About a Dog

I like dogs, but this one seemed so small and worthless that I objected to his going...

So wrote John Muir at the outset of Stickeen: The Story of a Dog, which is among the most popular of all his books and recounts his harrowing adventures on Alaska's Brady Glacier with the mongrel that, for a time, became his trusted sidekick. In fact, Stickeen left an indelible impression on Muir and he struggled for many years to put the story of his "horizontal brother" to paper.

I only bring this up by way of announcing the end of our Dog Dogs of Summer contest. In case you missed it, we asked folks to send in photos of themselves with their non-human brothers -- dogs, cats, llamas, birds, or whatever -- in the outdoors. Mostly, we got dogs. No surprise there. Man's best friend and all....

From the hundreds of shots we received, we chose a much smaller selection of finalists from which we asked folks to pick a winner. Well, the results are now in. Have a look, and while you're at it, be sure to check out the gallery of honorable mentions as well. Some great shots in there.

For Muir, the great naturalist and explorer, the adventure with Stickeen was transformative. As he would write many years after their shared experience on the glacier:

I have known many dogs, and many a story I could tell of their wisdom and devotion; but to none do I owe so much as to Stickeen. At first the least promising and least known of my dog-friends, he suddenly became the best known of them all. Our storm-battle for life brought him to light, and through him as through a window I have ever since been looking with deeper sympathy into all my fellow mortals.

Lucha Libre

Here's one for all my hip, young readers. (Does Compass have any of those? Hmmm. I wonder.) Anyway, over at Bottleworld, a site that describes itself as an "irreverent, informed online magazine about the environment," the mysterious bottleman goes mano-a-mano with a familiar conundrum. The problem is raised by a reader, who writes to ask, in effect: Which is more sustainable: The back-to-the-Earth rural retreat or the eco-aware urban existence? Put another way: Who's greener? City mouse or country mouse?

In a valiant attempt to answer the question, bottleman sets up an imaginary (and slightly risque) 'cage match' between two friends who fit the respective profiles, then lets the footprint calculator act as referee. In terms of sensibilities, it's like World Wrestling Federation meets World Wildlife Fund with a little Austin Powers thrown in.

Sound like fun, kids? Okay, then, get ready to rumble.

Oh No Zone

It's going on 20 years since the Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone-destroying chemical compounds was first drawn up. The treaty, ratified in 1989, is held up as a model of international cooperation and gives hope that future accords may be reached to deal with climate change and other global environmental threats.

This is the time of year when the ozone hole over the Antarctic approaches maximum size. In a release, NASA gives the current status report and outlook. According to NASA scientist Paul Newman, "The Antarctic ozone hole will reach sizes on the order of 8-10 million square miles nearly every year until about 2018 or so. Around 2018, things should slowly start improving, and somewhere between 2020 and 2025, we’ll be able to detect that the ozone hole is actually beginning to decrease in size. Eventually the ozone hole will go back to its normal level around 2070 or so."

Alas, the good news has been marred by unintended consequences. It seems that the hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that have largely replaced the ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are, in turn, extremely potent greenhouse gases and, as such, exacerbate global warming.

Uh-oh is right.

The World According to Ann

"We believe in populating the Earth until there’s standing room only and then colonizing Mars; they believe humans are in the twilight of their existence."

That's Ms. Ann Coulter, ladies and gentlemen, from her bestselling screed, Godless. In the excerpt from which the quote above is taken, the Blonde Crusader is expounding on the differences between the God-fearing (Allah excluded) conservatives she claims to speak for and all the Darwin-loving pagan environmentalist liberals who hold devilish sway over American culture. You know: the liberal media, the activist judges, the climate alarmists, Jon Stewart.

Now, I know Ms. Coulter specializes in the kind of half-cocked rhetoric that is designed specifically to provoke outrage, so I'm not going to give in to the impulse. I just want to ask whether any of you out there know anyone -- liberal or conservative, heathen or believer -- who truly believes "in populating the Earth until there's standing room only"? If you do, perhaps we could arrange to send them to Mars ahead of schedule.

Access Denied

The national intelligence assessment isn't the only government report the White House doesn't want made public. The journal Nature reports that the White House also put the kibosh on release of a report by weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association that suggested a link between global warming and the increased frequency and strength of hurricanes.

A spokesman at NOAA has disputed the charge, but it certainly jibes well with the obstructionist pattern of the White House when it comes to environmental science, as well as a recent report that, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, officials at the Commerce Department restricted media access to NOAA scientists who held that warming and hurricane intensity might be related.

