OnEarth.org

Data Centers Set to Outpace Airlines in GHG Emissions

Ben Carmichael — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:36:54 -0500

A new study released last week by McKinsey & Company claims that the emissions by data centers -- the hidden banks of servers and electronic storage devices behind everything from your email, to eBay to, well, this blog -- currently account for .3% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, those emissions are poised to quadruple; by 2050, data centers will have outpaced the airline industry in their GHG emissions.

The growth of power consumption in this area is staggering. According to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), which serves much of the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, demand for power from data centers in its region was between 50 and 75 megawatts a year and a half ago. Today, it's between 400 and 500 megawatts.

This means a possible energy shortage for data centers. According to a survey by the Uptime Institute, a research and advisory organization for data center users that released the study with McKinsey, 42 % of 311 data center managers surveyed said their datacenters would exceed power capacity within 12 to 24 months unless they carried out expansion.

However, the cause for the rapid increase in emissions isn't merely a result of increased usage, but of consistent inefficiency at current data centers.

As reported in the McKinsey study, data centers are being used far below capacity. Servers are being used at around 6% of their capacity, while the facilities are used at only 56% of their performance potential. The NY Times blog Bits described it well when it said, "In other words, if data centers were hotels, they would be bankrupt and shut down instead of growing like kudzu."

And there's no question - they are growing like kudzu. HP is spending $1 billion to convert 85 worldwide data centers into six US sites each at 50,000 square feet. Wachovia has just invested $400 million in a data center in Birmingham, Alabama. Citibank is in the process of investing $735 million dollars in data centers around the world. Facebook is investing $200 million, Microsoft $500 million, and Google another $600 million.

These investments are coming at a time when electricity prices are increasing. As a comment made by Brian Brouillette, vice president and general manager, HP Data Center Services, on the WSJ blog, reads: "With the price of electricity rising in some areas more than others, increased data center power costs can be compared to the rising cost of gasoline to run our vehicles. HP's research has found about 42 cents on the dollar each month goes to the electricity company and those costs are continuing to increase."

Given these concerns, McKinsey makes a few recommendations:

Corporations should set the goal of doubling the efficiency of their data centers by 2012.
Corporations should set an industry-wide standard metric. Think miles per gallon, or fuel efficiency, for data centers.
As well as 10 "game-changing" recommendations that focus on improving efficiency as the best near-term solution for reducing green house gas emissions. These include solutions like virtualization and improved air-flow.

The good news is that the solutions are, in comparison to the airline industry, simple. Data centers are not like the airline industry, where change comes in slow increments, and where reducing emissions will rely on developing new fuel technologies. Despite the concentrated efforts from the likes of Richard Branson to develop fuels that reduce airline emissions, some airlines are pursuing fuels from tar sands extraction, even in the face of serious environmental concerns. (See this excellent On Earth story for more on tar sands; and part I & part II on airline for the airline industry.)

As McKinsey argues, it would be cheaper, and more efficient, to invest in improving the efficiency of existing sites, rather than building new ones. Kenneth G. Brill, founder and executive director of Uptime Institute, said: "It clearly makes more sense to become more efficient than to build another $100 million data center." Brian Brouillette supported this with his comment, saying, "We're seeing companies saving 10 - 50% in electricity spend by optimizing their data center layout and airflow patterns."

It's likely that this will not merely be a regulatory issue, but a governmental issue as well. While emissions from data centers will surpass the airline industry, they already have outpaced the emissions from countries Argentina, the Netherlands and Malaysia. Meanwhile, public utilities such as Seattle City Light and BC Hydro, have jumped into the issue, offering incentives for companies to install network efficiency infrastructure and software.

From my perspective -- though, I admit, I'm no expert in the field of data centers and market transformation -- this is in an example where self-interest drives smart-investments, not a need for regulatory intervention.

And yet, data centers continue to put a strain on our public utilities, and, as this study makes clear, on the global environment, simply because they have not yet taken advantage of efficiency opportunities within their existing infrastructure. And so we may need the government to work with business to give them incentives to significantly improve their efficiency after all. If they do, let's hope it's part of a larger market transformation.

Bargain City Biking

Molly Webster — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:38:10 -0500

What do you think of the possibility of having an outdoor “subway,” where the only air is fresh air, and the thrill you get down your spine is not from the erratic, bearded fellow crammed next to you, but because of the steady peddling action of your feet? One of The New York Times most emailed stories at the moment is about a bicycle rental program that’s debuting in our nation's capital.

The program, called SmartBike DC, will make 120 bicycles available to rent day or night at ten stations throughout Washington, D.C. Much like the Zipcar rent-a-car program, members of the project ($40 per year fee) will be given a card that can be swiped at a rental kiosk to unlock a bike. The three-speed bikes can then be used for up to three hours. DC is not the only city in the states moving toward such a program, according to the Times: San Francisco’s deal is already in the works, and Portland, Oregon, as well as Chicago, are considering proposals. The share systems will mirror those that were established in Paris and Barcelona a little more than a year ago; these programs now offer over one thousand bikes to city patrons. Both Portland and New York City have attempted non-automated sharing bike programs in the past, something that Amsterdam has made possible—and successful—since the 1960s.

Funding for the DC and San Francisco projects—whose price tag can get hefty considering bikes get stolen or need maintenance—will come from Clear Channel Outdoor. Should the project be successful, I can only imagine it being another feather in the cap of those fighting to build Smart Growth communities -- urban and suburban centers that are less sprawling, more bikeable. My only question is: when’s it coming to New York? I’m ready to join the peloton.

New Value to Old Forests

Assignment Earth — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:26:43 -0500

Television correspondent Gary Strieker provides this on-the-ground video report on research showing that in respiring, old-growth forests capture a good deal more carbon from the atmosphere than was previously known. And in a world increasingly preoccupied with slowing global warming, that's worth money -- these forests are gaining market value beyond the price of their timber.

Made for the Assignment Earth series on Yahoo News, the report is a companion piece to Sharon Levy's The Giving Trees, the cover story of OnEarth's Spring 2008 issue.

Air Travel II: Learning to Fly

Ben Carmichael — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:25:01 -0500

Sometime during the afternoon of December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers flew their airship -- by modern standards a matchbox of spruce and muslin -- 120, 175 and 200 feet. The distances seem paltry in comparison to the architecture of modern aircraft, where wingspans regularly extend over 220 feet. But this would be to forget that the Wright brothers' contribution was not flight, but the control of it.

By the time the Wright brothers made their flight in 1903, the record of men who had taken to, and fallen from the skies in varying degrees of control, had established heavier-than-air flight as a distinct possibility. Otto Lilienthal made the first successful gliding attempts from the artificial hills he built around Berlin, earning him the name "Glider King." Before him was George Cayley, the father of aerodynamics, and before him, Da Vinci, whose sketches of hang gliders and helicopters varied between the impractical and the inspired.

120, 175 and 200 -- small distances each, to read them anachronistically. But here, the anachronism may actually yield something, because it asks the question: how do we measure the impact of current air travel? Or, asked slightly differently, can we measure its impact at all?

