Green Daily

Earlier today, we reported on the felicitous news that a large chunk of land in Montana was on its way to being preserved. What's the opposite of a silver lining? Whatever it is, this deal definitely has it: The Washington Post reported today that the company which made the deal with the Nature Conservancy to preserve that land, Plum Creek Timber Co, didn't exit the negotiations empty-handed.

The Forest Service, which is run by a former timber lobbyist (I didn't know that!), agreed in a separate deal to allow Plum Creek to open large areas of its holdings up for residential development. The American West, as anybody who lives there knows, is a fast-growing real estate market, and Plum Creek lobbied for the rights to turn a bunch of land into residential subdivisions.

The Forest Service, reports the WaPo, may get sued by Missoula County for bypassing public review processes in granting the Plum Creek deal. Meanwhile, environmentalists in Montana are quoted as actually sort of missing the old-school extractive timber industries. At least a clear-cut forest has some potential to grow back, whereas if the land is covered by cul-de-sacs and giant second homes, the damage is almost permanent.

Obviously drugs -- even the legal ones -- aren't very good for you, and most will get you arrested (or worse), but rumor has it that some people still take them anyway. So, with that in mind, the least you can do is work towards a more sustainable habit. To see all the substances we've covered in this series, see our Guide to Green Green Drug Use.

Hallucinogens, including LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescalilne, and PCP, all originated from plants in one form or another. Some of them are still obviously plants when the user ingests them ('shrooms, of course, but also peyote, which comes from a cactus). Does this mean that taking a trip deep into the recesses of your mind is also good for our Mother Earth? (At the very least, with this kind of "trip," your carbon footprint doesn't blow up the way it does when you visit Europe for your kicks...)

The answer is...it depends. LSD, PCP and ketamine are all synthesized in laboratories. Their environmental friendliness will depend on the practices of the lab where they are made. It may be difficult for you to ascertain this, unless you're very close to the person making the drug. (We hope you are not.)

From the blog Red, Green, and Blue, a useful digest of the findings of a report done by the US Energy Information Agency. The report found that total global energy use will jump by a half by 2030. This is happening mostly because countries that are rapidly modernizing are going to use more and more juice as they do so (hey, them's the consequences for economic growth - at least the way it's done right now). This fact is reflected in the stats: OECD countries (what some might call "developed" countries) will increase energy use by 24% in the coming 22 years; non-OECD countries project a jump of a whopping 95%.

What does this mean for carbon emissions? Much of the energy used by both types of countries will create emissions. Currently, non-OECD countries emit slightly more (7%) than OECD countries. However, by 2030, it looks like non-OECD emissions will exceed OECD emissions by a giant 72%.

Thankfully, these are just predictions, not actualities. Still, obviously there's lots of work to do.

In the last couple of years, oil drilling has been authorized in proximity to the national parks in Utah, despite fears that the drilling may disturb delicate desert ecosystems in the parks. Recently, plans have been made to drill in the Great Salt Lake region, which is a big problem for migrating birds, many of which stop in that region (read Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge for a gorgeous description of this ecosystem).

I recently found out that this drilling threatens a human treasure as well as the natural riches of the region: sculptor Robert Smithson's fantastic giant earthworks project, Spiral Jetty. (See picture.) Although Smithson might find the destruction of the Jetty through oil drilling disturbances to be somehow acceptable - he was always into the idea that the Jetty would submerge and reemerge with the natural movements of the lake - there are plenty of other people who would be really sad to see it go.

Visit this link to see what the DIA Foundation has done to attempt to protect Smithson's piece.

Via CleanTechnica

In Mother Jones recently, David Kushner wrote a fascinating piece on the struggle in Connecticut to get pesticides banned from elementary school lawns. The most interesting part of this article has to do with the way that manufacturers of lawn care products (including pesticides/poisons) have worked keep municipalities from being able to implement stronger bans against pesticides than the state has already enacted. In Canada, where this isn't the case, many municipalities have banned the use of pesticides containing 2,4-D, a compound that makes up half of Agent Orange and has been linked to multiple health problems.