Nailing Green Architecture

Ah, the vicissitudes of green architecture! Over at Grist, Daniel Shaw reflects on the many compromises along the way to a 'pretty damn green' homestead in Woody Creek, Colorado -- Hunter Thompson's old stomping grounds/shooting range. While not exactly gonzo journalism, Shaw's piece is nonetheless entertaining and candid, and definitely worth a read. One or two things seem to be missing from his post-hoc analysis, however; most notably, size considerations. Not to knock his efforts, which I salute, but judging from the pictures, Shaw's home is no humble abode. It may be modest by Aspen standards, but then, what isn't?

I read somewhere that much, if not all, of the environmental gain from most green architecture is negated by the size of the homes that are the fruits of the profession. No matter what materials you use to build your 10,000-square-foot single-family retreat, it's never going to be sustainable. Of course, the supersize houses may be partly a function of the kinds of folks who can afford to build 'green'; namely, rich ones. And Shaw, to his credit, fully owns up to the fact: "We're only able to build this house," he writes, "because we hit the real-estate jackpot in Manhattan."

But does it have to be that way? Not necessarily. For proof that architecture can be humble, stylish and 'green' all at once, just consider the late Sambo Mockbee's Rural Studio in dirt-poor Hale County, Alabama. Mockbee and his Auburn students took it upon themselves to build efficiently and on-the-cheap without sacrificing aesthetics. The results should be an inspiration to anyone who thinks green architecture could and should go mainstream. I mean, just look at it: Who wouldn't want to live in the Butterfly House?

Tristes Tropiques

Mato Grosso, in midwestern Brazil, is home to the section of rainforest that lured explorer Percy Fawcett to his mysterious end. President Theodore Roosevelt expeditioned in Mato Grosso and the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss conducted some of his best field work in the region. The name, literally, means 'dense forest.' Today, sadly, Mato Grosso is home to some of the most rampant deforestation on Earth, with land being cleared for both cattle pasture and, increasingly, soy cultivation. The satellite images above compare the extent of forest clearings for agriculture in one area of Mato Grosso, from 2001 to 2006.

Bottom Line

In the Week in Review section of the New York Times, a short item considers last week's announcement by Virgin Atlantic's Sir Richard Branson that he would put up to $3 billion in personal profits toward development of zero-carbon energy sources, and asks a key question; namely, "Is Sir Richard giving his money away, or investing it?"

Answer: He's investing. And like any investor, he expects a return on his dough. Although initially greeted as a philanthropic gesture, Branson's commitment is more properly viewed as enlightened venture capitalism, inspired by both self-interest and an interest in the future of the planet. Nothing wrong with that.

The same mix of profit motive and goodwill may be operating at Wal-Mart, the retailing juggernaut which seems determined to reinvent itself as an eco-aware big box chain. That may sound like oxymoron, but, to listen to Wal-Mart, the company's struggle to forge a new corporate identity appears to be genuine. CEO Lee Scott tells USA Today: "We asked ourselves: If we had known 10 years ago what challenges we would face today, what would we have done different? What struck us was: This world is much more fragile than any of us would have thought years ago."

And so Wal-Mart has publicly set out to cut its fuel use, reduce its solid waste, slash its electricity demands, and buy its seafood from sustainable sources. But, as the paper notes, Wal-Mart isn't pushing sustainability solely out of the goodness of its heart. It has realized that it can make money by selling products that are environmentally friendly. It can make millions selling recycled trash and save hundreds of millions by cutting transportation costs." As an illustration, Matt Kistler, a packaging expert for the company explains that, "A 2% reduction in a package's size is worth millions and millions of dollars. You can get more in a container, more in a boat, more in a truck. The numbers are just amazing."

This is the kind of thing that eco-conscious entrepreneurs like Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard and Interface's Ray Anderson have been saying for years. The difference is that the thinking has now gone to the Big Leagues. Wal-Mart is the world's largest employer and its second most profitable company, behind ExxonMobil. Let's hope the oil giant will be the next one to get the message.

Alarmist? Or Just Alarming?

From a press release entitled (not so alarmingly), NASA STUDY FINDS WORLD WARMTH EDGING ANCIENT LEVELS:

The most important result found by these researchers is that the warming in recent decades has brought global temperature to a level within about one degree Celsius (1.8° F) of the maximum temperature of the past million years. According to [NASA scientist James] Hansen, "That means that further global warming of 1 degree Celsius defines a critical level. If warming is kept less than that, effects of global warming may be relatively manageable. During the warmest interglacial periods the Earth was reasonably similar to today. But if further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know. The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today."

