21st Century Vox

In the past, Republican pollster Frank Luntz has been a pretty good ventriloquist on State of the Union night. The president opens his mouth and "luntzspeak" spills out. Earlier in the week, someone forwarded along some of Mr. Luntz's musings. They are contained in a document called "An Energy Policy for the 21st Century," which offers eight -- count 'em, eight -- energy communication guidelines for 2005. Well, of course, it's 2006, but it seems a safe bet that some of what's in there will animate this evenings address. One phrase I expect to hear a lot is 21st century, as in 21st century energy solutions and 21st century innovation. Of course, Luntz doesn't offer any many details about what that means (nor should you expect the President to), but hey, it's good to know that they know what century we're in.

In the memo, Luntz urges his party clients to flog two phrases in particular: energy independence and energy self-sufficiency. He offers this passage as "words that work."

We have the best scientists, the best engineers and the best technicians in the world. It's time to put them to work to develop a 21st century [there it is] energy program that leads America toward energy independence and self-sufficiency. If we can send a man to the moon, we can develop alternative sources of fuel right here on earth, and stop our dependence on Saudi oil.

And those words do work too, ... as words. If only it weren't just lip service.

Oh Yeah, Big Time

CBS's Bob Schieffer talked to President Bush in advance of tonight's State of the Union. Here's an excerpt from their exchange:

SCHIEFFER: Let's talk about energy independence. We remain, any way you cut it, dependent on foreign oil. I know you want to open up the Arctic wildlife preserve for drilling, but aren't we going to have to do more than that? And I just want to bring up one thing. Tom Friedman, the columnist in the New York Times, had a column today, and he said putting on a huge gas tax is the only way to really get Detroit's attention and get them to making other kinds of cars, and he said the only way to cause people to change their ways. He says you have to change the culture. What's your reaction to that?

PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I'm against a huge gas tax. Secondly, I agree with Mr. Friedman that we have got to become independent from foreign sources of oil. In other words, we have got to wean ourselves off hydrocarbons, oil. And the best way, in my judgment, to do it is to promote and actively advance new technologies so that we can drive--have different driving habits. For example, there is--I'm a little hesitant because I don't want to tell you what's in the State of the Union, let me put it to you that way.

SCHIEFFER: You are going to talk about that?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Big time, ... I want to see different kinds of cars on our road that don't require upon crude oil from overseas, but we have got a serious problem, and now is the time to fix it, and I'm going to address it again at the State of the Union.

You heard him, folks: We have got to wean ourselves off hydrocarbons...oil. Big time.

Oh What a Feeling!

This arrived from a friend:

There's the joy I get from being in the Prius, the increased safety, the increased size and hatchback functionality, the environmental high horse I get to ride on, the tech stuff I get to fawn over and show off to friends and neighbors, the audio-in jack for my beloved iPod, the Smart Entry System which allows me to enter the car and drive away--all without taking the key out of my cavernous purse, the James Bond fish-eye video camera hidden near the rear license plate that allows you to view and avoid backing over small children and pets, the fold-flat back seats that allow room for my kayak inside the vehicle, the steering wheel controls for all of the climate and audio functions, and, last but not least, the Prius will actually result in perfect strangers approaching me to engage in automotive conversations--try that in a Corolla!!

Damn, suddenly the Subaru seems kinda inadequate.

Are you smitten with your hybrid? Buying biodiesel? Converted your Hummer to hydrogen? (We're talking to you, Governor!) Or maybe you sold the car and went to pedal power. Whatever. Tell us about it. We want to hear.

Passing Thoughts

This was just passed along to us. It comes from Randy Alfred, an editor and software consultant. He writes:

This year, the Oscar nominations and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day. It is an ironic juxtaposition. One involves a globally influential company town touting itself with unrestrained backslapping and hollow promises. The other involves movies.

Alfred says his pensee was inspired by Air America,

which observed in 2005, when the State of the Union Address fell on Groundhog Day: "It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

In the Black

ExxonMobil has announced record fourth-quarter earnings -- nearly $11 billion -- making the Irving, Texas company not only the world's biggest oil concern but the world's wealthiest corporation, period. The UK Guardian reports that the company's annual sales are "worth more than the gross domestic products of countries such as Sweden, Taiwan and Indonesia and its cash reserve is more than enough to cover the entire foreign debt of the Philippines." With total profits for 2005 topping $36 billion -- up 42 percent from the 2004 -- Exxon is sitting pretty.

Ah, but uneasy rests the crown. The public -- still stung by Enron and now feeling pinched at the pump -- has taken notice of the company's windfall. So, too, has Congress, with some legislators now clamoring for new taxes on oil earnings or at least pushing to end subsidies.

That's not all. At the same time, ExxonMobil is in the news for another reason: The company is back in court, still refusing to pay punitive damages stemming from the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. In this Bleak House saga, thousands of plaintiffs have literally died waiting for recompense. Exxon swears it's a good corporate citizen (primarily because it makes a fat profit for shareholders), but Alaskans, by and large, see it differently.

If Exxon really wanted good PR, it could take some of its newfound profit and turn it to the good; for starters, by settling up accounts in Prince William Sound. Even more importantly, it could show some foresight by investing in energy alternatives like wind and solar before the petroleum gravy train runs dry and its days in the black are over. The timing for such a shift could be good, as the company has a new CEO -- a man with the appropriately magestic- and Texan-sounding name of Rex Tillerson. You can help us by sending Mr. Tillerson a message here.

Do it before they toast the earth.