For the carbon conscious, measuring one's carbon footprint has become an obsession that has begun to exert significant impact on the consumer market. The airline industry is particularly vulnerable to such concerns. With air travel poised to double by 2050, and with people's carbon consciousness at a peak, people are flocking to websites that measure the carbon emissions of their travel.

Last year, Americans spent $54 million on carbon offset programs. Companies such as Terrapass and co2balance.com are responding to consumer demand by offering customized calculations of carbon emissions and offsets, while conservation groups like The Nature Conservancy and The Conservation Fund offer carbon calculators for such activities as car and train travel, households and food.

A quick, informal survey across these carbon calculators reveals an obvious conclusion: they all make different recommendations. Take, for instance, the difference between the results I received by calculating an air ticket between Washington, DC and London, UK: 1.4, 1.6, 2.1 tonnes and 2.2 tons. This would cost me anywhere from $12 to £40.

The difference between these numbers reveals the simple truth that we don't yet understand how to put a price on carbon. And that the barrier to this understanding is the great complexity of the issues involved: between global economies and global ecologies are systems that have, for centuries, valued different things. The process of aligning them will take more time than an online search. But moreover, between each flight there is also a great deal of difference that prevents a simple, standard calculation.

While some online calculations do make distinctions between long and short term air travel, estimates range from as low as 0.1 pounds of CO2 per passenger mile traveled up to 1 pound. Not only is our understanding of this issue is still incomplete, but the law of averages just doesn't apply to air travel.

Every flight is going to require a different plane, and every plane a different amount of jet fuel to travel a different distance, depending upon factors like age, cargo, passengers, air traffic and wind speed, to name only a few.

I emailed Chris Calwell, who worked with NRDC's energy program from 1988 to 95, and now is Vice President and Director of Policy and Research at Ecos, a Durango based energy consultancy, to ask him about air travel. He had something interesting to say:

"What makes the calculation even more nerve-racking is that any individual passenger only causes a slight increase in marginal emissions (due to their weight). The plane would have flown anyway, so is it fair to impute 1% of a plane's total emissions for a flight to 1 person if the plane has 100 people aboard? Each incremental passenger added to the flight up to its capacity is probably actually reducing emissions per passenger mile, even if they're slightly increasing total emissions."

All this creates a background of information against which the language of broad description does more to capture the impact of flying than specific figures. Take, for instance, a description by Tufts Climate Initiative:

"The average American is responsible for the emissions of about 20 tons of CO2 annually, the average European or Japanese for about half that. If you fly to Europe and back from the US, you'll add about 3-4 tons to your (already large) carbon footprint. With one flight you will have caused more emissions than 20 Bangladeshi will cause in a whole year. Unfortunately they are the ones who will lose their homes and livelihood once sea level rise inundates their low lying country."

The history of flight is a record of aspiration –- of men buoyed by a mix of dedication, and inspiration that, to us, can read as folly. Otto Lilienthal, for his part, devoted his life to flying. It was everything to him. “To invent an airplane is nothing,” he is quoted as saying. “To build one is something. But to fly is everything.” Samuel Pierpont Langley, another aviation pioneer, gave up flying after two near fatal crashes. Orville Wright, for his part, was convinced that the exhausting struggle to gain a patent for their discovery lead to the early death of his brother Wilbur.

As we consider the impacts of aviation on climate change, we might remember the truism that what goes up, goes up, before coming down. On August 9, 1896, Lilienthal fell from a glider at a height of 56 feet and broke his spine. Before dying the next day, he said, “Small sacrifices must be made!”

Myth or not, Lilienthal seemed to know the cost of his sacrifice. We do not. For him it was a life. What will it be for us? At what cost will we continue to fly?

(Note: This is the second in a series of posts about air travel. Click here for the first.)

Good News, DC Anglers

Ben Carmichael — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:48:49 -0500

When I moved from NYC to DC, I knew I wanted to do one thing: fish. Whereas most people are called to DC by a sense of civic duty, I was called, in part at least, by a sense of exploration. The Potomac. The Blue Ridge Mountains. The Shenandoah's. All good water. All filled with fish.

And so it came as a bit of sad news to hear that the Angler's Lie in Alexandria, VA, had closed its doors. It was, I was told, the spot for fishing gear and advice. But when I called the number, good news answered. Its name? The Urban Angler.

The Urban Angler is a great fly fishing store in mid-town Manhattan. When I called, the guy said they wouldn't be open until Tuesday, but to come on by. They'd be there most of the weekend.

So I dropped by today, and was delighted to find a great shop in the making.

Jeremy Kehrein, the general manager of the NYC store, is overseeing the launch of the Alexandria store, the Urban Angler's first outside of NYC. He has exceptional experience; he was a guide in Montana and Argentina, and couldn't be nicer.

While I was there today, Jeremy, myself and a rep from Scientific Angler talked about the Blackfoot, about the Gunnison, and about the Beaverkill. They each expressed concern about the growing water shortage, and about the droughts in the West. They told great stories from out West, and of how the reservoirs are drying our rivers. All this while Jeremy's dog Roscoe hung about my feet, hoping I might throw a ball for him.

The store may have a long way to go before being completely set up -- the windows were still covered with plastic, the shelves still mostly empty -- but it already has a warmth, and a knowledge, that will make it welcome addition to the area. Go and check it out. They plan to have a grand opening sometime this summer. Already, it's a welcoming place for any angler.

Update (5/2/08): The Urban Angler sent out an official note of their opening today. Check it out here.

What's a Weekend to Do?

Ben Carmichael — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:40:09 -0500

Trying to plan your Earth Day weekend? Me too.

I have some good news: there’s a lot going on. Now, I have some bad news: there’s too much going on. Too much, that is, for any one person to do.

And so, to simplify your choices, I’ve included a number of suggestions below of events going on in the greater DC area. If you go to any of these, respond by letting me know how they were. I know I won’t make it to all of them, and I’d love to hear your feedback.

Events:

National Hanging Out Day, Saturday, Saturday, April 19th: Organized by Project Laundry List, this is a day to raise awareness about the benefits of using a clothesline to dry your clothes. See my response to Molly’s post about a wiser dryer for some of these benefits.

Hartwell Eagle Festival At Mason Neck State Park, Saturday, April 19th: At this day to honor Elizabeth Hartwell, who founded a number of parks in the greater DC area, including the 2,277-acre Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge, the state park opens its doors to bird lovers and families alike. The park now hosts dozens of bald eagles – which will undoubtedly be the topic of conversation – but it also hosts upwards of a thousand great blue herons. Their rookery is usually closed to the public, but on this day, the park grants special access to the area. Also present will be live bluegrass music, canoe tours, guided hikes, and animal shows. Check their website for info.

National Zoo Trash Cleanup, Saturday, April 19th: Sign up to help clean up trash along Rock Creek Park, which runs through the Park’s property.

Green Apple Festival Sunday, April 20th: The Earth Day festival on the National Mall will feature elected officials and candidates, community speakers, celebrities and major musical acts as well as educational displays and voter registration. Also look out for the NRDC table in the "Jefferson Exhibitors" tent to the right of the stage.

Capital Area eCycling Event, Sunday, April 20th: Wondering what to do with your old cell phones, computers and other electronic devices? The EPA is hosting an event to collect your old electronics. Come to DC’s Freedom Plaza and check out their website for specifics on what they’re collecting.

