Back in my post-collegiate salad days, a popular little paperback was published called "50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth." If I'm remembering correctly, it was one of the first books to suggest that we could shop, reuse, and recycle our way to a better world.

This seemed pretty appealing during the era when President Reagan was heating up the Cold War to the point that a nuclear exchange with the USSR seemed not just possible, but practically inevitable.

With those ICBMs locked and loaded, recycling the Sunday paper felt comfortingly tangible -- just as likely to protect the environment as marching in one more fringe political protest rally that the TV news and politicians would ignore.

Well, the US survived the Soviet Union -- and so did the market for green advice books. Two decades after "50 Simple Things," just try to enter a bookstore (virtual or actual) without bumping into over a dozen tomes offering advice on how to shop, eat, dress, and furnish our way to a safer, cleaner, healthier world.

I recieved a review copy of one recently: "Living Green: The Missing Manual," by Nancy Conner. It's a pretty good guide, if uneven. Conner alternates straightforward advice on mixing your own non-toxic cleansers, lowering the thermostat, eating organic, et cetera, with more hardcore explanations of how hybrid automobiles work, what building green "means," the pros and cons of different renewable energy sources, and the problems with factory farming.

Conner may be hoping that finding answers to the personal care questions will inspire curiosity about the systemic issues that made them problems in the first place.

As with many of these guides, only a few pages at the very end (10 out of about 280) are devoted to "getting involved" in environmental causes -- whether by fundraising for advocacy groups or cleaning up a local woodland or waterway.  The most simple way of all to get involved -- contacting elected officials with questions and opinions about clean power, unsafe food, and everything else discussed in previous chapters -- is not addressed.

But, as befits a guide to living green in the after-Reagan, post-Cold War era, 3 of the 10 pages are devoted to investing in environmentally sensitive mutual funds.

There are so many of these books out there (I even helped write something similar myself several years ago: "Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century"), that I'm guessing they sell pretty well overall.

And why not? With mega-quandires like global warming bearing down on us, and political progress on these issues so hard-won and incremental, the notion of trading even recession dollars and a little elbow grease for green absolution remains appealingly simple.

Certainly, there are inherent contradictions in buying new stuff in order to conserve resources: replacing an old wastpaper basket with one made from recycled newspaper may be marginally more virtuous than buying one made from virgin plastic, but neither is preferable to repairing the old basket.

Not every green consumer is going to become an enviro-advocate. But given that we're a nation of shoppers, some guidance on making enviro-conscious choices at the store can't hurt. Maybe it does lead a few to ask bigger questions and demand better solutions -- that is, along the path from "consumer" to "citizen." 

To say I am disconnected from my food is an understatement. Root vegetables frighten me. A whole fresh squash makes about as much sense to me as cognitive neuroscience. Needless to say, I’m not really much of a cook. It’s not so much that I’ve tried and failed. The issue is that I don’t really feel like it. I would rather spend my time writing, walking the dogs or reading a good book. I tend to find myself in the frozen foods aisle quite often and I’m great with pre-made pasta and a jar of sauce.

Greg, on the other hand, is an amazing cook! And he likes to do it. We have a great system. He cooks, we eat, I do the dishes. I suggest ingredients for the stir-fry, he rolls his eyes and comes up with something better.

And then comes Eat Local day of No Impact Week and Greg, a bar manager at a local restaurant and pub, has to go to work, leaving me to fend for myself. I panicked. Which, in retrospect, wasn’t a bad thing because it gave me an awareness that I hadn’t yet been confronted with. The fact that only eating foods that come from the place where I live sounds difficult says a lot about the perversions of our modern food system.  The truth is, I am more familiar with Phad Thai, a dish that originates from a country on the other side of the planet, than I am with turnips, a vegetable that has been recorded as growing in the Northwest since the 1700s. And nearly anything I feel like eating, I can have in front of me within an hour—no prep necessary.

So here’s how the day went:

Breakfast: Local eggs scrambled with local cheese. No toast.

Lunch: Local eggs scrambled with local cheese (Greg was gone and I didn’t know what else to do!). Grapes and carrots from the farmers market

Dinner: Greg left me a pile of local vegetables (shallots, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, garlic, celery, onions, collard greens) beans, and instructions on how to turn them into a soup.  It took forever (four hours including prep time) but I have to say that my soup wasn’t half bad!

Come dinner, when the soup had another twenty minutes or so, I was craving carbs, intensely. I wanted to stick to my local guns, so I decided to yank down the breadmaker with it’s accompanying recipe book and fill it with flour from my local pantry. I followed the recipe to the best of my ability, but had to text Greg at 8:30 to clarify a few things: “What is yeast and is it an important ingredient? Is it the same as wheat germ?”

I got a call back in response. After explaining why yeast is, in fact, an important ingredient in bread, he asked “You do realize that if you start making bread now it won’t be ready until 11:30 at night?” Guess I’ll have my carbs as a midnight snack.

A patron at the restaurant overheard the conversation, prompting Greg to explain, “My girlfriend is smart in other ways.”

At the end of the day, I was sufficiently full, but slightly ashamed. Thanks, No Impact Week. Point taken. I suppose it’s time to learn to cook.

Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the levee system put the very existence of New Orleans in question. New Orleans was viewed by many as unsustainable and unworthy of being rebuilt, and some people actually verbalized a willingness to sacrifice the city.  Arsenic and lead were discovered in soils and sediments after the flood, but instead of initiating clean up the contaminiation was ignored and residents were told it was safe to return.  Keeping people out of their homes is not a solution, nor is repopulating contaminated neighborhoods. Our survival in the city and in the Gulf Coast region depends on a paradigm shift. Environmental remediation in New Orleans must be viewed within the broader, integrating principles of sustainable development. Cleaning up soil that is still contaminated with lead and arsenic, especially at child care sites, schools, and playgrounds where children are most likely to be exposed, is one key part of providing a safer future for the city.
 
After Katrina, there was a major effort to incorporate environmental remediation and hazard mitigation into the city's rebuilding and recovery process. An infrastructure and environment unit was launched in February 2007 as part of the Recovery Office.  This unit prepared the city's GreeNOLA Strategy for a Sustainable New Orleans, which identified soil remediation as an important recovery goal.
 
In 2007, the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) approved the use of Disaster Community Development Block Grants to fund New Orleans' "Long-Term Community Recovery Plan".  The approved document set aside $3.5 million specifically for Soil Assessment and Remediation out of a total allocation of $411 million for the New Orleans recovery. On June 21, 2007, the New Orleans City Council passed a motion (No. M-07-271) adopting the plan and requesting the release of funds. Certified copies of the Motion were sent to the LRA and the Governor's Office of Community Development. The City is still waiting for the State to release the funds.
 
Meanwhile, funding (and time) is running out at the city level. The only city staff with expertise to oversee the Soil Assessment and Remediation program will be laid off within the next month if additional funding is not allocated for this important work. It is urgent that the State of Louisiana release the $3.5 million of recovery funding so that clean-up can occur at contaminated childcare facilities and New Orleans can recover and prepare a safe future for the next generation.

About four months ago I moved back to Seattle, where I use a car almost daily, from New York City, where I was car-less for eight years. After eight years of daily, crowded and musty subway commuting, I have to admit that I was anxious to leave that all behind. And I did. I left it all on my behind, which has swollen eight pounds (one for every year I lived in the city) in just four months. Sure, my weight has always fluctuated. But this, two pounds a month for four months straight, all gain no loss—I don’t think you can call that fluctuation. There’s a pretty clear pattern here that I’m not a big fan of.