Branching Out

Hector Dio Mendoza, whose 15-foot Styrofoam tree was featured in the November/December 2005 issue of Sierra, has a new medium for his arboreal art: junk mail.

Raw materials weren't hard to come by: Americans get 42 billion pieces of junk mail a year, the equivalent of 100 million trees. The San Jose-based artist collected 50 pounds of catalogs, credit-card offers, and other unwanted mail to create a 17-foot tree that will tour the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dio Mendoza, who has also sculpted birds, coral reefs, and other natural icons out of the non-biodegradable materials that threaten the environment, calls his work "a commentary on how we live in a consumerist society. If you want to know about a society, you should go visit its city dump."

Find out how to get off marketers' lists at stopjunkmail.org.

(Get more ideas for living well and doing good in "The Green Life," a new section appearing in every issue of Sierra magazine.)

Green Consumerism

In a quick scan of a NY Times story about urban forests, two things jumped out. One:

San Francisco's tree canopy hovers at a slim 11.9 percent of the city's surface area, compared with New York's 21 percent and Washington's 28.6.

So much for Ecotopia. And two:

Over the last decade, a host of studies have underscored the role of trees — especially mature ones — as "green infrastructure" that help reduce air-conditioning and energy costs, intercept storm water runoff, capture dust and other pollutants, curb the effect of greenhouse gases and increase property values. A study by the University of Washington even found that people shopped longer and more often in tree-lined retail areas and spent about 12 percent more money.

The moral of the story: Keep a close eye on those credit cards when there are trees around.

The Soul of the Party

You are entitled to view with skepticism why a 78-year-old retired farmer and attorney from Yolo County would move 90 miles to San Joaquin County in order to challenge incumbent Congressman Richard Pombo of Tracy.

That's how former Republican Representative Pete McCloskey begins his campaign to the unseat anti-environmental crusader who currently heads up the House Resources Committee. McCloskey, a decorated Marine, 15-year veteran of Congress and all-around straight-shooter sees the contest as nothing less than a battle for the soul of his party.

I run, in part, because I believe the key question of the Republican Party today is whether we go back to historic Republican principles of integrity, fiscal responsibility, limited government and environmental balance, or do we go the way of the DeLay Republicans, (1) with no ethics enforcement, (2) an understandable public perception that Republicans give undue preference to big-money contributors, (3) a huge and ever-growing bureaucracy, and (4) a constant erosion of the environmental protections for community health, and park and wilderness lands that have been established over 30 years.

You can hear more from Mr. McCloskey himself in this interview with Living on Earth. McCloskey has already challenged Pombo to a series of debates, but the Pombo camp has so far ducked.

Al Gore, the Movie

An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore global warming documentary has opened to rave reviews at Sundance. Forget Jennifer Anniston, The Washington Post says Gore is the star of the festival.

Al Gore? Star?

Apparently so. Perhaps the transformation has something to do with the filmmakers: Participant's Jeff Skoll executive-produced, Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill) produced, and Davis Guggenheim (Deadwood) directed. By all accounts, Guggenheim humanizes Gore, re-casting the famously wooden politician as Everyman on a mission. Part Cassandra, part Willy Loman, says the Post.

The film touches briefly but with emotion on three events in Gore's life and how they inspired his environmental activism: the car accident that almost took the life of his son; his defeat in Florida to Bush; and perhaps most foreboding, the death of his sister, a lifelong smoker, from lung cancer ("That's not one of the ways you want to die," Gore says in the film in a voice-over) and the fact that his family farmed tobacco and didn't stop until after her death. Gore underscores that this is the way people are, that it is hard to change old habits, be it smoking or growing tobacco or emitting carbon dioxide, but that without change, the bell tolls.

The documentary revolves around Gore's traveling multimedia presentation, and Guggenheim tells Reuters that it was disconcerting to "see the things in the lecture starting to come true. We were on our way to talk to all 50 state insurance commissioners in New Orleans, but there were threatening sea levels, and they told us not to come." The meetings were cancelled by Katrina.

As it happened, that cancellation freed Gore to speak at the Sierra Summit, where he received several standing ovations -- a star already.

Cold War

This post could be a postscript to the last one (below). It too involves Canada; specifically, its diplomatic dispute with the United States over the long sought-after Northwest Passage. It seems the US Ambassador to Canada has repeated the American government's position that the northern sea route through the Canadian archipelago is not the sovereign territory of Canada, but rather an international waterway. The Canadians beg to differ.

The most striking thing about this is the fact that the Northwest Passage has only become a viable sea lane due to global warming. Its existence spells doom for polar bears and, by altering Earth's albedo, could lead to runaway climate change, but never mind all that. With climate scientists predicting ice free summers in the Arctic by mid-century, speculators are already staking claims and the Arctic nations are scrambling to shore up theirs as well.

Maple Leaf Rag

So, under Kyoto, what happens if a country stays party to the treaty but ignores its emissions targets? Answer: Not a whole lot.

A BBC article about Canada's role in the climate treaty, reports, "The reality is that unlike other international agreements such as the WTO, the Kyoto Protocol contains no meaningful sanctions." So, if a country misses its target the first go-round (2008-2012), the only consequence is "a stiffer target the next time around."

Canada is almost certain to miss its 2012 target; namely, emissions reductions six percent below 1990 levels. Currently, the country is belching out 20 percent more greenhouse gas than it was in 1990. Groan. Spain, Finland, and New Zealand are also 25 percent off target. In a graphic charting the five best and worst performers, the leaders are all former Soviet states: The Baltics, Ukraine, Bulgaria. Canada doesn't even make the top five worst performers.