Food:

Two new farmer's markets open on Saturday.

SAT: April 19 ~ Silver Spring, Ellsworth Drive, 9am-1pm. Chef demo by Odessa Piper at 11am.

SAT: April 19 ~ St. Michaels, Muskrat Park, 8:30am-11:30am. Chef demo by Michael Rork of Town Dock at 10am. Live Music! Plus activities for kids!

Check out Freshfarm Markets for more info. Also, last weekend, there was a baby lamb at the DuPont farmer’s market. Check it out –- maybe it will be there again?

Tonight and Sunday, Food Matters, in Alexandria, VA, is hosting some wine and beer tastings. They look outstanding. Check out the DCist article for the full story.

Are We Losing the Race on Extinction?

Ben Carmichael — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:50:12 -0500

When it rains, it floods. But what about our species? When they decline, do they also collapse?

The confluence of a few events has made me worry about this lately.

First, there was my series of posts about the collapse of Chinook salmon. In the Central Valley, only 90,000 adult Chinook returned last year, and scientists predict that as few as 58,000 will return this year. The numbers are even lower on the Klamath. Commercial fishing in these areas has been banned as a result.

Yesterday, there was a similar story concerning Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. The governors of both Virginia and Maryland pledged to cut back on the harvest of this struggling species which continued to be over-fished.

These are only two examples. There are many others. American bee populations are dying from what Elizabeth Kolbert described as an AIDS-like epidemic. Monarch butterflies are threatened by deforestation. Polar bears are starving to death. Our oceans are being bulldozed by bottom trawlers. The list goes on.

After years of inaction, people are waking up to the problem. The Washington Post quoted Virginia's Governor Tim Kaine as saying: "The price of inaction is greater than the price of action. We do not want to wake up in five or 10 years and realize we've lost this very important part of who we are."

As drastic as the cuts are, the decision hinges on the belief that these species can recover. Kaine said the cuts would only be in place for two to three years until the population rebounds.

But what if this belief in short-term species recovery is unreasonable? What if we've past the tipping point?

In Gus Speth's new and powerful book, The Bridge at the End of the World, Stephen Meyer offers this grim forecast.

Over the next 100 years or so as many as half of the earth's species, representing a quarter of the planet's genetic stock, will functionally if not completely disappear... Nothing - not national or international laws, global bioreserves, local sustainability schemes, or even ‘wildlands' fantasies - can change the current course. The broad path for biological evolution is now set for the next several million years. And in this sense the extinction crisis - the race to save the composition, structure, and organization of biodiversity as it exists today-is over, and we have lost.

Is this accurate? I don't know.

But we do know that the Chinook, the Chesapeake blue crab, and American bee colonies, are all collapsing. We know that this is threatening the continued vitality of local, state and national economies, and of coastal ways of life. And we know that it is largely our fault.

Despite all of this, I remain optimistic. Small as the environmental movement remains, I'm reminded of Margaret Mead's famous words, in which she urged us to believe that a "small, dedicated group could change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Let us hope she was right.

Nicked by Nalgene? Try Stainless Steel

Ben Carmichael — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:56:17 -0500

For every age, there is a remedy. And for nearly every remedy, a folly. The Romantic Poets famously had their laudanum, the Victorians their adulterated tea. So bad was the latter that Punch magazine ran a cartoon of a little girl at a grocery counter saying, "If you please, Sir, Mother says, will you let her have a quarter of a pound of your best tea to kill the rats with, and an ounce of chocolate as would get rid of the black beadles."

Could the same thing be true for my Nalgene?

Drink water, I've been told, and you live a healthier life. For many of us who have taken this adage to heart, Nalgene has become the brand of choice for our daily water consumption. For me, over the past decade, when my Nalgene hasn't been with me on the hiking trail, it's been here, on my desk, where I fill and refill it multiple times a day.

But a series of news articles, and studies, has raised a series of warning signals about bisphenol-a (BPA), a man-made chemical contained in the kind of polycarbonate plastics used to make Nalgenes, baby bottles, and other consumer products. In 2004, 2.3 billion pounds of BPA was produced in the U.S. alone.

BPA's are what is known as endocrine disruptors. Endocrine tissues, as the sites that produce hormones, are often vital and constitute one of the body's primary communication networks. BPAs have the ability to trick these areas into treating it like estrogen, and disrupt the communication and coordination facilitated by the body's naturally produced hormones. Because of this, they're linked to issues of obesity, infertility, and sexual deformities. Newborn babies and pregnant women are at the greatest risk. (My colleague Laura Wright has written about this in an excellent blog post and article for On Earth.)

The risk isn't limited to these groups, however -- BPA is found in nearly all of us. In 2004, a study by the CDC showed that 92.6% of over 2,000 urine samples showed detectable levels of BPA. Women had higher levels than men, as did people of lower income.

Today, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released a study of bisphenol A. Gina Solomon, on NRDC's Switchboard, had this summary: "NTP states that there is ‘clear evidence' that at high doses bisphenol A is a developmental toxin, capable of causing death in newborn animals, reduced growth in the womb and in early life, and changes in the age of puberty."

A NY Times article today reports that the Canadian government is ready to label BPA a toxic. Some NGO's, like Environmental Defense, are lobbying for a ban of BPA in food and beverage containers, while at least one store, The Mountain Equipment Co-op, in Vancouver, BC, has removed Nalgenes from their shelves.

The irony is that Nalgene has long been an accessory, if not a symbol, of the environmentally active. And despite the growing body of evidence, Nalgene continues to "firmly believe in the safety of [their] products containing BPA." Their website has a number of links, many to fact sheets produced by the plastics industry.

And so what alternatives do we have? I've been thinking a lot about this recently. Here's what I've found, though the answer is still uncertain.

There is a general consensus that stainless steel is much better than plastic. Companies like SIGG and Kleen Kanteen offer simple, stylish canisters.

But there are rumors that SIGG's bottles, though stainless steel, are lined with a polycarbonate resin that contains BPAs. These seem to be false. There is some informaiton about a water-based lining. But all of this is unconfirmed. Click here for a letter from the president of SIGG USA.

SIGG does have a number of things going for them: The bottle are 100% recyclable, they participate in 1% For the Planet, and the designs are far more stylish than any of the competitors.

Kleen Kanteen also makes a nice bottle. They are made in China, but the company claims they're made responsibly. And if you're married to plastic, Camelbak offers BPA-free plastic bottles.

At this point, I say go for SIGG or Kleen Kanteen.

Anyone have any suggestions? Or know anything decisive about SIGG and BPAs? Your comments are welcome.

Update (4/22/08): The New York Times has a good overview of the BPA issue, as well as a good recommendation. Click here for the story.

How do I lower my exposure?
Switch to frozen or fresh vegetables. Use glass, porcelain and stainless-steel containers, particularly for hot foods and liquids. If you don’t want to use a glass baby bottle, several companies, including the popular brand Born Free, now sell BPA-free baby bottles and sippy cups. For formula-fed babies, you can switch to powdered formula rather than liquid.
Although many plastic products claim to be microwave safe, some scientists warn against putting any plastic in the microwave. “There is such a wide variety now, from disposable containers to actual Tupperware,” says Dr. Anila Jacob, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy group. “I don’t know of anyone who has done definitive testing of all these different types of plastic containers to see what is leaching into food.”

