Monday, 05 Apr 2004

One Nation, Underperforming

U.S. Increasingly Outsources Environmental Leadership

Modern environmentalism was born in the United States. In the wake of the original Earth Day, the U.S. passed groundbreaking laws to protect the air and water. Groups like the Sierra Club steered many citizens into environmental advocacy. The world looked to us as a model. But no more. Now, when it comes to renewable energy, global-warming policy, green building, and other areas of environmental innovation, the U.S. is a laggard. Worse, we're actually a major cause of the biggest environmental problems -- like China, a hungry, belching giant that the world must coax into the mildest of restraints. Bill McKibben reflects ruefully on the atrophying of the American environmental movement -- only on the Grist Magazine website.

Talking Trash

New Biomass Process Holds Great Promise

Biomass -- the process of converting carbon-based waste into fuel -- is slowly but surely becoming a viable enterprise. At the forefront are companies like Changing World Technologies Inc.; its first commercial plant, recently built in Carthage, Mo., sees thousands of tons of turkey parts from a nearby Butterball plant transformed, via a multi-stage process of intense heat, separating, grinding, and distilling, into fertilizer, fuels, and clean-burning oils. The process produces no waste -- no smoke, no dirty water -- and can run on virtually any carbon-based input, from medical waste to old tires to cast-off computers, says the company. Currently, Changing World gets a boost from government subsidies, but it predicts that with refinements in its process and more cooperation from waste-producing industries, the sky's the limit. Enviros have mixed reactions to this type of biomass, acknowledging the benefits -- waste reduction, a cleaner process for producing petroleum, and a possible reduction in mad cow disease (with slaughterhouse waste burnt instead of fed to other animals) -- while worrying that it could distract attention from the needed move away from petroleum to genuinely clean energies.

Give Peace a Ranch

Progressive Ranching Advocate Courtney White InterActivates

Several years ago, Courtney White left a leadership position in his local Sierra Club chapter to start the Quivira Coalition, an organization designed to advocate and nurture progressive livestock grazing practices. Livestock?! Grazing!? More shocking still, White's organization includes actual ranchers. His efforts have gotten him branded a "Benedict Arnold" by some in the environmental movement -- a badge he wears with pride. Quivira tries to navigate between the extremes and focus on real change on the ground in the American West. Read about White's trials, tribulations, and accomplishments in his answers to Grist's questions, and send him a question of your own by noon PDT on Wednesday, April 7 -- only on the Grist Magazine website.

Watershed Down

California Law Threatens Watershed Restoration Projects

An obscure California law may threaten watershed restoration efforts across the state. At issue are the use of volunteers -- a common practice by watershed-restoration groups perpetually strapped for cash -- and a 2001 law mandating that all workers on public-works projects be paid the prevailing market wage for their work. Last year, a labor union complained when one of its members saw volunteers operating heavy machinery, and the state Department of Industrial Relations ordered a local environmental group to pay $50,000 in fines and back wages (the group is appealing). The law, which expanded the definition of a public-works project in such a way that it included watershed restoration efforts, was written by state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D), who said through a spokesperson that he never intended to curtail volunteer work. Enviros hope that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) will overturn the department's position; state Assemblyperson Loni Hancock (D) has also introduced legislation that would explicitly exempt environmental restoration projects from the law, though it likely wouldn't go into effect until next year.

No Chemical Left Behind

U.S. State Department Helping Chemical Industry Fight E.U. Regulation

Last year, the European Union proposed a plan that would have forced all manufacturers to test industrial chemicals and report on their public-health effects before selling them in Europe. The Bush administration immediately began a lobbying campaign to forestall the move, including several messages sent directly from Secretary of State Colin Powell to trading partners of the U.S. Turns out, according to a House report released last week, the campaign was waged in close consultation with the U.S. chemical industry. Shocker! Emails and documents in the report describe U.S. trade representatives asking the industry for "themes" to use in battling the law. Unsurprisingly, the industry pushed the notion that the legislation was based on "unsound science" and would cost jobs. (Sound familiar?) The report claims that environmental groups and the general public were completely excluded from the deliberations. The campaign has met with some success: A number of European nations have requested new assessments of the law's impact on industry. Under current rules, 99 percent of the total volume of chemicals sold in Europe have not been subject to testing requirements.