So why pick on Canada? Well, because the country was instrumental in saving Kyoto and getting it ratified. But that was under the outgoing Liberal government. The situation has changed with the ascendancy of the Conservative party, which never liked the treaty in the first place. If Canada ignores its targets, the article's author wonders, then what's to keep other countries from abandoning theirs?

Meanwhile, a glance at other climate stories in the news is disheartening: Ice cores show C02 levels higher than they have been in 650,000 years, and the global rise in sea levels is accelerating. As Canadian Environment Minister Stephane Dion says: climate change remains "the worst ecological threat humanity has been faced with." One way or another, it will have to be confronted...

...before it's too late.

Switch to Switchgrass

Scientists have long debated whether or not ethanol makes sense as an alternative to gasoline, with some experts arguing that it takes as much energy to produce the stuff as you yield from it. In other words: No net energy, no good.

But in a study published today in the journal Science, researchers from UC Berkeley claim otherwise. Quoted in the Contra Costa Times, Dan Kammen, one of the study's authors, said: "The long-standing debate over whether ethanol is good or bad on an energy basis ... we believe that 20-year-old argument is now solved. You can get more energy out. What we don't know is, is that good for the planet?"

For one thing, says Kammen, ethanol made from corn would reduce greenhouse gas emissions only marginally. And currently, thanks in no small part to the corn lobby, virtually all ethanol comes from corn. It would be far better, nearly everyone agrees, to make the stuff from no-till, high-energy crops like switchgrass, an acre of which can produce as much energy as up to 10 tons of coal. Too bad there's no switchgrass lobby.

Real Discussion

In case you missed it, the gang from Real Climate (real climate science explained and interpreted by real climate scientists) recently did a Q&A with DarkSyde at Daily Kos. Well worth a read.

Solar Incentivized

In previous posts, we mentioned the federal tax credit for new solar power installations. Put solar panels on your rooftop and Uncle Sam will let you take 30% of the cost -- up to $2,000 -- directly off your IRS bill. In California, the deal is sweetened considerably. Under the California Solar Initiative, the state will pony up $2.9 billion in solar incentives. According to the San Francisco Chronicle's Gregory Dicum, solar adopters could expect a $10,000 rebate on a photovoltaic investment on the order of $25,000 to $30,000. Currently, the state pays $2.80 per watt on new solar installations, with the incentive tapering to zero by 2017. But by then, your electricity will effectively be free. In the meantime, payments on a home equity loan could conceivably amount to less than your current utility bill. From a home-ec perspective, solar is starting to make good sense.

Let It Snow, Man

From The Onion: Nation's Snowmen March Against Global Warming

Temperature Trends

NASA reports that calendar year 2005 was the warmest in a century. According to today's press release, while other climate researchers have ranked 2005 as the second warmest year, (based on comparisons through November), their studies did not include the Arctic in their analysis. NASA's did.

In either case, the five warmest years on record have all occurred in the last eight. By NASA's estimation they are (in descending order, warmest first): 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

1998, the year that had previously held the record, was notable for an unusually strong El Nino event in the Pacific, which spiked global temperatures. 2005 had no such phenomenon.

Disaster Timeline

Since none of it is likely to make it into President Bush's State of the Union address next week, we thought it might be worth reviewing a few key dates from last year:

- August 27, 2005: At a 9 a.m. meeting, two days before Hurricane Katrina makes landfall, the White House is given a slide presentation comparing the storm's predicted impact to that of "Hurricane Pam" -- a test-case used for disaster-preparedness planning. Katrina, the report warns, could be far worse, noting that the storm surge, "could greatly overtop levees and protective systems," destroy nearly 90 percent of the city and displace more than a million residents. The presentation also predicts "incredible search and rescue needs (60,000-plus)."

- August 30, 2005: 80 percent of New Orleans is underwater. Bodies are floating in the streets. President Bush, as part of a month-long vacation from the White House, spends the day in San Diego. Vice-president Cheney is on vacation in Wyoming.

- September 1, 2005: In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America, President Bush tells Diane Sawyer, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm." He also assured Sawyer that help was in transit. "Well, there's a lot of food on its way. A lot of water on the way. And there's a lot of boats and choppers headed that way. Boats and choppers headed that way. It just takes a while to float 'em!"

What will President Bush say about Hurricane Katrina next Tuesday? Anything? Certainly, he will no make mention of the fact that the Justice Department went looking for ways to blame environmentalists for the levee failures after the fact. No, that fishing expedition came home empty-handed. Will he, then, talk about the urgency of restoring New Orleans' flood protections, including Southern Louisiana's wetlands? Seems unlikely. Of course, there's not much he can say to make things right now. But, with just four months till the beginning of the next hurricane season, it does seem like he ought to say something. Doesn't it?

Green Goats

Hybrid cars may get all the attention, but hybrid locomotives are also making inroads. The Green Goat is a hybrid switcher -- a locomotive used to shunt rail cars to different tracks in the freight yard -- made by Canadian company RailPower. Coupling a small diesel engine with a large battery bank, the locomotives are both quiet and efficient, reducing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 70 percent while cutting nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions by as much as 90 percent. The deep cuts in emissions reflect not only increased fuel efficiency but also the fact that, unlike conventional switchers, Green Goats do not idle between tasks. Union Pacific, the largest railroad company in America, has ordered 98 units. News of that contract has made RailPower a promising stock in the eyes of some investors.