The Price is Right

Molly Webster — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:34:08 -0500

For the first time ever, a company is attempting to put a market value on an ecosystem.

At the end of March, reports CNN.com, the UK private equity firm Canopy Capital announced that it bought 371,000 hectares of the Iwokrama Reserve rainforest in Guyana. The company invested because they believe that forests will soon come to be valued for the services they provide—that being rainfall, carbon storage, climate regulation, and biodiversity. Along with investing, the firm also wants to help create an index that assigns value to forest services. "The market for these ecosystem services doesn't exist — therefore it can't go any lower," said Canopy's director Hylton Murray-Philipson to mongabay.com. "We see this as an opportunity to drive capital to the canopy."

The idea of seeing a forest for more than it’s lumber is evocative of OnEarth’s latest cover story (“The Giving Trees," by Sharon Levy), which talked about scientists working to determine the amount of carbon stored in old-growth forests. Should forests be shown to store more carbon than originally thought, the research provides potential economic incentive to save forests. On this same line, the deal in Guyana indicates that throughout the world, forests are being considered for more than their lumber.

Should Canopy Capital garner any cash from the investement, eighty percent of the profits will benefit the local people. The deal is about, "creating a whole new paradigm for the way in which the world economy values the environment," said Canopy Capital partner Andrew Mitchel to CNN. See the whole story about Canopy Capital's purchase and future plans, as well as an interview with Hylton Murray-Philipson, on mongabay.com.

A New Generation of Environmental Activists?

Ben Carmichael — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:53:16 -0500

I'm usually not one for public speaking -- I get nervous, my hands clam up -- or for shout outs. But here goes.

To the bright kids in Lucia Plumb-Reyes's chemistry class at the Bronx Theater High School, I say: keep it up! We need you now more than ever.

Quickly, here's the story. My good friend Lucia invited me to speak to her class on any topic of my choosing. Having harbored a dream of teaching, and a passion for the environment, I chose to talk about urban environmental issues, and a bit of environmental justice. After all, her class -- inner city kids primarily of color -- have been under-represented by the environmental movement. One of my interests has always been how to reframe the discussion of environmental issues from conserving pristine, far away spaces, to include the often degraded spaces in which we live. To the people traditionally underrepresented by the environmental movement.

This was an opportunity I couldn't turn down.

Or so I thought until I arrived a few minutes early. The class she was finishing up was terribly inattentive, barely able to follow along let alone answer a question. I thought I was aiming too high, that I had made a terrible mistake.

And so I was stunned by the knowledge, and focus, of her chemistry class. They knew the basics of climate science, and brought with them a concern for the environment. I actually had to scrap much of my climate science review, and engage in the broader debates. They asked questions about technology, about wind farms in Germany, and anticipated topics I was going to cover.

Two examples stand out.

First, while I was talking about the growing water shortage, I picked out a girl in the front row (apologies to her!) and held up her Poland Spring water bottle to talk about consumer choices, about the quality of bottled water vs. tap, and other issues. When I put it back down, I overheard her say, "I didn't know."

But that's the point: they want to know. Young adults like this in urban areas are concerned about their environment. They're smart. They're knowledgeable. But we need to spend more time educating them about environmental issues. And we need to make sure their interests are represented in our courts, and in our laws.

This brings me to my second point. When I was wrapping up, I was talking about what they can do. About how our democratic system is an open system. That with enough pressure applied to their congressmen, or their local representatives, they can have an influence. But as I was saying this, I was aware of the fact that not only are their interests still underrepresented, but that the environment -- now more than forty years after some say "Silent Spring" launched the movement -- continues to struggle for influence as well.

I wish them luck. We need a new generation of environmental activists from urban areas. Maybe, just maybe, one of them is in this picture? We can only hope so.

Air Travel I: Warning Sign

Ben Carmichael — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:46:04 -0500

Last week U.S. and European officials signed the OpenSkies pact. U.S. officials, ever eager for market rule, saw it as an opportunity to reduce international fares through increased competition, even while fuel prices hit 4 clams a bucket. But as has historically been the case whenever this former colony of ours signs a pact with its former colonizer, confusion followed. It was time for a debate sold as news.

Some newspapers sold the story of low prices. Still others told another story -- of airlines using this as an opportunity to attract more high paying customers, precisely what they need at such times. Whatever the pact means for international prices, it does mean one thing for sure: more airplanes flying more often.

Americans don't tend to think of airlines as a growth industry. Just this week pictures of stranded American Airline passengers have graced the cover of the NY Times online. And last week, my family lost close to a thousand dollars when Skybus filed for bankruptcy.

And yet, the industry is poised for major growth overseas. The industrialization of China and India, often discussed in terms of vehicles added to the road, will afford millions of people the opportunity to travel -- people who have, so far, been trapped as a class of laborers, not travelers.

Today, the airline industry is currently only responsible for around 2% of the world's daily greenhouse emissions. Yet the industry is growing at more than 5% a year. By 2050, there could be twice as many flights as there are now, making the industry responsible for 10% of anthropogenic climate change.

Together the EU and US account for more than half of all global air traffic. It's estimated that the OpenSkies pact alone would add another 26 million air passengers over five years. This at a time when the UK is attempting to green it's aviation industry.

The European Federation for Transport and the Environment pressure group said, "This will lead to some 3.5 million tonnes of extra CO2 emissions annually. This is about as much as the expected reduction of aviation emissions resulting from the inclusion of aviation into the European emissions trading system."

I feel particularly caught between the desire and the guilt of travel. This fall, I head to graduate school in the UK, where all of Europe is at my fingertips for low fares. Ryan Air advertises fares beginning at £5. Stockholm? Madrid? Milan? For as much as a pint, you're there.

But this is the problem with these fares: they lure you into thinking that air travel has few, if any, associated costs. It's a classic example of market externalities, and the need to include the full cost of adverse environmental impacts into the price.

It's also a classic example of the industrialized world partying at the expense of the poor. People expect to travel; affluence has made travel seem to people less like a privilege, and more like a right. They expect to travel. This despite the fact that the luxury of increased air travel comes at the cost of degrading our air and our water, the land and its people -- the very things we often travel to see. It's a price we simply can't afford.

What to do? I'm not sure yet. But stay tuned. I'm going to return to this topic as I look into who's doing what with biofuels, etc.

A Wiser Dryer

Molly Webster — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:56:54 -0500

Having yet to even consider purchasing my first clothes washer/dryer set, the only thing I can think of that drew me into the world of the Dryer Miser is the fact that it uses an environmentally friendly liquid to dry clothes. Call me a sucker for an oxymoron.

First introduced to the public at the 2008 International Builders’ Show, “the Dryer Miser system uses a specially-engineered fluid in the heat exchange process to reduce energy consumption by up to 50% and cut clothes-drying time by up to 41%,” writes Gizmag. This could be huge for an appliance industry that’s known for sucking down energy, producing CO2, and not having an Energy Star label in sight.

The Dryer Miser dries your clothes with hydronics, a process that uses water or other fluids to transfer heat from one location to another; steam and hot water radiators are one of the oldest forms of hydronic technology. Supposedly, the system reduces drying time, produces less CO2, and causes fewer wrinkles.

