Greenlight | OnEarth Magazine, from NRDC

White House Declares War on Asian Carp

Kari Lydersen — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:27:07 -0600

White House environmental officials met with three Great Lakes governors on Monday to formulate what they call an “unparalleled effort” –- including a $78.5 million commitment of federal dollars -- to keep the Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

The state of Michigan has demanded that Chicago-area locks and gates be closed immediately to stop the voracious fish from reaching Lake Michigan via connecting waterways. On February 4, Michigan petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court demanding the closure, citing new evidence uncovered since the court turned down its previous plea. (Natural Resources Defense Council Midwest Program director Henry Henderson blogs about the situation here.)

Illinois officials have stridently resisted Michigan’s call to close the locks. So on Monday, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and officials from the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of the Interior, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service met with the governors of Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin to seek solutions.

The resulting “Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework” lays out 25 actions designed to block the movement of Asian carp in the short term while studying long-range solutions. Within 90 days, according to the framework, the locks will be opened less frequently, and whenever they are, the waterways would be poisoned and other control measure instituted to make sure the carp don't progress past their current territory.

Meanwhile, the Army Corps will continue to study the impacts and feasibility of permanently closing the locks, albeit on a much quicker timetable (the original completion date for the report was 2014). Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, noted that there are multiple entry points into Lake Michigan that are not blocked by locks or gates, so barriers that use electricity or sound will also need to be installed.

Officials will also study ways of stopping Asian carp from spreading through ballast and bilge water, step up enforcement of prohibitions on buying and selling invasive species, encourage the harvesting of carp from waterways that it has already invaded (such as the Mississippi River) for food and nutritional supplements, and develop new poisons that specifcally target Asian carp to help kill them without destroying other wildlife.

“We have to hit these carp and beat them back with all the tools in the toolbox,” said Cam Davis, President Obama’s senior adviser for Great Lakes issues.

Together, the federal agencies involved in the summit committed $78.5 million this fiscal year for creating new barriers and exploring other methods of stopping the spread of Asian carp. The money will come primarily from a previously announced $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. That means the Asian carp emergency will theoretically divert funds from other badly needed projects covered by the initiative, ranging from wetlands restoration to the revamping of archaic sewer systems.

Scientists who have detected Asian carp DNA in numerous locations beyond the Army Corps’ electric barrier say there is little doubt those results mean the carp have spread beyond the blockade. But federal officials at the summit implied skepticism, indicating that they believe their methods are working.

“No agency has found Asian carp upstream of the barrier," Davis said, "despite days and weeks of actively getting boots on the ground with nets, with shockers, and other methodologies to actively find them."

On February 12, federal, state, and local officials will hold a public meeting in Chicago to hear from fishermen, environmentalists, and others concerned about the potential impact of Asian carp on the Great Lakes' water quality and $7 billion fishing industry. Another public meeting will be held later elsewhere in the region.

NRDC's Thom Cmar said in a statement that despite Monday's meeting, the organization remains unconvinced that the right steps are being taken to protect the Great Lakes.

"We are concerned that the document released today still doesn't articulate a clear plan, based on the best available scientific information, that will actually work," Cmar said.

Read more of OnEarth's Asian carp coverage here.

Coyotes Spotted on Columbia Campus

Scott Dodd — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:50:02 -0600

What's an icon of the American West doing at an urban Manhattan university? Hunting for real estate

Early Sunday morning, a campus security officer at Columbia University saw three unusual animals hanging out in front of Lewisohn Hall, one of the school's classroom buildings. The officer called NYPD, and according to a memo from the school's public safety chief, the responding officers spotted one of the animals before it slinked away.

They recognized it as a coyote.

A second sighting was also reported by school employees on Sunday, the memo said, although police couldn't confirm that one.

I'm a graduate of Columbia's journalism school (just two buildings south of Lewisohn Hall) and an adjunct professor there, so I can attest that seeing a coyote on campus is pretty unusual. (Squirrels, rats, and pigeons, yes. Coyotes, no.) But considering the spread of this iconic Western animal across the Northeastern United States in recent years, it can't be considered a big surprise, either.

Back in 2006, a coyote led police -- not to mention photographers, helicopters, tourists, and the news media -- on a wild two-day chase through Central Park before he finally succumbed to a tranquilizer dart. "Hal," as park workers nicknamed him, was a media sensation, but he wasn't the first coyote to try making a home in Manhattan.

Several weeks before "Hal" swam across the Central Park duck pond to avoid capture, another coyote was found dead on Manhattan's Upper West Side (apparently hit by a car). Since 2006, more coyotes have been sighted and captured. Last month, one was nabbed at a cemetery in Harlem. And just last week, a photographer took pictures of a coyote crossing a frozen Central Park pond.

Where are these Western intruders coming from? Probably The Bronx, which is the only borough of New York City that's part of the mainland United States. (For those unfamiliar with New York geography, Manhattan is its own island, as is Staten Island, natch. Brooklyn and Queens make up the western shore of Long Island.) Over the last decade, coyotes have established a home there, and like other animals (including skunks) they've started migrating to the other boroughs via bridges and railroad tracks and frozen rivers in wintertime (during warmer weather, they swim).

Coyotes used to confine themselves to the Western United States -- largely because their competitors the wolves had claimed the East for themselves. But with wolves largely wiped out in these parts, along with the Eastern forests they called home, coyotes -- more naturally adapted to open spaces and grasslands -- started spreading this way. A 2006 Salon story by Christopher Ketcham explained their colonization this way:

The coyote, ingeniously plastic, always adapting, saw opportunity. He pushed east and north and south, assuming the niche of top dog, and today his numbers nationwide are more than twice what they were in 1850. The coyote, says wildlife ecologist Justina Ray, "is the most successful colonizing mammal in recent history."
The rate of expansion was astonishing. According to Ray, who works with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the coyote's march during the 20th century covered thousands of miles, even reaching isolated regions in the Atlantic provinces of Canada, including Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, arriving in Newfoundland on sea ice as early as 1987.
Today, coyotes live in or near every major American city. They are reported in Atlanta, Toronto, Portland, Maine, running across a schoolyard in Philadelphia, hiding under a taxi in Chicago, and everywhere in the metro west, including Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. A landmark study from Ohio State University, to be published this spring, tracked coyote behavior in urban Chicago for six years, concluding that the Windy City's coyote population was vastly larger -- at least 2,000 and growing -- and more successful than ever expected. Urban coyotes, the study found, live longer than their country cousins, their range per pack is more compact (much like urban humans), and they hunt more often at night (also like urban humans). The study also found that the creatures likely do not pose a threat to people.

That last sentence should come as a relief to Columbia students and other Manhattanites, because it looks like we're going to have to get used to coyotes as neighbors. Spring is when coyotes disperse from their packs to establish new hunting grounds. So the sightings so far this winter could be just a prelude of what's to come.

Now that I know what they're after, however, I won't be too concerned about running across one. After all, they're just doing what all New Yorkers engage in from time to time: hunting for real estate for a growing family.

Good luck to 'em.

Photo: Coyote on the pond in Central Park by D. Bruce Yolton/urbanhawks.blogs.com

Audi's Green Police: The Funniest Super Bowl Ad?

Douglas S. Barasch — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:09:36 -0600

If eco types didn’t find themselves laughing at the Audi Green Police commercial that debuted during the Super Bowl last night, my feeling is that--tsk, tsk--we’re probably taking ourselves way too seriously. The ad cracked me up for several reasons:

Most well-meaning environmentalists are chronically guilt-ridden. I constantly confront my inadequacy. Do I always carry my plastic bottle to the nearest recycling bin? (Oops—what am I doing with a plastic bottle in the first place?) Do I remember to bring a canvas bag to the supermarket? Bring my own thermos to Dunkin Donuts? Does my car get 50 mpg? Do I compost? Do I sometimes leave the water running too long? The Audi commercial hit on all these little pockets of self-recrimination.
Environmentalists can be a bit overbearing (and unbearable) at times. There is an undeniable holier-than-thou syndrome that runs through the movement; we too often come off as scolds. So to see ourselves caricatured as green police in nerdy forest-green shorts flushing people out of their hot tubs (because, basically, we’re a bunch of killjoys) is just dead-on satire.
We’re subject to a perpetual SWAT team mentality of crisis and urgency. Those swarming uniformed agents--aided by the funny, quick-paced editing of the various vignettes--look so EARNEST as they race around saving the world from imminent doom. Greenies tend to do that a lot.
We can identify with BOTH the earth-destroying perps AND the virtuous green cops. Because we basically alternate between these two identities. And we also identify, at times, with the virtuous driver of the clean diesel Audi A3 TDI who is waved through a long line of idling cars waiting to get inspected by the green brigade and gets to drive free and fast into the distance with a self-satisfied smile.
Then there’s that final gag that turns the tables on the real cops. Didn’t you just love the nerdy-looking Green Cop telling the tough-looking guy in the patrol car to step out of his vehicle and place his Styrofoam coffee cup on the roof of his car?

The basic message for all of us: if we can’t laugh at ourselves, then we’re really doomed.

Of course, there are some folks who didn’t think the ad was so funny, or at least aren’t so sure. (I polled a few of my colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council: the results of my highly unscientific survey were inconclusive.) But you can check out some of the other Monday morning quarterbacking:

Audi's "green police" Super Bowl ad stirs controversy

Audi's "Green Police" Ad Isn't What You Thought It Was

Worst (green) Superbowl commercial ever — or best?

More important is the question of whether the Audi “clean diesel” is really all that clean—a question I’ll leave to the experts. In an upcoming story in OnEarth, contributing editor Craig Canine profiles Honda and reports that there may be no single, clear-cut winner-take-all technology in the race to build the future’s cleanest vehicles. Audi may be betting on cleaner diesel, but others are putting their money on plug-in electrics and improved hybrids. And still others are forging ahead to innovate the ultimate hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle (including Honda). Stay tuned.

Native Peoples & Biodiversity: Ten Thousand Years of Sustainable Living

Osha Gray Davidson — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:30:05 -0600

"To raise awareness of the impending crisis and to spur the world to act, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity...In this International Year, we must counter the perception that people are disconnected from our natural environment...I call on every country and each citizen of our planet to join together in a global alliance to protect life on Earth." -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

Indigenous Knowledge

It is fitting that Staying the Course, Staying Alive is one of the first responses to Ban's challenge. The report by British Columbia's coastal First Nations reflects 10,000 years of traditional knowledge about living as a part of the natural world.

And, after all, who would know better how to preserve biodiversity than people who have been living sustainably in the same place for thousands of years?

Staying the Course combines western science and indigenous teachings to create a unique document. It includes art, stories that have been told for generations as well as new ones written for the report, maps based on satellite data detailing the biogeoclimatic ecosystems of the region, an overview of sustainable fishing practices and recommendations for adapting to climate change.

The report is organized around seven fundamental truths common to the cultures of the area (the Heiltsuk, Namgis and Haida peoples):

The Seven Fundamental Truths

Creation -- We the coastal first peoples have been in our respective territories (homelands) since the beginning of time.
Connection to Nature -- We are all one and our lives are interconnected.
Respect -- All life has equal value. We acknowledge and respect that all plants and animals have a life force.
Knowledge -- Our traditional knowledge of sustainable resource use and management is reflected in our intimate relationship with nature and its predictable seasonal cycles and indicators of renewal of life and subsistence.
Stewardship -- We are stewards of the land and sea from which we live, knowing that our health as a people and our society is intricately tied to the health of the land and waters.
Sharing -- We have a responsibility to share and support to provide strength and make others stronger in order for our world to survive.
Adapting to change -- Environmental, demographic, socio-political and cultural changes have occurred since the creator placed us in our homelands and we have continuously adapted to and survived these changes.

You can download a copy of the report (as a pdf file) by clicking here.

Cover courtesy of: Frank and Kathy Brown, Seequest Development CO 12605 TransCanada HWY, Ladysmith, BC, Canada V9G 1M5

First Steps on a Long Walk: A Year in Patagonia Begins

Nadine Lehner — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:19:18 -0600

An Introduction to a Traveling Eco-Diary, of Sorts

Here I am, about to start down the road of citizen journalism for Greenlight. First question: what wisdom does this freshly minted college grad propose to contribute to the esteemed NRDC and its online community?

Thanks to a Harvard fellowship, I'm spending this year in South America, working with Doug and Kris Tompkins, American entrepreneurs-turned-conservationists/ organic farmers/ environmental activists. For the most part, I'm based in Pumalin Park, a Yosemite-sized nature sanctuary that Doug created in south Chile; I live on a small farm, called Reñihue, which Doug and Kris bought and restored as a model for sustainable local agriculture in this region. When I look out my window, I see sheep in my back yard and an enormous snow-covered volcano in the background-a big change from my childhood in NYC.

