Ocean Woes

The oceans are growing more acidic as they absorb the surplus carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- a problem some say is even more worrisome than global warming. The trend has terrible ramifications, as the acidity could undermine the very base of the ocean food chain -- namely, plankton. Coral reefs are in trouble too, with researchers reporting unprecedented bleaching in the Caribbean, where sustained high sea surface temperatures were recorded in 2005. Sadly, the situation is even worse in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and global warming has many scientists despairing for the future of coral reefs. Biochemistry professor M. James Crabbe tells the AP, "If you want to see a coral reef, go now, because they just won't survive in their current state."

Desperate for a shred of good news? How about this? Cyclone Larry may have helped corals in Australia's Great Barrier Reef as its churning Category-5 winds helped lower ocean temperatures there and so forestalled bleaching. Granted, those winds also did some damage to the reef. And yes, the back-to-back occurrence of Larry and Glenda raises the nagging question of whether these severe storms are the result of warming, but, hey, you have to take good news where you can get it.

Sad

Hal, the Central Park coyote, died.

Branding Chevy

This probably won't last long, but if you hurry you can make your own Chevy Tahoe commercial at Chevy Online. Jeremy Marin, a Sierra Club representative in Boston, made one. Check it out.

It's worth noting that Chevy touts the SUV as being "responsible," because it will burn E85 -- an ethanol blend. According to Brendan Bell from our Energy and Global Warming Program, automakers can only meet up to 1.2 mpg of their CAFE obligation with flex-fuel vehicle credits, so they focus on their worst gas-guzzlers to get the most out of that loophole. In any case, what good is the ability to burn E85 if a) you can't buy it in most places and b) it's hardly energy-saving to begin with?

Another feature Chevy touts is the 5300 V8 engine, which has the ability to disengage four cylinders when not needed. Nifty, but unfortunately the so-called "Active Fuel Management technology" is aimed more at horsepower than fuel economy. The Tahoe 4x4 equipped with the 5300 V8 gets a dismal 15 mpg in city driving.

With fuel prices rising, it's no surprise that demand for this sort of gas-huffer is slumping. But for whatever reason, GM, the world's largest automaker, continues to bet on guzzlers. That bet isn't paying off currently, as Chevy's parent is in the midst of laying off thousands of workers and closing factories.

The Chevy contest asks, "Are you up to the challenge?" The real question is: Are they?

Altered Assumptions

With the Atlantic hurricane season just two months away, the Bush administration has nearly tripled its cost estimate for rebuilding the New Orleans levee system, from the initial projection of $3.5 billion to the latest figure: $9.5 billion. Why the massive adjustment? The Washington Post reports:

The loss of coastal wetlands protecting New Orleans from storms, as well as the lowering of the ground level in the area, have reduced the city's natural safeguards from flooding -- and altered assumptions.

Moreover, new storm data from the past 20 years suggest that powerful storms are more likely to hit New Orleans than previously believed. The previous levee design was meant for less powerful storms, but the recent surge of activity has changed ideas about what kinds of storms the city should be prepared for.

All Wet

Despite loosening regulations protecting wetlands from development, the Bush administration now claims total wetland acreage in the U.S. has increased under its watch.

In fact, some 523,500 acres of swamps and tidal marshes disappeared between 1998 and 2004. At the same time, however, the Fish and Wildlife Service measured gains of 715,300 acres of shallow-water wetlands and ponds; that is, everything from golf course water traps to mine reclamation ponds and abandoned water-filled quarries -- what one critic characterized as "wet deserts." At a news conference, officials allowed that the survey measured quantity, not quality. But the distinction didn't stop departing Interior Secretary Gale Norton from declaring victory. "I'm pleased to complete my term as secretary of interior by announcing some good news," she said.

The survey covered the period from 1998 to 2004 and thus does not include the loss of 64,000 acres of Gulf wetlands to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Moulin Bleu

Greenland is melting and its ice sheet moving oceanward at an accelerating pace, but how? The mechanics of the meltdown were explicated in a 2002 paper that showed how increasingly abundant surface meltwater travels through large tunnels called moulins to the base of the 3/4-mile-thick ice sheet, providing a lubricating layer which helps speed the mass toward the coast. As the ice flows and melts it also thins, lowering the surface elevation -- all of which could contribute to a feedback loop that would reinforce melting.

Science and the Public

What should the role of scientists be when it comes to policy debates regarding complex scientific matters like climate change? Can they offer context and clarifications to scientific discussions without sacrificing their objectivity? How far can they wade into the public debate before they are considered advocates as opposed to impartial authorities? Given the scope and urgency of the crisis, do they owe it to the public to step forward and call it as they see it? Or are they to remain cloistered in their labs, a mysterious priest class that only dispenses wisdom in the form of arcane scientific literature? This, roughly, is the subject of discussion over at Real Climate, where real scientists have been blogging and arguing about the finer points of climate science since December 2004.