Keep in mind that the system is not a new dryer, but a tubular part that a technician attaches onto the back of your machine. Also, it’s not yet on the market. Produced by Hydromatic Technologies, the company has applied for a patent on their product, and is expecting to be on the market in Fall 2009. The Department of Energy has given the prototype a go-ahead, and Underwriters Laboratory, an independent safety certification company, is expected to give their nod of approval this month.

Remember the Chinook

Ben Carmichael — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:29:29 -0500

Following my post about the Chinook salmon collapse, I was encouraged to see this AP story. Apparently, the Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering a ban on West Coast salmon fishing to protect rapidly declining Chinook stocks. The article quotes one fisherman as saying:

"There's likely no fish, so what are you going to be fishing for?" asked Duncan MacLean, a fisherman from Half Moon Bay. "I have no problem sitting out to rebuild this resource if that's what's necessary."

The numbers are staggering. Last fall, only 90,000 adult Chinook returned to the Central Valley. This fall, scientists predict as few as 58,000 will return.

Elsewhere, in the Klamath River, fall Chinook runs have failed to meet the Council's conservation objective of at least 35,000 adult natural spawners three years in a row.

The lesson? The Chinook cannot, and are not, surviving. We need to take the pressure off these fish, and help this resource rebuild in the face of unbearable odds.

With the Council set to vote in Seattle this week, I remind them of Aldo Leopold's words -- words that have become for us a warning:

"Men still live who, in their youth remember pigeons; tress still live that, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a few decades hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know."

I know that every member of the Council remembers the Chinook. But let us hope that our children may remember them as well.

UPDATE: An article in today's San Francisco Chronicle reports that the PFMC voted to close the commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California and Oregon, in an effort to preserve the declining Chinook populations.

This is good news for the salmon stocks, but tough news for those who have depended on the fish for a way of life. Consider these quotations from the article.

"I think it's probably the right thing to do," said Barbara Emley, 64, who has run a commercial fishing boat with her husband out of Fisherman's Wharf since 1985.

"It's tough, though. We're going to lose our (fishing) community. People are going to have to figure out what to do with five months of no income."

And

"This is a disaster for West Coast salmon fisheries, under any standard," said council Chairman Don Hansen. "There will be a huge impact on the people who fish for a living, those who eat wild-caught king salmon, those who enjoy recreational fishing, and the businesses and coastal communities dependent on these fisheries."

This isn't a short-term problem, either. It wil require long-term sacrifice. While encouraging, it's also quite upsetting. Read the article. It paints a compelling profile of the issue.

Second Update: The New York Times has an Op/Ed this morning (4/15) about the Pacific salmon collapse. It's good, and it points out the basic figures, and includes the Klamath and Columbia-Snake, but it could do more. For instance, wht would they recommend for a "long-term salmon recovery plan"? Who is judge James Redden? We need outlets like NY Times to be more strident on this issue. In their coverage of Spitzer, and of the campaign, they have taken clear, uncompromising positions. Why not do the same when it comes to a collapsing natural resource?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/opinion/15tues2.html?ref=opinion

Lay Lady Lay

Ben Carmichael — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:44:10 -0500

Wandering the Union Square farmer's market last Saturday, my prayers for spring were answered. Duck eggs are now on sale.

For anyone who's ever tried them, the difference in taste is dramatic. Where chicken eggs are a blank slate -- essentially a vehicle for other tastes -- duck eggs taste much like the meat themselves: they have a wild, gamey flavor, a bigger yolk, and more body.

Next time you're at the farmer's market, keep your eye out for baskets of eggs. Many farmers who specialize in meats will also have eggs from duck, goose, turkey or even quail available.

My suggestion? Buy one or two of each, and do a taste test. I did this a while ago with some friends. We fried them all in a pan, and then ate them on toast. That way you could taste the differences between them.

The farmer I spoke to said he'd start to have more varieties available this Saturday. Ask around. It's definitely worth it.

End of the Line

Ben Carmichael — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:36:49 -0500

Julia Moskin has a good article in today's NY Times Dining section on the hardships of the cod industry -- what there is left of it -- and of efforts to restore the river herring runs on which this, and other, coastal fish stocks depend.

Growing up on the coast of Maine, with a lobsterman for a neighbor, cultivated both a love of seafood and concern for the preservation of our ocean's precious resources. In Maine, it's not just a resource, but a resource that spawned a culture, and a way of life. The same is true of Cape Cod.

Here's what the article said.

"Right now, if it's off a day boat, it's not from Chatham," said Peter Taylor, who has been fishing off Chatham since 1971. Day boats stay close to shore and offload their catch daily; other vessels stay out at sea, sometimes keeping fish on ice for days.

...

Fishermen, chefs and suppliers are content to keep the Chatham name on menus even if the fish have only done a flyover of Chatham harbor. "It's a farce, like everything in New York restaurants," said Robert DeMasco, an owner of Pierless Fish Corp. in Brooklyn, which supplies many top kitchens. "I always supply day boat cod, but it hasn't been out of Chatham in months." Instead, day boat cod is coming from points north of Cape Cod.

Reading Mark Kurlansky's now famous book, as well as Charles Clover's "The End of the Line," reviewed in On Earth in 2006, has convinced me to order fish rarely. Among many things, this article raises the following point: we're continuing to apply pressure to a resource that's all but collapsed to support a delusion -- a delusion that costs not just fish, but extra food miles and fuel.

I was interested in this part about herring:

“We don’t catch herring, we don’t sell herring, but all the fish that our fishermen depend on eat the herring,” he said. “It is the linchpin. Bluefin tuna, striped bass, cod and haddock: all these things eat herring. Herring is the forage base of the whole fishery.”

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and North Carolina have imposed complete bans on fishing for river herring. However, the states have no jurisdiction far at sea, where the herring spend much of their lives, often traveling thousands of miles before returning to the mouth of the same stream year after year.

What about Maine?

Last September, there was good news on resurgent herring schools, which some credit to a summer long ban. And a recent lawsuit is seeking to ban herring trawlers off the coast of Maine and other Northeast states.

Gore Jumps On The Logjam

Molly Webster — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:53:23 -0500

Al Gore, not known for working on a small-scale (read: Live Earth), has launched a three-year, $300 million dollar campaign for climate change. He reasons that in order to get moving on the issue, “we” need to alert the public and policy makers, and this is one way to do that. He says to a Washington Post reporter [emphasis added], "The simple algorithm is this: It's important to change the light bulbs, but it's much more important to change the laws.” After attending an environmental law conference last week, where some attendees suggested that it's not necessarily the laws we have that are the problem, this statement caught my eye.

Held at New York University, the conference was called “Breaking the Logjam: An Environmental Law for the 21st Century.” In one room, for two days, it kept economists, environmental lawyers, and policy experts high on peanut butter cookies and cheese pastries as they worked to create an environmental “roadmap” for the 2009 administration. The idea was for the group to develop guidelines that the new Congress could use when writing new enviro laws.