Sledheads 'Splained

For those of you who just don't get 'bilers, Slate's Bryan Curtis goes "slumming on the slopes" near Durango and files his anthropological assessment of snowmobile culture. He notes the "gruesome injury history" and the drinking that often goes hand in hand with a day of tearing through the backcountry, concluding that, "Snowmobiling is an unambitious sport even among its biggest fans." Near the end of the piece, he also notes that:

There is a pitched battle between snowmobilers and environmentalists over the use of machines in national parks. All I can say is that if you think snowmobiles represent an affront to nature, then you should get a load of the Texans who deposit themselves in Colorado each winter. But the environmentalists' point is taken. Winter beauty is based on beautiful foliage and total silence, and buzzing on a snowmobile makes these qualities impossible to appreciate.

There's a few things left out there: Nothing about the hazing (intentional or otherwise) of wildlife, or the miasma of two-stroke fumes that can get so bad at high season in Yellowstone that park rangers are forced to don gas masks. Oh well. In the end, the point that snowmobiles are loud and obnoxious and polluting seems obvious to everyone save perhaps the person actually astraddle the beast. They are also fun. No doubt about it, they're an absolute blast. They just don't have any business in our national parks.

McMansions for Ansel's Boyhood Stomping Grounds?

If you saw the Ric Burns documentary about photographer Ansel Adams, then you might remember that young Ansel grew up in the wild, outer reaches of San Francisco -- a landscape of wind-whipped dunes, fog, and an un-bridged Golden Gate. In fact, his boyhood home, along with another house that he later built and occupied as an adult, still stands, virtually across the street from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's Baker Beach. Today, however, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will auction off two vacant lots next door to Ansel's boyhood home over the objections of neighbors who'd like to see it turned into a permanent memorial to the artist. The sticking point: No one seems willing to pay for such a tribute.

Under the Big Sky

Yet another state is stepping into the breach left by federal inaction on climate change.

The Billings Gazette reports that Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is impaneling a Climate Change Advisory Board to find ways to tackle global warming in Montana. In December, Schweitzer voiced his concerns in a refreshingly straightforward and common-sensical way that any American over the age of 5 could understand: "The more oil we consume, the scarcer and more expensive the resource becomes," he wrote. "At the same time, the more oil we consume, the more greenhouse gas emissions we produce." Yep, that about sums it up.

As it happened, the story appeared a day after Grist published a paean to Schweitzer written by Rick Bass -- Sierra Club author and self-described "quasi-misanthropic backwoods hermit." Bass hearts the guvnah, albeit with a few reservations, painting him as "a new breed of Democrat" -- "Not quite centrists and not quite populists -- call them Homebody Democrats, muscular as hell, and intelligent too." In short, he thinks Schweitzer is someone we can all work with to protect our values and our valued wilderness.

Bass, a devoted wilderness advocate, senses a sea change in Montana politics, what with Senator Conrad Burns on the hot seat for his dealings with Jack Abramoff and the emergence of clean-cut progressive challengers like Jon Tester. Near the close of his essay, Bass speculates that Schweitzer's election last year may have signaled something more than substantive -- "the first emergence, the nascent reawakening, of prairie populism." Don't know about that. But certainly, the Governor's willingness to get serious about climate change is a big, bold step in the right direction -- and the exact opposite tack of the White House.

Richard Opper heads up Montana's Department of Environmental Quality and was appointed by Schweitzer to put the together the climate change panel. Where the Bush Administration is quick to point to what it claims are the prohibitive economic costs of controlling greenhouse gases, the Schweitzer Administration sees opportunity. The Billings Gazette:

Opper said he expected to begin forming the group early next month. He said other cities and countries that have taken on global warming and energy conservation have seen economic benefits.

Salt Lake City, for example, began capturing and selling the methane gas produced by rotting refuse in its city dump.

"They're now selling it for something like a million and a half (dollars) profit every year," he said.

Now that may not answer all the world's woes, but it still sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Sounds like leadership.

No Shroud in Turin

With the Winter Olympics fast approaching, the New York Times reports that the alpine venue of Turin is sorely lacking snow. With dry conditions prevailing, organizers are desperately applying artificial neve on the slopes.

While the Times piece concentrates on the generally blase attitude Italians are displaying toward the games, the snow concerns are reminiscent of the hand wringing that attended the 2002 games in Salt Lake. In an effort to increase awareness of global warming, many environmental groups used the occasion to heighten awareness by focusing on the precarious future of the Winter Olympiad. The World Resources Institute, for one, put a global warming exhibit in the Salt Lake Visitors Center. A note on the organization's website read: "Ski while you can, Salt Lake! Global warming could move the Olympics to Nome."

It's no joke. In 2003, Turin hosted a World Conference on Sport and the Environment, prompting the United Nations Environment Programme to issue a release entitled "Many Ski Resorts Heading Downhill as a Result of Global Warming." Among the first casualties will be the low-lying slopes of Kitzbuhel, Austria, site of the legendary Hahnenkamm downhill. The world famous resort is scarcely 3,000 feet above sea level. According to the UN report, that snow line could rise nearly 1,000 feet over the next 30 to 50 years. Switzerland could lose 70 percent of its glaciers over the same period.

Of course, the winter sports industry contributes to the problem, both in terms of the traffic in brings to the mountains and the energy required to run lifts and make snow. The Olympics, which encourages worldwide travel and inevitably touches off a spate of rapid, large-scale development, only exacerbates the environmental impact. Which leads to the question: Can the Olympics be made sustainable? Many think not, arguing that, at the very least, the games should be hosted at existing venues rather than demanding new infrastructure every four years. Others argue that the games can be used to showcase sustainability concerns and highlight greener development.