The Mean and the Green

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy has released the 2006 Green Book, which ranks cars based on their environmental impact: The "greenest" on one end of the scale, the "meanest" on the other. The rankings take into account smog and greenhouse gas emissions as well as fuel economy.

Now, the Hummer may be the machine we all love to hate, but it lands at number 7 on the meanest list -- still despicable, mind you, but not the worst of the lot. Nope. Currently parked in the innermost circle of automotive hell is the Dodge Ram SRT10, a short-bed pickup with a mighty big engine. Under the hood is the same 500-horsepower, 8.3-liter V10 engine that is used in the Dodge Viper. In other words, it's not really a truck at all, but a sports car dressed up as one.

Just looking at fuel mileage, the Ram SRT10 gets a disgraceful 9 mpg in the city while the greenest vehicle in the year class, the gasoline-electric hybrid Honda Insight, gets an impressive 57 mpg in urban driving. Admittedly, that's an apples-and-oranges comparison, but the Green Guide also ranks cars by vehicle class: The Toyota Tundra is the top performer when it comes to standard-size pickups, getting double the mileage of the SRT10.

You don't have to buy a subcompact to make a substantial difference. As ACEEE Policy Director Bill Prindle says, "Simply by choosing the most efficient vehicle in each class, we could cut our average gasoline bill by $510 a year, while cutting carbon emissions more than 30 percent."

The Motion of the Ocean

If Cape Codders decide they can't live with wind turbines (see previous entry below) perhaps they'll settle for wave power. The first commercial wave farm was planted off the coast of Portugal last year, with three wave-energy capture devices expected to produce enough electricity for 1,500 households. A Welsh wave farm slated for implementation in 2007 is expected to power 60,000 homes. And another large-scale project is being considered in South Africa.

Reporting in Discover Magazine last year, author Eric Scigliano noted that enough energy breaks on the world's coastlines every two hours to power 5 million American households for a year. He writes:

The bonanza is so obvious that inventors have dreamed of harnessing ocean waves for more than two centuries. In 1799 a French father-and-son team tried to patent a giant lever attached to a floating ship, which would rock with the waves to drive shoreside pumps, mills, and saws. But steam power stole everyone's attention, and the dream languished on drawing boards. Two centuries later, oil embargoes once again spurred wave-power designs, but they passed into memory as gasoline prices slid downward. Now, as oil prices soar again, wave energy may finally be poised to deliver.

Today, oil futures closed at just under $66 a barrel.

Cape Considerations

The Massachusetts Audubon Society has given Cape Wind, the proposed offshore wind project in Nantucket Sound, a preliminary and conditional nod of approval. After years of study, the environmental group found that the project's 24-square-mile footprint would not adversely affect the most sensitive bird species. The group also challenged Cape Wind and government officials to accept "comprehensive and rigorous monitoring to reduce the risk to birds and other wildlife." If built, the wind farm is anticipated to supply Cape Cod and the islands with 75 percent of its energy needs.

The project remains controversial, with many opponents citing the adverse impact it would have on ocean vistas. In a statement, Mass Audubon President Laura Johnson suggests the critics in the low-lying region should be worried about bigger things -- like, for example, sea level.

Rising sea levels caused by warming will flood low-lying barrier beaches and islands that we all enjoy and that serve as critical habitat for coastal birds, including the endangered roseate tern and threatened piping plover. In addition, our safety may be threatened by increasing storm intensity and storm surge related to sea-level rise and a warmer planet.

The consequences of climate warming compel us to increase energy conservation as a first priority. And, to continue to supply our energy needs, wind should be tapped as the most successful and readily available of all renewable energy technologies. The benefits and detriments of Cape Wind must be balanced against the significant threats to Nantucket Sound posed by fossil-fuel use and rapid climate change.

To read the position of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Sierra Club on the Cape Wind project as of last year, see the Summer 2005 issue of the chapter newsletter, The Sierran (pdf).

Budget Outrage

The fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is once again in play. The Senate budget bill instructs the government to raise $6 billion in leasing fees from the refuge over 10 years, with the figure to be split between the state of Alaska and the federal government. In other words, we're talking about $3 billion in a budget that approaches $3 trillion total.

As we noted earlier in the week, the Interior Department now estimates that the government will lose at least $7 billion (and as much as $28 billion) in royalties over the next five years thanks to something called the "royalty relief." As if that weren't outrage enough, the Bush energy bill extends $2.6 billion in tax breaks to the same oil and gas companies that would stand to profit in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the same oil and gas companies that are currently enjoying record profits.