But some conference participants raised the point that they don't believe weak laws cause the "logjam," rather, they said, it's due to weak enforcement of the existing laws. As they see it, the bottleneck that prevents us from protecting the environment often arises when laws are not properly executed. Peter Lehner, executive director of the NRDC, expressed similar sentiment in a speech over lunch, saying, "And while it may be tempting to say that our environmental laws have failed us, maybe the truth is that we have failed them." Lehner pointed out that often it is cheaper for a polluter to engage in litigation than it is for them to follow or implement environmental regulations. Couple to that the fact that environmental law-breakers often come away from a court case with only a slap on the wrist, and it simply makes sense companies aren’t feeling pressured to help the environment. Will we need new environmental laws, as Mr. Gore suggests? Undoubtedly, especially when tackling climate change. But scores of laws won’t matter if there’s no follow-through.

The Hungry Shall Inherit the Earth

Ben Carmichael — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:37:51 -0500

As a fisherman, I've come to distrust stories of large, leaping fish. I've simply heard too many to believe them all.

Perhaps this is why, when I read the story of Asian carp invading the Illinois River back in 2002, it didn't stick. But this YouTube video, which has been circulating amongst friends, is one that's difficult to forget. For the most striking image, fast-forward to 2:30.

At the moment they shock the water, what seems like hundreds of carp explode out of the surface and high into the air. It's shocking. And a bit supernatural.

How is this possible?

Here's the story as I know it.

Back in the 70s, southern catfish farmers introduced two species of Asian Carp -- the bighead and silver -- to clean out their ponds of algae, plankton and other "suspended matter." Floods then washed the carp out of the ponds and into the Mississippi in the 80s. From there, they've been swimming upstream.

What made them so perfect for the farmers has made them so prolific on the Illinois River. Combine the fact that they can eat half their body weight a day, mostly in phytoplankton and zooplankton, with the fact that they weigh up to 100 lbs, and they're consuming massive quantities of natural resources from the lower rungs of the food chain. As Jerry Rasmussen says in the video, "They go right to the bottom, and take the bottom out."

Add to this penchant for profligacy their suitability to the Illinois -- it being similar to their Asian habitats -- and they have blanketed the river. The video cites the statistic that nearly 9 out of every 10 fish in the river is a carp -- not all Asian, but still, by no means biologically diverse.

What, if anything, can you do to stop such a fish?

For one, federal and state agencies have erected an electric fence to try and keep them out of the Great Lakes, and Canada, with some reports of success.

My favorite suggestion comes from this NPR story: "Can't beat ‘em? Eat ‘em." Commercial fisherman have been feeding a small, but growing market for them, while Illinois Senator Mike Jacobs wants to see them served in prison.

"Chilean Sea Bass wasn't always known as Chilean Sea Bass," Jacobs notes. "There was a time it was known as a Patagonian Toothfish, and people wouldn't eat it."

His suggested name-change? "I'm from Rock Island, so I'm thinking of 'Rock Island Sole,'" Jacobs muses. "Schafer Fisheries is near Savanna, [Ill.,] so Savanna Sole might work, too."

But then, the market for Chilean Sea Bass is famously troubled, and the natural populations seriously strained. Is that really what we want?

Memory, Age, and Love Poetry: Talking with Poet Daniel Mark Epstein

Zachary Sussman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:41:17 -0500

Poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein recites his poem, "In Late November," and talks with Zachary Sussman about memory, age, and what it means to be a “love poet.”

In Late November
Of the butterfly-bush, whose purple flowers
The monarch and the swallowtail
Sipped in August, near my windowpane
(Such a wealth of wings and flower clusters
I could hardly see the grass, the trees)
Only stalks and branches remain,
And panicles tipped with russet berries.
Now I see everything so vividly:
The young woman on her hands and knees,
Planting the meek shrubs three years ago --
Three short years and thirteen feet below --
Told me the light was perfect here and so
The plants would thrive, just wait and see
How gracefully the flowers would bear wings.
I would see her when she was not there,
Then go blind, standing right beside her.
How could I begin to explain such things?
Soon enough the blossoms reached my sill,
A floor above her terrace flat. Too late
For her to see the wonder she had wrought
Or for me to tell her. She'd moved out.
I never dreamed these branches in full bloom
Would all but block the summer view below:
Garden, gardener and terrace door,
Casting a dappled shadow across my room.
I never knew that when November came
I would miss the butterflies so much
And see the world more clearly than before.

Bamboo Bike Fever

Ben Carmichael — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:02:11 -0500

I have a problem. I have bamboo fever.

Let me explain.

I'm in the process of moving to a house in NW DC. It's beautiful there, and well designed -- the row houses butt against each other, sharing radiant heat, there's a park at the end of my block, and the sidewalks are well shaded.

But compared to my location in NYC, where the train shuttled me easily between home and work, I live in a veritable wilderness. The bus is far away. And the metro -- well, forget it.

And so I'm trying to figure out how to power myself to work. This isn't a new problem, by any means -- people have long advocated riding a bike to work, despite the risk. (See here and here for two podcats on this.) But since I only have an expensive road bike, I'm looking for a new bike to make the commute. I want something that's built sustainably, something that's easy to maneuver in the city, and something that has -- well -- a touch of style.

Someone in our New York office rides a collapsible bike to work, and advocates their use. They're light, easy to maneuver, and are surprisingly small when you collapse them so you won't sully your coworker's pants when you climb into the elevator. But I worry about the production methods of these bikes: what wastes are produced in the production? And can I really be sure these are contained?

So I wanted something built of natural elements. Impossible, I thought, until I remembered the bamboo bike.

I first saw Calfee's bike years ago, and thought it mostly conceptual, like haute couture -- progressive but not pragmatic. But then I did some research. Consider this:

As a material, bamboo is remarkable. Not a wood but a grass, bamboo regenerates quickly -- for some varieties, as much as 3-4 feet every day. For most species, it takes only 3-5 years to regrow fully. What's more, many species do all this without the need for replanting, and require minimal use of pesticides or fertilizers. I found evidence of some efforts to teach sustainable harvesting practices to bamboo growers in Vietnam. For the rest, it's possible bamboo harvesting is a largely sustainable practice in the first place, though I don't yet know for sure.

It's also perfect for the kind of use in constructing bicycles. When dry, it's strong, light and durable. Plus, bamboo dampens shock - precisely what bikers look for. In Calfee's design, they coat the bike with tung oil to seal it, and even have hemp fiber lugs available to replace the carbon fiber.

The problem? The best bamboo is not your neighborhood variety. Most of the bamboo we use for furniture, or even bamboo fly rods -- this is where I first came to know about it -- is produced in a remote region of Hunan province, China. Getting it from there to here involves a lot of shipping.

If you want a new bike built of sustainable materials, aren't afraid to ride a piece of art, and can afford the price tag, this is a great bike.

Me? I'm not yet sold. Environmentally, the best bike is the old bike -- the one that had already been produced. There's no production to risk chemicals. No built-in shipping miles. It's cheaper. And the style, well, who can beat it? But man, is that bike cool.

Update (4/17/08): The New York Times has an article about bamboo flooring in today's Home & Garden section. Thought I'd poit you to it. Click here to check it out.

Hard Choices: George Black on Compromise and the Conservation Ethic

Emily Voigt — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:59:37 -0500

OnEarth articles editor George Black reads his essay "Time to Be Unfaithful to Old Faithful," and talks with Emily Voigt about controversy and compromise in modern environmentalism.