As Doug's assistant, I've been able to spend time at many of their different wildlands conservation projects: the Íbera wetlands in northeastern Argentina; the Corcovado National Park just south of here, already donated to the Chilean park system; the future Patagonia National Park, a project-in-progress in Chilean Patagonia. Closer to home, I've tromped around the eight farms in the Pumalin area, run on the model of "conservation as a consequence of production"-that is, that saving wild places requires a new model of sustainable agriculture, not just legal protection. Despite Reñihue's remoteness (you can only get here by boat or light aircraft) many visitors with long histories in environmental activism work their way down here, making it a great place to pick up new ideas. While my exact job description remains vague--although my primary project is collecting material for, writing, and editing two books, I've done everything from making salad dressing to driving motorboats--my education here proceeds quickly, eclectically, and curiously. The themes-and realities-of conserving wild places, restoring damaged landscapes, and creating models of sustainable local economies connect the vast number of seemingly disparate projects going on down here. I'm learning how topics from jam-making to photo-taking play a role in the large project of planet-saving.

As to the aim of this blog: I hope that recording the unexpected turns of events at this unusual graduate school of conservation might reveal a bit about the quirky realities of conservation and sustainable agriculture-often very different from theory and ideals. Yet documenting days interests me less than questioning how this experience can make me a better environmentalist in my own right. I set off on this year determined to figure out my part in planet-saving. I grew up in an ecologically focused family (to put some pieces together, my father is NRDC's executive director), and always imagined I'd take up some kind of environmental work. Yet the more I ask the question, how does one become a good environmentalist, the more I realize how little I-and, it seems, others-know about the answer.

Sure, you can find plenty of lists about "50 Ways to Save the Planet." But will these steps lead toward to a sustainable relationship with the natural world or only slow the bleeding? What are the changes in mentality and perception that inspire you to tackle some corner of an unfathomably massive problem? If you aim to create change, you need the dedication to walk far past quick fixes into more difficult territory. But why start walking, and why keep at it?

I spent much of college studying the environmental movement; I've read studies that survey self-reported sources of environmental concern. I haven't come across many satisfying answers. I just finished a large, exhaustive biography of John Muir that detailed the types of trains he rode but left his devotion to nature shrouded in mystery. If I were to continue in the vein of my college education, I'd hole up in a library to paw through the archives in search of the elusive magic formula for making an environmentalist. Instead, I've decided to set myself off on my own experiment: I've packed my backpack to head out for my first long hike.

How might a year in one of the wildest landscapes on earth, working on one of the wildest environmental projects, set my feet in motion? This record of my progress comes with the obvious limitation: I can't tell the outcome-there's always the chance that I won't emerge an environmentalist at all. But given I think that's unlikely, I hope that this unscientific investigation will shed light on the process of growing into one's own role in working toward an ecological future. Although my various updates from South America might resemble travel writing more than standard environmental journalism, the narrative of travel carries with it reflections on activism, education, and the power of wildness.

Better Pollution Controls Sought for Proposed Kansas City Rail Hub

Kari Lydersen — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:03:50 -0600

Rail is generally thought of as the most environmentally friendly way to move goods around the country (it uses much less diesel fuel per ton of cargo than trucks). But the large transfer facilities where cargo is moved from rail cars to other forms of transportation can be major sources of air pollution and contamination, unless they're built using the latest clean technologies.

And that's the problem that community and environmental groups have with a new facility planned in the fields surrounding Kansas City, the nation's second largest rail hub after Chicago.

A massive new Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) intermodal facility and warehouse complex proposed about 30 miles outside of town would significantly increase toxic air pollution unless green technologies are adopted, according to a lawsuit filed this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

More than 110 trains and tens of thousands of trucks, all powered by diesel fuel, would travel through the area each day if the project goes forward. Diesel emissions include known carcinogens. They also form smog and exacerbate cardiac and respiratory problems, increasing the risk of premature death, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Currently, BNSF is planning to build and operate the facility without significant pollution control measures, according to NRDC staff attorney Melissa Lin Perrella. The group's lawsuit alleges that the Army Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by issuing a water permit for the project without doing a full environmental impact statement.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas, demands that the project be halted pending a full environmental impact statement, which would include exploring alternative plans and requires a public comment period.

In January, local environmental and community groups and private citizens filed a similar lawsuit in the same court.

The proposed facility would cover 500 acres and handle up to 870,000 lifts per year (a "lift" is the number of times that a container is moved from one vehicle to another). That dwarfs BNSF's two existing Kansas City-area rail hubs.

The new project would be located in an area that is now farms and wetlands bordering small towns. Residents of the nearby town of Gardner objected heavily to the project, leading the neighboring town of Edgerton to annex the land so that it could go forward.

The California Air Resources Board says that residents who live near intermodal facilities, including ones much smaller than the facility proposed in Kansas City, have an increased risk of developing cancer.

In its initial assessment of the Kansas proposal's likely effects (a much briefer document than a full environmental impact statement), the Army Corps of Engineers reported that the intermodal facility would generate six tons of particulate matter, 120 tons of nitrogen oxide, 2.5 tons of sulfur oxide, and 16.5 tons of volatile organic compounds - all in its opening year.

"Based on studies of California railyards, the emissions projected for the Kansas intermodal appear to be seriously underestimated," said Andrea Hricko, a professor of preventative medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. "And if the emissions are underestimated, that means that the potential health effects are also underestimated."

BNSF is counting on $50 million in stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Transportation to start construction on the facility. The two lawsuits could influence whether the project is considered "shovel ready" and eligible for stimulus money. NRDC's Lin Perrella says the group isn't seeking to derail the project but wants to ensure that its full health and environmental impacts are studied and the best pollution control technologies are used.

Meanwhile, a proposed new BNSF intermodal facility on the outskirts of Chicago has also faced significant opposition because of concerns over air pollution, the expected impact on traffic and roads, and the types of jobs it would create, which tend to be temporary and offer low wages.

Like the Kansas City metropolitan area, Chicago is already out of compliance with federal air standards.

In California, emissions from ports and intermodal facilities have been greatly reduced thanks to widespread use of electric and hybrid vehicles, cleaner-burning diesel fuel, the reduction of truck and locomotive idling, and other technologies, according to the California Air Resources Board.

These innovations were implemented thanks to strict state mandates and cooperation between environmental and community groups, state officials and corporations -- including BNSF. (The Impact Project tracks the health impacts of rail hubs and ports in California and nationwide).

Although strict state air quality standards drove the technology's adoption in California, Lin Perrella said neighbors of railyards in other states also deserve to have their health protected.

"We know these measures and technologies are out there, the Army Corps itself has evaluated them in California," she said. "It's really a shame the federal government is looking at these technologies in California but not everywhere else."

Photo: A BNSF train passes under the Freight House Bridge at the Kansas City Union Station. Doug Wertman/CC BY 2.0

It's Time to Stop Talking About Clean Energy and Start Acting

Leonardo DiCaprio — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:28:46 -0600

It's time people stop talking about clean energy and climate change and start acting.

With that in mind, the NRDC Action Fund and I have launched a campaign to demand action on climate legislation. Our goal: Spread the word and demand that our leaders in Washington take action to pass the critical climate change legislation currently before the Senate. Joining us in this campaign are some of my Hollywood colleagues like Jason Bateman, Forest Whitaker, Chace Crawford, Felicity Huffman, Justin Long, Edward Norton and Emmy Rossum, as well as Professor Cornel West of Princeton University.

We are hoping you will get your friends to help spread that message. Here is what you can do:

Tell your Senators This is Our Moment by clicking this link.
Spread the word about this video by posting the link on your own Facebook wall.
Update your Facebook status to "Thisisourmoment.org" so friends will see our video.
Tweet #ThisIsOurMoment and tell your followers to take action today.
Upload your own video calling for clean energy solutions.
Post ThisIsOurMoment.org on your personal blogs.

We need to take a stand and tell our Senators that we will not accept anything less than a strong, comprehensive clean energy bill that will cut carbon pollution and create clean energy jobs.

If we make ourselves heard, if we stand up and speak the truth, they cannot ignore us. They will have no choice but to pass this monumental legislation. Please visit www.thisisourmoment.org and tell your Senators that you want a strong clean energy and climate bill passed today.

This is our moment and we can't afford to miss it.

Last California Salmon Fishery May Close

Osha Gray Davidson — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:03:51 -0600

Sometime soon, small-scale commercial fishermen in towns all along the West coast -- from California up to the Canadian border -- will find out whether their way of life is over.

Their fate rests on an analysis of last fall's run of Chinook salmon in the central California Delta region. The number of salmon returning from the sea to spawn there has been dwindling since 2004, when the Bush administration increased water exports from the rivers and estuaries of the Sacramento Delta to growers in the Central Valley.

That decline forced the complete closure of the salmon fishery in 2008 and 2009, to allow the salmon population time to recover. The shutdowns came at a high cost: nearly 2,700 people lost their jobs and the California economy took a $279 million hit, says NRDC staff attorney Doug Obegi:

"Fishing businesses across the State, particularly along the Central and Northern California coasts, have been hammered by the closure, from mom and pop bait and tackle shops to recreational fishing guides, from commercial salmon fishermen to the hotels and restaurants that depend on recreational salmon fishermen for their livelihoods."

Fishing communities have been hoping that after two years, the salmon population would show a strong recovery. That doesn't appear to have happened.

Matt Weiser covers water and environmental news for the Sacramento Bee. In January 2010, Weiser wrote that "the run as a whole seems likely to turn out the same or slightly smaller than in 2008, which was the smallest year ever recorded."

The End of Wild Salmon?

If that is the case, the salmon fishery may be closed again -- but this time for good. With no rebound coming from the closures, the fall run population could be listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). All other salmon runs in California have diminished to the point that they are already protected by the ESA.

Closure of the fall run would mean the virtual end of salmon fishing on the coasts of California and southern Oregon.

NRDC's Obegi believes that the picture could change. Led by Obegi, NRDC last year successfully sued to force better water management in the area. Those changes are now going into effect and may bring about the population rebound that the fishing closures did not.

But first, fishermen and their supporters have to beat back an attempt to overturn the water management plan. The attack on the water controls is being brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative property-rights group.

Without the new stricter controls on water diversions, there seems to be little hope for the wild salmon to recover. An early analysis of the fall run showed a disturbing trend. Only 10 percent of the incoming salmon were actually wild. Nine out of 10 fish had tags showing that they had been raised in a hatchery and released as part of an effort to help the wild population recover.

A scientist who examined the data explained the significance of the finding to the Bee's Weiser: "What it looks like, really, is hatchery fish are not supplementing naturally produced fish; they are replacing them."

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Video: The Heat is Online

Ross Gelbspan — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:49:47 -0600

Longtime climate journalist Ross Gelbspan presents this "videotalk" on how we're "standing on the threshold of runaway climate change."

A Bird's Eye View This Winter

David Howard — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:25:48 -0600

BIRDS ON THE DECLINE:

The Heilongjiang Province of China is seeing a brutally cold winter this year, and the birds are not coping well. This area is famous already for its hard winters, and this year the temperatures have reached -40 degrees Celsius (coincidentally, -40 degrees Celsius is equivalent to -40 degrees Fahrenheit). Such conditions make it hard for all wildlife - and for human beings, too - but birds have it especially rough. Much of their food source is covered in snow or dead, it becomes near impossible to find unfrozen water to drink, and it is difficult to hide from the simple and overwhelmingly impressive cold.

In the Heilongjiang Province, the bird populations are noticeably dwindling. Entire flocks have been found dead. Zoologists are calling for the citizens to do what they can to help the birds survive.

While conditions are perhaps not quite as extreme in other places, the problems of the Heilongjiang Province are universal. Winters are harsh; many animals die, or else hibernate, or else flee. But the birds that don't run off for winter can be left in a shabby state - and it is fact that right now, many common types of birds are dwindling rapidly in the United States.

Habitats are changing. Essential migratory fly-ways are being altered by human intervention. Urbanization is stripping from many birds their homes and their behavior patterns. Climates are in a state of flux. Invasive species can enter into a habitat: around my area (Sturbridge, MA), you can find a lot of birdhouses intended for bluebirds, instead occupied by starlings. Invasive species can kick out the old. The constant alteration of environment, be it man-made or not, constantly pressures all of its inhabitants.