The House is now considering whether to include Arctic drilling in its version of the budget bill. You can vote on the matter in this poll at MSNBC.

Flu Scare

Avian flu is hell on chickens and other domestic poultry but does it spell doom for wild birds? Not likely, say conservation biologists. A bigger threat to bird species may be overreaction by scared humans under the misapprehension that migratory fowl are bringing the plague.

So far, no bird carrying A(H5N1) -- the deadly strain of the avian flu -- has been found in the Americas, but the New York Times reports that in Maine, state epidemiologists are fielding calls from Maineiacs wondering whether they should be shotgunning the Canada geese in the backyard.

For anyone curious to know more about how the epidemic works, the Times article offers a good synopsis.

How High's the Water, Mama?

Two international teams report today in the journal Science that Arctic summers by 2100 may be as warm or warmer than they were nearly 130,000 years ago, when sea levels eventually rose up to 20ft higher than today. Such a rise had been thought to be at least 1,000 years away.

- "Cities in danger as scientists predict rapid sea level rise" UK Telegraph

To see what a sea level rise of even three feet will mean for coastal areas, see this Google Maps "mash-up." The map is centered on the UK, but by using the navigation tools you can move around the globe, zoom in and out, and toggle through various scenarios, from a one- to 14-meter rise in sea level.

Royalty Screwed

Even with fuel prices at all-time highs, oil and gas companies are not paying royalties on many offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico. So-called "royalty relief" was meant to subsidize production when prices were low, but even with oil at $50 a barrel, energy companies are enjoying the generous subsidies.

The Interior Department now estimates that the government will lose $7 billion in royalties over the next five years. A recent lawsuit could increase that figure four-fold. As if that weren't enough, the energy bill President Bush signed in August contained another $2.6 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies and expanded the royalty relief program.

This at the same time that the Interior Department is pushing to sell 800,000 acres of public land in order to fund rural school programs. Go figure.

About Time

The latest issue of Time Magazine is devoted to global warming. (Non-subscribers can watch an ad to read the articles for free).

It's not the first time the newsweekly has made warming the lead. Five years ago, Time ran a cover story entitled Life in the Greenhouse. That cover showed an egg simmering in a skillet, sunny-side-up. The new cover features a polar bear, certainly the most charismatic species associated with the crisis -- a big carnivorous canary in the coal mine, its future pegged to that of the dwindling polar ice cap.

Of course, if the bell is tolling for the polar bear, it's tolling for us too. And judging from the recent polling statistics Time runs, that fact seems to be sinking in with most Americans. 85 percent now believe warming is real, and 80 percent believe humans are at least partly to blame for rising temperatures. If perception is reality (and certainly that's the case where politics is concerned), then that counts as progress.

As if to reflect that shift, Time devotes many more pages (and photos) to global warming in this issue than it did five years ago when the horizon for the kinds of radical changes now occurring was thought to be farther off. And in reading the two lead stories side by side it's interesting to note that, today, no ink is spilled for the skeptics. In 2001, global warming was still being talked about as a possible (perhaps even likely) scenario. Now, suddenly, it's a forgone conclusion and one that demands immediate action.

Of course, there's been none of that from Washington. In searching for positive steps toward confronting the crisis, the magazine has to turn elsewhere -- to carbon-conscious rock bands like Coldplay, innovative countries like Sweden and a movement by U.S. mayors to take the initiative in dealing with the problem (See the Sierra Club's Cool Cities Campaign to learn more).

It goes without saying that all such efforts are laudatory. If they are small steps, at least they are steps that strike out in the right direction. But one still has to worry and wonder whether far too little isn't happening too late.

Currently, the two-mile-thick Greenland ice sheet is fracturing in Manhattan-sized chunks (big enough to cause earthquakes), its glaciers moving oceanward at twice as fast as they were a decade ago. It appears certain that the North Pole will be ice-free in summers by mid-century. With the ice goes Earth's albedo, or reflectivity, which in turn leads to more warming -- a positive-feedback loop that would further accelerate warming.

I do not mean to sound alarmist, and in fact I still hold out a good deal of hope that we can get our act together in time. It's just that, in contemplating the future, it is not at all clear that time is on our side.

This Day in History

On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef and proceeded to disgorge 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil into the beautiful waters of Prince William Sound. It was Good Friday and by some strange cosmic coincidence the tragedy occurred almost exactly 25 years after the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964, an incredible Magnitude 9.2 event (the strongest ever recorded in North America) that sent tsunamis radiating outward from the epicenter near Valdez, all the way to Hawaii and claiming lives as far away as California. Among the monumental damage it caused, the quake destroyed an asphalt storage plant in Valdez and spilled enough asphalt to cover 30 percent of the Port Valdez Fjord.