Lights Out for Global Warming

Molly Webster — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:01:29 -0500

Homes, businesses, and towns, from Mongolia to the Vatican to the United States will fall dark in five days time. But ‘tis not a plague on all their houses causing the coming darkness, rather, it's global warming. Sort of.

On Saturday, March 29th, during the hour of 8-9PM, citizens around the globe are being asked to turn off their lights “to deliver a powerful message…about the need for action on climate change.” The event, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, is called Earth Hour. It is a movement that hatched in Sydney, Australia last year, when 2.2 million people turned off their lights for one hour; even the Opera House flipped its "Off" switch. To commit yourself officially to the project, or to simply learn more about it, check out the Earth Hour’s website--already about 186,000 individuals have publically signed on.

But while there, don’t let yourself get bogged down in the somewhat cheesy, "let's all band together" spiel (they suggest hosting a "get-dark party," or contacting the local astronomy club for star-gazing, during the lightless sixty minutes). Beneath the sugar-coating is a sincere attempt to raise not only awareness, but unity on what seems a vast and abstract issue. On a very basic level, the opportunity to see lights winking out in my city that never sleeps, enveloping us all in an eye-opening hour of quiet blackness, sounds delightful.

New Family Values?

Ben Carmichael — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:43:15 -0500

Reading Andrew Revkin's blog the other day, I got uncomfortable. Granted, for an environmentalist, this isn't a new feeling. When you're attempting to safeguard the earth against collapsing fish stocks, rising sea temperatures, a changing climate and disappearing forests, managing discomfort becomes your stock and trade.

But this was about population. Even amongst friends, this can be an uneasy conversation.

At a time when environmentalism is no longer the hobby of the radical few, but is emerging as a mainstream consideration, the question of population remains largely taboo. And not without good reason.

There is nothing more personal, nothing we guard more, than our children. It's where our sense of an essential human right -- to bear and rear our own -- meets environmental responsibility head on. And it's where our sense of sacrifice feels almost too great to bear.

But as an environmentlist, the proposition of booming global populations is daunting. A recent NY Times Op/Ed by Jared Diamond that shifted the debate to consumption levels was particularly disconcerting. In it he said, "Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven't met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion."

For a long time now, I've looked forward to being a father. At 25, I am by no means ready -- but the decision of how many I should have nags me. I try to balance an interest in building a family with a sense of global responsibility. And so, as with any question that nags me, I've been reaching out and talking to people. The responses have clustered in these categories.

The miracle seekers. When asked, a very close family friend said, "I'd hate for you to deprive yourself. Seeing your own self -- your own DNA -- in this little is completely miraculous. It's one of the miracles of life." It's a sense of a fundamental human right -- of an undeniable experience we should all share.

The doomsayers. Some of my friends are uncertain as to how many kids they want to have simply because they're not certain whether there will be a world left for this kids to live in. If the parent's essential goal is to provide the conditions for a better life for your children, what become of parenting if these conditions are out of your control? It reduces parenting to a basic process of reproduction.

The adopters. Still others look to adoption as the solution. Some of my friends raise this point repeatedly in discussions of family plans. And why not? It just makes sense.

The answer is that there is no answer -- it's a deeply personal question. I fall somewhere between these poles, convinced that our world will be environmentally degraded, but eager for the opportunity to raise my own.

Is that selfish? I hope not.

Urban (Wild) Animals

Molly Webster — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:21:01 -0500

If you enjoy quirky animal stories, this L.A. Times article about pigeons on birth control is for you. The pigeon population has so overwhelmed Hollywood, the city began distributing birth control to keep the procreators in check. Reports Francisco Vara-Orta:

“The pilot program to get pigeons on the pill is well underway, with $50,000 in donations pledged from area business improvement districts and concerned residents, said Laura Dodson, president of the Argyle Civic Assn., the Hollywood neighborhood group leading the effort."

"Since August, some of the area's estimated 5,000 pigeons have been eating pill-shaped kibble known as OvoControl P from feeders on rooftops, making Hollywood the first area to try the contraceptive since it was given state approval in late July.”

Perhaps this method should also be used on the vulture culture currently overwhelming Bartow, Florida. Or in Samawah, Iraq, where farmers are clashing with starving wolves, which villagers believe are being driven to town by drought and food scarcity. While the reason for the wolves behavior hasn’t been verified independently (has global warming caused these droughts, one can’t help but wonder), it is safe to say the canines weren’t storming the village out of starvation a decade ago; the human-wolf relation has changed.

These examples are not the very first steps in a delicate pas de duex, but it would be hard not to say that current lifestyle choices haven’t pushed the duet toward its climax. People are ambivalent about the effects of putting the environment out to pasture for development, as is evident by the way in which we continue coating the earth in layers of cement while haphazardly filling the air with carbon dioxide. The result: In just one instance, we’ve spent $50,000 on birth control for pigeons. Yes, it’s a peaceable solution between animal rights groups and suburbia, but it’s also comical (and not just because it involves giving birds birth control, an initiative we can’t come to terms with for Homo sapiens). It’s laughable because we, through actions such as hyper-development and overfeeding, have caused the problem that we're spending money to fix; it’s like having to patch-up relations with your sibling because you started an argument out of boredom. Really, why do it in the first place? Until we create a more prescient, nature-oriented culture, expect to continue reading “quirky” environmental stories in the L.A. Times -- and finding birth control in the pigeon feed.

Lions, and Cheetahs, and Elephants -- Oh My!

Ian Wilker — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:37:49 -0500

A memory: My college roommate and I were camped high in a quiet corner of the Smokies, enjoying postprandial tobacco and passing a wineskin of Jim Beam between us. As dusk deepened, we looked out over an expanse of Blue Ridge topography that tumbled away into the distance, and talked about the conservation ethic, whether or not it would take sufficient hold among the masses fast enough to keep landscapes like this one intact. "Bet on places that have charismatic megafauna," was Erik's sardonic observation.

All this bubbled up today as I read Josh Donlan's latest entry over at Shifting Baselines. Donlan, a conservation scientist at Cornell, is one of the chief proponents of Pleistocene rewilding -- reintroducing to North America the descendants of large mammals that evolved on the continent but went extinct 13,000 years ago. In this vision, cheetahs would once again stalk pronghorn antelope in Wyoming; lions and camels and elephants would once more roam American savannas. Sounds off the wall, but serious scientific, economic, and conservation arguments have been marshaled in support of Pleistocene rewilding. (OnEarth articles from Sharman Apt Russell and Sharon Levy shed some more light on these ideas.)

I don't claim any special insight into whether or not it's feasible, or advisable, to give this bold idea a try. But there's a part of me that surely does see the appeal.

Go check out Donlan's blog, and take the survey he's put up -- weigh in on the prospect of loosing more charismatic megafauna in select parts of the United States.

(Lastly, I can't help it -- wouldn't "Charismatic Megafauna" be a killer band name?)

Save the Salmon

Ben Carmichael — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:17:20 -0500

The way I tell the story, the day my father removed my last diaper he placed a fly rod in my hands. Since then, I've cast a line over nearly any open body of water I can find. He nurtured an avid fly fisherman, sure, but also an avid environmentalist.