N.B.: This is the country's preeminent climate expert talking, not some hack journalist struggling to meet deadline.

Role Call

When it comes to global warming, the list of skeptics just keeps getting shorter.

The Rumor Mill

Rumors are flying (as rumors are wont to) that Arnold Schwarzenegger has sold his fleet of Hummers, which, let's face it, would make sense for a governor who recently signed the country's most ambitious climate change legislation and whose attorney general has filed suit against six automakers for damages related to the greenhouse emissions their products produce.

Unfortunately, The San Francisco Chronicle's Carla Marinucci says there's nothing to the story. Not only does the Terminator still own his trademark Hummers, but his much-touted hydrogen-fueled Hummer remains largely mythical.

On the other hand, it is true that Bill Clinton took delivery of a "Presidential Edition" Mercury Mariner hybrid, just in time for the former Commander-in-Chief's big show in Manhattan.

Who knows? Arnold may make the switch yet.

Coral Reef Grief (and Recovery)

The Why Files finds the tragedy of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's death a fitting occasion to talk about the state of the world's coral reefs; after all, the world-famous showman and conservationist lost his life while diving on the Great Barrier Reef in his native Australia, a rich marine habitat that is itself, like reefs the world over, at risk of dying.

The reasons for coral reef mortality are myriad, ranging from overfertilization (i.e., nutrient runoff) and overfishing to global warming and rampant coastal development. The story does a good job of discussing the causes of what seems like another overwhelming environmental crisis without succumbing to despair.

The article ends with a quote from coral reef expert, Joan Kleypas, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, whose work has shown connections between global warming and coral bleaching. How we talk about the problem, Kleypas tells the Why Files, could ultimately make a difference in whether not reefs survive.

So many of the threats are intertwined. We forget that if we can reduce the stress on a reef due to sedimentation or overfishing, when that reef bleaches, it will have a better chance of recovery. I don't think reefs are all going to go belly up. We can't deny that we will lose more reefs ... but there will always be some reefs, somewhere ...

If you give a doomsday story ... people kind of give up on them. I find people respond to hope. Don't just say, 'If we don't do something, they will die.' Say, 'If we do this, it will make the reefs better.' We have to find out what they need so they can survive climate change.

Global Initiative

Bill Clinton talks with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show about the Clinton Global Initiative, which the New York Times describes as "a three-day meeting in Manhattan that amounts to a competitive festival of philanthropy."

Clinton tells Stewart that people like the event because "we're actually doing something."

The biggest doings so far came with yesterday's announcement by Virgin Atlantic mogul, Sir Richard Branson, that he would commit roughly $3 billion over ten years to alternative fuels research. The Times puts that figure in perspective, noting that:

In February, President Bush announced a bio-fuels initiative for 2007 of $150 million, nearly a 60 percent increase over spending on such fuels in the previous budget.

The overall United States budget for research in renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydrogen and farmed fuels is a bit over $1 billion a year, but that amount is far less than what was spent during the oil shock of the 1970s.

The paper of record also quotes billionaire philanthropist Ted Turner, who calls Branson's move "brilliant," and not just as a selfless gesture. Said Turner: "He'll probably make more money off of this than he would off the airlines themselves."

MSNBC sounded a similar note yesterday, observing that, "Left unsaid was the possibility that some renewable energy investments could pay off handsomely for Branson and his company should they become accepted by industry and consumers."

As to what prompted Branson to make the commitment, Branson tells the New York Times that it was sparked by a personal visit from former Vice President Al Gore. According to Branson, Gore told him: "You are in a position maybe to make a difference. If you can make a giant step forward other people will follow." Sounds like the definition of 'global initiative,' doesn't it?

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Sierra Club and the San Francisco Department of the Environment have teamed up to launch a collaborative art project called Future Sea Level. Using blue tape to mark the high water mark anticipated if the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melt, the project is meant to bring home the very real risks we run by leaving global heating unchecked.

All Hail Sir Richard

Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Atlantic kingpin with the Prince Valiant hair and the rock-and-roll swagger, has pledged the proceeds from his transportation interests (planes and trains) over the next ten years to curbing global warming by investing in alternative energy research. The sum is estimated to reach $3 billion.

