results reveal that widespread drying has occurred in large regions of Canada, Europe and Asia, as well as western and southern Africa, and eastern Australia. The U.S. experienced the opposite trend, exhibiting increased wetness over the past 50 years. By controlling for rain and snowfall, the scientists determined the amount of drying caused by increasing global temperatures, which lead to elevated rates of evaporation. They found that about half of the change is a result of rising temperatures, particularly in areas at northern middle and high latitudes. "Global climate models predict increased drying over most land areas during their warm season, as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases increase," says Dai. "Our analyses suggest that this drying may have already begun." --Sarah Graham

Oil companies are Republican too

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:45:33 -0500

Quote of note:

Last month the Scientific Alliance published a joint report with the George C Marshall Institute in Washington that claimed to "undermine" climate change claims. The Marshall institute received £51,000 from ExxonMobil for its "global climate change programme" in 2003 and an undisclosed sum this month.

Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'
David Adam, science correspondent
Thursday January 27, 2005
The Guardian

Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry are targeting Britain in a bid to play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientists have warned.

The report is officially released so now I can post something

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:56:19 -0500

GLOBAL WARMING THE POINT OF NO RETURN: A new report co-published by the Center for American Progress warns that global warming is quickly approaching the point of no return, after which "widespread agricultural failure, water shortages and major droughts, increased disease, sea-level rise and the death of forests" will become irreversible. The findings were a product of a taskforce co-chaired by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Stephen Byers, a close confidant of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who called on world leaders "to recognize that climate change is the single most important long-term issue that the planet faces." The task force urges G-8 countries "to agree to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and shift agricultural subsidies from food crops to biofuels."

Summary and link to the full report in pdf format below the fold.

When the entitlements of property clash

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 07:22:07 -0500

Quote of note:

The logging permits sought by the company are particularly controversial because dozens of local residents contend that for years, they have been subjected to flooding caused by Pacific Lumber's logging. The residents say that as rivers and streams fill with silt from freshly logged hillsides, homes and belongings have been damaged, wells have been fouled and sediment has piled up in pastures and orchards. Some homeowners say rising waters have stranded them during severe rainstorms.

Bankruptcy Threat With an Edge
Lumber firm says environmental safeguards are at risk if it can't cut more trees.
By Tim Reiterman
Times Staff Writer

January 25, 2005

SACRAMENTO Timber giant Pacific Lumber Co. has told the Schwarzenegger administration that unless it is allowed to cut more trees, the firm may file for bankruptcy, which it says would likely terminate environmental safeguards promised as part of a $480-million deal struck more than five years ago.