Thursday, 07 Aug 2003

Zuni Side Up

Zuni Tribe Member Pablo Padilla Talks About Beating Back a Strip Mine

Earlier this week, Native Americans and environmentalists won a surprising victory when a power company abandoned a 20-year push to build a highly controversial coal mine in New Mexico. That victory was particularly sweet for Pablo Padilla, a member of the Zuni Pueblo tribe and a leader in the fight against the mine, which would have disrupted sacred burial sites and threatened Zuni Salt Lake, a focal point of spiritual life for many tribes in the area. Padilla, currently a 28-year-old law student at the University of New Mexico, was the tribe's first-ever environmental protection specialist. Reporter Hillary Rosner caught up with him in Boulder, Colo., to discuss the history of the mine fight and the implications of the victory. Check out what Padilla has to say, only on the Grist Magazine website.

The Postman Always Recycles Twice

U.K. to Increase Recycling of Junk Mail 70 Percent Over 10 Years

The U.S. has finally got a "Do Not Call" registry to ward off would-be telemarketers -- but will it ever get a "Do Not Mail" registry to stem the endless tide of junk mail? Maybe not, but across the Atlantic, the U.K. is taking steps to limit the environmental impact of unwanted mail. At present, about 21 billion items of junk mail are sent to British citizens every year. Under a plan announced yesterday, the British government will work with the direct-mail industry to increase the percentage of that mail that is recycled, from 13 percent this year to 70 percent in 10 years. To reach that goal, the 900 members of Britain's Direct Mail Association will refine their targeting of direct mail, make their materials easier to recycle, and work with local authorities to improve recycling facilities.

Raze the Alarm!

Conservative Group Sues Bush Administration Over Climate Report

Europe is sweltering, Pakistan is flooding, Alaska is melting, and China is in the grips of a devastating drought, but has any of this convinced the skeptics that global climate change is a reality? On the contrary: The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute sued the Bush administration yesterday to try to force it to stop distributing a report about climate change, claiming the phenomenon poses no real economic, environmental, or health risks. The 2000 National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, which was the product of almost a decade of work by dozens of government and private-sector scientists, generated possible scenarios of global warming using computer models and historical climate data. The industry-backed CEI accuses the report of "alarmism" and says it violates the Federal Data Quality Act, which requires information distributed by the government to pass standards for objectivity, quality, and utility.

A Tern for the Better

Judge Orders Army Corps to Lower Missouri River Water Level

In a victory for environmentalists, a federal judge in Minnesota has ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to lower water levels in the Missouri River to protect three endangered species. The ruling represents the latest twist in a 20-year battle that pits enviros against the Army Corps, which seeks to keep water levels high to maintain Missouri River barge traffic. The corps had refused to comply with a recent court order to lower the water levels, citing conflicting rulings elsewhere. That argument didn't hold water for Judge Paul Magnuson, who ordered the corps to lower the river to protect the least tern, the Great Plains piping plover, and the pallid sturgeon. Magnuson essentially concluded that the Endangered Species Act takes precedence over shipping, flood control, and other river-management considerations.

Working on the Chain Gang

California Cancels Use of Prison Labor to Recycle Electronics

California will no longer use underpaid federal prisoners to recycle the tons of potentially dangerous electronics discarded by state workers. The decision to stop shipping e-waste to prisons came in response to pressure from environmental and labor activists, who also successfully protested a similar arrangement by Dell, the largest computer maker in the U.S., which canceled its prison-labor recycling program last month. California plans to hire a private recycler instead, a move that was greeted as "great news for the real e-waste recycling industry," according to Mark Murray, director of Californians Against Waste. Environmentalists, labor activists, and prisoners-rights groups had assailed the earlier recycling plan as a "high-tech chain gang," noting that inmates were paid as little as 20 cents per hour and used primitive tools to break open computers and monitors, exposing themselves to hazardous waste.