Kushner quotes a representative of a lawn care company who calls Connecticut's move "asinine" and adds, "The normal person just doesn't care...look at the amount of yellow signs you see out there. If the concern was there amongst the general public, then no one would apply pesticides." Much as I resent this rep's implication that I am "abnormal" for caring, I agree - I see far too many instances of pesticide use all around me. Is it true that people don't care? Or is there just a lack of awareness?

Greenpeacers, known for their affection for guerrilla street theater and other visible protests, recently disrupted a conference of coal producers in New York by registering as a participant group under a misleading name. The 'Peacers called themselves "Institute for Energy Solutions," which is just the sort of semi-bland moniker that would be attached to a business-oriented thinktank or research group. But when they set up their conference booth, it became clear that they were anti-coal. (What tipped them off? Maybe it was the ten-year-old children of one of the organizers that they had passing out inhalers and asthma information?)

According to the organizers of the conference, they were okay with the stunt, though they added extra security (which was used at one point to eject one Greenpeace member). According to the Greenpeacers, the $8,500 registration fee was totally worth it. What do you think - is this a legitimate protest tactic?

NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, who was one of the first people to put the concept "global warming" into the public record when he testified in front of the Senate about it twenty years ago, has written an (inflammatory or courageous, depending on your POV) op-ed in which he calls for the heads of major fossil-fuel companies to be put on trial for lying to the public about the effects of their products.

Hansen spoke in front of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington on Monday, arguing that special interests (oil companies) have blocked movement into renewable energy production by publicizing doubts about climate change and its effects, funding research which obfuscates the problem, and even lobbying to expunge parts of children's textbooks which address the issue.

Hansen's op-ed, which is mainly terrifying to read, holds out hope that if the new President charts a definitive course in his first year of office, he could just barely hold the climate from reaching a disastrous tipping point. So vote carefully.

Via the Huffington Post

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that some of Obama's main advisers have close ties to the nascent ethanol industry. One of those advisers, former Senator Tom Daschle (remember him? from South Dakota?), serves on the board of three (count 'em) three ethanol companies. Obama has also at various times in the past flown for cheap on corporate jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, the giant agribusiness with a big stake in ethanol.

Should this news make enviros worried about the expansion of agribusiness think twice about supporting Obama? John McCain is way more negative about governmental subsidies for corn-based ethanol, but that doesn't make him an enviroprince - he wants to eliminate tariffs on more efficient sugar cane-based ethanol, which is produced in places like Brazil, not noted for their environmental agricultural practices. And as Obama points out, switching to sugar-cane ethanol will not solve the problem of dependency on foreign energy producers.

Dell might not be the cool computer to show off at the coffee shop, but they certainly do have an extremely good recycling program. The company announced today that it had recycled 100 million POUNDS of equipment this past year - a 20 percent increase over last year. Important to know for owners of Dells: the company has a free pick-up program for old computers and also has 370 drop-off locales for same. (For anyone who's ever had the experience of trying to figure out what to do with the old printer, this is certainly a major advantage.)

Now, if they could only figure out how to have a more virus-free, graphics-friendly operating system, like Apple's, we would really be in business. (As it is, maybe those of us who are addicted to our Powerbooks should start using Dell's good record to shame Apple into line...)

Now this is the kind of study that needs to be very widely publicized. Two sociologists recently analyzed works of the "environmental skeptic" genre. Typical of works in this sample would be articles saying that climate change doesn't exist; books describing the moral bankruptcy of the environmental left; lectures assuring the public that they don't have to worry about doing anything to save the earth, because things aren't as bad as enviros say - all authored by people who are supposedly disinterested onlookers who are just more rational than frantic greenies.

The two professors published an article in Environmental Politics which showed that of these works, an overwhelming number were written by authors who are associated in some way with conservative think-tanks. This shows that they didn't just come up with these objections out of the not-so-clear blue sky, but rather have political agendas to advance.