And now, we have to face some harsh facts: since 1967, many "common" birds of the United States have decreased drastically and dramatically in number. There are twenty birds on a national decline list, all of which have been at least halved in those forty years. The northern bobwhite, at the top of the list, has dwindled by 82 percent. (To learn more about the birds on the decline: http://stateofthebirds.audubon.org/CBID/)

A lot of birds are struggling and - as we can see from Heilongjiang - hard winters surely don't help.

SURVIVING THE WINTER

It is remarkable that wild birds can survive winters. Regardless of food or water, it seems mind-boggling that they can keep warm enough, especially during those frigid winter nights. Birds don't hibernate. How do they do it?

A few interesting facts: Birds have a number of tricks at their disposal for dealing with the cold. Most obviously, they are feathered. Also, much like humans, birds shiver when they are cold, a simple but effective technique to generate short-term warmth.

There are other, more subtle strategies. Birds can often be seen standing on one foot in the winter; they tend to tuck their feet in as often as possible, exposing minimum amounts of their bodies to the cold air. They know how to position themselves so that the sun covers the maximum surface of their bodies. Birds will also roost together, sleeping against each other and using each other for body heat. A bird's metabolism is considerably higher than a human's.

Some birds, such as hummingbirds, chickadees, and more, can enter a state of torpor - a sleep-like state similar to a short-term and semi-conscious hibernation. While torpid, however, their reactions are understandably slowed, so it's a risky strategy: using less energy may allow them to get by with less food, warmth, etc, but it also means they are in no state to escape predators.

HOW WE CAN HELP

These tricks aren't always enough, and with so many birds dwindling due in part to human interference, it is perhaps only fitting that we do our part and give them a helping hand during this most merciless season. If you want to help out our native wildlife, now is the time to do it, and it is best to help only if you are informed.

Most obviously, many elect to feed birds. There is certainly a sort of charm to a feeder, and enjoying the sight of birds of various sizes and colors flocking by your window. My house has a feeder set up right now and the view of the fluttering and scampering birds is nothing short of magical. Bird feeders of all types are easy to find, as are nutritional seeds. If setting up a feeder, however, take care to put some thought into its positioning: the feeder should be in a place where small birds can see it, but where predators can be easily avoided. House cats, for all their cuteness, can be deadly. Feeders should also be out of the wind.

Some good food for birds: oil sunflower, which is smaller-shelled than striped sunflower but packs twice the calories; suet, which is high in energy and fat; and even peanuts, which are high in protein.

Water is also helpful to birds during cold spells, but make sure the water is not frozen. A birdbath heater is a fairly painless and harmless way to keep water wet without trudging out into the storm to change it yourself.

While providing food and water for birds is the most fun and the most showy, the best thing you can do for birds in this season is provide plants and trees that can give them cover and sustenance. Birdfeeders and birdbaths will only last while you provide them, but growing gardens strategically is much less intrusive, much more natural, and much more withstanding.

Plant shelter will give birds a place to hide both from the cold and form predators. Plan your planting, and use plants especially that provide berries for the birds. With proper planting, birdfeeders are not necessary. Make sure what you plant is native to your area! In New England, for instance, wild roses, mountain ash, holly, beriberi, ornamental pear, winter berry, red cedar and crab apple are all good choices. It may take a bit of research to find out the ideal plants for your area. Trees like chestnut and oak can provide birds with protection, and many evergreens can provide shelter from the wind.

HOW WE CAN HURT

Now, some words of caution. It is easy to become overenthusiastic and accidentally do more harm than good, particularly in the case of bird feeding, where many are more attracted to the idea of having pretty birds hovering by their gardens year-round than they are of actually helping the birds.

It is best to be informed with any decision you make.

When buying seeds to feed birds or when planting shrubs for them, make sure you are only dealing with those plants native to your area. Invasive plants can generate the very habitat changes that are pushing so many birds to desperate numbers.

Most importantly of all, don't keep feeding the birds year round! There is nothing wrong with helping them through the winter, but if you keep leaving them food and drink, they will become dependent - and, indirectly, you will encourage further habitat change. Leaving food out all the time will inspire other animals to come, such as bears or coyotes. Year-round bird feeding will attract previously foreign and unwanted animals. It may be tempting to keep the birds around, but resisting the urge is worth it for the bigger picture.

The best thing we can do to help is to grow shrubs and trees - which, of course, will not only help our birds, but will also make our gardens a little bit greener, and provide all sorts of other benefits. If we pitch in to give them a safer, providing environment, then we won't need to resort to force-feeding them to enjoy their company and keep these beloved animals alive and prospering.

New Commission from Obama Administration Will Recommend Options for Nuclear Waste

Emily Gertz — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:43:04 -0600

Energy Secretary Chu says "nuclear power has to play some mix" in nation's energy future and fighting climate change

Hot on the heels of the president's prominent mention of nuclear power among clean energy alternatives in his State of the Union address, the administration has unveiled a commission that will recommend options for managing spent fuel and waste from nuclear power plants.

"Restarting our nuclear industry is a key part of our response to climate change," Secretary of Energy Steven Chu told reporters today. "It's also clearly in our economic and security interests."

Retired General Brent Scowcroft and former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton will co-chair the 15-member commission. The group has been asked to issue a preliminary report within 18 months and a final report within two years, although it may try to accelerate those deadlines.

Chu was joined in a press conference by Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. They both emphasized that the Obama administration sees nuclear power expansion as key to both long-term energy strategy and the federal response to global warming.

Scowcroft and Hamilton each agreed that nuclear power would be crucial to curbing climate change. In turn, solving waste storage and disposal problems is critical to expanding the nation's baseload of nuclear-generated electricity.

"We plan to look at the full range of scientific, technical, commerical, and policy options that might be available" for storage, processing and disposal of nuclear waste, Scowcroft said. "And after deliberating those, I'm optimistic that we will be able to find a way forward ... [W]e want to find a practical way forward that commands consensus."

The commission will not consider financing for new nuclear power plants. "This panel is to look at what will happen in terms of the science and technology," said Chu, "and give us a plan going forward ... on ultimately figuring out how to deal with the used fuel, and also eventually the nuclear waste."

However, the administration also indicated today that it wants to triple federal loan guarantees to about $54 million to build new reactors and boost spending on maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons and related research facilities by more than $5 billion over the next five years. The former move is seen as a bid to get Congressional Republicans on board with the administration's overall energy policies.

One waste disposal option the commission will not consider is establishment of the long-delayed federal nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. "The president has said many times that we're done with Yucca," Browner said. "We need to be looking at alternatives."

Hamilton underscored that point, noting that science has progressed since the dump was first proposed in 1987. "Secretary Chu has made it quite clear that the nuclear waste storage at Yucca mountain is not an option," he said, "and that the blue ribbon comission will be looking at better alternatives for the back end of the fuel cycle."

The 13-member panel includes a bipartisan selection of politicians and policy wonks, along with scientists, representatives of union and environmental groups, and John Rowe, the chief executive officer of the Illinois-based Exelon Corporation.

Exelon operates 10 nuclear power plants with 17 reactors, which according to the company comprise about 20 percent of the nation's non-military nuclear power capacity.

Ideology will not play a role in the commission's final report, the officials insisted. It will be "fundamentally rooted on trying to base our decisions on the best possible science that we know today," Chu said.

Asked how he would reach out to environmentalists who are concerned by President Obama's embrace of nuclear power, Chu said, "I regard myself as an environmentalist, and I personally think that nuclear power has to play some mix in this, because it is carbon-free baseload power.

"I also deeply believe that we will be able to solve ... the environmental concerns that are needed in making sure this is a safe, clean form of power," Chu said. "If you consider what our options are, I think this has got to play a role going into the future."

Tom Cochran, senior scientist in the Natural Resources Defense Council's nuclear program, said the commission has important work to do in order to make sure that the country's approach to nuclear waste is "safe, cost-effective and environmentally sound."

He praised the Obama administration for recognizing that storing waste at Yucca Mountain won't work.

"To avoid the mistakes of the past," Cochran said in a statement, "the Blue Ribbon Commission will need to identify more effective, open and transparent processes for selecting ... repository sites and licensing criteria that protect the health and the environment of future generations. If they are successful in this regard, they will have performed a great public service."

NRDC came out strongly, however, against the administration's plan for more loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry.

"A massive increase in taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power would be a mistake," said Christopher Paine, the director of NRDC's nuclear program. "Energy sources should compete for public dollars based on how well they provide the clean, efficient, and affordable power we need. ... We can get far more for our money by investing in efficiency gains, conservation, and innovative technologies that generate power from wind, solar, and other renewable sources."

Clean Energy and Climate Bill Finds Place in SOTU: Jobs

Scott Dodd — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:24:15 -0600

The big question on the minds of environmentalists heading into tonight's State of the Union address was whether President Obama would even mention what was once considered among his most important policy goals: clean energy initiatives that would fight global warming.

They had to wait about 15 minutes into the speech to find out.

The Guardian newspaper reported Monday that some environmental leaders were concerned that Obama aides were advising the president to downplay or even avoid mentioning the words "climate change" -- instead keeping the speech tightly focused on the economy. The Environmental Defense Fund's Steve Cochran said there was concern that the administration would pull back on efforts to pass a clean energy and climate bill "because of a variety of political realities," while U.S. Sen. John Kerry said, "The president needs to underscore that climate and energy reform is a priority for 2010 as specifically as possible."

NRDC President Frances Beinecke wrote Tuesday that despite the naysayers, she was confident clean energy would get a prominent mention in the president's annual address to Congress. "President Obama will say that clean energy investments can generate jobs and keep America competitive," Beinecke wrote. "I also believe that during his speech President Obama will highlight the best way to unleash these opportunities: passing a clean energy and climate bill."

Beinecke had reasons to be confident. In December, she and other leaders met with Obama at the White House, and the president told her that he wants the Senate to take a comprehensive approach to America's energy and climate challenges. There were similar conversations at the Copenhagen climate conference in December, where Beinecke describes the president spending "15 hours sitting at the negotiating table and drafting parts of the Copenhagen Accord with his own pen."

Her confidence was not misplaced. When discussing his efforts to put the 1 in 10 Americans currently without a job back to work, Obama talked about rebuilding America's infrastructure, expanding high-speed rail, making homes and business more energy efficient, and investing in clean energy jobs. Later, he got even more specific about what it will take to do that:

It means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America. I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year. This year, I am eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate. I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy; and I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -- because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.

The president cited examples of clean energy jobs that have already resulted from last year's stimulus package, including a North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries and a California business that will put 1,000 people to work making solar panels. He said many more like them will be created with further investments.

Obama also expressed support for some things that won't sit as well with many environmentalists, including new nuclear power plants, more offshore drilling, and investments in "clean coal" technology. (Those all got big cheers from Republicans, who sat down as soon as the president turned to clean energy and climate legislation; some even laughed and jeered when the president mentioned the overwhelming scientific evidence for climate change.)

In her Switchboard blog, Beinecke called Obama's speech a "full-throated call for clean energy and climate legislation that puts America back to work."

Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope had a similar reaction, saying in a news release that the president "is working very hard to rescue, restore, and rebuild the American economy and the middle class -- but he can't do it alone. While his administration has done more on clean energy and climate change than any other in history, much hangs in the balance until Congress acts."

First Deadline Approaches for Climate Promises Under Copenhagen Accord

Emily Gertz — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:46:07 -0600

The first climate deadline of 2010 is nearly here. If most of the major greenhouse polluters hit the mark, the prospects for attaining a legally binding treaty in Cancun this November will seem brighter.

If not, they probably won't seem any worse.

Under the "Copenhagen Accord" created at last month's climate talks in Denmark, participating nations are expected to submit their greenhouse gas reduction plans through 2020 to the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat -- the office that manages the international climate treaty -- by January 31.

As it is a non-binding political agreement, the only pressure to conform to the deadline is that of maintaining international credibility and influence in climate negotiations.

(As for pressure to avert the worst of global warming's disastrous impacts, many important nations have demonstrably held fast against it since the Framework Convention on Climate Change took effect in 1994.)

According to the office of the Climate Change Secretariat, the list of national targets will be released all at once, and may be available online next week. But there's no firm date for releasing the data -- reflecting perhaps that the Secretariat stated last week that this deadline is actually "flexible".

What's the status of the five nations who originated the accord?

After meeting in New Delhi on January 24, the environment ministers of Brazil, South Africa, India and China (nicknamed the BASIC nations) announced that they would have their carbon mitigation plans in on time. The BASIC ministers also called upon rich nations to deliver on the agreement they made in Copenhagen: establishing a $10 billion "fast start-up" fund this year to aid poorer nations in adapting to changing climate conditions, as well as developing low-carbon industries.

