Tuesday, 25 Feb 2003

Tony Tony Tony!

In a speech that compared the danger of environmental degradation to the threat of terrorism, British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday outlined a sweeping plan to combat global warming. Blair called on his country, the European Union, and would-be E.U. members in Eastern Europe to cut carbon dioxide emissions 60 percent by 2050. That figure, which radically exceeds the one in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, is the one scientists say could save the planet from the most dire consequences of the greenhouse effect. In his speech, Blair also criticized President Bush for backing out of Kyoto and failing to propose a meaningful alternative, and he promised to maintain pressure on the U.S. and other industrialized nations to cut emissions. Environmentalists praised the prime minister's vision, but also said it was long on rhetoric and short on concrete policy proposals.

9021-woe

Remember that episode of 90210 where Brenda and Dylan fell ill from toxic gases leaking out of oil wells and into Beverly Hills High School? Actually, that never happened on the show -- but according to famed environmental legal crusader Erin Brockovich, it happened in real life. Brockovich and her partner, Ed Masry, are preparing to sue Beverly Hills and three oil companies, claiming they ignored carcinogenic gases leaking into the school from active and abandoned wells nearby -- and, in some cases, under the school's playing fields. They say the gases caused cancer in more than 80 former students and school employees. The oil companies named by the suit are Occidental Petroleum, ChevronTexaco, and Venoco.

In the Doghouse

The U.S. Supreme Court announced yesterday that it would review a clean air case that could determine when the federal government can overrule state environmental decisions. The case concerns the Red Dog mine in Alaska, which produces zinc and lead. Two years ago, when the mine sought to build a new diesel generator, the state Department of Environmental Conservation agreed to allow the company to refit all of its generators with a low-cost pollution-control system to cut nitrogen oxide emissions. The U.S. EPA overruled that decision, ordering the company to instead install newer technology on the seventh generator, as mandated under the federal Clean Air Act's New Source Review rule. The state argued that its plan would save money and cut overall emissions from the mine, but lost its case in both U.S. district court and in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The high court will hear the case as part of its fall docket.

Pro-fusion

The U.S. and China have officially joined the quest to develop fusion power, which proponents say could be an affordable, eco-friendly alternative to existing energy sources. The International Thermonuclear Energy Reactor is the largest global science project after the International Space Station. China, the U.S., Canada, the E.U., Japan, and Russia will spend $5 billion over 10 years to make fusion energy safe and viable. Fusion reactions -- the kind that take place in the sun -- produce energy by fusing light atoms such as deuterium and tritium to form heavier ones. In the ITER project, the heat created by those reactions would then be used to generate electricity. Both deuterium and tritium are abundant isotopes of hydrogen, and they promise a lot of bang for the buck: One kilogram of fusion fuel could produce the same amount of energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel.

All That Jazz and Dredging

The federal government has earmarked $370 million to clean up the waterways of East Chicago, one of the most polluted areas in the Great Lakes region -- and the town's citizens are unhappy about it. Local residents and environmental groups say the remediation solution proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is as hazardous to the community's health as the original problem. The corps plan calls for dredging millions of cubic yards of toxic sediment that have been lying beneath the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal for 30 years. The sludge would then be transferred to a landfill outside of East Chicago, just a half-mile from a high school and elementary school. Critics say the plan does not make use of the best dredging technology available; they also say the corps and other backers of the project believe they can get away with cutting financial corners because East Chicago is 85 percent minority.