Branson, long a skeptic on the issue of global warming, last year announced plans to run the company's 100 or so airplanes on cellulosic ethanol derived from waste materials.

Branson announced his latest initiative in New York today, at the Clinton Global Initiative, a summit hosted by former president Bill Clinton. He told the assembly, "Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents. We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment."

Back in July, when Warren Buffet pledged $31 billion to the Gates Foundation, which is concentrating its efforts on humanitarian projects like AIDS treatment and boosting agricultural yields in poor countries, I expressed the hope that some other "venture philanthropist" would launch a similar effort to fight global warming. Looks like it has happened.

May many more follow.

News and Opinion

In his "Sustainable Developments" column in Scientific American, Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world's leading economists, issues a challenge to the editorial board of the most widely read business paper in the world: The Wall Street Journal.

"Now I have nothing against the Wall Street Journal," he writes, "It is an excellent paper, whose science column and news reporting have accurately and carefully carried the story of global climate change." As for the editorial board, Sachs says it has sat "insouciant and comfortable, hurling editorials of stunning misdirection at their readers, continuing their irresponsible drumbeat that global warming is junk science."

He then offers to convene a meeting. "Many of the world's leading climate scientists are prepared to meet with the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, and to include in that meeting any climate-skeptic scientists that the Journal editorial board would like to invite," writes Sachs. Perhaps such a pow-wow could lead to more reasonable coverage of the issue, ... if only the editorial board would accept, ... which seems unlikely. Sachs notes that it's not the first time he has made the offer. "On many occasions, the news editors have eagerly accepted, but the editorial writers have remained safe in their splendid isolation."

Sachs's column prompts discussion at RealClimate, where, it so happens, Dr. Michael Mann, the researcher behind the 'hockey-stick' graph, is a regular blogger. The original RC post concludes: To those who would decry [Sachs's challenge] as a waste of time, we would point to The Economist, which recently produced a very sensible special on global warming and proposed a number of economically viable ways to tackle it, despite having been reflexively denialist not that many years ago. If the Economist can rise to the challenge, maybe there is hope for the Wall Street Journal...

Maybe so. It certainly couldn't hurt.

Nominate a Genius

Tropical forester Lisa Curran and Oceanographer/Deep Sea Explorer Edith Widder were among the 2006 MacArthur Fellows -- the only ones in the current class whose expertise falls under the category of Environment and Conservation. None were chosen in the Energy field. My point is not to criticize the MacArthur Foundation in any way, but just to ask folks in environmental circles who they would like to see receive the so-called "genius grant."

Nominations? Anyone?

For reference, you can find a complete list of recipients, by category, here.

Stone Cold Carbon Freeze

When I interviewed Al Gore for Sierra magazine, I asked him what people can do in the face of what seems like such an overwhelming crisis. One of the things he said was, "I'd love to see the advent of a grassroots carbon-freeze movement analogous to the nuclear-freeze movement."

It was a very brief interview and Gore didn't have time to expand on it, but the idea of a "carbon freeze" has stuck in my mind ever since. So, I was happy to see that his latest climate speech carried the notion a bit further. Gore said:

So, what would a responsible approach to the climate crisis look like if we had one in America?

Well, first of all, we should start by immediately freezing CO2 emissions and then beginning sharp reductions. Merely engaging in high-minded debates about theoretical future reductions while continuing to steadily increase emissions represents a self-delusional and reckless approach. In some ways, that approach is worse than doing nothing at all, because it lulls the gullible into thinking that something is actually being done when in fact it is not.

An immediate freeze has the virtue of being clear, simple, and easy to understand. It can attract support across partisan lines as a logical starting point for the more difficult work that lies ahead. I remember a quarter century ago when I was the author of a complex nuclear arms control plan to deal with the then rampant arms race between our country and the former Soviet Union. At the time, I was strongly opposed to the nuclear freeze movement, which I saw as simplistic and naive. But, three-quarters of the American people supported it -- and as I look back on those years I see more clearly now that the outpouring of public support for that very simple and clear mandate changed the political landscape and made it possible for more detailed and sophisticated proposals to eventually be adopted.

When the politicians are paralyzed in the face of a great threat, our nation needs a popular movement, a rallying cry, a standard, a mandate that is broadly supported on a bipartisan basis.

The carbon-freeze idea was just one part of the speech, which you should read in full. But I wonder, how do other folks react to it? Does it seem "simplistic and naive" or does it derive power from being, as Gore says, "clear, simple, and easy to understand" -- "a logical starting point"?