The anniversary of the Exxon Valdez catastrophe comes on the heels of yet another major disaster -- what is being called the largest-ever spill on the North Slope. Earlier this month, a corroded feeder section of pipeline owned by BP burst and sent more than 200,000 gallons of crude seeping across the tundra. The accident went unnoticed for days and sub-freezing temperatures made repairs, let alone clean up, difficult.

The latest spill gives the lie to blithe claims by the oil industry that their business can be carried out safely and securely, with little or no environmental consequence. In fact, the event has only served to heighten concerns about the aging Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Next year the 800-mile-long main section of the TAP will turn 30 and many are now voicing concerns about its safety. In addition to corrosion and other "natural" threats like forest fires, the pipeline remains extremely vulnerable to sabotage and terrorist attack.

The oil industry and its supporters in government downplay these concerns, much as they downplayed the situation 17 years ago when the single-hulled Exxon Valdez was gushing crude. At the time, even before Exxon had mobilized any kind of spill response in the Sound, a spokesman for the company told the press that it did not expect major environmental damage as a result of the spill.

Today, it is remembered as the worst environmental disaster in American history.

The Long Baseline

The worrying thing about the most recent climate science is that change seems to be occurring faster than the computer models had predicted. This was not a possibility often entertained by the professional skeptics, who have long insisted that their adversaries in the climate debate were harping on worst-case scenarios in order to incite alarm. In fact, predictions from the IPCC and the various science academies around the world are beginning to seem conservative, even timid when compared to real-world observations.

I should hasten to say that I, at least, do not see skepticism as a bad thing. To the contrary, it is undoubtedly necessary for good science. Moreover, I sincerely hope and pray for all our sakes that the skeptics are right and that we have not pulled the hinges off earth's climate system and ushered ourselves out of the Holocene -- the relatively hospitable epoch that gave rise to civilization.

But, judging from the news, I fear we may have.

The latest issue of Science, the preeminent scientific journal in America, is devoted to ice, our dwindling cryosphere -- ironically, the very stuff that has told us much, if not most, of what we know about the climate of Earth's deep past. It has given us what the editors of Science call the "long baseline" against which to compare our current situation.

The comparison should give us pause, since, as the editors observe, "At no time in at least the past 10 million years has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 exceeded the present value of 380 [parts per million]." They continue:

The Holocene, over its 10,000-year life, has provided us with a comparatively stable period. Now we are changing an important parameter. Evidence presented in two papers, a News story, and two Perspectives in this issue demonstrates an accelerating decay of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Given the concurrent rapid recent rise in CO2 concentration, history suggests that we should expect other changes. ... Nothing in the record suggests that an "equilibrium" climate model is the right standard of comparison. We are in the midst of a highly kinetic system, and in the past, dramatic climate changes have taken place in only a few decades. Our comfort in the Holocene may have heightened our sense of security, but the expectation that change is unlikely is not a reasonable position.

Note: Science requires a subscription to be read in full.

Fate of the Amazon

If current patterns continue, 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest will be gone by mid-century, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Much of the forest is going up in smoke, burned to clear land for agriculture -- principally soybean cultivation and cattle ranching. The rate of destruction has nearly doubled in the past decade. 9,000 square miles of forest (a New Hampshire's worth) were cleared in 2004.

The loss is an environmental catastrophe of the highest order. Not only will it mark a massive decrease in the world's biodiversity but it could also reinforce climate change. Computer models suggest that the forest will "die back" in response to increased drought, in turn releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

By contrast, models suggest that if the proper steps are taken to protect the resource 73 percent of the original forest could be left standing in 2050, with carbon emissions reduced accordingly. Since that outcome benefits the entire world, scientists argue that affluent countries should be willing to foot the bill.

Business Climate

Ceres, a coalition of environmentalists and institutional investors, has released a report that grades 100 of the world's largest companies based on how they are positioning themselves in a "carbon-constrained" world market -- that is, one in which carbon emissions are regulated. On that score, the report gives high marks to DuPont and BP (both of which, it should be noted, have lately suffered bad press for other reasons). In a press release, Ceres explains that DuPont "has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions 72 percent since 1990 and developed forward-thinking commercial products such as energy-efficient building materials, components for solar, wind and fuel cell systems and next-generation refrigerants with low global warming potential." Failing grades, meanwhile, were handed out to usual suspects like Newmont Mining and ExxonMobil. The latter is currently the most profitable company in the world, but if its corporate philosophy doesn't change soon, its fortunes undoubtedly will.