Let me say now that I LOVE Seattle—maybe even more than I love New York. With it’s ample green spaces, impressive compost and recycling program, fresh air and culture of conscious consumerism, I’ve had many of moments of relief upon finding the issues I care so deeply about, so deeply ingrained here. But when compared with Manhattan, Seattle’s public transportation leaves a lot to be missed. In New York, my commute to work was usually around forty minutes, door to door. A five-minute walk away from my apartment took me to the subway station, a twenty ride took me to Times Square, and a fifteen minute walk (well, really most often a ten minute power walk, since I was always late) had me at work. On the way home, I would usually pick up kitty litter and/or food and groceries for dinner, and haul those over my shoulder, along with my laptop and whatever else I was equipped with for the day. And I would do all that in heels!

I ended up back in Seattle with minor back problems, but high in energy and stamina, and looking forward to sitting on my butt with my purchases riding behind me in the backseat. Four months later, I’m eight pounds heavier and winded at the top of a flight of stairs—just what I wanted.

So, today was fantastic for me. I work from home in a neighborhood with lots of nearby stores, restaurants and even a farmers' market, which makes it even more shameful that I use my car so often. I had to run to the bank this morning, which is a ten-minute drive away. Guess what. It’s also a twenty-minute walk. And for a change, the sun was shining and it was beautiful day. I lost twenty minutes in transportation time, but I gained so much in exchange. I got my heart rate up, for maybe the first time this week, I had much needed time to think, and I felt more like I was a part of the world than I do when behind the wheel. Other walkers kept smiling at me! Go figure, but they seemed pretty happy. On the way home I even stopped at the farmers market for produce. When I’m driving I often pass it because there isn’t anywhere to park.

It started raining again last night, which would usually keep me and Greg inside in front of the TV watching a movie. We still watched a movie last night, but we walked to the theater in the rain. Admittedly, this was Greg’s idea, since he has always enjoyed walking in rain, which I always thought was weird. But after last night, I think I get it. I don’t want to sound sentimental, but I felt kinda like a kid, all giddy, fresh and energetic. And it occurred to me that, as a kid, before nice clothes, obligations and hairdos, rain never kept me inside before. And it never made being outside less fun.

And probably the most telling observation from yesterday was that when we got home, instead of surfing the net or turning on the TV, we crawled into bed and passed out—genuinely, physically tired.

The world ocean plays a major role in regulating the climate, in part by absorbing more than a quarter of the billions of tons of heat-trapping greenhouse gas that humans put into atmosphere.

Scientists have suspected that even as these human-propelled emissions rise, the ocean's capacity to store them is maxing out. Research released this week in the journal Nature adds new strength to that argument.

In their study, Samar Khatiwala of Columbia University and colleagues developed an ingenious mathematical method for charting the history of how much CO2 the ocean has absorbed since the beginning of the industrial era in 1765: by tracing the amount of human-produced CO2 in water masses of different ages and different geographic origins.

According to their findings, the ocean currently holds around 150 billion tons of carbon. Just over a decade ago, their calculations suggest, it was around 114 billion tons -- a figure that closely aligns with research published in 2004 by NOAA marine chemist Chris Sabine and colleagues.

In the course of producing this data, Khatiwala and colleagues were also able to measure the rate of the water's uptake of CO2, currently about 2.3 billion tons of carbon a year. They discovered that while this amount is still increasing, this rate has slowed the proportion of total emissions absorbed by the ocean has decreased, by over around 10% since 2000.

"In absolute terms, this is not very large, and its important ... to recognize that there are uncertainties with all such estimates," said Khatiwala in email. "What's concerning however is the rather rapid change, and the long term implications of such a decline in the efficiency."

The findings have significant ramifications for how fast and far to cut our greenhouse gas pollution. As the ocean absorbs less and less carbon, climate conditions may change a lot faster than even the edgiest climate models have predicted. (This could be happening already, in fact).

It's a good (in a bad way) example of a "climate tipping point" that, once we hit it, will be all but impossible to back away from based on our current knowledge and technologies.

Khatiwala and his colleagues were also able to estimate the amount of CO2 being absorbed on land: by taking their estimate of ocean absorption, as well as the amount of carbon remaining in the atmosphere, and subtracting them from the known amount of emissions from burning fossil fuels.

They were surprised to find that at the moment, the land is absorbing more CO2 than it is giving off, a reversal of the historic trend. One reason may be that increased levels of atmospheric CO2 may be providing extra fuel for photosynthesis, allowing living plants to grow more quickly.

This probably shouldn't be taken as a panacea for the ocean's diminishing capacity to absorb carbon. The world ocean covers around 70% of the Earth's surface. So even if we were to stop the development of every remaining square acre of forest and grassland that remains, there simply isn't enough land to make up the difference.

Still, we're learning a great deal lately about the immense amount of carbon that forests can store -- particularly old-growth forests. So this new research about ocean sinks bolsters the many already-good reasons to include strong forest protection and restoration measures in economic and ecological plans for curbing global warming's worst impacts.

There is an emotional side of losing everything, losing your community, and then not knowing when you can go back home.

There are so many things that New Orleans residents lost after Hurricane Katrina. In my case it wasn't just losing my house, it was losing all the pictures of my mom, who passed away in April 2005. I had a whole chronology of her life from when she was a little girl all the way till when she was 79. The whole memory is just wiped out.  These things can't be undone.

But there are other legacies from Katrina that can be undone -- that could be fixed to make New Orleans a better and stronger place. For example, there's still time to create a safe environmental legacy for our children. That is why I will be talking with the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today, and I will be giving her a letter signed by local and national organizations asking for her help.

Immediately following the flooding of New Orleans, I called for independent testing of the soil and sediment left from the storm, since I believe firmly in the right to return, but I wanted to make sure that it was safe for people to go back to their homes.  In November of 2005, I was quoted in an interview as saying: "I'm also worried that if a cleanup is done, it won't meet the proper standards, and ten years from now we will end up with African Americans living on top of superfund sites." Four years have passed, and I'm still worried.  

We did independent soil testing and air monitoring in New Orleans post-Katrina in partnership with the NRDC. We collected our own data to compare with the EPA's data, to make certain we got the real results. Our testing revealed some problems. In particular, it showed that old lead contamination still exists in soil throughout the city. But it also revealed a surprise - arsenic.

The arsenic was a mystery, and new studies published by the NRDC, in collaboration with other scientists from Tulane, Dillard, and Xavier Universities, recently showed that the arsenic was new. It wasn't in New Orleans before the storm. Fortunately the levels of arsenic have decreased since the storm in many neighborhoods, but I was concerned about the sites - especially the schools and playgrounds - where arsenic was still found.

The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice partnered with the United Steelworkers of America, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and other groups to clean up New Orleans one street at a time. We toiled with volunteer labor, and I contributed the sweat of my own brow to these heroic efforts. But our work was only a demonstration of what could be done. Our volunteers could never hope to clean up all of the hot spots. Instead we put forth a vision of what could be done. We waited and hoped that the government would provide resources and manpower for a more comprehensive clean-up effort. But that never came.