For their part, the organizers at Turin insist they are taking steps to make the games climate-neutral, in part by offsetting the carbon output with forestry and alternative energy projects. And, Beijing, home to some of the world's worst air quality, has vowed to clean up its act in time to host the 2008 Summer Games -- a monumental effort, to be sure, and one that probably wouldn't have been undertaken without the extra impetus of the games.

Over at Grist, sustainability gurus, John Elkington and Mark Lee, see a huge potential upside in such examples and hope that future games can become "powerful incubators that make life in Olympic cities more livable." Let's hope so. In the meantime, you might want to take the World Resources Institute's advice to heart: Ski while you can.

For more on skiing and the environment, see this earlier post.

Tilting at Windmills

Environmentalists are squaring off against each other in a contentious dispute over a proposed wind project in Cape Cod's Nantucket Sound, six miles offshore. The most notable opponent of the plan is clean-water campaigner and environmental attorney, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who argues that the turbines will mar ocean views and put fishermen out of work. On the other side of the issue are folks like writer Bill McKibben and journalist Ross Gelbspan who argue that wind, as a carbon-free power source, is well worth the trade-offs in the age of climate change. Some critics have even blasted Kennedy for what they say is patrician NIMBY-ism, plain and simple (the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port overlooks Nantucket Sound). Gelbspan respectfully submits to Grist's Amanda Griscom Little that Kennedy's position, "bespeaks a lack of understanding of the consequences of escalating climate change." It's a charge Kennedy takes exception to.

The Heat Beat

The San Francisco Chronicle wraps up a series of global warming articles from environmental reporter, Jane Kay. Kay and photographer Kat Wade ventured to the Arctic Circle and down the California Coast to the Sea of Cortez to investigate the localized impacts of a warming world -- everything from vanishing sea ice to bleached coral reefs and dengue fever. Quite the road trip.

How to 'Park' Your Prius

Want to know how to suffer buyer's remorse the day after picking up your new Prius? Just compare it with this tricked-out one used by the Park Service at Pt. Reyes National Seashore just north of San Francisco. Why doesn't Toyota offer the Tule Elk option on all its hybrids?

Hut to Hut

Speaking of Google Earth (see below), we thought it might be a good way to map out the Club's Tahoe-area ski cabins, including the oft-misspelled Clair Tappaan Lodge. The rustic backcountry huts are all either about a day's ski apart or a day's ski from the nearest trailhead, giving ambitious skiers a way to enjoy overnight forays along the Sierra Crest minus the hassles of pitching tents and digging snow caves. Clair Tappaan, our flagship lodge, is more capacious and accessible, located just off the old highway, at Donner Summit. It makes a great basecamp for year-round exploring.

Google Earth users can download and view the kmz file showing the location of the Tahoe/Donner huts. Note that while pains have been taken to map the proper coordinates, the file is not meant for routefinding purposes.

The Distorted View

You have to marvel at Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. Described rather diplomatically here as "an ardent advocate of controversial development projects," including the now-infamous Bridges to Nowhere -- the poster children of pork barrel spending -- the governor is now playing victim, claiming that his state has "been held up to public ridicule by the special-interest extremists." That would be us.

Thank you, Governor, but actually, we didn't ridicule Alaskans -- most of whom were ashamed of their legislators' harebrained schemes to fleece American taxpayers of $450 million, (during wartime, no less) -- just the elected officials who thought they could get away with it. Now, in order to polish what he claims is an unfairly tarnished image, Murkowski is urging lawmakers to fund an ambitious two-year public relations campaign to cast his state in a better light.

"The nation's views of Alaska are sorely distorted," Murkowski groused.

Huh, Governor, wonder how come?

Atlas Flexed

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a nice piece yesterday about how geospatial rendering software programs like Google Earth and World Wind, from NASA, are bringing the Big Blue Marble to desktops and helping grassroots environmentalists in the fight to save wilderness. After the Sierra Summit in September, at which Google Earth was a prominent exhibitor, we used the program to develop our own interactive maps of Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We found that we were able to show visitors 3-D satellite imagery of the remote region, while also mapping out such things as the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and the migration routes of the Porcupine caribou herd. Perhaps most revealing was the map showing all the existing oil wells in the state, which put the lie to the notion that Alaska and the North Slope were somehow off-limits to the energy industry. Indeed, most of it is already being tapped -- a message we were able to get out just before the crucial vote on whether to include Arctic drilling in the budget bill. Did the maps make a difference? As Eric Antebi, our press secretary, observed, "If the 5,000 people who checked out the feature were even a tiny bit more inspired to work the issue with their elected representatives, then who's to say it didn't put us over the top?"

The Abramoff Files, Cont'd

While everyone else had gone the Atkins route, it seems the portly lobbyist Jack Abramoff opted to march to a different dietary drummer. (See: "Reliable Source," second item.) The ethics-and-waistline-challenged insider told a reporter he restricted himself to nothing but sushi. And, lo, it worked. Apparently, the pounds melted away with every piece of sushi-grade nigiri he scarfed down. But, unfortunately, all that fish also gave him a whopping dose of mercury. Alarmed at finding high levels of the neurotoxin coursing through his bloodstream, doctors persuaded Abramoff to ease up on the ahi. Perhaps, when his legal travails are over, Abramoff will atone for his sins by lobbying for something worthwhile like, say, proper labeling on seafood and greater restrictions on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Okay, it's not likely, but anything's possible.