The story has particular relevance for me today, because I just heard a guy from the conservative/libertarian Cato Institute on the radio arguing against public transportation. Let's think about the investments these commentators have in maintaining the status quo before we accept what they say as "disinterested."

Today, the government finally delivered a proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the construction of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, in the Nevada desert ninety miles north of Las Vegas. The proposal ended up being more than 7,000 pages long, and had to be delivered by truck. (Not so eco-friendly - haven't you guys ever heard of PDF?)

The proposal has been twenty years in the making. But when you hear the requirements, you can understand why - the government may be asked to prove that the dump will be "safe" (in other words, that the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste that the dump can hold won't leak out into the ground-water supply) for at least one MILLION years into the future. (This is a very optimistic assessment of the human race's chances for continued survival!)

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both come out against the proposed waste dump, while John McCain supports it.

It was distressing (to me at least) to hear that microbiologists meeting in Boston to discuss the future of their field expressed concern recently that global climate change could impair the function of bacteria and fungi that are crucial to our ecosystems. The gist of their conclusions: because microbes lie at the bottom of some food chains, or assist other, bigger organisms (like trees) in their growth, a disturbance to microbe communities could translate into disruption in the more, well, visible parts of the ecosystem, creating negative feedback loops that could result in more and more climate trauma.

If it seems like splitting hairs to you to worry about the fate of microbes, you haven't read HG Wells' War of the Worlds lately. Remember, all of Earth is saved from Martian attack because the Martians aren't immune to our bacteria? (Also, the book is way better than the movie, trust me.)

The British are really old hands at rationing (well, at least their parents were, in the postwar austerity years). So maybe it's appropriate that they're the ones to come up with the idea of carbon rationing, which several MPs have been floating in recent days.

Unlike carbon offsets, which have (perhaps rightfully) been condemned as modern-day "indulgences," carbon rationing, administered by the government, would not unduly punish poorer people who can't afford to buy their way out of big carbon footprints. Under this scheme, each citizen would receive the right to emit a certain amount of carbon every year. Carbon cards would be required every time a citizen would visit a gas pump, buy electricity, or take a flight on an airplane. If you want to fly from pillar to post for business purposes, you would have to purchase carbon credits from somebody willing to part with theirs. Otherwise, no go.

It seems like a pretty fair system to me, though, as this article points out, the opportunities for unfairness or corruption are manifold. But should we just tax carbon instead?

Via Treehugger

Marine scientists Joel Pascal and Marcus Erikson are sailing from California to Hawaii on a boat made entirely out of plastic bottles - 15,000 plastic bottles, to be exact. (NPR's Day to Day reports on their mission here.)

The name of their boat is "Junk," and the two see the stunt as a way to wake people up about the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean. Every time they go out in the Pacific to carry out research, they report, they see more and more bottles and bags floating around.

As Joel Pascal says in the radio story, every time he speaks in public about the problem, he gets phone calls from people with wild scifi fixes for the issue, like dragging the whole ocean for trash. "People really crave this technological fix, but it's a behavorial fix," he says. "We need to stop using plastic the way we are."

Note to self: wash out and reuse your Ziplocs even more religiously...

When somebody names a problem, and that name catches on and becomes the official name, other people are more likely to listen to that person's solutions to the problem - as though naming something gives a person a special magical insight. So when Wallace Broeckner, the scientist who named "global warming" in the seventies, proposed the construction of 60 million fake trees that could "scrub" carbon out of the atmosphere, he wasn't laughed off the podium, ridiculous though his plan may seem.

Broeckner's "trees" would stand fifty feet high, be eight feet in diameter, and use a special type of plastic to get the CO2 out of the air. Given the strong resistance to windmills being erected in various populated areas, it seems like the "trees" would have to be stuck in places where very few people would ever be forced to pass by. But then there are all those problems with wildlife habitat...and will the plastic biodegrade if the unit ever stops being effective, or will the litter from all of these "trees" create a new problem? Unclear.

Via Treehugger