So we remain in a serious situation with political, economic, as well as health ramifications.

One of the objectives of my center is to promote and convene meetings to include the concerns of people on the ground-people from New Orleans. This week, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is in New Orleans to talk with us and to hear our concerns. She brought with her other forward-thinking new EPA senior officials, and I am looking forward to our dialogue. It is important that EPA - which had turned its back on New Orleans after Katrina - is re-engaged in our struggle for a safe future.

We are asking EPA for four things:

(1)        Deploy a team of EPA scientists to do more comprehensive soil testing at playgrounds and schools in the previously flooded areas of New Orleans and make the results available to the public as soon as they are available;

(2)       Help ensure that the State of Louisiana releases the $3.5 Million of recovery funding that was allocated in 2007 for Soil Assessment and Remediation in New Orleans so that contaminated schools and playgrounds, as well as highly-contaminated residential areas can be remediated;

(3)       If sufficient recovery funds are not available, help to identify other sources of funding to address contaminated soil in New Orleans; and

(4)       Develop, in consultation with local community stakeholders, a long-term plan to respond to environmental threats caused by future natural disasters.

There is something about New Orleans that is so wonderful and lively-the culture, the music.  African Americans history is deep in New Orleans, and many traditions have been washed away. It's very sad. But I have hope. The way that the nation deals with New Orleans is symbolic of the way we will deal with the future impacts of global warming on cities and regions throughout our country and around the world. We must protect the most vulnerable communities, prepare for future climate disasters, and rebuild safer, healthier, and greener for the future.

This morning was triumphant. I opened my bag where I had been gathering garbage from the day before, and found it virtuously lean. The contents included one foil and film apple chips bag, one aluminum cat food can, one cardboard toilet paper roll, and one paper pint that once housed the delicious pumpkin sorbet I finally finished off last night. And these materials didn’t bother me at all because they were all the remnants of purchases made long before this experiment started, and therefore atypical of my new waste-free way of life. Or are they? The apple chips I can certainly get without packaging at the cooperative supermarket in my neighborhood. But what about the sorbet? I’m definitely not going to stop eating ice cream. I don’t think that would be healthy for me or for anyone who knows me. Maybe I should learn to make my own. Or maybe I can find a creamery that will fill reusable containers. Yes. I can do this.

But then there’s the cat food can. This is going to be a problem. I go through one a day, which adds up to a lot of aluminum. I could buy the bigger cans so that the product to packaging ratio is higher, but my finicky kitties won’t eat refrigerated food. I have enough food for now so that I don’t have to solve this issue immediately, but I’m going to have to do some homework to come up with a better system.

And should I even mention the toilet paper roll? At least it’s recyclable, but when you think about it, it seems like we could come up with a more sustainable solution for this. What about reusable rolls that people keep at home and slide the new paper onto? Let this blog be proof that I thought of it first! And on that note, what does Colin Beaver do?

But back to my morning, which quickly turned into my afternoon. Greg and I finally took on our basement today, which has been cluttered for too long with boxes, old papers, neglected exercise equipment, clothes and more. My swelled head didn’t last long when I realized how much extra junk we had that we needed to get rid of. “I can’t put all this in my special No Impact Week trash bag,” I thought as we began to sort through the piles and piles of stuff. For convenience sake, part of me wished we hadn’t done this the week we’re supposed to be living so lightly. But after hauling two carloads (got that out of the way before carbon free transportation tomorrow) to Goodwill, three to Seattle’s recycling station, and a few bags to the dump, I really started to feel saddened by all the stuff we’ve been accumulating. The cardboard boxes alone would have provided enough recycled fiber to keep us in toilet paper rolls for years.

So not only have we been buying too much, we’ve also been hoarding it and contributing to the need for new production. Plus, a bunch of that stuff, since it was quickly surrounded by other stuff, never really got used. While we were down there, we found a bunch of books that never got read, several bottles of cleaning product that never got opened and an arsenal of kitchen supplies—e.g. tin foil, paper towels and garbage bags—that never got used. And meanwhile, we’ve gone out and bought new books, cleaning products and tin foil. It’s insane! I realized today that more than consuming fewer new goods, I need to learn to truly appreciate the goods I already have. Maybe then I’ll find fewer justifications to buy new goods, and in turn, throw less away. I mean why do we buy all these things in the first place? Certainly not so they can sit in the basement.

Today taught me that part of the process of transitioning to a low impact lifestyle is going to involve sifting through the mountainous piles of impact I’ve already got shoved into closets, boxes, and cabinets around the house. I only hope that after I’ve pared down, I can continue to keep the clutter of wasted stuff to a minimum.

In preparation for No Impact Week, my boyfriend and I compulsively had takeout five nights in a row, used the car to run close-by errands (well, it was raining…) and went on a mini shopping spree for things we “needed” around the house. That we were about to drastically reduce our impact for seven days in a row seemed justification enough for our splurges. Funny thing is, most days we would consider ourselves greener than the average Joe. We use reusable shopping bags, watch our water and energy consumption, buy organic… And we make the effort not just because it’s trendy, but because we understand the issues behind our choices and want our actions to be as healthy for ourselves and for the environment as possible. (Brief aside: I say “we,” but as the eco-writer and green thumper in the relationship, he’s mostly green to win points with me. But hey, whatever works.) Yet somehow, the nagging thought that we were about to enter a week when we suddenly couldn’t have and do the things we rarely have and do anyway sent us on a consuming frenzy.

The fog lifted today, finally, but left us feeling lazy, broke, and frankly, kinda bloated. All that splurging certainly didn’t leave us any happier. Probably, in fact, it left us the very opposite.

I share this because, I think, to get the most out of this experiment, we’re going to have to be brutally honest with ourselves about our behaviors. I’m always researching and writing about greener ways to live, but how often do I look so nakedly at my own habits? If I were to truly take an inventory of my personal impact on the planet, how often would I find these essentially irrational justifications? After watching the video The Story of Stuff—which, if you haven’t already, you should all check it out—it’s painfully obvious that none—and I mean none—of my justifications hold up next to the damage my consuming is doing to our planet and to countless people around the world. I’m grateful to be able to participate this week and am looking forward to, though admittedly a little nervous about, the discoveries about my own impact that I’ll make along the way. As far as my boyfriend goes, I just hope that he still loves me after I make him turn off the video games.

And if you're new to this, you can still register to participate in No Impact Week at NRDC Simple Steps.

A series of measures designed to overhaul California's ailing water infrastructure has come under increased scrutiny this week since being signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday. Some call the reforms a historic achievement; others say they don't go far enough to tackle the state's complex water problems.

The measures were adopted by the California state legislature last week after an all-night session and signed by Schwarzenegger in the Central Valley, one of the areas hardest hit by the water crisis.  The centerpiece of the package --an $11.1 billion bond measure -- will appear on the ballot for consideration by state voters next fall.

A three-year drought has caused severe water shortages, crop losses and damage to the state's fishing industry.  The plan aims to address these problems by developing new drinking water sources and repairing the delicate Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which supplies water to two-thirds of the state's residents and is near collapse due to overuse.

The measure would do the following:

• Require that the state's urban areas reduce water use 20 percent by 2020.
• Establish a politically appointed board to act as a steward over the Delta.
• Create new conservation rules, including a comprehensive statewide groundwater monitoring program.
• Finance $40 billion in water-related projects, including a canal that would circumvent the Delta and move water south in an attempt to avoid more environmental damage.