Teshekpuk Overview

NASA's Earth Observatory gives this God's-eye view of Teshekpuk Lake on Alaska's North Slope. Foiled in their plan to drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Bush administration gave Teshekpuk to Big Oil as a consolation prize. The lake-dotted tundra is prime habitat for geese and other waterfowl, not to mention caribou, and is considered so important, biologically speaking, that even Reagan's infamously anti-environment Interior Secretary James Watt felt it deserved federal protection. Not so the Bush administration. The Sierra Club has joined other environmental groups in suing to halt drilling.

Welcome to the Anthropocene

NPR's Terri Gross talks to Australian author and scientist Tim Flannery about his new book The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth. You can listen to the interview online and read an excerpt here.

Blognosis

Personally, I hate the word 'blog.' But we're stuck with it, I guess. Not just blog, the noun, either, but also blog, the verb, and of course all the many offshoots, like blogger and blogosphere. So far, though, I've yet to hear it as an adjective. So allow me. Gregory Dicum runs down the green scene, blogwise, in his blog-like (one might say blogular) SFGate column, "Green." He does a nice job, too, not only giving Carl Pope's Taking the Initiative a nod, but also reminding me that our links list (what some folks call a blogroll) is sorely inadequate. I've been meaning to get on that, and I will, I promise. In fact, if you have a favorite link that Dicum missed but that you'd like to see included, here's your chance. Leave a comment and pass along the names of your favorite environmentally-themed ... you know ... web-journal-thingies.

Howl

Having recently commented on the procreative efforts of Pale Male and Lola, the famous redtails of Central Park, it only seems appropriate to mention the recent appearance of a coyote (canis latrans) in Frederick Law Olmstead's urban oasis. The year-old male coyote was first spotted in the park near Manhattan's Upper East Side. Newspapers are reporting that Hal, as park officials dubbed the little feller, led his pursuers on a "merry chase" through the city's midsection before being captured somewhere north of the skating rink. Most New Yorkers seemed happy to see him. One man interviewed by Reuters said, "The last thing I'm worried about in New York is a coyote. I wonder if the coyote is worried about us. It's New York. Check its papers and let it go." For its own good, however, park officials say they will relocate the wily pup to the countryside.

Changing Seasons

With snow falling in San Francisco and record-breaking heat in Canada, it's been a wacky winter. And things aren't likely to get more predictable now that it's spring. Just ask author Bruce Stutz, who spent three months driving north across the United States as it thawed and bloomed, chronicling the trip in his book Chasing Spring (excerpt | author interview).

“Each place, each species experiences its own spring,” Stutz writes. During his 2004 journey, he observed rituals of the season and oddities of nature--like the wood frogs that turn two-thirds of their bodily fluids to ice during winter and thaw in spring--as well as the effects of global warming, which threaten to change a time of renewal into one of uncertainty. What changes have you noticed in your spring?

(From Sierra magazine's "The Green Life," March/April 2006.)

In Memoriam: Luna Leopold

Luna Leopold died on February 23rd, 2006 at his home in Berkeley, California. The former Sierra Club board member and chief hydrologist for the US Geological Survey was 90 years old.

Son of forester and conservationist Aldo Leopold (author of A Sand County Almanac), Luna is best remembered for his contributions to the field of fluvial geomorphology; that is, the study of rivers and their role in shaping the landscape. In 1991, Leopold has awarded the National Medal of Science. Next month, he will become the posthumous recipient of the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science. Friends and colleagues report that he continued working until the very end of his life.

A critic of clearcutting, grazing on public land and mining in national parks, Leopold's work as an earth scientist often put him at the center of important environmental debates. Above all, his work focused on rivers and watersheds. "The health of our waters," he once wrote, "is the principal measure of how we live on the land."

How 'Bout Never?

60 Minutes investigates a pattern of political interference with climate science and White House attempts to muzzle NASA's top climatologist, Dr. James Hansen. None of the reporting is new here, but the show does offer a concise summation of the story.

To his credit, Hansen continues to speak on the record despite White House pressure. The Bush Administration, by contrast, isn't talking -- at least not to the popular CBS news program. The report ends:

For months, 60 Minutes had been trying to talk with the president’s science advisor. 60 Minutes was finally told he would never be available. Phil Cooney, the editor at the Council on Environmental Quality didn’t return 60 Minutes' calls. In June, he left the White House and went to work for Exxon Mobil.

For more on Cooney's editorial shenanigans, see our Decoder feature in the Jan/Feb issue of Sierra.

Mulholland's World

World leaders and water managers are at the World Water Forum in Mexico City to confront what the UN's Kevin Watkins, writing in the International Herald Tribune, calls "global Mulhollandism," after the man who engineered LA's water grab and turned what had only recently been a dusty outpost into one of world's largest and most productive cities.