That's Entertainment

"An Inconvenient Truth," which has been seen by more than 2 million people in the U.S., has now opened across the UK.

In Australia -- the country with the second-highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions after the United States, and the only other industrialized country not to ratify Kyoto -- Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane characterized the film as "just entertainment" and said he would not take counsel from an unsuccessful presidential candidate who could not even convince his own people he was right.

Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said Mr Macfarlane was arrogant and naive and called on him to explain what he finds entertaining about Hurricane Katrina or anything else in the film. For his part, Prime Minister John Howard was also dismissive, saying he did not take policy advice from films.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Ian Campbell vouched for the science in the film and threw his support behind Gore's efforts to raise the public consciousness:

My most respected scientists concur with me that the science in vice-president Gore's movie is sound and solid. It's based on fact and the consequences of not addressing the problems that vice-president Gore has identified are very substantial.

Running Interference

This story has been making the rounds today: It seems that, back in the fall of 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, all media requests to interview scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Hurricane Center regarding possible connections between global warming and increased hurricane intensity were being controlled by officials in the Commerce Department.

When CNBC asked to interview scientist Tom Knutson, the request was denied because Knustson's research suggested that hurricanes would indeed be made more intense by global warming. Instead, press officers at NOAA were directed to make another scientist available. As Paul Thacker reports on Salon,

Commerce's deputy director of communications, Chuck Fuqua, was happy to have a more politically reliable NOAA hurricane researcher named Chris Landsea speak to the press. At the time, Landsea was stating publicly that global warming had little to no effect on hurricanes. "Please make sure Chris is on message and that it is a friendly discussion," Fuqua wrote regarding a request for Landsea to appear on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." On the show, Landsea downplayed research that linked global warming with more-intense hurricanes like Katrina.

In an e-mail the week prior, Fuqua OK'd Landsea for another interview and asked, "Please be careful and make sure Chris is on his toes. Since BLANK went off the menu, I'm a little nervous on this, but trust he'll hold the course."

While the Bush administration has repeatedly denied this kind of interference, it is in fact part of a much larger pattern that extends to the White House itself and has also involved high-ranking government scientists at NASA, US Fish and Wildlife, EPA and elsewhere.

Silicon Valley 2.0?

California's Silicon Valley made its name with computer chips, but its second act could star another kind of semiconductor: The solar panel.

As the AP reports, "So many valley companies, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are rushing into the burgeoning solar industry that it's inviting comparisons to the early expansion of the microchip industry more than two decades ago."

Currently, less than one percent of the world's electricity comes from solar and Japan and Germany are the early leaders in the nascent industry. But that could change quickly given the Golden State's ambitious new global warming legislation, which aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020, and its "Million Solar Roofs" program, which offers cash incentives for consumers to adopt solar power.

But while the solar revolution could well occur Silicon Valley, it may not hinge on the area's namesake material. Polysilicon, already expensive, has also grown scarce as the demand for photovoltaics climbs. Experts say the future of solar power probably lies in less expensive (and, as yet, less efficient) alternatives such as electrically conductive plastics, carbon nanotubes and dye-sensitized solar cells that attempt to mimic photosynthesis.

Whichever technologies win out in the end, venture capitalists see the solar field as fertile ground. As one source tells the AP, "We all see that green is gold."

Conference on Wheels

Riding through suburbia in a Twin Cities Tour de Sprawl.

Googling the Planet

I drew attention earlier in the week to the Jane Goodall Institute's cool new "geo-blog," in which blog entries from the Gombe chimpanzee reserve are integrated with the 3-D digital atlas, Google Earth. I didn't realize at the time what else was in the works from Google Earth; namely, a whole bunch of featured content within the program, including partnerships with the Discovery Networks, the National Park Service, and, coolest of all in my book, the United Nations Environment Programme's One Planet, Many People: Atlas of our Changing Environment.

One Planet, Many People was released on Earth Day 2005 as a hardcover, print atlas. The book draws on NASA satellite imagery to tell the story of man's collective impact on the planet. You see, for example, in a series of time-stamped images spanning 30 years, the Amazon region around Rondonia, Brazil go from pristine rain forest to vast human settlement in just three decades. Similarly, you can see what drilling has done to Alaska's North Slope, around Prudhoe Bay, and witness the explosive growth of Las Vegas.

The material is a perfect match for the capabilities of Google Earth. To see it, simply check the box marked "Featured Content" in the navigation bar on the left hand of the Google Earth screen.