Also included in the bill: $250 million to help pay for the removal of four dams built along the Klamath River, which starts in southeastern Oregon and cuts through the Cascade Mountains and into California's Pacific coast. This comes after a landmark agreement this fall to dismantle the dams to protect native Chinook salmon and other fish species.

It also seeks to provide a more stable water supply for Southern California cities and Central Valley farmers by building dams and underground storage.

But some environmental groups say that the groundwater monitoring program should include the collection of information on water quality, in addition to quantity. Others fear that using a canal to redirect river water will disrupt the Delta's already delicate ecosystem and increase saltwater intrusion into groundwater supplies. Fiscal conservatives are outraged at the hefty price tag during a time of fiscal crisis. And farmers, forced to fallow 500,000 acres of land in the Central Valley this year, complain that relief is still years away.

The administration's next big hurdle lies ahead: selling the bond to voters by November 2010.

Related Stories:

• Delta Blues (Fall 2008 cover story)
• Where Will California Get Its Water?
• Resurrecting a River

In January of 1776, Philadelphia essayist Thomas Paine published a 47-page pamphlet that changed the world. Within three months, Common Sense had sold 150,000 copies -- in a land of just 2.5 million people -- framing the terms of debate for the American colony's epic break from British rule. By July of that year, the national conversation charged by Paine's work culminated in the Declaration of Independence.

In that hallowed tradition, Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has penned a modern classic in revolutionary thought. Titled Clean Energy, Common Sense, this book calls on us, as a nation, to rise to the challenge of climate change while there's still time to act.

Time is of such essence, Frances writes, that every American of conscience must be engaged. Reading this essay is an essential first step.

Like Paine's pamphlet, Clean Energy, Common Sense is small enough to fit into your pocket and brief enough to read in two hours. It is accessible and timely and destined to shape the climate conversation now, when it matters most.

Because right now, the Senate is debating the single most important environmental bill of this generation: a clean energy and climate act that could generate millions of jobs and slash our global warming emissions.

But the stakes are higher still. Next week President Obama will travel to China, where climate change and clean energy will be top of the agenda. No doubt both nations will be positioning themselves for the international climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

This is a pivotal moment in our nation's history, a time when complex and fateful decisions must be made.

There are people of good will who hear claims on both sides of the climate change debate and aren't sure what to believe. If that feels familiar, this little book is for you.

In a clear and compelling tone, Beinecke draws from the most current and authoritative sources anywhere to lay out the case for American action against world climate change. She outlines solutions that can help get American workers back on their feet, strengthen our country and set us on the path to a clean energy future.

And she calls on each of us to take up paper and pen to urge Congress to act.

This is what I find so inspiring about Beinecke's book. I believe that the act of making our voices heard is the best of American politics. I have seen it work time and again--I have seen citizens, neighborhoods, entire communities carry the weight of truth to our lawmakers. But in order to succeed, we must raise our voices loudly and fully. This is what Beinecke moves us to do.

I have known Beinecke for more than 35 years, and I admire her unwavering commitment to protecting the environment. Beinecke's dedication and intelligence make her a formidable fighter, but she is also an optimist. She trusts that green solutions and smart policies can diffuse the climate crisis. And she believes that we can create a cleaner, healthier planet for our children.

This is the spirit that infuses her book. Beinecke writes:

"This book is a call to action, one citizen's honest appeal. It is not a political treatise. It is not a partisan screed. Maybe that's because my politics on this are simple. I believe Democrats and Republicans alike have a real chance here to lead, to look to the future and show us the way to a brighter future." 

Two centuries ago, Paine wrote, "I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense." That's precisely the approach Beinecke has taken in her stand against climate change. Simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense. It's all there in her book. 

Read it today. Give a copy to a friend. Then help us change the world -- again.

Click here to see the slideshow. number 26 number 27 number 34 number 43 number 44 number 45

In Ed Kashi's new book, THREE, the photographer uses triptychs to "play on the visual appetite of a hectic world." Here's Kashi on the project:

These triptychs are a celebration of the language of photography, forcing the viewer to “read” each triptych, not only for individual photographs but for their cumulative visual impact. In a world inundated by visual imagery, our ability to take in more than one image at a time has become innate. This series plays on the visual appetite of a hectic world, offering multiple screens from which to process, submerge and make sense of the chaos that surrounds us.

We're proud to host excerpts from THREE here on OnEarth. 

Click here to see the slideshow. number 26 number 27 number 34 number 43 number 44 number 45

Oct. 19th, Barentsburg

If you think it is strange there is a Russian town on Spitsbergen, remember that this land is not exactly part of Norway.  It really is a kind of no-man's territory, not subject to any taxation, where historically a man could arrive from anywhere and stake a claim. The American Longyear founded Longyearbyen, the Russians had Pyramiden, now abandoned, and Barentsburg, still going strong.  Long before climate change grabbed our attention the Arctic had tremendous strategic importance, and the Germans bombed all of it in World War II.  They even had one far and remote weather station that was the final place the Nazis surrendered in September 1945.

Whereas Ny Ålesund is a curious modern science town of satellite dishes, nationalistic research buildings from nations as diverse as China, India, Germany and France, Barentsburg looks like a little slice of Siberia.  You walk up to the city up hundreds of carefully constructed wooden steps, to emerge on a plateau with crumbling concrete buildings, most built in the sixties through eighties but generally looking much older. 

The faded grandeur of the Soviet time is out in full force, monuments everywhere you look.  To the glory of the coal miner!  To the arctic socialist explorer hand in hand with a polar bear!  A concrete apartment building with a giant brick design of a Russian country maid.

Strangely, there are murals throughout the town (of perhaps six hundred Russians, with room for about a thousand more) of green and leafy summer scenes, images of a landscape so far removed from where we now stand that it is hard to understand why anyone would want to paint them here. Is this some kind of wry Arctic joke?  Or are these billboards advertising the land all the residents will sometime soon go home to?

The bartender at the one foreigners' hotel smiles when I ask her, "how long have you been here?" 

"My term is two years.  The pay is good.  But then I am getting out."

In the middle of the night after hours of vodka in the bright fluorescent bar we are laughing in the dark, running down those perilous wood steps at top speed, slipping on rail tracks in the tunnels that lead from the mine.  Around a corner we spy three coal-faced miners, returning from work.  All of a sudden life here seems no longer a party, but risky, dirty work.  We all go silent for a moment.  But soon we start laughing again and run back to our boat.

On Oct 12, military veterans of Operation Free boarded two large biodiesel buses in two different states to begin a historic journey crisscrossing the country to talk to citizens, political leaders and fellow veterans about the national security implications of climate change and the need for Congress to enact comprehensive new clean energy legislation.  

The brilliant blue coach buses were wrapped with the names of more than 70 cities and towns in 21 states that the buses visited over a two-week period. Veterans of wars from all services participated in the tour, some jumping on board for a few days while a few others stayed on board for the entire period.

I served as communications staff aboard the "southern" bus, blogging at various points along the way for the Operation Free and the NRDC Greenlight websites. We started our trek in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and then headed north through Missouri and Nebraska until we veered east and rolled through Iowa, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. After stopping overnight in the nation's capitol, we then roared down Interstate 95, visiting communities in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and ultimately in Florida, where we ended up aboard the WWII cargo ship SS American Victory in Tampa.

