Tuesday, 18 Jun 2002

Khmer Green?

A new kind of battle is taking place in Cambodia, this one between conservationists and international paper companies. Cambodia's central Cardamom Mountains were a stronghold of the Khmer Rouge, and as such were avoided by timber companies and others who feared being kidnapped or killed. With the Khmer Rouge largely subdued, however, timber companies have started to make good on current logging concessions and pressure the government for new ones. Meanwhile, international aid agencies and development banks, which together provide Cambodia with about $500 million in assistance every year, are urging strict conservation measures. To date, protected areas exist only on paper, and the impoverished country is rife with illegal logging of valuable hardwoods and poaching of wildlife. The Cardamom Mountains are home to dozens of threatened plant and animal species and a water system that supplies as much as half the country's annual fish catch.

Texas Toast

Like John and Yoko, industry and politics in the U.S. have climbed into bed together and just refuse to get out. Nowhere is that more evident than in Texas, homeland of the Bush clan and the most polluted state in the country. Let's spell it out: Texas is the number one spewer of toxic chemicals and carcinogens into the air, number one in chemical spills, number one in ozone pollution, number one in carbon-dioxide and mercury emissions, number one in clean-water violations, and number one in the production of hazardous waste. How did it get that way? Largely because of the oil industry, which all but owns Texas -- and made a bid to own the entire country by using Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force to shape national energy policy. Can the knot be untangled? Not easily, after 50 years of intimate relations between energy barons and the Bush dynasty (which has had a family member in a governor's mansion, on Capitol Hill, and/or in the White House for the last 50 years).

Natural Born Watt Killers

Are you one of those people who obsessively turns off lights and other electric appliances when leaving the room? If so, it might be time to look for a job with the State of New Hampshire, where Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) is now offering up to $10,000 to state employees who devise innovative ways to cut the state's annual $18.5 million energy bill. The initiative was born out of a long-ignored 1983 state law that permits the governor's office to offer cash incentives to workers who go above and beyond the call of duty to save money for the state. Implemented at the beginning of this month, the Kill-A-Watt contest will reward the three "E-Teams" that produce the most impressive energy savings in government buildings by Nov. 1. The program is the brainchild of New Hampshire energy czar Hamilton McLean, who was hired to reduce power bills in a state that has no comprehensive list of how many buildings it owns, what types of fuel they use, or how much energy they burn.

Double-blind Test

The threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan seems to have abated slightly -- for the moment -- but what about the consequences of India's nuclear testing? Four years after the country exploded nuclear devices in underground tests in the Thar desert near the Pakistan border, villagers are questioning the government's pat assurance that no radioactivity was released. In Khetolai, a village about two miles from the military test range, cows are giving birth to blind and diseased calves. In an area where no crops can grow, the cows are the villagers' livelihood; they cannot survive without them. But the government hasn't compensated them for their losses, and what little money did come in after the testing ($100 to $200 to fix cracks in homes and water cisterns) was insufficient. Residents weren't evacuated during the nuclear testing, and little to no medical examinations and care have been offered.