And so I was sad to see this headline: "Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace" above an article that described the virtual disappearance of the Chinook salmon from the Pacific Northwest. "The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations - and coming up dry." Fellicity Barringer, NY Times, March 17.

Not that I should have been surprised. For much of the past 18 years, I've had the privilege to fish for Atlantic salmon in New Brunswick and Quebec on some of the most productive rivers. And for many of those 18 years, the conversation over the fish population has been marked by concern and confusion in almost equal measure.

Last year, for example, the runs on the Grand Cascapedia were particularly low. From those who worked and fished the river, the explanations were many: changing sea temperatures, an ice blockage off Greenland, etc. Always, people say they've never seen a year like this. There was no science to back up these stories, only concern.

On the Miramichi, another prized Salmon river, this one in New Brunswick, the story has been somewhat different. While the river doesn't produce it nearly as many fish as it once did, and its different branches report varying returns year to year, the strict catch and release policy that has sustained sizeable runs makes it a model for the area. Growing up, I can remember Miramichi guides remarking on how quickly the salmon seemed to be recovering.

My home state of Maine offers a similar lesson. The Penobscot River closed in 1999 to salmon fishing, with populations down to around 530 in 2000 - down still from 5,000 twenty years prior. By 2006, the river had recovered to runs over 1,000 and restored a short fishing season.

It seems to me that trying to read the lessons offered by the conversation records on these rivers yields conflicting lessons. One, that Salmon are remarkably resilient and can be nurtured locally, river by river. And two, that they depend on remarkably complex systems. As an anadromous species, they depend upon the rivers they return to, and the oceans they live in. They depend upon watersheds in areas often heavily logged, and on areas of the Atlantic that, until recently, were over fished.

In this sense, Salmon reflect the problem of climate change: they are global in cause and consequence. If these stories do offer a lesson, it's that while our experience fishing for salmon is often rural, continued practice of fly fishing is dependent upon stabilizing global patterns - rising sea temperatures, shifting ocean currents, and bottom trawling, to name only a few.

But then, to paraphrase Isaac Waalton, author of the book everyone owns but nobody has read, if ever hope sprung eternal, it's in the heart of the angler. Let's hope he was right.

Care Without Despair

Huckleberry Fox — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:55:06 -0500

How to remain positive about humanity's ability to solve a profusion of looming environmental problems? Huck Fox talks about a faith that we can care for and learn about the environment without losing it.

Cityscapes and Landscapes

Ben Carmichael — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:39:27 -0500

Here we are: my first post to the On Earth blog. Doug and Laura, two of my editors, recently asked me to post, and post regularly here. Could I blog? Sure, I said, no problem.

But then, as I walked past the open office doors here at NRDC's New York headquarters, where OnEarth magazine's editorial offices are housed -- past the policy experts, the scientists, and lobbyists who have been fighting on behalf of the environment as long as I've been alive -- I paused. What could I possibly blog about?

For many of us -- my friends, my coworkers -- our lives are drawn between the city and the country. We labor in the city so we might afford to play outside of it. So busy are our schedules that we're lucky if we can call ourselves weekend warriors.

Adventure, environment -- ideas that, in the 20th century, have been associated with our wildest, most remote landscapes. You know, the places man never goes. But if you're anything like me, you find these associations to be limited; our cities are ripe for exploration, too.

And so we try to recreate a sense of adventure in the city. What we seek are enclaves of the quiet and the communal in a large, and crowded place. What we bring is a new sense that the values and aesthetic of the country can be relevant to our lives here. We want to live a green life in a city built of concrete.

What it comes down to is a question: How do we live in balance in a world, and in a city, that so often feels off kilter?

If nothing else, the narrative of the environment is a slow study in optimization -- of small gains towards a staggering ideal. Finding a balance will involve sacrifices, to be sure, but opportunities as well. I hope to cover both.

Where precisely it will take me is hard to say: to farmers markets and restaurants, certainly, but also to new outdoor gear fit for the helter-skelter of Union Square, and to the front pages of magazines.

Part of the fun will be the exploration. To quote a favorite song of mine, "On a journey to anywhere, you can draw your own map."

Here, then, is to cityscapes and landscapes.

Drugs in Our Drinking Water: You Heard It Here First

Ian Wilker — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:36:19 -0500

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that more than 41 million Americans are drinking water that contains prescription drugs -- everything from mood stabilizers to sex hormones to antibiotics. The story is on the front pages of the Washington Post and New York Times, and atop user-edited news sites like Digg, Newsvine, and Slashdot. Good post at Daily Kos on the subject, and treehugger warns that bottled-water marketers will likely use this to promote their product.

But as regular readers of OnEarth know, science writer Elizabeth Royte broke this story with her article "Drugging Our Waters," published in this magazine's Fall 2006 issue. It's a clear-eyed read by a wonderful writer. (Two of Royte's books -- The Tapir's Morning Bath and Garbage Land -- are personal favorites of mine.) I highly recommend it as background for the AP study, and suggest a listen to this podcast as well.

For more on the AP study, AP reporter Haven Daley did a good video summary of the study and the issues it raises.

A Conversation with Poet Chard deNiord

Zachary Sussman — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:35:35 -0500

Chard deNiord recites his poems, "Tree of Wisdom" and "Behold, The Lord God Bird," talks with Zachary Sussman about enlightenment, and recounts the strange, sad tale of a bird beyond imagination.

Tree of Wisdom
I am taken in by its stand and breadth,
marveling at its brawn and reach of branches,
studying each leaf like the page of a sacred book,
embracing its trunk like a void.
I hear the prophecy of a lark in the density
of foliage: "The vision awaits its time;
hastens to the end." Until this time arrives,
I am content to sit and stare and climb.
I am compelled to bet my life on the fact
that this is the first work of revelation,
calling a tree tree, leaves leaves.
It is the good work of a scientist.
It is the hidden work of a common man.
I say its name like the bird who can't stop singing,
Ten Thousand Things In One, and then this prayer,
Om mani padme hum. The jewel is in the world.
I lie in the shade of its canopy
and listen to the genius above deny her name.
I turn its green to black in order to turn
it back again. I watch its fruit fall in the wind
like proofs for a law that only exists in the mind.
Like a well-stocked house it sustains me,
cleans my lungs with the distillation.
It is my home of transformation
where I remain and disappear.

Behold, The Lord God Bird
Hope is a bird that lives somewhere in a swamp,
unseen but there, like the tree that falls but needs
an ear to make a sound. The jizz of such
a thing is moot without the sighting of
a second birder. Everything we see
must strangely be stranger than what we imagine.
The flocks that fly through the sky of our dreams are hardly
as weird as the common sparrow, since she was spoken
and then translated. It's the words we want behind
the dream and the voice to say them, to make
them real and really strange, but cannot speak
for the length of our tongues. Be thankful, then, an angel
sings in the form of a bird that lived in memory's
overstory for sixty years. In the voice
of a clown at the top of a cypress. Kent! Kent!
she calls, then pauses for a while before resuming
her other song that echoes in our bones as if
they were trees in an ancient forest. Knock-knock!
Knock-knock! Only more and faster.