It was a memorable, exciting and exhausting trip as we stopped in communities large and small. We visited town hall meetings at VFW Halls and American Legion Posts, met with editorial boards and individual print and broadcast reporters, and we joined civic leaders and mayors to discuss how to fight the security threats of climate change. We stopped three or four times a day, often beginning early in the morning and ending late at night as we cruised from state to state.

Although it was a grueling schedule with tight quarters at times, we developed a camaraderie that made the trip a rewarding experience. I also gained a special insight into why these veterans took the time to make this tour. All were motivated to help humanity deal with one of the most serious threats civilization has ever known. But there was also another important reason--no one wanted to put a single service member in harm's way due to the international security threats posed by climate change.

Looking back, I will remember most our stops at veterans' war memorials along the way. This was "hallowed ground," as Army vet Rafael Noboa described it, a testament to the lifelong service each veteran gives his or her country. Many said this tour was one of the most important battles of their military careers. It was an honor to serve beside them.   

Oct. 18th, Ny Ålesund, Arctic Science Village

In Ny Ålesund, a former mining village that is now an international center for climate research, most of the two hundred researchers and technicians have left for the season. But at the Alfred Wegener Polar Institute, a German engineer still remains, for a whole year in this inaccessible outpost, to repeat the same experiments every day.  In one he releases a large white weather balloon, each day at 1pm, which rises and drifts into the stratosphere before exploding when it gets too high, but not before transmitting essential data from its disposable radio which will never be found.  Then at night he shoots a high energy laser beam straight up into the clouds, of such power that even a tiny fraction of its bright beam is diffused back through the cloud cover and can be registered by the naked eye. The beam bounces through the building inside a complex and irregular rectilinear box, down to the floor off a large telescope mirror, then straight up through a hole in the roof.  The green ray heading skyward looks like it is strong enough to reach the moon.

The German engineer speaks extremely precisely.  He will not answer any questions around which he has even the slightest doubt.  "Why do the stars here in the North flicker with such visible multiple spectra of color?" I ask, "shimmering from red then to green and to blue." 

"I know of what you speak," he nods. "But I do not know enough astronomy to say anything more."

"And what," I point, "is that big wooden contrabass case doing next to the laser mirror, the beaten-up box that says ‘Berliner Philharmonische Orchester' on it?"

"Oh," he smiles.  "Usually there is a instrument in there, but not right now. It is not mine."

From all I can gather, the actual on-paper negotiations are moving this week, progressing in some way towards some kind of agreement. (We'll get to what kind of agreement soon.) But we wouldn't have much way of knowing, since proceedings largely disappeared behind closed doors this week. I've been told by plenty of folks--including two former US negotiators--that I shouldn't complain about the lack of access, because it's the closed-door meetings where things really get done. Still, it's frustrating that an institution that prides itself on openness seems to operate best through closed meetings. The American delegation does seem more confident at this stage that there's an agreement out there to be achieved. Whether that agreement will be anything close to what the science tells us is necessary is another question (hint: it won't be). And what form that agreement will take has become the story of the week. Will it be a "legally-binding" treaty that is enforceable by international law, or will it--as many high profile figures have recently commented--be some kind of "political" agreement that critics say would be toothless.

Politics, not law, could govern agreement

On Tuesday I wrote that this political/legal face-off was "looking to be the hottest-button item for the rest of the week, and possibly straight through December" and that remains true. So what has caused the fervor and fretting over the "lowering of expectations for the Copenhagen negotiations," as was cited in today's satirical "Fossil of the Day" prize that's awarded by CAN-International to the nation(s) that have done the "best" at blocking or stalling the talks.

Here's US Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern's comment that helped earn the award: "We should make progress towards a political agreement that hits each of the main elements."

• Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen: "it is a challenge for every single industrialised country in the world to deal with the climate change issue and that's why we are working very strongly to reach a politically binding agreement in Copenhagen..."
• UNFCCC Chair Yvo de Boer: "It is absolutely clear that Copenhagen must deliver a strong political agreement and nail down the essentials."
• UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon: "several key countries were not ready to sign up to binding targets and that the best the world could hope for from the summit would be 'political commitments.'"
• Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark: "We do not think it will be possible to decide all the finer details for a legally binding regime."

And the list could go on.

What's so bad about a politically-binding agreement?

The obvious concern is compliance. What reason does any sovereign nation have to meet the commitments of the agreement if there are no legal repercussions for non-compliance. "Political agreements "are worth very little," said Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chair of the Group of 77 and China. "Tell me of any politician who delivered on his political manifesto?" Or, as Kevin Grandia wrote, "With all the long hours I've been putting into to covering these climate talks, I'm sure my wife is wishing our marriage was a politically binding agreement, as opposed to a legal one."

The gray area between legal and political

There is, however, more nuance than most of these quotes indicate, and between the "politically-binding" final agreement feared by so many and the "legally-binding" COP15 outcome, there's quite a bit of gray space. Most of the parties cited still believe that a legal agreement is necessary and possible, just not before December 18th when the Copenhagen talks wrap up. Their thinking, rather, is that some kind of political framework is possible within six weeks, and then the legal aspects can be hammered out soon after. It could be dangerous to ignore this gray area and turn the legal/political argument into an all-or-nothing, black-and-white issue. By all practical accounts, it would be simply and technically impossible to hammer out the finer details of a true legally-binding treaty by the end of Copenhagen. But that doesn't mean that it's never possible--that in three or six months more time the legal jargon couldn't be pulled together--that the world would be doomed to a toothless, unenforceable handshake agreement-in-words-only that no nation would ever feel compelled to live up to. The actual outcome will almost certainly fall somewhere between the two, but if we write a temporary political commitment off as failure in December, we risk the reality falling somewhere further down the dangerous end of the "binding" spectrum. Tomorrow I'm going to work on figuring out just how a temporary political agreement could carry us towards a legally-binding deal sometime next year. Stay tuned.

From September through December, I'll be tracking the American positions in the international climate treaty negotiations for the Adopt-A-Negotiator project. Together, we're tracking the negotiators from twelve key countries up to and through the December COP15 meetings in Copenhagen.

Last month, Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon vowed that his company will not drill for natural gas in New York City's upstate watershed. This may seem like a victory for the "Kill the Drill" campaign, but it's only a partial one: In five years' time, Chesapeake's leases in the watershed will expire, and even before then there is no guarantee that McClendon will remain the head of the company. That's why I am calling on the State Department of Environmental Conservation to implement a complete and permanent ban on hydrofracture drilling in the Catskill / Delaware watershed.

As McClendon himself stated, "How could any one well be so profitable that it would be worth damaging the New York City water system?" Now the State environmental agency finds itself in the uncomfortable position of lagging behind the industry it regulates in protecting the City's drinking water.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the drilling technique known as "hydraulic fracturing," it is already being used in at least nine states to extract great quantities of natural gas from underground formations. By fracturing the shale with the aid of chemically-treated water pumped deep into the ground, natural gas can be captured in a commercially viable way.

Experts estimate that New York State's natural gas reserves may be large enough to meet national demand for a period of 20 years. The economic payoff for upstate New York's recession-strapped families and municipal governments would be substantial.