Water grabs, unfortunately, are not uncommon on the world stage, but now the resource -- endlessly renewable but also limited -- is strained as never before as the population increases and underground aquifers are depleted, waterways polluted and aging infrastructure degraded. Mexico City is a fitting poster child for the crisis, says Watkins. The megacity's aquifer is being drained twice as fast as it can be replenished. Meanwhile, the city atop it is sinking at half a meter per decade. Here in the US, farmers are drawing off the Ogallala aquifer at eight times the recharge rate. The problem is truly global: From the Aral Sea to Lake Victoria to the Yellow River, the world's water woes are real and pressing.

What's needed, Watkins argues, is a new direction that recognizes the limits on the resource (by, for starters, ending subsidies that encourage waste) and by "putting social justice at the center of water management."

Climate Digest

For the growing legions of armchair climatologists, keeping up with the changing science on global warming can be an overwhelming task. So, it's nice to see that someone (namely, the World Resources Institute) has digested the biggest developments of last year and presented them in an accessible issue brief. See: Climate Change 2005: Major New Discoveries.

On the Auction Block

Claiming it needs the revenue to fund rural schools, the Bush administration is proposing to sell off some 300,000 acres of public land managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

The proposal has prompted four former Forest Service chiefs to sign a letter urging Congress to reject the plan. The retired chiefs say the auction "would establish a precedent contrary to that of the last 102 years" and that "a proposal to sell off public lands to fund other programs, no matter how worthwhile those programs, is a slippery slope." As the Denver Post notes, the chiefs headed up the Forest Service for 22 years -- from 1979 to 2002 -- under both Republican and Democratic presidents.

The Administration has argued that the parcels proposed for sale are "non-vital" -- scattered and isolated and therefore difficult to manage. Closer inspection reveals that a good many of the parcels are in fact in-holdings, many of them within roadless or scenic areas or containing old-growth forest. See for yourself: Users of Google Earth can download this kmz file to browse parcels that are proposed for sale across the country. The public comment period on the proposal is open through March 30. Find out more here.

Brokeback Bush

When the lights went out over much of the northeastern United States in 2003 and the Big Apple was suddenly plunged into darkness (talk about your huddled masses), the torch on the Statue of Liberty remained lighted thanks to emergency generators.

Now, it seems, Lady Liberty's shining light, along with the entire park service facility on Liberty and Ellis Islands, will be powered by wind. The utility supplying that power, Pepco, announced the news back in February, and it was duly disseminated by bloggers and a few newspapers.

The curious thing is that, try as I might, I couldn't find the news trumpeted anywhere on government websites. Not at nps.gov, not at doe.gov, not at whitehouse.gov ... nowhere. A search on the National Renewable Energy Lab website turns up a sentence about today's wind turbines being "as tall as the Statue of Liberty" and that's it.

I only mention this because it fits a curious pattern with this Administration in which it studiously ignores anything that might give the impression that maybe, just maybe, it sees the benefits of green technology after all.

Consider solar energy: Many people know that Jimmy Carter first put solar panels on the White House during the Oil Embargo and that Nancy Reagan wasted no time in taking them down. But how many know that the White House installed solar panels again in 2002, under President George W. Bush? That's right. Among other things, solar power heats the water in the presidential pool. So, did the White House publicize the return of solar? Nope. A spokesman for the White House told the Washington Post at the time that it was an internal matter it didn't feel the need to publicize.

Then there's the president's ranch in Texas. It's a little-known fact that Bush's Crawford getaway boasts some environmentally sensible technology, including geothermal heat pumps, rainwater collection and wastewater recycling. The ranch house also incorporates daylighting and passive solar heating and cooling. It's true. Just don't expect to hear it from the White House.

So what gives? It's not greenwashing, after all, if you don't publicize it. Could it be that George W. Bush is ... gasp!... a closeted environmentalist? A green cowboy unable to be himself in a fossil-fuel culture hostile to his chosen lifestyle?

Yeah, I doubt it too, but it's fun to think about.

Buy Nothing Year?

A group of San Francisco Bay Area residents recently caused a stir with their pledge to buy nothing new in 2006. (Members of the Compact, as they've dubbed themselves, do make exceptions for food, medicine, "utilitarian" underwear, and a few other essentials.) Would shunning shopping for a year be freeing or frustrating? Read about the Compact credo, and the backlash to their ideas, and let us know what you think.

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

From 'Personal Virtue' to Civic Statute

What if Vice President Cheney's worst nightmare came true and failure to recycle was actually against the law? What if businesses could actually get cited for allowing more than ten percent of their trash to be composed of recyclable materials? What if the city garbage collector wouldn't empty your trash can one week because it had too many recyclables in it? Are we describing a jackbooted totalitarian environmental police state?