Based on past public statements, the promised greenhouse mitigation actions include:

South Africa: Cuts in emissions of 34 percent below projected levels -- but in the context of a bigger international aid and mitigation agreement.

Brazil: Reducing greenhouse emissions from 36-39 percent of projected amounts. The higher end of the proposed cuts would scale back Brazil's emissions to their 1994 levels.

India: Reducing "carbon intensity" by 20-25 percent.

Carbon intensity is understood to mean the amount of carbon dioxide created (that is, energy used) per unit of economic output. So pledging to a cut in carbon intensity essentially means promising to take steps toward improved energy efficiency, so that greenhouse gas pollution will rise more slowly in relation to economic growth. But they'll still continue to rise.

China: The world's most prodigious greenhouse polluter pledged last year to cut its carbon intensity by 40-45 percent below the levels that would occur under "business as usual" industrial activity. So as with India, it is not actually promising to level off or reduce emissions, but to be more energy-efficient.

In a very worthwhile story on coal and climate change, aired today on NPR's Morning Edition, Christopher Joyce reports that China's motivations for getting off coal are compelling and multi-faceted. "The coal in China is mined primarily in the northwest of the country, but the demand for that coal is in the east," Trevor Houser, with the New York research firm RHG, told Joyce, "and getting that coal from the mine to the power plant on the coast is a challenging and expensive undertaking."

As for the United States, it's an understatement to say that whatever may be going on behind the scenes, global warming matters are being kept in the background of the White House's public agenda.

At Copenhagen, President Obama said the nation would cut its greenhouse pollution by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 -- adding up to just 4 percent below 1990 levels. The White House has pinned most of its hopes on the creation of a nationwide market to cap and trade carbon credits to attain those cuts; political wrangling in the Senate makes it unclear right now when that will happen.

As well, US participation in an international climate accord hangs on whether major developing economies like China and India will agree to outside monitoring of their mitigation efforts. The US is also demanding transparency on the progress and impact of projects funded by climate finance aid. Some noises in those directions were made in Copenhagen, and will likely continue in the run-up to November's climate conference in Mexico.

Of other major greenhouse gas emitters:

Australia has just reitereated its promise to cut emissions by at least 5 percent below 2000 levels. This equate to 3 percent below 1990 levels, the benchmark set under the original international climate agreement.

Now Australia is waiting to see how gutsy other nations will be with their cuts before pledging to greater reductions of up to 25 percent below 2000 levels (23 percent under 1990 levels).

The European Union (with 27 member nations), in the person of current EU president/Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is holding to its promise of emissions cuts of 20 percent below,1990 levels, rising to 30 percent if other nations make stronger promises.

Japan has also underscored the offer it made in the run-up to Copenhagen: cutting greenhouse pollution 25 percent below 1990 levels, contingent upon strong commitments from the U.S., China and other top emitters.

Canada said last year that it plans to reduce greenhouse pollution by 20 percent from 2006 levels, but has yet to reiterate goal in the wake of the Copenhagen talks. The nation says it won't make any promises until the U.S. shows its hand.

Image: Map of anomalous temperatures in 2009. The deeper the red, the greater the temperature compared to average temperatures recorded between 1951 and 1980 (a common reference period for climate studies). 2009 was the second-warmest year on record, and ended the warmest decade on record. Source: NASA Earth Observatory; NASA images by Robert Simmon, based on data from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Caption by Adam Voiland and Holli Riebeek.

Obama Putting High-Speed Rail on Fast Track After State of the Union

Scott Dodd — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:28:56 -0600

President Obama is hitting the road following tonight's State of the Union address -- but what's really on his mind is rail.

White House officials told reporters on Wednesday that Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will visit Tampa, Fla., on Thursday for a major economic announcement: $8 billion in grants for high-speed rail infrastructure.

Thursday's awards will include projects on 13 major corridors, as well as smaller awards to improve parts of existing lines, The Wall Street Journal and many other news outlets reported. The grants are part of the administration's planned $13 billion investment in high-speed rail.

"This is in keeping with the White House's articulated jobs strategy," writes business reporter Derek Thompson for The Atlantic. "It's not just about jobs now. It's about jobs that last, and jobs that build something that lasts even longer."

Biden, perhaps the nation's most famous Amtrak commuter, wrote about "Why American Needs Trains" earlier this month on The Huffington Post: "With delays at our airports and congestion on our roads becoming increasingly ubiquitous, volatile fuel prices, increased environmental awareness, and a need for transportation links between growing communities, rail travel is more important to America than ever before."

A year ago, in OnEarth's Spring 2009 issue, author Craig Canine made the case for why high-speed rail, long available in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, is finally coming to America (and why America needs it). In "On the Fast Track," Canine writes:

With its speed and convenience, high-speed rail could revolutionize travel in the United States by offering an attractive alternative to cars and airplanes for regional trips. Several states are improving existing rail lines with the goal of offering "medium-fast" (around 110 mph) service within the decade ... but California has pulled into the lead as the probable site of America's first true high-speed (top operating speed: 220 mph) system. Supporters hope it will be whizzing passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco by 2020. Once the technology has a foothold in the United States, its rapid spread will become more and more likely as the economic, environmental, and practical benefits sink in. State-of-the-art high-speed rail systems don't come cheap, but the price of not building them will be astronomical, in both economic and environmental terms.

"As far as the planet's climate is concerned," Canine says, "high-speed rail can't come fast enough."

And in the current economic and political climate, the jobs associated with high-speed rail should be a welcome message for the Obama administration to roll out following tonight's highly anticipated speech.

Photo: Courtesy NC3D

Lending a Hand for Buffalo Habitat

Whitney Leonard — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:39:02 -0600

For us wildlife advocates working to reform a grim and bureaucratic buffalo management regime, it is not every day that we get a chance to roll up our sleeves and head into the field. So it was particularly exciting last week when my NRDC colleague Matt Skoglund and I had the opportunity to join the Buffalo Field Campaign for a day of habitat improvement work in West Yellowstone, Montana. After all, getting to enjoy the beautiful scenery of our first national park—while putting in a good day’s work—is about as good as it gets.

The Project, organized by our friends at the Buffalo Field Campaign, consisted of removing about two miles of unused barbed-wire fencing on an old grazing allotment, to allow wildlife to roam more freely through this critical migration corridor. This area just west of the park boundary is especially important for Yellowstone’s buffalo, which migrate out of the park in the winter and spring in search of the lighter snows and more accessible forage that can often be found here.

Unfortunately, as Matt has explained in his blog, current buffalo management practices implemented by a committee of five state and federal agencies do not allow buffalo to inhabit this area year-round. Spurred by fears of brucellosis , the Montana Department of Livestock hazes buffalo back into the park each spring around May 15th using snowmobiles, helicopters, ATVs, and horses—theoretically to make the area safe for summer cattle grazing. This practice, costly and inhumane at best, is now more illogical than ever: large portions of this zone have been cattle-free for years, and the last remaining public grazing allotment on the critical Horse Butte peninsula was permanently closed last fall.

The closure of the Horse Butte grazing allotment, in addition to the closure of Duck Creek and other nearby allotments several years ago, should open the door for the agencies to allow year-round buffalo habitat in this area. But for now, the committee has already agreed on their spring 2010 operating procedures, and—notwithstanding the fact that no cows will ever again graze on Horse Butte or Duck Creek—the buffalo will be hazed back in to the park by the May 15th deadline. Meanwhile all that barbed wire on the old vacant grazing allotments is still hanging around, waiting to snare an unsuspecting bison being chased by a low-flying helicopter this May.

That’s where we come in. With the approval of the Forest Service (who was happy to let us clean up their land), we grabbed gloves and some wire cutters and headed to the retired Duck Creek grazing allotment, where we went to work ripping out barbed wire as fast as we could.

Now this fence had been neglected for years, so the lowest wires were not only buried under two feet of snow but also entangled in stubborn sagebrush. Even once we managed to remove all four wires from a given section of fence, rolling up all those sharp, unruly wires proved to be quite a challenge in itself. So “as fast as we could” was not always very fast, but the sometimes slow and grueling pace did not dampen the group’s mood. It is not an exaggeration to say there was a palpable sense of excitement among the dozen of us all day. Every now and then, someone would shout “Free the land!” or “Let buffalo roam!” drawing occasional cheers (and one or two jeers) from the few cars rattling past on the road. Great video footage from the Buffalo Field Campaign captures the atmosphere of the day.

In an arena often characterized by antagonism and gridlock, we were all thrilled to finally be making tangible on-the-ground improvements for buffalo. It was a great opportunity to find common ground with the Forest Service and help improve buffalo habitat on their land. And it was incredibly satisfying to be able to look back at the ground we’d covered, seeing wide-open habitat—newly freed land ready to welcome Yellowstone’s buffalo.

By the end of the day we had cleared fencing from an impressively long stretch along highways 191 and 287, and we were feeling good about the day’s work. While Matt and I had to head back home at the end of the day (back to the world of desks and computers, sigh), hardy members of the Buffalo Field Campaign returned to the site to finish the job over the next two days, ultimately removing two full miles of fencing.

Opening up this migration corridor was a huge first step toward making the area more hospitable for bison. Buffalo Field Campaign is hoping to get approval to remove fencing on the old Horse Butte grazing allotment next, which will be another big habitat improvement for buffalo. While we can’t fix all the buffalo management problems overnight, we can take important, concrete steps that will make a real difference—both when the annual buffalo hazing takes place this May, and, someday, when this area is open to free-roaming buffalo all year round.

Your Story or Your Life: Violent Attacks Increasing Against Enviro Journalists

Emily Gertz — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:54:32 -0600

I've never thought of environmental journalism as a particularly risky career (except to my bank account).

But in fact, reporters around the world face threats ranging from intimidation to murder for reporting on pollution, global warming, and other environmental abuses. The problem is not new, but is getting worse, according to Vincent Brossel, head of the Asia desk of Reporters Without Borders/Reporters Sans Frontiers. I heard him speak at a "side event" during the Copenhagen climate talks last month.

RSF has produced a report about threats to reporters on the enviro beat.

“When the journalists are exposing companies and local governments that’s when they are in trouble," Brossel said. While enviro-related threats to journalists amounted to "just a few cases a year" not too long ago, about 15 percent of the cases RSF now monitors are linked with environmental issues like logging, pollution, and climate change impacts.

In just one example, Uzbek journalist Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov was arrested last year, charged with drug trafficking charge in June 2008 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He had been reporting on the deterioration of the Aral Sea -- including the govenment's responsibilty for the ecological disaster.

"I'd like to ask the Uzbekistan delegation here" about how they expect to fight global warming," said Brossel, "when they're putting someone in jail for reporting on what they're doing right here."

Sometimes reporters who are detained or threatened are trying to cover logging in developing nations -- an issue that is central the climate change mitigation/funding for developments combos being negotiated under the UN's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) program.

In one case noted in the RSF report, a correspondent in Southeast Asia for several French news outlets, was investigating illegal logging in Sumatra last year. Cyril Payen and his crew were arrested last July by security guards of the PT Lontar Papirup Pulp and Papers company. (PT Lontar's corporate parent is Sinar Mas, a major Indonesian conglomerate.)

The company's head of security and local police tried to suppress video the crew had taken of trucks being loaded with timber. Of Sinar Mas, Payen told RSF, "They buy journalists or threaten them with lawsuits. Although the Indonesian media are free, they do not do enough reporting on the rampant deforestation that is taking place.”

All this seems comfortably distant from North America, but intimidation of environmental journalists is not limited to developing nations. "In the US, we're seeing climate reporters being subjected to hate mail," said James Bonn, the director of the Earth Journalism Network, at the event. He noted an incident last year when right wing pundit Rush Limbaugh suggested that then-New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin kill himself over a blog post about overpopulation, prompting a flood of hate mail and blog comments.

"Ask a lot of these journalists," said Bonn. "They receive some very vicious mail." (So do bloggers and online journalists, I can attest.)

Blogger Betwa Sharma of the Columbia Journalism Review's Observatory blog spoke with Samoan reporter Cherelle Jackson in Copenhagen. Jackson fled Samoa for New Zealand three years ago after her office was set on fire.

She had been reporting on a government-sponsored development project that was going forward despite a doubtful environmental impact assessment; two articles of the three-part series had been published when she felt forced to leave. “Part of your job is to deal with the threat," she told Sharma. "So, I usually ignore the calls, but the burning down of my office is not easy to ignore.”