For a nation needing to diversify its energy resources, hydrofracture drilling sounds on the surface like a positive thing. However, the potential environmental impact could be devastating. One need only to look across the New York border to Dimock, Pennsylvania, where hydraulic fracturing is underway. Families there turn on their faucets to find water that separates into sludge, sediment, brown liquid and bubbles. This is exactly what could happen to New York City's unfiltered drinking water supply if drilling is permitted, leading to a serious public health crisis.

So why doesn't the State just build a filtration system to safeguard the City's water supply? The cost. It's estimated to be in excess of $10 billion, and that figure doesn't even take into account the cost of ongoing operation and maintenance of the filtration system, which is expected to cost about $1 million per day.

The stakes are too high to rely on buffer zones and special permits, such as the State proposed in draft regulations at the end of September. Those amount to half measures. We are in the middle of a 90-day public comment period where citizens will get to voice their concern about drilling in the Marcellus Shale, an underground formation stretching across the southern tier of New York State.

Other states are looking to New York to set the environmental agenda on this issue. It's time for the State environmental agency to "Kill the Drill."

We urge you to take immediate action by joining our letter-writing campaign and Facebook group. For anyone in the New York City area on November 10th, we are holding a rally and press conference ahead of the 6:30 p.m. DEC hearing on the proposed drilling. This will be the only opportunity that New York City residents will have to make their voices heard on the issue. For more information, go to www.mbpo.org/killthedrill.

Scott M. Stringer is the Manhattan Borough President.

Oct. 17th, Blomstrand halvøya, Krossfjorden

In 1910 Ernest Mansfield was convinced that this was going to be the site of the greatest marble quarry in the world, so he set up the Northern Exploration Company to cut all the stone out.  He named the spot New London.  Some of his machines remain right on the rails, having never even been used. The whole project fell apart, there was nothing worth taking.

The more we experience this distance the place, the less it seems it's a wilderness. Spitsbergen is the warmest place in the Arctic, because it's the end of the gulf stream, so much of the sea surrounding remains ice-free most of the year.  Already by 1700 the Dutch had killed all the whales here, and after that came trappers, hunters, miners, still trying to extract something useful out of the landscape.  What might remain most useful today is strategy-a few years ago a cable was laid all the way from Norway under the sea, bringing fast communication to the outside world.  There are now hundreds of scientists stationed up here keeping track of what will happen to a warming world.

The mining sputters on, the locals still hang onto it with pride.  Greenpeace was up here just before we arrived demanding that the coal mines just down.  Of course they are wasteful, hopeless, destined to fail like the quarry at Blomstrand.  Coal mining has no place in the Arctic, no place anywhere.  If we work hard enough we'll soon find better sources of energy: from the sun, the wind, the waves.

Is that a workable dream?  Spitsbergen is full of the graves of dreams that failed.  The beauty of the place is a success, it cannot be tamed.  Or is that only because we cannot see deep into history?

October 14th, Sailing toward Magdalena Fjord, 79.6°N, 11°E

The bell rings on deck, that means there's something to see.  "Ayeaah," says the captain, usually a man of few words, "seven polar bears eating an old whale carcass.  I have only seen something like this a few times in all my journeys in the North."

Every artist rushes to our cabins, grabs our latest-model cameras, and runs up on deck.  The bears don't seem interested in us, that slimy whale backbone looks so delicious.  We can smell it easily a few hundred yards away, it's probably been there for months.

"Ooohhh..." someone says, "it looks like something out of a Matthew Barney film."  "Hey," someone else has a bright idea, "let's put those binoculars over a camera lens, see what kind of effect comes out."

We watch the bears eating and playing for hours.  It's impossible to pull our eyes away.  The raw reality of nature holds us transfixed.  A couple of us remember Werner Herzog's line in Grizzly Man, where the great director announces, coldly, "People think nature is beautiful, but I do not agree.  To me it is nothing but a realm of cruelty, survival, and the relentless search for food."  With his beautiful documentaries Herzog shows that notion is just a pose, for he loves nature and has truly succeeded in revealing it in art, cutting far beyond the clichés and the preset stories of the wild we are all so used to.

Sure, I could tell you them all:  the sea was rough, the cameras and computers were pitching to the floor.  Wine glasses were breaking, milk spilled onto the floor.  Waves from the sea sprayed us head to toe in the tiny zodiac as we made rough we landings on shore.  The light is indescribable, the snowy peaks stretched into the distance forever.  The immense loneliness zeros straight in on the sublime, where the land is great because we are so small.

I tell you those things and all of them are true.  But we are artists, not tourists, so it should not be enough to be impressed by walruses and polar bears.  But we all love the polar bears!  Their bloody faces smile as they chew on rancid whale meat.  You don't become an artist by denying any tourist instincts. We all want to see and love the world.

Just as artists in the Age of Exploration were the only ones to offer up images grand and graphic enough to show people back home what the far reaches of the globe can offer, today we must cut through a world saturated with images and stories to see if there can still be a fresh way of expressing one's experiences on the journey, careening through the sea and back and forth from the frozen, empty land.

Well that's settled. There won't be a Senate bill before Copenhagen. Which means a lot of things: the US won't have concrete numbers on mitigation targets and finance commitments before COP15 convenes; the difficult job of the American negotiators just got even harder; the international community has even more cause to accuse the US of coming up short; the chances of a fair, ambitious and binding deal coming out of Copenhagen have taken a serious blow; and finally, any hope for the talks to succeed depends on a dramatic shift in how the State Department approaches the negotiations.

A new (and very controversial) way forward?

Up until now, the thinking was that the best course towards any sort of deal in Copenhagen was through a good bill passing on Capitol Hill. Now this changes-we know that a Senate bill isn't coming. The conventional wisdom has long held that the US needs to bring numbers from our domestic policies to the UNFCCC, and not vice versa. Doing so, we're often warned, would be a recipe for disaster, as it was with Kyoto when the Senate wouldn't even consider ratifying the treaty that was widely interpreted as being restrictions forced on the US from abroad. Lead negotiator Jonathan Pershing has long maintained that he intends to bring home a treaty that will absolutely be signed and ratified. The State Department hasn't wanted to write a check that our domestic politics can't cash.

So now what? It would seem that a major shift in the US approach is necessary if there's any hope for a deal in December. Such a shift would involve the Administration committing to a target-or at least to a range-before things shake out in the Upper Chamber. Stepping in front of Congress would be an incredibly bold-and amazingly controversial-move with serious potential to backfire. As Kevin Grandia wrote, "historically there's only one thing Congress dislikes more than science and that's international treaties," and moderate Senators certainly wouldn't take such a brazen move well.

The only option left?

But what if this is the only possible course to a successful outcome in Copenhagen? Should the State Department, with the best interests of the American economy and national security in mind, be handcuffed by a dozen senators from coal states?

Consider then the potential "nuclear option" of Obama making bold commitments ahead of Congress. There is a legitimate chance that all the convention wisdom is wrong, and that Kyoto's failure was as much a sign of the times as it was a political miscalculation. Climate science is certainly more advanced than it was ten years ago, now essentially bulletproof. The American public is better informed (though still woefully climate illiterate compared to just about anywhere else in the world.) Is it really entirely out of the question for the State Department to now do what every other nation is doing and bring international commitments home? It's not so hard to envision a massive domestic outreach campaign following Copenhagen to show the American public-and their senators-that ratifying this treaty isn't at all an option, but a necessity for the good of the nation.