No, actually, it's just good old rainy Seattle, where all those things already have come to pass. What's more, it's apparently working, according to Brett Stav, a senior planning and development specialist at Seattle Public Utilities:"When we first started out, we had more than 90 percent of apartments and businesses complying with the new ordinance. The majority of residents get recycling and hardly any garbage cans were left behind at all."

We'll down a macchiato in a recyclable (or, better yet, reusable) cup to that.

Circling the Drain

India's once-ubiquitous vultures have nearly vanished. A dozen years ago, the scavengers numbered in the tens of millions and darkened the skies over Delhi as they wheeled above the city in soaring columns. But a pain killer widely used in cattle has led to an unprecedented decline. Today, the vulture population is estimated to be in the low thousands and hovering perilously close to extinction. Their disappearance has led to a rise in feral dogs and rats, which are now the dominant scavengers, and rabies is a major concern. A substitute cattle drug, non-lethal to vultures, has been developed, but it is more expensive than the deadly drug and not yet widely manufactured. Conservation biologists fear it may already be too late.

And Justice for All?

The New York Times talks to Dr. John Mutter, an Australian geophysicist who serves as deputy director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and who believes that "some of the answers to global poverty might be found in the places where the social and hard sciences inform each other." Asked if that isn't a bit of a reach, Mutter responds:

Not when you're looking at natural disasters, climate and its local manifestation, weather. Disasters exaggerate social ills. They shine a light on them. As a seismologist, when you try to understand how strong a material is, you stress it. You can't calculate its strength from its atomic structure. You've got to try to bend it to know where it's strong and weak. I think nature does that with society.

Meanwhile, Grist interviews sociologist and environmental justice authority, Dr. Robert Bullard about many of the same social ills Mutter alludes to.

We also spoke with Bullard, author of the new Sierra Club Book The Quest for Environmental Justice, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which did indeed shine a glaring light on race and poverty issues in America. At the time, Bullard worried about whether New Orleans would be rebuilt as "something we recognize as New Orleans" or whether the result of rebuilding would be "gentrification of not just a neighborhood but an entire city." Half a year later, it's a question that remains unanswered.

Arctic Low

For the second consecutive winter Arctic sea ice has failed to re-form sufficiently to compensate for the unprecedented melting of recent summers, arousing fears that the Arctic may have reached a crucial tipping point far earlier than predicted.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached a record high: 381 parts per million -- 100 ppm higher than pre-industrial levels. The rate of increase for 2005 was an alarming 2.6 ppm, or about double the rate 30 years ago.

How the West is Sold

In Colorado, Christian Science Monitor reporter Amanda Paulson finds a groundswell of opposition -- evidence that "the West no longer embraces energy booms the way it used to." And booming it is, thanks to Bush administration policies aimed at expediting leases. "While federal policy used to limit companies to one well pad for every 640 acres, the BLM under departing Interior Secretary Gale Norton has been allowing a pad for every 40 acres. On some private land, Colorado has allowed one on every 10," Paulson reports. When the Bureau of Land Management recently sold off 150,000 acres last month, the city of Grand Junction was so concerned about water contamination that it bid on some of the parcels itself. It lost.

Political Science

In an unusually frank NASA press release (see: "NASA Survey Confirms Climate Warming Impact on Polar Ice Sheets"), the space agency reports:

In the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the massive ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, NASA scientists confirm climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth's largest storehouses of ice and snow.

"If the trends we're seeing continue and climate warming continues as predicted, the polar ice sheets could change dramatically," said survey lead author Jay Zwally of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The Greenland ice sheet could be facing an irreversible decline by the end of the century."

That blunt assessment stands in contrast to previous releases that took pains to downplay global warming or avoid the subject altogether.

Zwally told MSNBC reporter Miguel Llanos that the change reflects a recent shake-up at NASA, saying, "A few months ago this press release might have been seriously edited or not approved." Recently, however, after Dr. Jim Hansen, NASA's leading climatologist, complained of being censored by a White House political appointee, the agency declared a policy of increased openness, actually flirting with old-fashioned American values regarding freedom of speech.

More Nukes Please

"Without swift, even reckless expansion of our domestic nuclear-energy program, scientists will never be exposed to the new and unique radiation poisonings from which the most powerful superheroes are generated."

What would we do without the Onion?

Rebuttals

Canadian blogger Coby Beck has been compiling a list of responses to climate change naysayers called How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic. Beck is clear at the outset that he is not a climatologist, just a concerned layman, and that he is writing for same. Today, the bona fide climatologists who run RealClimate give it their imprimatur.