Art To Advocacy

J Henry Fair — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:39:29 -0600

Last night, Bobby Kennedy Jr., the tireless defender of "purple mountain majesties," debated Don Blankenship, president of Massey Coal, the biggest practitioner of mountaintop removal coal mining. Mr. Kennedy was explaining the intricate interrelationship of jobs, energy security, and a healthy environment while Mr. Blankenship responded with simplistic sound bites about terrorism and crippling environmental regulations. These are complex issues that cannot be reduced to one-liners, and somehow the advocates of clean air and clean water must craft a set of key phrases that reach today's over-stimulated audience. Mr. Kennedy tried to explain the devastating effect that mountaintop removal has on the Appalachian hydrology, and in response, Mr. Blankenship held up a plastic bottle of clear looking water proclaiming that it would not pass EPA standards. Of course many of the most toxic substances can't be seen, smelled or tasted, but he didn't mention that. While Kennedy talked about the fact that burning coal is why our waterways are polluted with mercury, Blankenship responded that even were we to stop burning coal, everyone else's coal-burning practices would still poison our fish.

But we have to lead. America has always been out front, and we need to be again. To say that if we don't blast the mountains apart in Appalachia, "them damn Arabs" will attack us again, as Blankenship averred, is false, misleading, and a cheap appeal to the basest fears of Americans. Kennedy is right, our security will come from a future of clean energy, and that is one without coal. As Kennedy points out, the jobs in the coal industry are disappearing with mechanization (as Blankenship's piece of the pie grows ever larger). Blankenship is raking in the cash while ex-miners in West Virginia can't feed their kids or drink their water. But his one-liners about terrorists and "them damn unions" appeal to those looking for simple answers to complex problems.

And here's where art comes in: while the issues are complex and require lengthy explanations, blithely countered with a one liner about terrorism or pesky environmental regulations, a compelling image of destruction tells an irrefutable story. Those of us who want clean air, clean water, and a secure, prosperous future for our children have to get more adept at the tools and techniques that play to the modern media and short attention spans of Americans.

A Record 5,000 Sea Turtles Cold-Stunned in Florida

Osha Gray Davidson — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:04:30 -0600

Frigid waters in Florida during the first two weeks in January shocked a record number of sea turtles into a coma-like state that would have killed nearly all of them -- had state and federal wildlife workers not come to the rescue.

Several officials interviewed for this article say that while it's to early to know the precise number of "cold-stunned" turtles rescued in the event, they all estimated that the number is at least 5,000. That is an order of magnitude larger than the worst previous incident (400 turtles in 2001).

While the cold-stun event itself was a natural occurrence, the potential impact on sea turtles -- all species are threatened or endangered -- has more to do with human activity.

"If populations were at normal levels, sea turtle species would do just fine with an event like this every thirty or forty years," says Allen Foley, a wildlife biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). But today's populations are a fraction of what they were historically.

Once numbering in the tens of millions, sea turtles were nearly hunted to extinction throughout the Caribbean, following the arrival of Europeans. Since the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, habit loss and fisheries "bycatch" (accidently catch in fishing gear) has replaced hunting as gravest threats to sea turtles in US waters.

Losing Ground: Sea Turtle Habitat

Part of the problem, says Foley, is identifying sea turtle habitat in the first place. For rainforest wildlife, researchers can use satellite imagery. Sea turtles present a much greater challenge.

"They migrate hundreds and even thousands of miles," Foley points out. "A turtle that nests here in Florida, could have a foraging area that's somewhere far off in the Gulf of Mexico."

A renewed effort to open the Florida coastline to drilling for oil may also threaten turtle habitat, according to the Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC), which has been working to protect sea turtles and their habitat for fifty years:

Turtles not only depend on Florida's world class beaches for nesting, but also sea grass beds, unique coral and rock reefs, inshore lagoons, and estuaries are all important habitats utilized by different species of sea turtles during all their life stages. All these resources are at risk if Florida opens the doors to oil drilling near the coast.
Net Losses
Most of the cold-stuned turtles were from the species commonly called the green sea turtle. Their numbers have been trending upwards for several years due to conservation efforts. For the loggerhead turtle, however, the trend has been in the opposite direction: a dramatic loss that troubles sea turtle biologist Anne Meylan, who during an interview, referred to the chart below.
After peaking in the mid-1990s, the number of loggerhead nests recorded on Florida beaches has been cut in half. This decline is significant for the species worldwide, since Florida is one of only two major nesting sites for loggerheads on the planet (the other site is in Oman).
"We don't really know what accounts for the decline," says Meylan, who is Research Administrator for the FWC. "But fisheries bycatch seems the most likely explanation from what we do know at this time."
A (Possible) Major Step
Just as the cold-stunning event was starting in Florida, a possible major step in sea turtle conservation was taking place on the opposite side of the country. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) proposed designating 70,000 square miles of the Pacific ocean off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington as "critical habitat" for the largest of all sea turtles, the leatherback.
The proposal is open for public comment through March 5. If accepted, the rule would create the first marine critical habitat area in waters off the continental United States to protect sea turtles.
But even while welcoming the proposal, some biologists and environmental groups are saying that the designation doesn't go far enough.
Simply designating an area as "critical habitat" doesn't, in itself, exclude the kind of commercial fishing that has played a leading role in driving the leatherback to the edge of extinction (the population has been reduced by 90 percent.)
The Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP) recently started a petition calling on NOAA to include language that addresses the bycatch mortality. It begins:
"I urge NOAA to strengthen it by addressing the threats from commercial fisheries, especially longline fishing and drift-gill net fishing, both of which are deadly to sea turtles. Derelict gear from both these fisheries also directly impact habitat when leatherbacks become entangled, drown, or are seriously injured. These threats are direct and also impede safe passage for the species during their migration."
Longlines May be the Problem
In Florida, too, there is action to force the government to close down longline fishing in areas that may be critical habitat for loggerheads -- albeit undesignated as such. The CCC filed a law suit in December charging that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had used "incomplete science" in writing a new assessment of the fishing industries effect on Loggerhead turtle populations.
In an email, CCC executive director, David Godfrey, wrote that his group believes there is adequate evidence proving that the longline fishery is "a major culprit in the decline of loggerheads."
The fact that the recent cold-stun event affected mostly green turtles should not be seen as a positive sign for loggerheads, says Godfrey. On the contrary, he writes, "the noticeable lack of sub-adult age class loggerheads may be an ominous sign."
Most of the cold-stunned turtles have already been returned to the ocean, after the cold-blooded reptiles had been warmed up. While clearly harmful in the shortrun, the unique event may have a positive outcome -- if the attention it brings to sea turtles translates into action to save from extinction, creatures that have existed since the age of dinosaurs.
Osha Gray Davidson is the author of Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean.

Acidic Oceans Ahead. Plan Wisely.

Emily Gertz — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:06:01 -0600

The sharp increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past two centuries years is transforming the chemistry of the world's oceans: As they have soaked up excess CO2, the pH balance of seawater -- the extent to which it is "acid" versus "basic" -- has shifted toward the more acidic.

"Climate change and ocean acidification are two sides of the same coin," says Sarah Cooley, a postdoc in marine chemistry and geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. "Ocean acidification comes from the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and so does climate change, but at that point they diverge" into very different patterns of cause-and-effect.

As the ocean's carbon dioxide load is increasing, the amount of carbonate minerals in the water is decreasing, with the potential to render the marine environment a lot less hospitable to many animals. Over the next 90 years, this may well cause enormous economic losses worldwide, with the impacts reverberating very strongly through coastal communities.

Community leaders have tended not recognize the potential for ocean acidification to disrupt both economies and quality of life. In the December 2009 issue of the journal Oceanography, Cooley and colleagues offer the beginnings of a framework for thinking through such challenges.

"One thing that we hope that we're contributing is a look at what ocean acidification could do from a communities perspective," she says, to help planners and policymakers think about a complex scientific issue in terms they're most familiar with: dollars and cents.

"Assuming you could track a dollar through the economy, it could go all these different routes," says Cooley. "It might pay for a shellfish ornament" at a tourist gift shop, "but it might also pay for a dentist or a lawyer or a teacher."

A failing shellfish fishery doesn't just mean fewer scallops for dinner at a fine restaurant. It may lead to closing schools, reducing public services, and an exodus of population to find work.

"When you pose things in these terms, people stop and think, 'I didn't think about the possible effects on schools. I didn't consider that not just tourists, but also the service industries might be influenced...that could be me, that could be my neighbor.'

Cooley says her work borrows a great deal from the work ecological economists are doing in anticipating the economic and social costs of global warming. "We're borrowing a page from their playbook and doing the same in terms of ocean acidification."

The economic impacts of ocean acidification may well be in the billions and trillions of dollars.

Corals need carbonate minerals to build their hard branching shells. If changing marine pH levels affect coral reefs, they will be less able to protect shorelines from tides and storms, or provide fish habitat. These ecosystem services add up to an estimated $30 billion annually.

Vanishing corals would also weaken the tourist economies of many nations. Cooley profiles the potential costs to Tobago, where coral reef tourism directly and indirectly generates about 30 percent of the island's gross domestic product.

Fisheries, the main source of protein for around one billion people worldwide, will also be harmed by a more acidic ocean. Since myriad organisms up and down the food chain depend upon carbonate minerals to build their protective shells -- ranging from tiny foraminifera, which are at the base of the marine food chain, to species like scallops, oysters, clams, and mussels -- both shellfish and finfish species will both be at risk.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the combined value of wild and farmed fisheries worldwide is around $170 billion a year.

Despite the bleak scenarios intrinsic in her study -- disappearing fish, fewer jobs, and unraveling communities (not to mention a shortage of seashell-covered ashtrays) -- Cooley emphasizes that her work is meant to inspire pragmatism, not despair.

"We need to be thinking ahead toward changes, not necessarily extinctions or catastrophic events," she says. "The point is not that 'All ocean life isn't gong to disappear.' It's like defensive driving-- you take precautions now so you won't have an accident later."

Image: "Calculated saturation states of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate often used by calcifying organisms. Shades of red indicate areas where levels are so low that organisms may be unable to make new shells or skeletons, and where most unprotected aragonite structures will dissolve. By the end of this century, polar and temperate oceans may no longer contain enough aragonite to support the growth of calcifying organisms such as some mollusks, crustaceans, and corals. Click "Enlarge Image" for more information. (Richard A. Feely, Scott C. Doney, and Sarah R. Cooley, 2009, Oceanography 22:36-47)" Via Oceanus

The Asian Longhorned Beetle: Our Trees are at Risk

David Howard — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:41:09 -0600

THESE BEETLES ARE BLACK, WHITE, AND BAD ALL OVER

(Female (left) and Male (right) Asian Longhorned Beetle. Images from UVM)

It is amazing that sometimes the tiniest and most unsuspecting of creatures can prove the most dangerous.

The Asian Longhorned Beetle (or ALB, as it has been dubbed) is a small and particularly beautifully colored beetle, 1 to 1.5 inches in length, covered in a glistening black shell speckled with flecks of white, and hailing from China. If I saw a beetle like this hanging around my yard and didn't know better, I would ooh and aw at what an interesting specimen I had uncovered, marvel at the insects of the world, and let it go back to its labors.

But ALB has been causing a stir this side of the globe for some fourteen years now, and its radius of fear and paranoia only increases. It has been found in New York, New Jersey, Chicago IL, Tornoto Candada, and - most recently - Worcester, MA. ALB is a pest to our trees in a very large way: they target maple, birch, horse chestnut, poplar, willow, elm, and ash trees, and there are no good ways of dealing with them. All it takes is one tiny little beetle to kill a tree - and one tiny little beetle has the power to turn into hundreds and hundreds. These beetles breed a lot faster than our trees: if they are not dealt with they have the potential to eliminate these species completely.

ALB is a lot scarier than other pests. Right now, ALB is a big deal.

NICE TO MEET YOU, MR. BEETLE

ALB is found predominantly in China, as well as in parts of Japan and Korea. It originally made its way to the States probably while riding on solid wood packing material exported overseas. It was first discovered in Brooklyn, New York in 1996 and more continue to be found to this day.

Since then, changes have been made deliberately to the process of exportation of wood. In 1998, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) issued a ruling that all imported wood packing from China be bark and insect free, and that it be treated with preservatives, heat, or fumigation to ensure the death of any possible pests before it ever found its way to United States soil. In 2005, this rule was essentially expanded to include all other countries as well as China.

