 Stories from September 2, 2008
In Brief
Snippets from the news
• Efforts to clean up Naples trash blocked by the mob.• Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in last year.• Melting of Greenland ice sheet could lead to accelerated sea-level rise.• Are fireflies endangered?• Climate change could mean less plague.• Rajendra Pachauri reelected as head of IPCC.
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2008, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved
Stick It to 'Em
Conclusions of 'hockey stick' graph stand up to further scrutiny
The infamous "hockey stick" graph, which shows the northern hemisphere beginning to rapidly warm around the industrial age, has been backed up by new research. Michael Mann, who helped develop the 1998 graph that climate skeptics love to hate, is the lead author of the new study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Ten years ago the estimates for earlier centuries were really primarily reliant on just one sort of information: tree ring measurements," he says. For the new study, researchers perused coral reef skeletons, glaciers, ice sheets, sea-floor sediment, stalagmites, and stalactites. Thus, says Mann, "we now have enough other sources that we can achieve meaningful reconstructions back a thousand years without tree ring data, and we get more or less the same answer" -- that is, that "the current warmth is anomalous."
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2008, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved
Yazoo Keeper
EPA puts kibosh on wetland-destructive Army Corps project
The U.S. EPA has vetoed a giant, expensive plan to build the world's largest water pump in the Mississippi River delta. The so-called Yazoo Pump flood-control project would have sucked 6 million gallons of water a minute from 67,000 acres of wetlands along the Yazoo River. The scheme, proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and first authorized by Congress in 1941, would have cost $220 million. The EPA concluded that maybe, just maybe, sucking all that wet out of the wetlands would have been damaging to fish, wildlife, and migratory birds. "The EPA truly deserves our thanks for killing this unnecessary and economically wasteful Corps of Engineers project," says the Sierra Club's Ed Hopkins. "The natural, and free, flood protections offered by these wetlands are far more effective than an expensive pumping project." Today's veto was only the 12th time since 1972 that the EPA has put the kibosh on a Corps project; the last was in 1990.
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2008, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved
We Must Decrease Our Gustav
Oil platforms off La. fare OK under hurricane; wetlands, not so much
Louisiana's people and property fared better under Hurricane Gustav than had been feared, but acres of valuable wetlands were likely irrevocably destroyed. "The last thing on anyone's mind during a hurricane is how the wetlands are going to do," says activist Aaron Giles. But since happy and healthy wetlands act as storm barriers, "wetlands are a critical piece of keeping coastal Louisiana safe." Heavy storms toss around fauna in marshes and deposit saltwater where it ain't supposed to be. Louisiana's wetlands have been severely eroded by natural disaster and development; some estimates hold that healthier wetlands could have knocked Gustav's 12-foot tidal surge down by three feet. The hurricane shut down oil production in the Gulf of Mexico but caused no structural damage or spills on offshore platforms, leading President Bush to reiterate Tuesday, "This storm should not cause members of the Congress to say, 'Well, we don't need to address our energy independence.' We need more domestic energy. One place to find it is offshore America.''
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2008, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved
The Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test
Aid agencies offer carbon offsets aimed at helping poor adapt to climate change
Aid agencies and environmental groups, including UNICEF, Greenpeace, CARE International, and others, partnered up recently to introduce new carbon offsets aimed at reducing carbon emissions while also helping the poor adapt to climate change. The voluntary carbon-offset market is worth some $330 million and is likely to grow even more as consumers in rich countries become increasingly aware of their contribution to climate change. Many voluntary offset programs now focus almost exclusively on ensuring that large renewable-energy projects get built, thereby essentially offsetting the carbon emissions of guilty consumers who contributed cash for the project's construction. But the group of aid agencies and eco-groups has its eye on entirely different projects in underdeveloped nations that would benefit the poor and help them adapt to climate changes already taking place. Projects they're considering include planting drought-resistant cashew trees in India from which locals can harvest fruit, giving fuel-efficient stoves to displaced families in the Congo, setting up solar-powered lighting in Mauritania aimed at helping girls do their homework, and teaching kids in India how to swim so they can survive floods.
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2008, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved
Between a Bush and a Workplace
Bush admin proposes rule that could delay workplace toxics standards
Last week, the Bush administration published a proposed rule that would add an extra step to the process of creating federal standards for toxics and other hazardous substances in the workplace. The rule, which was reportedly rushed so it could take effect before President Bush leaves office, has been widely criticized by unions and other worker advocates as an unnecessary delay that ultimately won't help workers. "It's a terrible idea," said workplace safety professor David Michaels. "It will lead to more delays in setting new standards, and it gives parties that oppose new regulations an opportunity to confuse the regulatory process." The regulatory process is already incredibly lengthy for setting new federal workplace safety standards, and at least in some cases, the additional proposed step could tack on a few more years. "Now, to put out a rule for a complex hazard takes a good eight years. Without question, this will add another year or two," said Peg Seminario of the AFL-CIO.
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2008, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved
Two Roads Diverged in a Wood, and I ... I Couldn't Believe I Was in a Roadless Area
Deal to shrink roadless areas in Idaho approved by Bush admin
An Idaho-specific plan meant to replace President Clinton's national roadless rule in the state was agreed to Friday by the Bush administration, timber interests, and a few environmental groups. If approved by the Secretary of Agriculture after a public-comment period, the revised rule would protect just 3.3 million acres of forestlands in the state, down from 9.3 million in Clinton's original roadless rule. Over 400,000 acres of current roadless areas in the state would be open to development with no restrictions, worrying environmental groups who are opposed to the plan that those areas could be mined and subjected to other destructive practices that were restricted under the original rule. Another 5.6 million acres of "roadless" forestlands could be subject to logging (and its attendant roads) if it's determined that logging could reduce fire risk to communities. Environmental groups Trout Unlimited and the Idaho Conservation League have backed the plan while the Wilderness Society and others have criticized the compromise, arguing that national forest lands protected by the original roadless rule "should be left roadless and undeveloped."
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2008, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved
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