For those of you who don't have the program, it's free to download here. I highly recommend it. (And no, they don't pay me to say that, although Google folks, if you're reading, checks can be made payable to P Joseph c/o Sierra Club). My one hope is that Google will now team up with UNESCO to add the World Biosphere Reserves, so that, in addition to seeing what's been lost, we can see what might still be saved.

The New Journalism: Bad Fiction?

Michael Crichton, bestselling author of Jurassic Park, and most recently, State of Fear, in which he imagines a cabal of mad scientists concocting this whole global warming thing as a way to stoke fears and make money from a frightened and credulous populace, was given (back in February, but news to me) a journalism award by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) -- an award which, in the past, has gone to widely respected non-fiction writers like Simon Winchester, John McPhee and Stephen Jay Gould.

So,...huh. Did the petroleum jocks know that State of Fear is, in fact, a novel? Yes, reported the New York Times, they did.

"It is fiction," conceded Larry Nation, communications director for the association. "But it has the absolute ring of truth."

(The absolute ring of truth? What the hell kind of oxymoronic nonsene is that? He may as well have borrowed from Stephen Colbert and just declared it chock-a-block full of "truthiness.") The Times continued with quotes from two scientists who strenuously beg to differ with Mr. Nation's assessment.

The book is "demonstrably garbage," Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford climatologist, said in an interview yesterday. Petroleum geologists may like it, he said, but only because "they are ideologically connected to their product, which fills up the gas tanks of Hummers."

Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who directs the Harvard University Center for the Environment, called the award "a total embarrassment" that he said "reflects the politics of the oil industry and a lack of professionalism" on the association's part.

As for the book, he added, "I think it is unfortunate when somebody who has the audience that Crichton has shows such profound ignorance."

Ah, but profound ignorance will carry you a long way in some circles. Let's not forget that Mr. Crichton was invited by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) to testify before Congress as an, ahem, expert on global warming.

Over at the excellent Scientific American Observations blog, Editor John Rennie lamented that, in handing Crichton its journalism award, "the AAPG will probably make a number of people assume that it is in fact just shilling for industry." But, as a reader subsequently pointed out, one look at the association's policy position on climate change and it's hard to draw any other conclusion. Which isn't all that surprising, really. As Upton Sinclair, a journalist and novelist of another era put it (and as Al Gore quoted him in his film): "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depeneds upon his not understanding it."

Sailing to the North Pole

NASA reports on three disturbing trends in the Arctic:

1. Arctic perennial ice shrank by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005.
2. Winter sea ice in the Arctic shrank by six percent per year for the last two years.
3. The progressively earlier breakup of the Arctic sea ice in the spring has shortened hunting season for female polar bears and led to a steady decrease in the weight of the bears.

Scientists are concerned that the melting trend is self-reinforcing; i.e., as the dark surface of the exposed ocean warms it will speed melting of the ice, exposing more and more ocean, which in turn will absorb more solar radiation and melt more ice in a positive feedback loop.

According to NASA, computer simulations of the warming effect of greenhouse gases has long predicted that winter sea ice would decline faster than summer sea ice. That was not the case until the last two years, "when record low winter ice cover and warmer temperatures have prevailed."

The news calls to mind this recently published exchange between New York Times science reporter Andrew Revkin and controversial scientist James Lovelock.

Revkin: If you could take any facet of society — elected officials, doctors, writers — and show them one thing that you think could motivate the scale of change you’re talking about, any idea what you might do?

Lovelock: I would take them on a trip to the parts of the world where the changes are now maximum, and that is the Arctic. For example, not many years ago explorers were walking with dogsleds all the way to the North Pole regarding it as a great adventure. It’s only a matter of perhaps 30 years when they’ll have to go there in a sailboat.

As Revkin notes in his intro, Lovelock's ideas are both anathema and gospel to environmentalists and his vision of the future is as bleak as they come. The man best known for conceiving the Gaia Hypothesis says he is not being alarmist, just sounding the alarm. In a profile, he tells a reporter from the Washington Post:

People say, 'Well, you're 87, you won't live to see this,' I have children, I have grandchildren, I wish none of this. But it's our fate; we need to recognize it's another wartime.

Que Onda, Guey?

The Sierra Club's Oliver Bernstein reports on environment day at the National Latino Congreso, a Spanglish-inflected gathering of 1,300-plus Hispanic leaders in LA -- the first of its kind in 30 years. How do green issues play in the barrio? Read Oliver's report to find out.