Little did they know. The men from China, the men from the US, or the beetles themselves as they clung tightly to their wood, riding uncertainly to unknown lands. Fate was taking the beetles to a perfect home - where their favorite types of trees would be plentiful. Fate was giving them heaven, and Fate was giving us hell.

Little did they know.

WHY WE SHOULD CARE

ALB will find a tree, one from the aforementioned list, and burrow deep within. The beetle will then lay its eggs within the bowels of the tree. Eventually, the eggs will hatch, and the baby beetles will burrow out and feast upon its leaves. By this point, the tree is already doomed. The burrowing of the beetles effectively cuts it up inside and strangles it. From there, the beetles will spread, find new trees, and, again, lay their eggs.

Perhaps this sounds like standard fare for a pest. What sets this particular beetle apart and makes it so much worse? Well, first and foremost there is the sheer number of different species that it will destroy, all of them quite common in the United States. Secondly, there is presently no good way of dealing with them. And third, it takes a mind-boggling amount of time and effort to inspect a tree and conclude safely whether it is or is not infested.

The best way to understand the threat here is this: it has taken how many years for the process of evolution on Earth to produce our forests?

Now, consider: within the course of a single lifetime, this insect can wipe out all the maple, birch, horse chestnut, poplar, willow, elm, and ash trees we have here. In a single lifetime.

Certain areas have already lost trees to pests or more: elm trees, chestnut trees. The ecosystem is in a delicate balance. Now, with the unnatural introduction of this beetle, and with no natural way of compensating for it, that balance is on the verge of being torn into shreds.

A CURE AS BAD AS ITS KILLER

ALB females lay one egg a day, every day, from as early as the beginning of June until the first killing frost, generally October but potentially as late as November. The eggs will grow during the winter. Unfortunately, the eggs are deep within the tree, which is made up mostly of dead cellulose. That means that any inserted pesticide will not reach them unless aimed directly at them. Furthermore, insecticides will do no good during the winter season, during which time trees are dormant: during this time their inner juices are not flowing, so the insecticide will not spread.

By the time the tree is out of its "hibernation," when chemicals might have a chance of reaching its leaves and poisoning the pests, it is already too late: the tree has already been doomed for death.

In other words, once these beetles are in, it is impossible to defeat them through pesticide.

The only way we have right now of dealing with infested trees is to destroy them utterly - burn them, or chew them up into pieces. Our best effort at a cure is as devastating as the disease itself.

Presently, there are efforts of using pesticides on host trees neighboring those infested, whereas in the past these trees were also simply torn down. The process is proving challenging. It is unknown how large the dosage should be, it is unknown what stage the eggs are at during any given point in time, and it is unknown how long insecticide injections will remain effective. There are a host of questions surrounding this insect. For instance, we do not know what actually triggers the insects to switch trees while laying eggs. Tests are underway; hopefully answers will emerge. Until they do, we are reduced to bludgeoning our elusive foes to death like cavemen, and destroying the trees along with them.

Action is being taken. Quarantine zones have been established around all infested sites, with strict rules in place on the movement of wood in or out. Trees are being removed, inspected, and new trees are being replanted to replace those destroyed - oaks, beech, and linden mostly, replacement trees that are invulnerable to ALB. All of this is being carried out under the federal government.

The Animal Plant Health Inspection Service has the plans of checking every tree within quarantine zones for signs of the beetle, and even trees outside of the zones. This process is indescribably time consuming. The most clear indicator of ALB is a perfectly round hole, three-eighths of an inch in diameter (roughly the size of a dime), where the beetle has tunneled in. Unfortunately, these holes could be anywhere on the tree: they could be found anywhere on its trunk, on any side of any one of its branches.

ON THE MOVE

The beetle infestation is officially under control in New Jersey, but not eradicated - and it has taken ten years of work for New Jersey to get them simply "under control." An area will only be considered for the decision or eradication after four years with absolutely no sign of the pest.

Some in the industry say that the goal of eradication will never be reached.

Indeed, it looks grim. In Worcester, the most recent site of infestation, beetles continue to be discovered, within quarantine zones and outside of them, every single day. Most recently, a small pocket of infested trees was discovered in West Boylston, MA. Insects have also been found in Holden, MA. The city of Worcester itself is the epicenter of the quarantine zones - including every tree within a seventy mile radius. It is believed the insects were in Worcester for five years before they were discovered. Consider all the infested wood that could have been shipped in that time...

In Massachusetts alone, a total of over 15,000 trees have been removed, and over 500 have been replanted. These numbers have not stopped growing.

WHAT WE CAN DO

The concerned public can literally be the eyes. Anyone near the infested areas can keep an eye out, for the beetle itself and for the warning signs that it may be at work: rice-sized scratches on the bark of the trees that indicate that eggs have been laid within, and the tell-tale dime-sized holes that indicate burrowing. Other signs of distress upon the tree include unusually oozing sap, unusual sawdust around the base of the tree, and dead leaves.

If you see a beetle that looks like ALB, do not try to catch it; it is entirely possible you will risk letting it escape. Instead, the best course of action is to contact the experts, who will come in, determine if it is in fact ALB, and determine what to do. You can report the beetle online here . In the same site there is information of what number to call, depending upon state.

Do not try to deal with it yourself: let the experts handle it! It may not seem like much, but if everyone keeps this beetle in mind and keeps an eye out, it will mean a lot. If these beetles were spotted earlier, we may not be in such a mess now - if the public can watch out and report any sightings, at least the situation may be treatable before it gets worse.

It's a serious situation; these little beetles have already destroyed an awful lot of trees, and if they spread we may find some of our most common and beloved trees wiped out for good. Keep an eye out, and maybe, eventually, the balance of our ecosystems can be restored.

Todd Stern: Path to implement Copenhagen's "important breakthroughs" remains unclear

Emily Gertz — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:22:29 -0600

US Climate Envoy Todd Stern's meter reading was firmly on "determined optimism" today.

In his first public comments since December's climate treaty conference, Stern said that the Copenhagen accord, the political agreement that came out of the two-week meeting in December, included several important breakthroughs:

- It is the first time large body has endorsed a "2 degree objective" for the climate treaty -- that is, not letting the mean global temperature rise more than 2 degrees Centigrade by 2100.

- A "breach in the firewall" between the developed and the major developing economies, in that China, India, South Africa, and Brazil have agreed to list the specific actions they are going to take to reduce their emissions.

- Important steps toward greater transparency and international monitoring by these nations on their domestic actions and their impacts. Stern called this "crucial," because to build trust among the parties to the treaty, they need to have a "good clear picture" of what's going on in major developing economies, which will be the locus of the major emissions growth in the 21st century.

- Landmark agreements on financing climate adapation and mitigation in developing nations, including fast start financing that is intended to approach $30 billion a year by 2012, and $100 billion a year by 2020; "bilateral, multilateral, public and private money," Stern noted. US participation in the funds will only happen if its demands for transparency and reporting are met.

Relating his version of how the talks went down in their final make-or-break hours, Stern described some fissures in the stances of the developing nations, which have been treated as a unified bloc under the Kyoto accord.

The especially vulnerable nations, such as Ethopia, the Bahamas and the Maldives, were much more intent upon reaching an agreement than the major developing economies, he said, particularly after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Copenhagen on Thursday. She "shifted the prevailing atmosphere" of the talks, said Stern, with her announcement that the US would participate in the $100 billion climate finance fund -- if a new climate agreement included strong transparency and reporting requirements.

According to Stern, the process that ensued over the next 36 hours was extraordinary from a diplomacy perspective, as negotiators were sidelined, and the heads of state haggled face to face with only short breaks. (President Obama joined Secretary Clinton at the talks early on December 18.)

The occasion for Stern's comments was a gathering of institutional investors (heads of large pension funds and other giant pools of organizational money) at the United Nations to discuss the risks climate change poses to utilities, energy companies, heavy industry, and other traditional investments.

The flip side of that is the lucrative potential of investments in clean energy, green job creation, energy efficiency, and carbon mitigation. With their collective control over around $13 trillion dollars -- and legal obligations to minimize exposure to risk -- these fund managers have a great deal of influence over how fast and far a clean-energy economy can be established. (As a group, these investors today called on the "U.S. Congress and other global decision-makers 'to take rapid action' on carbon emission limits, energy efficiency, renewable energy, financing mechanisms and other policies that will accelerate clean energy investment and job creation.")

As for next steps, the first major deadline is almost here: under the Copenhagen accord, the United States, South Africa, India, China, and Brazil need to submit their targets for cutting carbon emsissions by January 31.

Stern noted that while the climate conference plenary did not formally adopt the accord (due to the objections of five nations out of roughly 170), any of them can join in by notifying the UN group that manages the current international climate agreement.

And there are mandates in the Copenhagen accord lacking a "clear path" to realization, Stern said, that need to be achieved in the coming year. These include establishing the new global climate finance fund, as well as a "mechanism" for sharing new technologies; creating more detailed guidelines on transparency in both targets and reporting on their progress; and figuring out how forest conservation and preservation will play into the accord.

Getting these things underway will help create momentum for achieving a replacement to the Kyoto protocol in 2010, said Stern. "We have an accord that is lumbering down the runway," he said. "We need to get enough speed so that it can take off."

Image: President Barack Obama briefs European leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and Danish Prime Minister Lars L. Rasmussen, following a multilateral meeting at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Dec. 18, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Saving the Trees, Step by Step

David Howard — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:49:54 -0600

The small town of Sturbridge, Massachusetts is rebuilding part of its Burgess Elementary school. And about time, too: the school is in rough shape, with too many walls made out of cardboard that seemed like great ideas at the time, and with far more students than its real walls can feasibly hold. The school will be extended out into a lot that used to be a play area at recess. Great, right? Everybody's happy.

But there are a lot of issues that go with the idea of reconstruction - a lot of things that most people don't think of right away. If the school is rebuilt, what will become of its trees? Numerous trees have been planted around Burgess Elementary, many of them as dedications or memorials. The trees give the school a sort of delightful charm, in addition to stamping into place the significance of a green, healthy world from a young age. These trees have been growing up along with the children. What is their fate in this new plan?

Many of them are in the way. The easiest solution would be to tear them down and replace them altogether.

I don't need to say what a disservice and disrespect that is to the trees themselves. Of course, the reality is, trees are taken down all the time, for considerably more selfish reasons. If it's a choice between the trees and the kids, of course the kids come first.

Luckily, most of these trees are salvageable. And I was able to witness the bare beginnings of the process of saving them.

THE PROCESS

Thomas Chamberland is the Tree Warden of Sturbridge, MA. It's his job to maintain and prune public trees, remove dead or dangerous trees, and to plant new trees as needed. What he doesn't need to do, but does anyway, is attend all sorts of events, speaking at Arbor Day at the elementary school, planting trees with the students, going on Tree Walks, working with high school students on countless environmental projects, and more. Here is a man who cares.

And so saving the trees of Burgess Elementary begins with him. The first stage is walking with the landscape architect throughout the grounds of Burgess, identifying all the trees and determining whether they can be saved. The architect carries with him a large map of the school, with every individual tree marked upon it. I tag along, through some unpleasant snowy breezes, and am allowed the privilege of hearing Tom talk.

The first thing worth mentioning is the vast and incalculable diversity of trees: It is so easy to write every tree off as looking precisely the same. Yet Tom is able to identify every tree completely and perfectly with little more than a glance: he can see by the bark, he can see by the way they grow. Even in the white New England winter, as the trees are barren and naked - he doesn't need leaves. And not just a general "This is a coniferous tree" proclamation. No, he knows them to the genus and species, knows where the species originated, knows how rare or common it is. Within the small Burgess grounds there is a diverse town of trees: from the old-timers growing out back to the youths planted only years ago, here and everywhere is a place crawling with history, diversity, where every tree has its own background, its own home, its own identity. Tom sees all of it with just a glance; it is astonishing.

It would be a terrible thing to waste.

The trees are to be relocated - dug up and replanted, most likely beside the new and improved Burgess Elementary. Unfortunately, while Tom tries to be realistic, it is not ultimately his call what trees will be transported: as always, the town is moved by money. We'll have to wait and see how much is feasible, and how much weight his suggestions will have.

PLANT YOUR TREES RIGHT!

Not all of the trees are salvageable. Many of them are just not worth the effort: many of them would die in the process, or soon after - usually because of mistakes made when they were planted or cared for. Here are some common problems I witnessed, and things to watch out for - and to keep in mind.

First of all, trees have to be planted at the right height! I never considered this seriously before; I know when I got my baby tree for Arbor Day as a kid, I happily and carelessly planted it out in the back yard, without any thought to the "right depth." Turns out, planting it the wrong way can stunt the tree's growth for life.