Over the next three months, I'll be tracking the American positions in the international climate treaty negotiations for the Adopt-A-Negotiator project. Together, we're tracking the negotiators from twelve key countries up to and through the December COP15 meetings in Copenhagen.

With the US still holding out on a couple crucial bits of information (mitigation targets and finance numbers) that make real progress on the Long-term Cooperative Agreement (LCA) track just about impossible, the UN talks this week in Barcelona are circling around a couple other troubling tripping points.

First, there’s the question of what’s to become of the Kyoto Protocol. Many developing countries are accusing industrialized nations of sabotaging the agreement, which isn’t–as many believe–supposed to end in 2012, but requires new commitments to be agreed upon for a second phase that runs through 2020. Brendan Demille’s got a solid account of the fireworks the erupted Monday over this when 50 African nations “suspended” any further Kyoto Protocol talks until developed countries start taking them more seriously and deliver some numbers that are long overdue.

Second, there’s quite of bit of unease in the air over the flood of recent comments–from everyone from the Danish Prime Minister to the U.N. Secretary General–that a “legally-binding agreement” isn’t likely by the time Copenhagen wraps up. From Reuters:

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Reuters he was optimistic that a politically-binding agreement could be agreed at the conference next month in Copenhagen but that the final legally-binding decisions would have to be taken later.

Observer orgs, activists, and the world’s more vulnerable nations are furious about this, seeing these statements as a lowering of expectations that more or less ensures a weak, toothless, and ineffective agreement. And, to be sure, a “politically-binding agreement” is ultimately worthless. But as others have pointed out, a “politically-binding” agreement isn’t the ultimate goal, but rather a temporary patch while the legal aspects are worked out early next year.

So where does this all leave the US? Well, American delegates don’t have much business being an influential part of the Kyoto discussion, though the delegation has called for a single treaty going forward, to the outrage of plenty. On the “legally-binding” bit, Pershing & Co. are being pragmatic as always, agreeing that time is likely too tight to negotiate a legal structure that’s acceptable to all, but urging that this doesn’t mean the legal aspects can’t be agreed on later.

Tomorrow I’ll follow up with some more feedback on the legal issue–it’s looking to be the hottest-button item for the rest of the week, and possibly straight through December. At least until Congress shows us a little something and the heat is turned up on the US again for those pesky missing numbers.

Farmers and producers: take note!  The Natural Resources Defense Council has announced its groundbreaking annual Growing Green Awards, honoring those who work to strengthen our national food system.  In the year since I was honored with the 2009 Growing Green Business Leader Award, food has been given a prominent place on the national agenda -- in a way that I only could have dreamed of when I encouraged our chefs to start sourcing direct from small owner-operated farms more than 10 years ago. 

Among the highlights of the year:  A vegetable garden was planted on the White House Lawn to promote the benefits of local, seasonal food; First Lady Michelle Obama loudly endorsed an urgent focus to bring fresh food into national school lunch programs; a TIME Magazine cover article decried the high cost of cheap food for human and environmental health; a student garden movement bloomed to help young farmers hit pay dirt on college campuses,  tomato pickers in Florida began winning their quest for fair wages and treatment with dignity -- and just last week,  a revoking of the industry-driven Smart Choices label which endorsed high sugar foods as healthy proved that Coco Puffs do not belong on a healthy breakfast menu. I could go on and on. What an encouraging year it has been for advocates of sustainable food!

The Growing Green Awards for 2010 was announced just last week, and I expect the nominations will begin pouring in immediately.  The Growing Green Awards recognize the extraordinary contributions that advance ecologically integrated farming practices, climate stewardship, water stewardship, farmland preservation, and social responsibility from farm to fork.  NRDC has asked me and all of us at Bon Appétit to spread the word to farmers and farmer partners, encouraging them to nominate candidates for this year's award.

If you know an outstanding individual in any of the four categories, including Food Producer, Business Leader, Thought Leader, and Water Steward, I strongly urge you to nominate that person. The application process is thorough and will take some of your time. With a $10,000 cash prize awarded in the Food Producer category and all winners widely celebrated through outreach to media and NRDC's networks, it's worth reaching out to your network of food system leaders to apply.  Next year, Bon Appétit predicts that we'll see even more progress towards sustainable, socially responsible food systems.

More on the Growing Green Awards: http://www.nrdc.org/health/growinggreen.asp

Fedele Bauccio
Bon Appetit Management Co.
2009 Growing Green Awards Business Leader Winner

In my first month as an intern with NRDC’s wildlife team in Montana, I had already heard many tales of the complex world of grizzly bear management, where it is safe to say that not everybody sees eye-to-eye with each other, and even fewer people see eye-to-eye with the bears. Adding fuel to the fire, a federal court had recently put grizzly bears back on the endangered species list, as my colleagues Louisa Willcox and Matt Skoglund have discussed.

So it was with quite a bit of curiosity, mixed with a touch of intimidation, that I hopped into a car with NRDC’s three other Montana staff and headed down to Jackson, Wyoming last week, for the latest round of meetings of the Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Coordinating Committee (YGCC). What I found in Jackson was, in some ways, better than I had expected. Everyone at the meeting was cordial despite the tense atmosphere, which I gather is an improvement over some past meetings. But in other ways, this meeting clearly showed me that the current system of grizzly bear management—whether bears are on the endangered species list or not—still leaves much to be desired.

The Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Coordinating Committee is a subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, created in 1983 “to lead the effort to recover the grizzly bear in the lower 48 states.” In choosing the members of the committee, an admirable attempt was made to include a range of stakeholders, so the committee now includes representatives from the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, as well as county commissioners (a recent addition) and game and fish officials from the three states and two tribal reservations within the Greater Yellowstone region.

But on such a large committee, there is one glaring absence: the public has no direct representation. NGO’s and the broader public, including many people who have spent decades working on grizzly bears, are left out of the committee and literally relegated to the outer circle of the meeting room, where they are forced to squeeze their suggestions into a twenty-minute public comment period at the end of each day.

This is not for lack of ideas to contribute. With all the recent controversy surrounding the bears’ re-listing, the public was eager to join the discussion at last week’s meeting. I was thoroughly impressed by both the breadth and depth of the thoughts voiced by the public, ranging from the former head of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance listing the reasons why grizzly bears should stay on the endangered species list, to a Teton County attorney explaining how and why he wants to require all hunters to carry bear spray.

With so much experience and such a valuable (and often overlooked) perspective, the public has shown that it deserves to be included in the grizzly bear management process. The Information and Education subcommittee of the YGCC has already taken important steps in this direction, forming an Information and Education Working Group that includes both committee members and NGO representatives. Focusing on areas of common interest between government agencies and the NGO community, the group has been able to make concrete progress and foster collaboration where traditional interactions tended to breed mistrust and animosity. This example shows without a doubt that it is possible for groups with differing perspectives to work together toward common goals, even in the highly contentious atmosphere surrounding grizzly bear management.

Building on this success, I hope that the public may soon be allowed to have a larger voice—on a broader scale—in the world of men and bears. As members of the public, we strive to make bear management process more transparent, someday, and we continue to call for the eventual inclusion of public representatives on the IGBC. Yet even in the meantime, there is great potential for collaboration, and the agencies and the public must be willing to work together to tackle common challenges. As Homo sapiens who are lucky enough to share this beautiful country with grizzlies, we owe it to the bears.