2007: A Space Travesty

The EPA estimates that one-third of Louisiana's coastal wetlands will vanish beneath the Gulf of Mexico by 2050. That's according to this item from NASA's Earth Observatory, where, every day, new Landsat images are used to illustrate the dynamics of our planet. I'm a big fan of the site, because it's one thing to read about things like the subsidence of wetlands and salt water encroachment, and it's another to actually get the big picture, so to speak.

Last week, AP reported that the NASA satellite program that supplies these images is, in the words of one source, "at risk of collapse" due to funding shortfalls. Already some satellite programs aimed at improved monitoring and assessment of global climate change have been cancelled and more are on the chopping block. It's all a question of priorities: According to the article, NASA's "proposed 2007 budget request contains $2.2 billion for satellites that observe the Earth and sun, compared to $6.2 billion for operating the space shuttle and International Space Station and $4 billion for developing future missions to the moon and Mars."

The Revolution Will Be Hybridized

Do hybrid cars save consumers money? In a recent issue of Consumer Reports, the editors of the respected magazine said no. But after some alert readers questioned the findings, the magazine went back to the calculator. Actually, it found, two hybrid cars on the market did actually save money over conventional gas-only models. After some embarrassment, Consumer Reports corrected the article on the web, but not before millions once again got the message that hybrids are a poor economic decision.

In fact, the question of whether hybrids save money, while not altogether invalid, is slightly odd, given that no one expects other automotive options to pay for themselves. Think about it: Does power steering save you money? Or 4-wheel drive? Or cupholders? Well, maybe they do and maybe they don't, but you don't see much hand-wringing over those decisions.

In the end, it all depends on your values. If it's worth it to you to drive a more efficient car because you're concerned about our oil addiction, smog emissions and the changing climate, then paying for that efficiency makes all the sense in the world. That said, the economics of hybrid ownership will only improve as economies of scale bring prices down. In the meantime, notes BusinessWeek, hybrids have exceptional resale value, with used Priuses selling at prices approaching the cost of new models. See: Top Ten Hybrid Myths.

Norton Resigns

Gale Norton, President Bush's Secretary of the Interior, has announced her resignation amid charges that she and her former deputy, Steven Griles, had close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

On January 3rd this year Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in a plea agreement that requires his cooperation with investigators. The ongoing Abramoff scandal has exposed a slew of ethical violations and nefarious connections involving high-level officials and Indian casinos. Although she has not admitted to any wrongdoing, Norton may be the highest-level casualty so far.

This much is known: Some $500,000 in tribal money was funneled through Abramoff to a group called the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) that was founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton to advocate for things like more clearcutting and fewer environmental regulations. Italia Federici, a Norton associate, headed the organization and helped Abramoff and his clients gain personal access to the secretary. CREA, a registered non-profit, used the money to, among other things, fund a full-page newspaper ad praising the environmental merits of President Bush's plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and a grainy TV spot purporting to show Senator Kerry leaving an Earth Day celebration in an SUV.

As for Griles, the Washington Post reported that the number-two man at Interior "advised Abramoff how to get members of Congress to pressure the department and provided him information about Interior decision-making. In one instance, Abramoff wrote to his lobbying colleagues that Griles would be providing a draft of an Interior letter to Congress to give them 'a head start.'" Abramoff also offered Griles a lucrative position while he was still at Interior, emailing lobbying colleagues that Griles, who had lobbied for mining interests prior to joining the Administration, "is ready to leave Interior and will most likely be coming to join us. He had a nice sized practice before he joined Interior, and expects to get that and more rather soon. I expect he will be with us in 90-120 days."

Norton, a protege of Reagan's highly controversial Interior Secretary James Watt, had also lobbied for the mining and logging industry prior to joining the Bush cabinet. In her five years with the Administration, Norton pressured land managers to expedite oil, gas and mineral leases on public lands, re-opened Yellowstone to snowmobile use, stripped roadless rule and other wilderness protections and championed the President's disingenuously named Healthy Forests Initiative.

In her resignation letter, Norton wrote to President Bush that she was now ready to catch her breath and "set [her] sights on new goals to achieve in the private sector."

Aerial Foreplay!

Oh, to be a hawk in love! The New York Times reports that everybody's favorite raptor couple, Pale Male and Lola, are back in their swanky Midtown digs, 12 stories above Central Park. Birders say that after months of aerial foreplay, mating rituals and feathering the nest, Lola has laid her eggs. If all goes well, the chicks should arrive by the end of April at the latest.

The Big Sizzle

There's a rash of new climate titles out in bookstores. Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers was published in his native Australia some while ago, but has only recently hit shelves in the US. Then there's Eugene Linden's The Winds of Change, Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe and Andrew Revkin's book for young readers, The North Pole Was Here.

Grist manages to review all of the above, (here and