We saw a number of trees that had grown to the same height, trees that had been planted on the same day at the wrong depth. They could not grow to their potential: they were stunted, and unhealthy. There isn't much to do for them - the mistakes had already been made. When planted, the roots should not be totally buried beneath the earth: if the roots are completely submersed then the tree is in too deep, and they may girdle it. Remember: put some thought into that sprout you're planting!

There are more obvious mistakes, too: the types of errors you would hope not to see in a professional environment. Noteworthy again: there was one tree that had been planted too near the pavement of the school. Well, the pavement on the sidewalk is cracked now, due to the invisible roots growing through it beneath. Trees need distance; depending on the type, their roots can really expand beneath us. You would give an iceberg a wide berth, wouldn't you?

One tree had a decorative adornment attached to its branches by a wire. This was another obvious no-no: wires should never be wrapped around trees in any capacity. The tree keeps on growing whether the wire is there or not, and eventually, the tree will grow into it. At which point, the wire cannot be removed without damaging the tree itself.

WORTH SAVING?

A lot of factors play into whether a tree is worth relocating or not - nothing is set in stone. If a tree is dying or in rough shape, there's not much point in saving it. A common danger sign of a dying tree is in root flares. If you can see a tree bulging in a certain place, it is not a good thing: that bulging is a sign of decay and rot growing within it, and eventually, it will grow and split the tree apart.

Another factor that determines whether or not the tree will survive the trip: split trunks. If there are effectively two trees growing out of a single trunk, you can bet it isn't up to transportation: it won't survive. Another surefire sign, of course, is its height. Trees can't be moved if they're too tall, which only makes sense. Luckily, most of the trees directly by Burgess are young still, and fit.

The trees by Burgess, and everywhere, are full of diversity, history, life, and potential. Most of them are healthy enough, young enough, and strong enough to survive transportation. Trees are sturdy friends: if we put in the effort, we can keep them around for a long, long time. The potential is there, and the first step is taken.

Hopefully, the children of the rebuilt Burgess will be able to enjoy and grow alongside the same beautiful trees and man and plant live together, and benefit from each other. A little effort can go a long way.

I'd Rather Be Knitting

Emily Gertz — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:03:05 -0600

I've been trying to write up my list of editor-approved blog posts.

They're about climate change, national security, sustainability, international environmental cooperation -- all sorts of green newsy goodness. I've got quotes, sources, cites and decent narrative through-lines for most of them.

But no matter how hard I try to write -- and I really do enjoy my work -- the fact is that today I'd rather be knitting.

Given the bumpy wind-down of 2009 -- from the failed climate conference, to a guy trying to suicide-bomb a passenger airliner -- I'm guessing a lot of us wish we could bug out from the day's dour hard news for more innocent, immediately gratifying activities instead of observing the world's progress towards hell in a handbasket.

Maybe I can't stop China from building more coal-fired power plants. But I know how to knit a really nice scarf.

Do-it-yourselfism has undergone an enormous revival in the US in the past decade, and it's easy to see some conceptual linkages between environmentalism and this revitalized interest in basement electronics and baking pies. Preferring to make or buy one-off, handmade items aligns with the micro-brewed, anti-globalization, pro-locavoremovements that have been building for two decades.

Wanting to knowing exactly what your crafted whatsit is made of, and where the materials come from, is similar to wanting to know what invisible substance may be leeching out of a plastic water bottle, and how it might be hurting you or your kid.

There are be more concrete connections as well, such as "smart crafting." This involves working tiny sensors, micro-circuit boards, conductive thread and other devices into garments, to create wearable technology: clothing that collects data from and responds to movement and the environment.

It's not at all impossible that I could sew a carbon dioxide sensor into a scarf knit from conductive thread, run its data it through a flexible textile circuitboard, and connect that to my iPod Touch as the readout. It would be a fashion statement and a personal pollution sensing device.

Why go too deep? A healthy environment is better than a polluted one. Knitting your own hat can be more interesting and satisfying than buying one at Target.

Still, if you like your hobbies firmly tied in to your environmental concerns, here are some resources that are keeping up with the eco-maker zeitgeist:

CRAFT and MAKE magazines: While not explicitly environment-oriented, projects and experts profiled in these two ur-tomes of the DIY movement are often concerned with open-source technology, recycling used materials, using natural as opposed to artificial substances, shopping less, and experiencing more. CRAFT devoted an entire issue to green crafting before going totally digital about a year ago.

Crafting a Green World: This blog's writers obsess on making things with old T-shirts, vintage fabrics (whose carbon burden is well in the past), used greeting cards, yarn reclaimed from old or unwanted sweaters, and the like.

Fashioning Technology is the smart crafting bible.

How Can I Recycle This? The title of this UK-based blog pretty much speaks for itself.

Ikea Hacker features projects from readers who creatively customize off-the-shelf Ikea goods to meet their particular needs, at a fraction of the cost of buying custom-made.

(Ikea's environmental rap is mixed. The sustainability of its wood supply chain is difficult to verify. But the signature flat-pack methodology saves on packaging materials, as well as energy for shipping. The company was an early mover in removing formaldehyde and brominated flame retardants from its products.)

ReadyMade Magazine's monthly MacGyver Challenge asks readers to create something that's well-designed and useful out of some or other particular piece of consumer-economy detritus. Past challenges have ranged from re-purposing a defunct inkjet printer to finding new uses for now-outmoded slide projector carousels.

Sew Green covers your enviro-needlework jones.

Swap-O-Rama-Rama events combine recycling used clothes with on-the-spot workshops to transform someone else's unwanted garment into your next great outfit. There is information on the site to help you start your own community swap, or find one already scheduled (worldwide).

Image: From science-artist Valerie Laws' "Haik Ewe" project involving quantum physics, poetry, and sheep.

You Forgot to Plug Me In. Again. :-/ Nissan Leaf

Osha Gray Davidson — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:54:55 -0600

Yes, it's true. The Nissan Leaf all-electric car can guilt-trip you via text message if you don't remember to feed it at night. Don't worry, though. You can retaliate the next morning with a text command: "Wake up, lazy car, and start the danged heater!"

Actually, the mood thing is entirely up to you. You create the text messages that come from the car and the ones sent to activite specific functions, such as the heater.

While the Leaf's cool-factor could easily crowd out more basic features -- such as handling, ease-of-use and cost -- Nissan's first electric vehicle (EV) is designed to appeal to the American market even without the bells and whistles.

As Nissan executive Carlos Tavares told BNET's Jim Motavalli, "Three things converge nicely," in the United States. "Americans commute a limited number of miles, there are a lot of families with more than one car, plus there are many garages for charging at night."

With an estimated range of 100 miles between charges, the Leaf should handle most commutes with ease. Charging shouldn't be a problem, especially in the test markets where 5,000 Nissan Leaf cars will be sold starting this fall. Nissan partner eTec is already installing charging stations in Oregon, Washington, California, Tennessee and Arizona. (With the help of a $98 million grant from the Department of Energy.)

Nissan is a bit coy about the sticker price. When I asked a company representative, I was told that the Leaf will cost about as much as a similar non-EV car. That still leaves a fairly large range to guess at, between $25,000 to $45,000.

I test drove a Leaf recently and came away impressed. The rapid acceleration takes some getting use to, primarily because there is no accompanying "V-a-r-o-o-o-m" to put your speed in context. I hadn't realized how dependent I was on sound for gauging speed. (It's a good thing the Leaf doesn't come with a stick-shift!)

Hannah Bradbeer had also come out to test drive the Leaf. She liked how responsive the car was.

"There are all these theories that [EVs] won't accelerate," she said, "but this does great!"

In fact, according to Nissan, the Leaf can go from zero to 60 mph in ten seconds. (But, don't expect to get anywhere close to 100-miles-per-charge with jack-rabbit starts like that.)

Freedom From Oil

Bradbeer's favorite part?

"Well, I really like the idea of being able to free yourself from the oil companies," she said and laughed gleefully at the thought.

She also liked that the Leaf can hold five passengers comfortably and has mounting posts in back for three children's seats.

One of my favorite touches is the built-in solar panel on the roof, towards the back of the car. You won't get any extra mileage out of the electricity it produces, but it will recharge the 12-volt battery that powers all the accessories.

So, if you ignore the text message the night before reminding you to plug in the Leaf, the car will still have enough juice in the morning to text you:

You didn't feed me and I died. Thanks. %-(

The CIA and the Pentagon Declare War on Climate Change

Osha Gray Davidson — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:10:45 -0600

Photo: A now-unclassified CIA spy satellite photo of Arctic ice like the ones shared with climate scientists through the now-revived MEDEA program.

A little-known program run by the CIA that gave a select group of environmental scientists access to classified data during the 1990s has been restarted after being closed for several years by the Bush administration, the New York Times reported Monday.

The data include thousands of high-resolution images taken by spy satellites that scientists couldn't get access to without the program.

The data sharing began in the early '90s and has now been revived in part because of a constellation of officials who were present then and are now back serving in the more environmentally friendly Obama administration. These officials clearly understand that climate change must be considered a potential national security threat.

That list is topped by current CIA Director Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and former Vice President Al Gore -- men who have worked together on issues of national security and the environment for two decades.

His interest in the sea provided Panetta with an introduction to the threat of global warming. "The oceans are the first victim" of climate change, he told me in a 2008 phone interview, and he was quick to see the potentially destabilizing influence of global warming on national security.

Among the original researchers who benefited from the data sharing was climatologist James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Hansen was a member of the Environmental Task Force created in October 1992. (It was later renamed the Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis program, or MEDEA.)

Contacted Tuesday by email, Hansen said the program was helpful in "a few instances. ...For example the information that nuclear submarines provided on sea ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean several decades ago, before there were research measurements."

Hansen felt constrained, though, by the restrictions that came along with the information. Like other scientists, the climatologist was allowed to use information, but not disseminate it. Hansen told journalist Robert Dreyfus in 1995 that "I would hope that things do become more open."

Any prospect of a CIA/science glasnost collapsed when President George W. Bush shuttered the program in 2001 for unknown reasons. (As Times' reporter William Broad wrote, diplomatically, in Monday's article, Bush "developed a reputation for opposing many kinds of environmental initiatives.")

While it was operating, MEDEA scientists produced at least a dozen classified reports using agency data to identify wetlands, calculate glacier loss, and predict volcanic eruptions.

University of Washington professor Norbert Untersteiner, a member of the current program, told Broad that the satellite images are "really useful" in his work studying Arctic ice.

PROGRAM ROOTS

In 1992, then-U.S. Sen. Al Gore contacted the individual who President George H.W. Bush had picked to lead the CIA, to discuss the possibility of sharing classified data to help determine the effects of global warming. That man was Robert Gates.

Gates told Robert Dreyfuss that MEDEA "owes its existence to two people: then-Senator Al Gore, whose idea it was, and me, who said yes."

The program continued when Gore became vice president in 1993 with the support of then-CIA Director James Woolsey. Woolsey is an outspoken advocate of energy independence, who has called for a phase-out of oil on national security grounds and was also an early supporter of Gore's call for action on climate change.

In 1994, Gore and Panetta worked closely together when President Bill Clinton named Panetta his chief of staff. Panetta left that post in 1997 and soon became immersed (so to speak) in marine issues, first as head of the Pew Ocean Commission and then as co-chair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative.

Both bodies stressed the importance of fighting climate change to maintain ocean health and regional stability.

The MEDEA program was terminated in 2001 -- when Panetta, Gore and Gates were all outside of government. Gates was brought back as Secretary of Defense under Bush in late 2006, a position he has kept in the Obama administration. That set the stage for MEDEA's return, as well.

BRINGING IT BACK

According to Broad's article in the Times, Al Gore began lobbying California Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2008 for her help in reinstating the MEDEA program. Feinstein became chair of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee in early 2009. Panetta returned to Washington last February when he was tapped by President Obama to lead the CIA.

With Gates at the Pentagon, Panetta at CIA, and Gore lobbying through Congress, the MEDEA program was quietly re-launched. More publicly, the CIA announced in September that it was opening a Center for the Study of Climate Change.

"Decision makers need information and analysis on the effects climate change can have on security," Panetta was quoted in a CIA press release. "The CIA is well positioned to deliver that intelligence."

In mid-December, NPR's Tom Gjelten reported that for the first time, the next Quadrennial Defense Review, an assessment of national security threats published by the Pentagon, would include different worst-case scenarios based on climate change.

