Monday, 09 Feb 2004

Meat-Up

Low-Carb Diets Have High Impact on Environment

If you've been reading the news lately -- or simply walking the streets of Middle America -- you'll have noticed that many of us are getting a little chubby. Make that a lot chubby. Even downright obese. So the huge popularity of low-carb diets like Atkins can only be a good thing, right? Not so fast: Since most low-carbers turn primarily to meat to fill their shrinking bellies, the more this dietary fad catches on, the more meat must be produced. Producing more meat, all good enviros know, means more overgrazing, more pollution from feedlots and slaughterhouses, more forestland cleared for pasture and the growing of grains, more pesticides and fertilizers used on those grain fields, and so on and so forth. Get the word on what the Atkins diet craze could mean for the planet -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

One Meeellion Dollars!

Iraq's Environment Ministry Faces Big Problems and a Small Budget

Iraq's first environment ministry, facing a host of daunting ecological problems and a list of 35 priority projects that would cost more than $200 million, has been allotted a 2004 budget of ... $1 million. A report from the United Nations Environment Program presents a litany of environmental challenges facing the war-ravaged country: rivers polluted by crude-oil leaks; widespread cholera, malaria, typhoid, and diarrhea due to contaminated water; post-war looting of hazardous materials from government, industrial, and scientific facilities; and depleted uranium from weapons used by U.S. forces in the war, to name but a few. The ministry is seeking international support and attempting to establish a department that would coordinate with other fledgling agencies on environmental problems.

Gold Dust Woman

Mining Watchdog Radhika Sarin InterActivates

Our new InterActivist feature debuted last week to international acclaim (we heard from at least one Canadian who really liked it). This week our days-long tradition of excellence continues with InterActivist Radhika Sarin, who answers Grist's questions with grace and panache. Sarin is the international campaign coordinator for Earthworks, a partnership designed by the Mineral Policy Center to protect communities and the environment from irresponsible mining. Read about her mining-watchdog work, the No Dirty Gold consumer pledge, and her feelings about Birkenstocks (and don't forget to send her some questions of your own!) -- only on the Grist Magazine website.

Keep the Forest Fires Burning

Critics Charge Forest Service With Overzealous Fire Fighting

A growing cadre of critics charge the U.S. Forest Service with fighting too many fires, saying that the cost -- in money, lives, and ecological damage -- is too high. As logging in national forests has declined by 80 percent over the last decade, fighting fires has become the agency's primary mission. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, only 110 out of more than 10,000 wildfires in national forests were allowed to burn naturally in 2003. In 1996, fighting fires on 6 million acres cost $522 million; in 2002, fire fighting on 7 million acres cost $1.4 billion. In 2003, 29 Forest Service employees lost their lives fighting fires, with many more injured. A number of Forest Service employees and enviros argue that fire is as important as rain to forest renewal, and that ecological damage can result when fires are put out with chemical retardants.

Sweet Chile O' Mine

Greenpeace Activist in Chile Tells It Like She Sees It

Ancient forests in the Patagonia region of Chile are threatened by the Alumysa project, a series of hydroelectric dams and an aluminum plant proposed by mining company Noranda, which would flood more than 24,700 acres. The Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise plied the waters along the Chilean coast last week to raise awareness of the threat and galvanize activism in local communities, and Meghan Houlihan was on board, maintaining a website that documents the ship's tour and writing daily dispatches, which appear -- you guessed it -- only on the Grist Magazine website.

Not By the Air of My Chinny-chin-chin

States Expect Clean Air Act Changes Will Increase Pollution

Most state environmental officials expect that changes to Clean Air Act rules proposed by the Bush administration would lead to higher air pollution, according to a survey conducted by the General Accounting Office upon the request of Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.). The survey gathered responses from 44 states; officials in 27 states expected higher pollution, officials in five expected a decrease, and officials in 12 expected no change. The U.S. EPA, which claims that the changes (primarily related to New Source Review provisions) would have minimal effect on air pollution, has been sued by 14 states and several cities, leading a Washington, D.C., federal appeals court in December to bar the changes from taking place pending resolution of the suit. A power industry spokesperson said that opponents of "New Source Review clarification and Clean Air Act innovation" had simply imposed their biases on survey respondents.