Monday, 26 Apr 2004

Film Flam

Upcoming Climate-Change Disaster Movie Provokes Silliness

"The Day After Tomorrow," a big-budget climate-change disaster flick directed by Roland Emmerich (creator of such visionary fare as "Independence Day" and the 1998 "Godzilla" remake), is due for release on May 28, and it's got folks on both sides of the global-warming debate all atwitter. Fearing that the scenario in the movie -- wherein climate change, to the dismay of some Cheney-esque politicians, all of a sudden causes blizzards, tsunamis, and much bad acting -- might provoke a panicked public to question why the Bush administration isn't doing more to address climate change, the top press officer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center sent an email on April 1 to several agency scientists and officers forbidding them to discuss the movie with the press. A scientist offended at being muzzled promptly leaked the email to The New York Times, making the agency look silly. NASA backpedaled last week, saying its scientists are free to discuss the film if asked to do so. Meanwhile, some enviros are fretting that the movie's absurd premise will discredit climate-change science altogether.

Postel Service

Freshwater Expert Sandra Postel InterActivates

"Water," says Sandra Postel, "is the basis of life and the blue arteries of the earth." We couldn't put it better ourselves -- so we didn't try. Instead, we hit freshwater expert Postel with a set of probing questions. She told us about the long road (or should we say river?) that led her through journalism, an 11-year stint at the Worldwatch Institute, and finally to the creation of her baby, the Global Water Policy Project. She also discusses her new book, her favorite meal (pesto, as it happens), and a formative experience by the dwindling Aral Sea -- in InterActivist, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Capital Steps

Venture Capital Investment in Clean Technology Grows

Clean tech is hot. Research and development of eco-friendly technologies in water purification, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, recycling, air quality, and renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydrogen is drawing a larger and larger share of venture capital. In 2003, total venture capital spending fell by 14 percent to $18.2 billion, but investment in clean technologies rose by 8 percent to $1.2 billion. Though some investors are wary, recalling trendy-but-fruitless spending on solar and wind technology in the 1980s and hydrogen power in the 1990s, many believe that a perfect storm of disparate forces makes this the time right for clean tech. Many businesses are striving to create a green image to please customers and shareholders; government regulations are making polluting more expensive; global oil prices are rising and fossil fuels are becoming more scarce; economies in China and India are booming and demanding plentiful energy. Let the "green" puns begin!

To Well in a Handbasket

Abandoned Oil Wells Vex Southern California

Oil wells run dry, and when they do -- as many have in Southern California -- the looming question is, what do you do with them? The once-booming California oil business hit its peak in 1985, and since then much of the oil has gradually dried up and the value of land for "surface development" has skyrocketed. There are 70,000 oil and gas wells in the state, and of those about 20,000 are either "shut-ins" that produce only periodically or "orphans" that lack responsible operators. Old wells present a variety of safety and environmental concerns, from soil contamination to oil and methane gas burbling to the surface. In the best cases, developers who buy land from oil companies pay to plug the wells; in the worst cases, old wells are abandoned and the state is stuck with the problem. Oil companies pay some $1 million a year into the state's delightfully named Orphan Well Plugging Fund, but the money is far from enough to fully tackle the problem.

Geoss in the Heouse

Countries Agree to Form Earth Observation Framework

Delegates from 44 nations and 26 international groups agreed this weekend to form a global environmental observation system by 2014, to be called -- in what we can only assume is a tribute to Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -- the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS. Officials attending the Earth Observation Summit in Tokyo said that standardized measurements from satellites, buoys, and weather balloons around the world will help people predict meteorological phenomena like El Nino, understand and respond to outbreaks of disease like West Nile, and make better crop-planting decisions. The conference statement said that developed nations need to help developing nations, who have the most to gain from better forecasting, work to establish methods and standards of measurement. The agreement, which is not legally binding, will be pursued further at a summit in Brussels next February.