Pattern of Denial?

If it seems incredible that the federal government could deny the harm done to the majority of first responders and cleanup workers who now suffer from "trade center cough" or other chronic illnesses related to the aftermath of 9/11, it is worth remembering that it has also persisted in denying the existence of Gulf War Syndrome and the lingering deleterious effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Tip o' the hat to Crooks and Liars.

Fire on the Mountain

According to this post on the Earth Observatory:

Between January 1 and September 12, 2006, a total of 8,653,883 acres of land had burned in the United States, exceeding the totals for the same period of any other year since 2000.

As noted earlier, the fire season this year is showing no signs of quitting. And scientists say the uptick in wildfires is consistent with a heating climate.

Milling the Grist

Over at Gristmill, a blog entry about the relationship (or lack thereof) between environmentalism and animal rights sparks an interesting discussion. What do you think: Do the two concerns go hand-in-hand? Is there some meaningful overlap? Or are the two things wrongly lumped together?

The thread continues in slightly different form, here.

First Response: Lie

The most extensive study to date on the health effects of the 9/11 attacks shows that nearly 70 percent of first responders and cleanup workers at Ground Zero have reported respiratory problems. According to the study conducted by the Mount Sinai Medical Center, 59 percent of the roughly 40,000 WTC workers are still sick, with those who arrived first at the scene tending to show the most severe symptoms. Furthermore, say doctors, long-term illnesses and malignancies are to be expected.

Mount Sinai's Dr. Robin Herbert told reporters, "Our patients are very, very highly exposed, and are likely to suffer health consequences for the rest of their lives."

Last Friday, lawmakers in Congress criticized the federal government's response to the health crisis as well as public assurances that air around the World Trade Center site was safe. In the days immediately following the attacks, then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman appeared twice to report that the air was "safe to breathe." On September 13, Whitman told reporters: "We have not seen any reason — any readings that have indicated any health hazard."

An EPA scientist now says Whitman was flat-out lying. In some cases, tests showed that the air at the site was, in fact, as caustic as Drano. At the behest of the White House, however, those results were not released.

Whitman has since asked for immunity from a class-action suit brought against her by residents of Lower Manhattan. A judge rejected the request, saying that Whitman's actions, if proven true, shock the conscience. In her 83-page ruling on the immunity request, Judge Deborah Batts wrote: "No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws."

Geo-blogging Gombe

The Jane Goodall Institute has integrated the geo-spatial gee-whizzery of Google Earth into its Gombe Chimpanzee Blog. If you've downloaded the free software, you can follow scientist/blogger Emily Wroblewski in her adventures in and around Tanzania's Gombe National Park. In Google Earth, you can "fly" over the preserve, visit pertinent landmarks, read her blog entries, ... even browse the original National Geographic articles on Goodall's historic work with the chimps of Gombe. Very cool.

How To Survive Global Warming

As per David Shenk, Slate's Survivalist:

1. Vote.
2. Cut/neutralize your carbon emissions.
3. Move to high ground.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

They Might be Giants (Thanks to Him)

It looks like the record books will soon have to be changed to reflect a new discovery: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the tallest tree in the world is no longer the coast redwood known as the Stratosphere Giant. That 370-foot sequoia sempervirens in Humboldt State Park has been bested by not one, but three spectacular specimens recently discovered in Redwood National Park. The tallest of those has been dubbed Hyperion and reportedly soars to an incredible 378.1 feet.

The old-growth giants are located in an extension of the park which was added belatedly under the Carter Administration, thanks in large part to pressure from the Sierra Club (which proposed giving the redwoods national park status in the first place) and the visionary leadership of past Club president, Dr. Edgar Wayburn.

Wayburn, who turns 100 later this month, was instrumental in the preservation of more than 100 million acres of American wilderness. In his autobiography, Your Land and Mine, he called campaign to save the redwoods the toughest of his conservation career, recalling that:

Saving the redwoods for posterity also meant challenging the belief that nature exists exclusively for the present generation to exploit -- a belief that had gone relatively unquestioned for thousands of years. Our first eight years of travail achieved a park in name but not in the spirit of our original vision. It was the result of a compromise... The second redwood legislation a decade later, by contrast, served ecological purposes, primarily by recognizing the need for watershed protection. In expanding Redwood National Park, the nation recognized that great natural legacies are not created simply by reserving small plots of land. Watersheds, not property lines, should determine the extent of an important, enduring park.