Yo, Mistah Green

For those of you who just can't get enough of Mr. Green, Sierra's slightly surly eco-guru, there's now Mr. Green's Mailbag, where the Verdant One responds to both fans and detractors. Send your own sentiments to: mr.green@sierraclub.org.

Revisionism

We'll let you in on a little secret: Those EPA mileage ratings the automakers advertise? They're off by as much as 50 percent -- on the high side, that is. Now, the agency says, it's getting ready to bridge the gap between sticker figures and reality by changing the way it tests fuel efficiency. Consumers can expect to see mileage estimates revised downwards on all 2008 models. The figures may be particularly tough on hybrid fans. According to the New York Times:

While hybrids are almost always more fuel efficient than conventional vehicles, E.P.A. officials said their estimates for city driving would shrink more because their engines were more sensitive to changes in road conditions, as well as the use of fuel-draining features like air-conditioning and electronic controls.

Of course, more accurate information is better information. But in the final analysis, the new ratings are largely beside the point. The Sierra Club's Dan Becker gets the kicker in this story: "The real issue," he tells the Times reporter, "is making auto companies put the technology in cars that make them go farther on a gallon of gas." Amen.

Man Eats Shark

The great sharks of the world are vanishing, sacrificed for Chinese soups. Shark fin soup is a status symbol in the world's most populous society; apparently a wedding banquet is not a wedding banquet without it, and a bowl of the stuff can fetch up to $200 in Hong Kong. That demand has fueled a global fishery and led to rapid depletion of shark species. The New York Times reports that hammerheads and great whites "have been reduced by upwards of 70 percent in the last 15 years, while others, like the silky white tip, have disappeared from the Caribbean." 60 countries have so far adopted regulations against shark finning, but in this report from the beaches of Ecuador, it's evident the slaughter is still going strong.

Sierra Club Chronicles

Muckraking filmmaker Robert Greenwald generated a big buzz in 2005 with his documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” which attracted hundreds of thousands of Americans to home screenings around the country. Greenwald’s newest endeavor, Sierra Club Chronicles, launches January 12 on Link TV at 8:30 PM Eastern and Pacific, running monthly through July. The week before the debut episode, Greenwald spoke with the Sierra Club about the role of film in creating social change, and his hopes for Sierra Club Chronicles. You can read that interview at http://www.sierraclub.org/tv/greenwald.

Produced by Greenwald’s Brave New Films in association with Sierra Club Productions, the seven 30-minute segments of Sierra Club Chronicles capture the efforts of ordinary Americans fighting to protect their families, communities, and livelihoods from pollution, corporate greed, and short-sighted government policies. The episodes will run back-to-back with The ACLU Freedom Files, an original series from the American Civil Liberties Union and Brave New Films.

The first episode of Sierra Club Chronicles, “9/11 Forgotten Heroes,” focuses on first responders to the 9/11 attacks who have suffered health problems stemming from hazards at Ground Zero that the government covered up and now refuses to compensate them for. Their stories speak for the many hundreds, perhaps thousands, who gave everything they had to the search and rescue effort, only to get short shrift from their own government.

Exposing Pombo

How extreme is Representative Richard Pombo? In raking through the muck on the Republican Congressman from California, Grist's Amanda Griscom Little points out that not only are environmental groups dead set against his re-election, there's also some serious disenchantment from within his own party.

Current Democratic challengers lack experience and are still considered dark horses in the race to unseat him, notes Little. But Pombo could conceivably find himself squaring off against a Republican opponent -- one with considerable chops.

Former Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.), an architect of the Endangered Species Act who served 16 years in the House until 1983, announced in September that he's trying to recruit a moderate Republican to defeat Pombo in the June primary -- and, if he can't find someone, McCloskey is considering stepping up to the plate himself. A septuagenarian, he's said he's too old to be elected again, but is willing to run simply to expose Pombo's extremism.

Nukes or No?

20 years after the Chernobyl disaster, nuclear power may be undergoing a resurgence despite entrenched anti-nuke sentiment. In the words of this AFP story, "Fission may be back, but it is not yet in fashion."

Fashionable or not, Finland has become the first European country in fifteen years to begin construction of a new plant and Sweden recently scrapped plans to phase out its dozen nuke plants in the coming years. All across Europe, in fact, governments are reconsidering the role of nuclear power. What's more, even some environmentalists, including the Gaia-hypothesist, James Lovelock, are on the nuclear bandwagon, citing the looming specter of a destabilized climate as the reason to back the carbon-free power supply.

Many nagging problems remain: How to avert accidents or sabotage and what to do with all the waste, which will remain radioactive for eons? As Britons debate the nukes question, the Guardian reports official figures showing that a "new generation of nuclear power stations would increase five-fold the amount of a lethal and long-lasting form of highly radioactive nuclear waste stored in the UK."

One thing's certain, the worldwide debate on nuclear energy is now underway. This week in San Francisco, for instance, the Long Now Foundation will host a discussion between two energy experts whose outlooks differ on the subject. The topic: "Nuclear Power, Climate Change, and the Next 10,000 Years"

Water Wars

Readers of Marc Reisner's classic Cadillac Desert know all about the water Los Angeles stole from the Owens River Valley back in 1913. They might be surprised to learn that the struggle over that water is not entirely settled, even today.