And now, with the Times story, comes word that the MEDEA program is operational once again.

Despite disappointment over the United Nations' failure to produce a binding international treaty at the Copenhagen climate summit last month, and regardless of what the United States Senate decides to do about global warming, there is at least movement on the issue in what many would have considered the unlikeliest of places: the Pentagon and the CIA.

Carnival of the Green #208

Emily Gertz — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:08:34 -0600

This week OnEarth is hosting Carnival of the Green -- the weekly compendium of links submitted to and blogged by by environmental and green writers on the web.

If your New Year's resolutions include lessening your personal environmental impact, as well as saving money, green advice bloggers want to help:

kelley at Guffly offers A Year of Simple Green Ideas to help keep you going.
Jim provides 10 Quick Ecofriendly Things You Can Do Right Now.
Enviro-conscious can also fatten your wallets, posits Arohan of Personal Dividends, offering suggestions to Save Money When You Go Green.
Stacey Doyle thinks people can, and should, cut their postage costs by going paperless, and using e-mail instead of the Post Office.
Mrs Green is anxious about the tons of waste generated during year-end holidays. At My Zero Waste she puts up tips foraged UK residents on how to safely dispose of unwanted electronics and electrical goods (tagged "WEEE" in the regulations).
Mrs Green also reviews the blackly humorous cautionary film, The Age of Stupid, which looks back on how our era failed to deal with climate change. She adds five tips for taking action and reducing your carbon footprint.
From mild to wild, SVB of The Digerati Life has some "seriously thrifty" ways to save money and use less stuff. Mild: Don't buy clothes that require dry cleaning. [I started doing this some years ago -- huge money saver.] Wild: "...peel off double ply tissue, if you know what I mean."

There's also a "live more with less" theme to some of this week's CotG submissions:

At Fake Plastic Fish, Beth Terry muses on how to decrease the amount of stuff in our lives. "Are our gifts of benefit to the recipient or actually burdens to be dealt with? Can we find ways to express our love that don't involve filling up our lives with more stuff?"
Frugally Green suggests "saving Earth one dollar at a time" by perfecting the art of the staycation.

If your 2010 includes a wedding, Factory Direct Craft Blog has tips for an Eco-Friendly Wedding - Going Green on Your Special Day.

Continuing the eco-crafty theme, Cindy of My Recycled Bags has created a a set of free patterns for recycling T-shirts into yarn -- or "tarn" -- and then crocheting them into pretty keen potholders, trivets, and insulating knob covers for pot lids.

If you're the thoughtful sort who starts planning in January for December gift-giving, True Adventures in Money Hacking wants you to Give Homemade, Wrap Homemade: How to create your own festive and frugal wrapping paper, gift bags, and gift boxes.

The rest of us can bookmark it for future reference.

Carnival of the Green #208 wraps up with some serious fare:

One Degree Matters: Rich Maltzman, who's donned the moniker "Earth Project Manager," challenges readers to watch a video about the melting of Greenland challenges "with an impartial eye and note the opportunities for project managers, whatever one's view on climate change," to take advantage of the "green wave."

Sally Kneidel summarizes a study about the effects of environmental contamination by BPA (bispenol-A), an endocrine disruptor which can affect fetal and infant development. Kneidel describes potential sources of BPA contamination in common products and objects (such as cash register receipts!) and alternative products to help consumers avoid it.

Kudos to Lighter Footstep for hosting Carnival of the Green #207.

Carnival of the Green is coordinated by Kara DiCamillo and Treehugger. Want to participate in the next Carnival of the Green? You'll find everything you need to know at Treehugger's Carnival of the Green homepage.

The Maturing Energy Debate (or, Much Ado About Solar in the Southwestern Desert)

Osha Gray Davidson — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:03:09 -0600

When Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to preserve 1.7 million acres of California desert lands on Monday, most of the media led with the observation that her bill would "block several planned solar power projects in the process." Variations on this theme were found in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Gizmodo and, I have to admit, my own blog.

A Wall Street Journal headline accurately summed up the story as presented by the paper: "Green Battle Rages in Desert." But does this High Noon rhetoric match reality in the Mojave Desert (where most of the protected lands are)?

Not so much, as it turns out.

**Build it Right and They Will Come**

"We need to develop our renewable resources if we are to address the challenge of climate change," says Johanna Wald, NRDC's expert on balancing clean energy and conservation on Western lands. "But that development must be carried out in an environmentally responsible way. If it is done right, informed environmentalists will, I believe, stand up in support."

So far, Wald appears to have called it.

In addition to having the support of several environmental groups, Feinstein's bill includes some unlikely backers: major players in the solar power industry. These include Cogentrix Energy, which already owns a solar thermal project in the Mojave, and the parent company of Southern California Edison, one of the largest utilities in the nation.

When she introduced the California Desert Protection Act of 2010, Feinstein noted: "Over the course of the past year, we have worked painstakingly to ensure that this legislation balances the needs of all stakeholders." The result is a far more nuanced bill than the "solar killer" plan portrayed in much of the media. (Read a much more positive description of the bill from a wind industry trade journal.)

The renewable energy sector's input is reflected in several sections of Feinstein's bill, including:

Making the permitting process faster and easier.
Allowing electrical transmission lines to pass through certain areas of the Mojave.
Facilitating the relocation of solar projects already planned for the newly restricted zones into the Solar Energy Study Areas now being planned by the Bureau of Land Management.
Allowing the Department of the Interior to make exceptions for building solar and wind projects in protected areas in cases that are "in the national interest."
Grants and loan guarantees for research into less intrusive transmission technologies.

Perhaps recognizing that the solar-friendly elements may have been buried in his long New York Times piece, writer Todd Woody highlighted those sections in his Green Wombat blog, under the headline: "Feinstein solar ban offers some innovative incentives."

Real battles do exist over siting utility-scale renewable energy plants. But Feinstein's bill isn't an example of them.

Rather, her proposed legislation may demonstrate how a maturing environmental movement can act quickly, but not hastily, to preserve wilderness while developing a low-carbon economy.

Feds Take First Steps to Regulate Drugs in Drinking Water

Scott Dodd — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:05:00 -0600

The Associated Press is reporting this week that federal regulators under President Obama are taking the first steps toward regulating drugs in the nation's drinking water supply -- a problem first reported by science writer Elizabeth Royte in "Drugging Our Waters" in OnEarth's Fall 2006 issue.

Royte tells the story of how this nation's aging population and increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals -- some elderly Americans take as many as 30 drugs a day, she writes, and prescription drug sales rose by an annual average of 11 percent between 2000 and 2005 -- leads to more drugs making their way into our lakes, rivers and groundwater. From the story:

Alarmed by data that showed trace levels of pharmaceuticals in European streams, researchers in the United States have begun to survey our nation's waterways. In 2002, the USGS published the results of its first-ever reconnaissance of man-made contaminants. Using highly sensitive assays, the agency found traces of 82 different organic contaminants -- fertilizers and flame retardants as well as pharmaceuticals -- in surface waters across the nation. These drugs included natural and synthetic hormones, antibiotics, antihypertensives, painkillers, and antidepressants.
Now that science has documented the presence of free-flowing pharmaceuticals, researchers are faced with another, far more difficult, pair of questions: What does this mean for the environment, and what does it mean for us? Early evidence of harm to aquatic organisms is giving researchers grounds for real concern.

The Associated Press followed up on Royte's reporting last year with a story that at least 51 million Americans are drinking water that contains prescription drugs -- everything from mood stabilizers to sex hormones to antibiotics. The AP report made the front pages of The Washington Post, The New York Times and many other news outlets and led to congressional hearings and investigations.

Now the AP says that government regulators are beginning to move toward dealing with pharmaceuticals as environmental pollutants. Among the signs reported by the news agency:

For the first time, the EPA has listed some pharmaceuticals as candidates for regulation in drinking water. The agency also has launched a survey to check for scores of drugs at water treatment plants across the nation.
The FDA has updated its list of waste drugs that should be flushed down the toilet, but the agency has also declared a goal of working toward the return of all unused medicines.
The National Toxicology Program is conducting research to clarify how human health may be harmed by drugs at low environmental levels.

To understand more about why this is so important, check out Royte's original OnEarth story, republished here.

Keeping Up With Copenhagen: Rage Against the Scheme

Emily Gertz — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:05:27 -0600

So it turns out that not even President Obama could deliver magic ponies and glitter to the snafu'd Copenhagen climate talks.

The lackluster, non-binding "Copenhagen Accord" that emerged from the two-week meeting has triggered bright red rage from 350.org founder and enviro-writer-activist Bill McKibben. A sample quote: "The president has wrecked the UN and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming."

Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth and Oxfam International were among the other non-governmental organizations denouncing what's been called "flopenhagen."

Naomi Klein has no kind words in The Nation for the president. "I understand all the arguments about not promising what he can't deliver," she writes, "about the dysfunction of the U.S. Senate, about the art of the possible. But spare me the lecture about how little power poor Obama has."

Not every climate activist, though, has bought into the "blame Obama" meme. In his open letter to 350.org's McKibben, youth activist Terry Norris at It's Getting Hot in Here says that it's wrong and counterproductive to blame President Obama for Copenhagen's disappointments or shortcomings:

"The failure at Copenhagen is not the Obama administration’s fault, nor that of any single leader or country. Rather it is primarily the result of a flawed UNFCCC framework, which relies on outdated distinctions between 'developed' and 'developing' countries and fails to focus on negotiations between major polluters. Most problematic, it depends on the establishment of abstract and 'legally-binding' emissions reduction targets, instead of the immediate government investments we need to develop and deploy low-carbon energy and efficiency technologies."

"Why Is Everyone So Pissed With Obama?" asks Russ Walker in Grist. "Our disappointment in Obama is for the most part unrealistic. The European reporters I met wanted Obama to lead their nations -- lead the world -- when in reality he leads a country whose progress on climate change is many steps behind the developed world."

Then there are those who think that Copenhagen was actually a success -- or at least an important step on the way toward one. (For reaction from NRDC's experts, see the Switchboard blog.)

Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection is indicative of the brighter green "good first step" optimism expressed by more moderate groups: "President Obama [has] laid a clear path for America to join an historic international endeavor and move boldly forward towards a 21st century clean energy future and a global response to the climate crisis."

The Sierra Club's Carl Pope takes a constructive approach with his half-dozen "Lessons from Denmark," including an examination of the distrust that pervaded the negotiations:

"The striking and hopeful thing about the speeches given by the leaders of the major carbon-emitting nations was the firmness with which almost all of them reiterated their unilateral commitment to making significant, if inadequate, cuts in emissions. Not only the U.S., Europe, China, and India but also virtually every other nation that is a significant source of emissions promised to act.
"Equally striking (but depressing) was their unwillingness or inability to transform these individual intentions into a robust collective response.
"... Brazil's President Lula da Silva [said] that Copenhagen frustrated him because it reminded him of his experiences as a labor negotiator. (Lula was the one major leader who broke new ground and made new promises. One reason for the negative reaction to President Obama's speech was that it followed Lula's extraordinarily generous intervention.)

"The next round of negotiations must focus like a laser on solving the problem of distrust."

According to some assessments, Obama got the next best thing to a real deal at Copenhagen.

"President Obama may have improved his chances for passing global warming legislation in the Senate by forging an interim international agreement here that puts both rich and poor countries on a path to curtail greenhouse gas emissions," reported Darren Samuelsohn for Climatewire.

The specter of an unfettered China out-competing a carbon-constrained United States in the global economy has helped undermine policy reforms for more than a decade. Chinese Premier Wu Jintao's nods to both cutting emissions and allowing some sort of international monitoring (joined by Brazil, India, and South Africa) may deal a significant blow to senators intent on playing the "China card" in upcoming climate and energy bill debates.

Progressive policy wonk Daniel J. Weiss agrees, writing on Climate Progress that "this agreement should quell some senators’ uncertainty about China, India and other developing nations’ level and transparency of pollution reductions. These concerns have been a major reason that some senators from Midwestern states were reluctant to support domestic global warming legislation"

In "Copenhagen Decoded," Kate Sheppard (one of my Copenhagen apartment-mates) offers a good, dispassionate write-up of the climate talks from soup to nuts for Mother Jones.

Whatever your thoughts on the Copenhagen outcome, it doesn't end here. Coming in 2010: The road to Mexico City and the 16th global conference to deal with climate change.

Image: Ice bear sculpture on display in a Copenhagen square. During the two weeks that the climate talks took place, the ice melted away to reveal an armature evoking the skeleton of a polar bear. Credit: Emily Gertz