The newly discovered tallest trees are testimony to greatness of Wayburn's vision. As biology professor George Koch tells the Chronicle, "With so much of the old-growth redwoods gone -- more than 90 percent -- you wouldn't necessarily expect a discovery like this. ... They aren't all that far from an old clear-cut," he said. "Basically, they were almost nuked. The fact that they weren't is amazing." Amen.

Let Us Now Praise Fran Pavley

Arnold Schwarzenegger got a lot of favorable press last week for signing California's landmark climate change bill (and rightly so), but it was a California Assemblywoman by the name of Fran Pavley who, along with fellow Democrat, Fabian Núñez, deserves the most credit.

The largely unsung Pavley gets her due in this NPR report, which notes that, "in climate change circles, this 57-year-old former teacher has become something of a rock star." True enough. Pavley's star status derives from her role as the architect of an earlier law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. That legislation -- the so-called Pavley Bill -- was signed by Schwarzenegger's predecessor, Gray Davis, and is being challenged in court, but it has been adopted by ten other states and it set the stage for last week's historic signing.

Of course, no matter how many laws it passes, California can't tackle climate change alone, but someone had to step into the leadership vacuum created by the White House. And that's exactly what Ms. Pavley, from her unlikely position, has done.

No Sale

You remember the Bush Administration's ill-conceived plan to sell off 300,000 acres of public land in order to fund rural school programs? Well, we're happy to report that the proposal has been scrapped, thanks to opposition by both environmentalists and sportsmen's groups, including the National Rifle Association.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, it's one in a series of setbacks for those keen on selling public lands.

Also dead is an accompanying administration proposal to require the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the federal government's largest landowner, to dramatically boost its land sales to raise $350 million over the next decade.

The demise of the proposals marks the second recent defeat for efforts to sell substantial public holdings.

Last year a House committee under the leadership of Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) drafted budget language that would have forced the federal government to sell potentially millions of acres next to mining claims that stud Western public lands. That died after sports groups and westerners complained.

The Sierra Club's Barbara Boyle tells the paper the proposed sale would have been "like mortgaging your house to pay for the groceries. It's taking an asset and getting rid of it for a very short-term goal."

The Burning Season

As Martin Kaste reports on NPR, the fire season normally winds down in September. Not this year. A combination of drought and other factors, including considerable die-off of trees due to bark beetle-infestation, is contributing to a prolonged fire season in the West that shows no end in sight. This year, Kaste reports, wildland fires have already burned some 8 million acres -- nearly twice the ten-year average -- and the acreage "has been increasing steadily year on year."

Earlier in the year, research published in the online version of the journal Science concluded that the uptick in both strength and number of wildfires is consistent with a changing climate. Dr. Anthony Westerling led the research while at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He was interviewed on NPR's Science Friday back in July. You can hear the segment here.

The terrible irony of the increase in forest fires is that the problem could be self-reinforcing; that is, as the fires burn they loose more carbon into the atmosphere, exacerbating the condition that led to the increasing fires in the first place.

The Gaizin Diet

Okinawans were once regarded as the healthiest and longest-lived of all the Japanese, and even today the large island in southwestern Japan claims more than two and a half times the national average of centenarians. Things have changed with subsequent generations, however, as Okinawans heartily embraced a GI-lifestyle characterized by, among other things, chainsmoking and fast food chains. Administered by the United States from 1945, when Little Boy and Fat Man brought a close to WWII, until 1972, the island got its first fast food restaurant in 1963 -- 20 years before Tokyo did. The UK Telegraph reports:

Experts say that the generation that grew up eating American food is now reaching middle age overweight and at risk from diabetes. Almost 30 per cent of Okinawan men die before reaching 65, and nearly half of men in their forties are obese.

17 Years of Climate Reporting

The September/October edition of Sierra magazine is now on newsstands. In this issue: Bill Donahue pedals through Shanghai while pondering China's drive toward development; Paul Rauber examines the connection between corruption and eco-callousness inside the Beltway; Seth Zuckerman goes on a carbon diet; and Yours Truly talks to Al Gore (aka Ozone Man) about President Bush's unwillingness to face facts, why Kyoto wasn't ratified during the Clinton years and where we go from here. Like Gore, Sierra has been focusing on global warming for several years. On the magazine's homepage, you'll find 17-years-worth of stories on the subject.

Sierra, the Club's award-winning magazine, is free with membership.