The Los Angeles Times reports on a daily battle of wills between the tiny enclave of 40 Acres and LA's water district. To hear the Times tell it, every morning for two years now, stubborn residents of 40 Acres have opened a gate in the waterworks to feed Pine Creek and water their town. Every afternoon, officials from the Department of Water and Power shut that gate and divert water back to the city. Inevitably the dispute is headed for court, where Los Angeles may not prevail.

In previous long legal battles, the DWP was forced to give up significant amounts of water to steady water levels in Mono Lake, re-water parts of the dry Owens Lake to help prevent dust storms and restore a 62-mile stretch of the Lower Owens River. Earlier this year, an Inyo County Superior Court judge ordered Los Angeles to pay fines of $5,000 a day until water was flowing once again in the Lower Owens.

Just as inevitably, the Times quotes Mark Twain, who said "Whiskey's for drinkin', water's for fightin'." It was no idle quip. In the new century, experts fear that growing tensions over scarce water resources will lead to outright wars -- not just legal battles -- in arid regions around the globe.

Genesis and Chaos

The cover of the latest issue of Sierra magazine features the work of Sebastião Salgado, the great Brazilian photographer who made his name as a chronicler of the human struggle. Now, in what he calls his final project, he strives to create a picture of "the pure and virginal face of nature and of humanity."

Salgado calls the project Genesis. "In the planet's beginnings," writes the magazine's Jennifer Hattam, "he believes he will find a key to its future."

You'll find more of Salgado's stunning images in the pages of Sierra, but only on the newsstand. You can, however, read Bill Mckibben's essay, "Year One," in which he designates Katrina as the genesis, if you will, of something very ominous: the new age of climate chaos.

The Road to Justice

They live only an hour and a half apart but worlds away. Lynn Henning is a white farmer living in rural Hudson, Michigan. Rhonda Anderson is a black activist in Detroit. Both are Sierra Club organizers. To bridge the cultural gap between their communities, Lynn and Rhonda arranged to charter a bus last November. With it, they took people from Detroit to the countryside and folks from Hudson to the inner city so that each could see what the other was up against. Grist published their respective thoughts on the "Common Justice Tour" here. Said Rhonda in her dispatch: "I think it's going to be very powerful when a white farmer is accompanying a black community leader into a meeting with a legislator to say, 'Their issues are our issues too, and we're going to keep coming back here with them until you start listening to the people instead of the polluters.'"

Salmon Not Safe?

The Toronto Star reports the following: "A new report from U.S. researchers concludes that, for most people, the potential cancer risks of eating salmon containing toxic chemicals outweigh the benefits gained from also consuming the fish's heart-friendly omega-3 fatty acids." The exception could be people prone to heart disease who stand to gain more from the benefits of omega-3s than they would risk by eating salmon.

Note that "salmon containing toxic chemicals" translates to farmed salmon. The story specifically says farmed Atlantic salmon, but it should be noted that some species of Pacific salmon are also pen-raised and fed 'fish chow' -- basically ground-up fish that have concentrated environmental contaminants like dioxins and PCBs.

Honestly, it's all very confusing, as most cost-benefit analyses and health risk assessments are. (Tell me again, how many glasses of wine per day are supposed to be good for me? Is that white or red? And, wait, what if there's alcoholism in the family?) To further complicate matters for the consumer, the extent of toxicity in salmon varies considerably and has much to do with where the salmon are raised. Farm-raised Chilean salmon, for example, is said to have fewer toxins than salmon reared in pens in Scotland and British Columbia.

The Star article restricts its focus to health risks, but pen-raising salmon is also a bad deal environmentally speaking, for a wide variety of reasons. And that, at least, should help simplify your choice at the fish market. As a rule of thumb, if you want healthy salmon -- healthy for both you and the environment -- buy wild. And, for those who think you can't afford it, here's a tip: consider canned salmon, the vast majority of which is wild pink salmon. It's cheap and has less mercury than tuna.

Out of the Closet

This from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's latest effort, "The New Red, White and Blue":

Sorry, but being green, focusing the nation on greater energy efficiency and conservation, is not some girlie-man issue. It is actually the most tough-minded, geostrategic, pro-growth and patriotic thing we can do. Living green is not for sissies. Sticking with oil, and basically saying that a country that can double the speed of microchips every 18 months is somehow incapable of innovating its way to energy independence - that is for sissies, defeatists and people who are ready to see American values eroded at home and abroad.

Got that? Being green: It's not just for sissies anymore. You go Tom!

Bad Ol' King Coal

The mine disaster in West Virginia that left 12 men dead is a terrible reminder of the high costs that come with our heavy dependence on "cheap" coal. While we mourn the miners it is also important to remember that coal is still the leading source of electricity in America, with more than half of our power supply coming from coal combustion.

As the editors of the Christian Science Monitor remind us, the consequences of that dependence are deadly serious: "fatal mine accidents, while serious, are not the major damage from coal usage. Pollution is considered coal's biggest killer, not to mention its likely contribution to global warming from carbon dioxide emissions."

Coal's boosters like to talk about the resource as cheap and plentiful. They call America the "Saudi Arabia of coal." In an op/ed piece in the Houston Chronicle, Jeff Goodell, author of the upcoming book, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future runs down some of coal's darker aspects:

The American Lung Association estimates that 24,000 people die prematurely each year from power-plant pollution. In Appalachia, mountaintop removal mining — a method of mining in which the mountain is removed from the coal, rather than the coal removed from the mountain — has flattened some 380,000 acres in the region and destroyed more than 700 miles of streams.