NRDC’s Montana team, enjoying a sunny trip home from Jackson, WY

As the last round of “intersessional” climate talks before Copenhagen opened today in Barcelona, all eyes were looking in the same direction they were when we left Bangkok three weeks earlier: at the United States. Without American numbers on mitigation (or emissions reductions) and finance (for developing nations to build their own clean energy economies, and also to adapt to the impacts of climate change), any real forward progress in the talks is just about impossible. “We need a clear target from the United States in Copenhagen,” urged Yvo de Boer, who’s trying to steer this UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) process to some kind of December resolution.” “That is an essential component of the puzzle.” The problem is that the U.S. isn’t putting anything out there. At least not yet. Not while the Kerry-Boxer bill limps through Senate subcommittees back on Capital Hill.

And that’s really where De Boer’s comment–-and most criticism of the American position-–is directed. Not at the negotiating team here, but towards Washington. In the U.S. delegation’s defense–their hands have been tied pretty tight. The State Department hasn’t wanted to write a check that our domestic politics can’t cash. If Kyoto taught us anything, it’s that nobody can trust the U.S. until they see what’s actually written into law. (Quick history lesson–the U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol back in 1998; eleven years later, it still hasn’t been ratified. At least 185 countries have ratified the Protocol, from Russia to Rwanda to Australia to Iraq. Iraq!) So there’s a massive trust gap. To be a credible player going into Copenhagen, the U.S. has to show something concrete coming from the home front. Lead negotiatior Jonathan Pershing has not been at all coy about the fact that he needs to bring home a treaty that will be signed and ratified. (And, yes, if all this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The story was more or less the same last month in Bangkok.)

So everyone’s waiting on America.Waiting for those crucial U.S. cards to land on the table. Without them, we’re seeing the kickoff of a couple diplomatic games: the guessing game and the shame game. In the absence of official figures from the U.S. delegation, some folks are speculating as to what they might look like when and if they do. “If you look at Obama’s election indications of what he thinks the U.S. can do,” de Boer said in his press conference, “and look at the legislation that came out of the House and see what it is in the Senate now, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where the U.S. is likely to end up.” For the record, the Kerry-Boxer bill would commit a roughly 7-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. This is well below the comparable midterm mitigation targets set out by the European Union (20- or 30-percent, depending on whether or not other rich nations sign on) and Japan (25-percent), and not even close to the 40-percent cuts called for by most developing countries.

But even such a modest (to put it very gently) commitment would be more productive than no numbers at all. Thus the shaming. De Boer openly praised some key developing nations, thanking China, India, Mexico and Brazil for bringing their respective and ambitious goals to the table. “Today, already China is the world leader in terms of reducing emissions,” de Boer offered. “The world is lacking similar clarity from industrial nations.” It was clear who he was referring to. Piling on, the Chair of the COP15 talks, Danish minister for climate and energy Connie Hedegaard, added that “[it's] hard to imagine how the American president can be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 in Oslo, 100 kilometers from Copenhagen, and at the same time send an empty-handed delegation to Copenhagen.”

It’s lining up to be a tough week for the U.S. team, as these barbs will likely sharpen and delegates are forced onto the diplomatic defensive. The best hope for some truly productive dialogue this week in Barcelona actually comes from back in D.C. tomorrow. President Obama will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, and other key E.U. foreign policy players for a U.S.-E.U. Summit in the White House, and climate finance is on the agenda. After European leaders laid out their first finance proposal on Friday, pressure is on the States to make a formal offer. We’ll soon find out whether the White House is comfortable stepping in front of Congress on the critical issue of finance.

Polluters who contaminate drinking water and make people sick shouldn't get off easy. That has been the focus of my work for two decades, and I'm not planning to stop now. My work focused the attention of the world on a carcinogen called hexavalent chromium (hex chrome). In 1996, PG&E -- a multi-billion dollar corporation -- paid $333 million in damages to the people of Hinkley, Calif., for contaminating their drinking water and covering up the problem for decades while people got sick and died. This victory for was immortalized in film. But the story doesn't end there.

More than 500 California communities and 30 million state residents drank water contaminated with hexavalent chromium at levels above safe levels between 1998 and 2003. Hex chrome has been detected in nearly 60 percent of the drinking water sources sampled in California. These problems are especially widespread in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire regions of the state. The PG&E Kettleman case was settled in 2006 for $335 million. Another PG&E site in Topock, Calif., affected the Colorado River -- a drinking water source for millions of people. In Burbank, contamination by Lockheed Martin affected thousands, and in Riverside, TXI Corp's cement kiln contaminated the soil in the local community. Even Disney is responsible for chromium contamination in the San Fernando Valley.

Communities all over the United States and around the world have been poisoned by this chemical. I am currently working on a case in Midland, Texas, with enormous levels of hexavalent chromium in the well water. Chromium polluters include a "who's who" of major corporations. It doesn't take a genius to know that these polluters don't want people to realize the extent of the problem, because then they'd be on the hook for an expensive cleanup.

So it doesn't surprise me that five years after California regulatory agencies were required by law to set an up-to-date enforceable standard for hex chrome in drinking water, consumers are still not protected. I've fought these powerful interests for years, and I know first hand how good they are at delay tactics.

The good news is that Cal/EPA's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment -- the public health agency that the governor tried unsuccessfully to eliminate in the last budget cycle -- has just come out with a proposed drinking water level that would protect Californians. The new assessment uses research from the National Toxicology Program to identify the levels of hex chrome that cause cancer and then calculates a safe level for vulnerable populations, including children. A public meeting was held Oct. 19 in Oakland to accept comments on this proposal; written public input is welcome until Nov. 2. You can send a message through the NRDC Action Center.

I read through the 140 page Cal/EPA document with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I felt vindicated -- but I also felt saddened. The National Toxicology Program concluded in its 2007 study that hexavalent chromium is considered carcinogenic not only by inhalation, but also by ingestion. Gosh, who knew? Maybe if someone had believed all these people in Hinkley, Calif., many years ago, many more lives would have been saved.  I was saddened by the descriptions of liver and kidney degeneration, blood abnormalities including anemia, testicular damage, infertility, miscarriage, fetal toxicity, chromosomal abnormalities and a litany of cancers. The clinical descriptions in the Cal/EPA document weren't abstract to me -- they brought back to me the names and faces of people that I know who have lived and died with these illnesses.

Roberta Walker, the original client in the movie, was poisoned once by Chromium 6 -- and may be again. PG&E recently tested Roberta's well at her new home and found levels of hexavalent chromium at 1.26 ppb, well over the proposed action level of .06 ppb.

I congratulate the long hard work of attorneys who fought on behalf of those poisoned by this chemical, and I applaud agencies and scientists for overseeing, setting and hopefully enforcing stricter standards. My fight for the people of Hinkley isn't over. To bring this dark chapter of history to a close, California must adopt a legally enforceable and truly health-protective standard for hex chrome in drinking water. I cannot personally protect every community with contaminated water, but if we have a uniform standard, I will be able to rest easier knowing that people won't be drinking this dangerous substance without knowing it. This chemical is a serious problem and one that I am glad to see being addressed. California has always led the way in setting standards that other states follow. We need to make prevention the goal of the future.

A version of this editorial previously appeared in The Sacramento Bee.