Friday, 05 Dec 2003

The Squeeze Is On

Grist Wraps Up Week One of the 2003 Grapefruit Challenge

Some organizations send you dozens of mail solicitations asking for money. Others call up during dinner. Still others replace your favorite radio programs with seemingly endless phone-a-thons. Kudos to them all -- hey, everyone's gotta make a buck -- but here at Grist, we have a different notion of fundraising. That's why, for the past week, the entire Grist staff has eaten nothing but grapefruit during working hours. No, we're not watching our weight -- but we are watching as threats to the environment expand. To keep covering those threats with the smart, savvy news you rely on, we need to expand, too. Not our waistlines, our staff -- so it's all grapefruit, all the time, until Dec. 15 or until we raise $35,000 to help us hire a new editor. So please, this holiday season, bring a little joy to the (natural) world by giving to Grist. We promise you, it's easier than fasting. If you've already given to the cause, we thank you from the pits of our empty stomachs.

This Little Piggy Went to a Market-based System

U.S. EPA Proposes New Market-Based Air Quality Regulations

Having failed thus far to push his "Clear Skies" initiative through Congress, President Bush is now trying to institute his air-pollution plan through regulatory channels. Yesterday, the Bush administration proposed new rules that would establish industry-wide emissions limits for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury. Under the market-based plan, every power plant would be granted a permit to emit a fixed amount of pollution; those that emitted less than that amount could sell credits to dirtier plants, as long as overall, industry-wide emissions targets were met. As part of the plan, the U.S. EPA identified 534 counties nationwide that suffer from excessive air pollution and would be required to meet new air-quality standards. Environmentalists support some aspects of the plan, but sharply oppose its mercury regulations, which are far laxer than regulations that had previously been in the works.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Frankenbread

Next GM Product to Hit Market Could Be Your Daily Bread

The stakes in the debate over genetically modified (GM) food are about to jump significantly, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prepares to complete a safety and nutrition review of wheat that has been genetically altered by biotech giant Monsanto. To date, GM crops have largely been used as animal feed and processed food ingredients, such as corn syrup. Wheat, by contrast, is a diet mainstay for many of the world's people, and where it goes, the other mainstay -- rice -- is likely to follow. Advocates say GM varieties of common human foods would have longer shelf lives, reduce farm labor and pesticide use, and stave off hunger. Critics counter that too little is known about the long-term safety of GM crops, and they question the wisdom of putting the fate of the world's staple foods into the hands of biotech companies.

One Dam Thing After Another

Anti-Dam Activists Get Energized in Thailand

The Rivers for Life meeting underway this week in Rasi Salai, Thailand, is no ordinary conference -- and not just because organizers have shunned bagels and banquet rooms in favor of Thai food and hand-built bamboo huts. More than 300 activists from 60 nations have congregated near the banks of the Mun River for this gathering, officially known as the Second International Meeting of Dam-Affected People and Their Allies. Many of the participants know firsthand of the devastation caused by large dams -- fish populations decimated, fields flooded, whole communities uprooted. But as Tara Wesely, this week's Grist diarist, reports, when these activists come together, it's not to bemoan their fate -- it's to share tactics, sing songs, celebrate victories, and get reinvigorated to fight for the rivers they love. Read dispatches from the scene, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Hail to the Reef

Australia to Protect One-Third of Great Barrier Reef

In a major boon to Down Under ecology, fully one-third of the Great Barrier Reef will receive protection, the Australian government announced this week. The move will increase the protected areas of the reef by 40,000 square miles, thereby establishing the largest network of marine reserves in the world. No fishing will be allowed within the reserves, but tourism will be permitted, including snorkeling and scuba diving -- which, with some 1.3 million dives per year, represents a critical component of the regional economy. Environmentalists welcome the protection but say it must be increased to include 50 percent of coral reef zones to adequately protect biodiversity. They also say that other factors, such as land-based pollution, offshore oil exploration, and climate change, continue to threaten the reef.

If Only Enron Had Known About This

New Erasable Ink Could Be Boon to Office Recycling

Invisible ink was once the province of spies, then of children -- and now of environmentalists? Beginning Monday, tech industry giant Toshiba will sell a new, disappearing ink in Japan that is designed to enable easier reuse and recycling. The ink, called "e-blue," can be used in ordinary laser printers as well as in pens, and disappears when heated. The ink is made of three chemicals, two of which combine to give it its color, while the third, when heated, makes the ink turn transparent. Toshiba is also selling a desktop erasing machine that can wipe 200 pages of paper clean in two hours. Office paper accounts for about 40 percent of all office waste in Japan, where just 60 percent of it is recycled.