Coal plants generate more than 130 million tons a year of combustion waste — fly ash, bottom ash, scrubber sludge — that is laced with toxic metals like arsenic and mercury and pumped into holding ponds and abandoned mines, where it can sometimes leak into aquifers and drinking water.

Most important, coal plants are responsible for nearly 40 percent of the carbon dioxide released in the United States, meaning that if we're going to get a handle on global warming, we'll have to get a handle on coal.

But the troubling fact is that demand for coal is rising, and sharply. Meanwhile, we are still trying to get a handle on another of the coal's demons -- namely, mercury emissions.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can work it's way up the food chain, particularly in fish. Mercury contamination is widespread. According to the EPA, one in six women of childbearing age in the U.S. has high enough levels of mercury in her blood to put her baby at risk of neurological damage. Fortunately, we can get a handle on the mercury problem, given the political will to do so. President Bush, unfortunately, has not shown that will.

One politician who has is Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who yesterday announced a plan to require utilities to cut mercury emissions by an average of 90 percent by July 2009. If passed, Illinois will join a growing list of states that have passed far more stringent mercury restrictions than those proposed by the Bush administration.

Even with mercury pollution checked at the smokestack, coal's larger problems remain -- the most ominous being greenhouse gas emissions. China, which has lost an incredible 10,000 miners in underground accidents since 2004, is an even larger producer and consumer of coal than the United States. The country, which draws 80 percent of its electricity from coal, has plans to build more than 500 additional coal-fired plants. As Susan Watts, science editor at the BBC, observes, "If the power plants go ahead, it will be all but impossible to avoid dangerous climate change." Clearly, if we hope to head off the worst, King Coal must be made to forfeit his crown.

When the Levee Breaks

Even before the torrential New Year's rains hit Northern California, causing widespread flooding in several counties, worried minds -- made all the more so by scenes of a drowned New Orleans -- had turned their thoughts to the vulnerability of the Golden State's primitive levee system.

Unbeknownst even to many Californians, the state has thousands of miles of levees that are meant to protect the Central Valley and the lowlands of the Sacramento River Delta from flooding. A major collapse of those levees, caused either by flooding or earthquakes, would mean catastrophe for much of the state. The Delta, via considerable plumbing (namely, canals), irrigates some of the world's most productive farm land and supplies freshwater to more than 20 million residents of urban Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area.

As environmental journalist Marc Reisner wrote in his last book, A Dangerous Place, about the perils of life in California,

With levee protection lost, the below-sea-level Delta would become in effect, a vacuum, which nature abhors. Water would pour in there as it would down a manhole. A lot of it would be salt water sucked in from the bay. ... Within hours or days, all that water would be unusable and undrinkable ...

So, what is being done to guard against such a scenario? As the NewsHour's Spencer Michaels reported on PBS:

The legislature will take up flood protection in early 2006. California is considering a bond issue to strengthen its levees, and is asking the federal government for help. Meanwhile, perhaps 200,000 homes are slated to be built in the delta and near unpredictable rivers in the next few years.

Ah yes, the floodplain: Prime real estate.

Don't Kill Your Television!

Sierra Club Chronicles, a new 7-part television series, is set to debut January 12 on Link TV. The show is hosted by Darryl Hannah and produced by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films. Greenwald, fyi, is the man behind the documentaries Outfoxed and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

You can help us make the launch of Chronicles a success by hosting a house party where you and friends can watch and discuss the first episode, "9/11 Forgotten Heroes." Don't have a satellite hook-up? Not a problem. Free copies of the "9/11 Forgotten Heroes" DVD are available on a first-come, first-served basis to house party hosts.

The Dirty Baker's Dozen

Here's some juicy reading for you: Citizen's for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has released a report called Beyond DeLay, running down what are deemed the 13 most corrupt members of Congress, not counting Mr. Tom DeLay, who is currently under indictment. It does, however, include California Congressman Randy Cunningham, who resigned late last year in disgrace, and, surprise, surprise, one Mr. Richard Pombo (see below), whose day of reckoning has not yet arrived.

The Abramoff Files

With shady Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff now poised to cooperate in a far-reaching government investigation into to congressional corruption, several lawmakers are thought to be quaking in their loafers. Among those is California Congressman Richard Pombo, the reigning bete noir of environmentalists. Mr. Pombo is known to have received more than $35,000 in contributions from Abramoff and his Indian tribe clients. Most of that sum came from the Mashpee Wampanoag of Massachusetts. It so happens the tribe was awarded federal recognition after Pombo pushed a bill through the House Resources Committee, which he chairs.

Pombo's colleague and fellow committee member, California Democrat George Miller, has repeatedly petitioned Pombo to investigate Abramoff's activities on behalf of the Northern Mariana Islands, over which the House Resources Committee has sole jurisdiction. In a letter to colleagues, Miller wrote that lawmakers bore "a responsibility to investigate the evidence and allegations I have presented that go to the heart of the committee's integrity." So far, his petitions have gone largely ignored. But with Abramoff now presumably cooperating as a witness in the Justice Department case, things could quickly change.

Not Over Yet

2005 may have ended but the incredible 2005 hurricane season carries on. Out in the middle of the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Zeta -- the 27th named storm this cycle -- is approaching hurricane strength, with winds of 65 mph. Should Zeta attain hurricane status, it would mark yet another record in a season that has already claimed a string of them. The previous record for the latest-forming cyclone was Alice, which became a hurricane on December 31 of 1954, persisting until January 5, 1955.