Monday, 22 Jul 2002

The Rainless Maker

From 1970 to 1985, a wide swath of Africa lay under the siege of a brutal drought that ultimately left 1.2 million dead. Now, a group of scientists from Australia and Canada says the deadly drought may have been caused in part by pollution from factories and power plants in North America, Europe, and Asia. In a process known as teleconnection, tiny aerosols -- in this case, particles of sulfur dioxide -- from those sources altered the formation of clouds and reduced rainfall in Africa by as much as 50 percent, the scientists say. Although environmental regulation of aerosols became much stricter in the 1990s, teleconnection continues today, and some suggest it might account for the drought currently gripping much of the United States. The African drought has also been attributed to other factors ranging from El Nino to overgrazing, and the authors of the current study acknowledge that teleconnection was probably just one of a combination of factors leading to the lack of rain.

Bird Slaw

Compared to traditional energy sources (coal, oil, natural gas), wind energy seems like an environmentalist's dream come true: It doesn't pollute the air, land, or water, and it's infinitely renewable. Indeed, wind energy has a reputation as being one of the greenest energy sources out there. So why are environmentalists trying to put a stop to the construction of 47 giant windmills in Pennsylvania's Moosic Mountain Ridge? First, because wind farms take up a lot of space and often are located in otherwise unspoiled natural areas, and second, because the wind turbines themselves have a reputation for being avian Cuisinarts. The environmental organization R.E.S.C.U.E. is challenging the state-issued permit for the wind farms, and Sierra Club members are urging caution about the project. But other environmentalists think the resistance is just an example of "Not In My Backyard" thinking, and support the clean energy source. Such tension could become more common in Pennsylvania and other mid-Atlantic states, which used to be seen as insufficiently windy for wind farms. As windmill technology improves, however, and as people become more concerned about air quality, wind power is making inroads into new territory.

Ex-siting

The U.S. EPA has restored Superfund monies to clean up 11 toxic sites, despite having told local officials at the sites that they would not receive any money this year. But only four of the sites will get the full amount requested by the officials. Last month, a report by the agency's inspector general listed 33 sites in 18 states that would not receive requested funds; with the recent shift, that number has dropped to 22. Of the remaining sites, the agency said five do not need funding this year and a handful of other sites might receive money this summer, while many others most likely will not. The announcement of the restored monies comes at a time when the EPA is under fire for making cuts to the Superfund program. (Last week, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman defended the management of the program in an op-ed in the New York Times.) Congress is still trying to decide how much money to allocate for Superfund next year, and whether to reinstate a tax on industry to provide more steady funding for the cleanups.

Jean Ne Sais Quoi

For months, Canada has been a question mark on the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, half-inclined to follow the cue of its stubborn southern neighbor and ignore the treaty, half-inclined to jump on board with the other industrialized nations of the world. Now, it appears that Prime Minister Jean Chretien is prepared to push forward with ratification -- but with a critical caveat, according to a senior Cabinet minister. Chretien wants Canada to be able to count sales of natural gas and hydro-electricity to the U.S. as part of its emissions reduction effort, effectively cutting the nation's reduction burden by as much as 30 percent. The Cabinet minister acknowledged, however, that Europeans are likely to resist efforts to revise Kyoto this late in the game. Chretien, who generally favors the treaty, has faced heavy resistance from industry.

Thinking Inside the Box

Packaging for food products is a $12 billion industry dominated by variations on paper and plastic foam products. For 10 years, the company EarthShell has been trying to green the industry and get a lucrative piece of the pie. In place of Styrofoam containers or cardboard egg cartons, EarthShell sells products made of a mixture of limestone, sand, and starch from plants like corn and potatoes. The products decompose in a matter of weeks and take up negligible space in landfills. Enviros love the idea and the company has even designed packaging for McDonald's, but EarthShell is facing an uphill battle. "Efforts to distinguish products by environmental packaging have been kind of a bust," said J. Winston Porter, president of the Waste Policy Center, an environmental management research center, who noted that consumers generally care far more about what's in a package than about the package itself. So far, the company has sunk $270 million and more than a decade of work into trying to carve its own niche, but things continue to look bleak in the green-packaging industry.