Thursday, 11 Dec 2003

Everybody Say Mac 'n' Cheese

Sage Advice on Food Storage, Food Cleanliness, and More

Maybe it's the effect of eating nothing but grapefruit for the past week and a half, but here at Grist, we've got food on the brain. That might explain why the latest column from Umbra Fisk, Grist environmental advice columnist extraordinaire, tackles questions about the things we eat. How can that day-old mac 'n' cheese be stored in the fridge without using plastic? What's the best way to take soup to work? What are the environmental impacts of eating lamb? And what about washing produce -- what with all the pesticides and herbicides that can't be scrubbed away, does it really make a difference? Get the, er, skinny from Umbra Fisk, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Inuit and Out

Inuit Plan to Launch Human-Rights Case Against U.S. Over Climate Change

Saying global climate change threatens them with extinction, the world's Inuit people yesterday announced plans to launch a human-rights case against the United States, which has repeatedly reiterated that it will take no decisive action on the issue. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference represents 155,000 people living inside the Arctic Circle, where a rapidly warming climate is changing the ecosystem and threatening to permanently destroy the Inuit way of life. At talks on the Kyoto Protocol underway this week in Milan, Italy, Inuit representatives said they would invite the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to visit the far north and learn firsthand how life is changing there. A ruling by the commission against the U.S. would not be legally enforceable, but the Inuit hope it would create negative publicity and encourage the nation to take climate change seriously.

Oil and World Bank Shouldn't Mix

Report Recommends That World Bank Stop Backing Oil, Coal Projects

The World Bank should phase out all investments in oil and coal projects by 2008 because the environmental risks are too high, an independent report has recommended. Now, the bank must figure out how to respond to the Extractive Industry Review, which it commissioned in 2001 following criticism about the bank's backing of natural-resource extraction projects. The study, whose recommendations are not binding, advises the bank to "devote its limited scarce resources to investments in renewable energy resource development, emissions-reducing projects, clean energy technology, energy efficiency and conservation, and other efforts that de-link energy use from greenhouse gas emissions." Rashad Kaldany, director of the bank's oil, gas, mining, and chemicals department, said of the report, "It is one of the ones that we will study carefully."

All Our Excess Lives in Texas

West Texas Up in Arms Over Bid to Sell State-Owned Water

Water may be scarce in West Texas, but emotions are flowing freely over an insider deal that would allow politically powerful oil tycoons from Midland to sell billions of gallons of water from state-owned reserves. The deal was cut in secret between Rio Nuevo Ltd. -- made up of eight oil entrepreneurs -- and the Texas General Land Office, which controls 20 million acres of public land and the resources beneath them. Rio Nuevo plans to pump and sell some 16 billion gallons of water per year to local governments and ranchers in the parched western part of the state; residents of the region fear that their own wells will go dry as a result. The company claims the deal will provide about $7 million for schools through a fund managed by the land office, while opponents decry the backroom nature of the agreement and worry about the potential threat to the state's water resources and the ecosystems that depend on them.

True Grime Stories

Rochester Investigates Link Between Lead and Crime

If you read yesterday's review of Six Modern Plagues in Grist, you know that environmental problems can be linked to health issues. But can they be linked to crime? That's what officials in Rochester, N.Y., are trying to determine by investigating the relationship between violent behavior and lead poisoning, which can cause neurological damage and problems with attention span and intellectual development. Previous studies have linked lead poisoning to delinquency, aggression, and elevated school dropout rates. Rochester is looking at its homicide statistics to see if lead poisoning can be isolated as a contributing factor to the high violence rates in the area. The city recently received $5.5 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to combat lead poisoning, the highest amount awarded to any locality in the nation.