Wednesday, 05 May 2004

Going Apes

Great Apes Are Heading for Extinction

Human beings' endless efforts to kill each other have not reduced their overall numbers, but they may yet wipe out humanity's closest genetic cousins, the great apes: gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans. Several of these charismatic -- but apparently not charismatic enough -- megafauna face extinction because of human wars, which destroy opportunities for fishing and agriculture, thereby leading hungry hunters to poach the apes for food. Between wars, humans cut down the forests where the great apes live. Particularly tragic is the story of the bonobos, devastated by civil war in the Congo. Though they are over 98 percent genetically identical to us, they behave quite differently: Their societies are matriarchal; they do not kill each other or fight over territory; when they experience conflict or anxiety, they have sex. Whereas when we experience conflict or anxiety, we kill things. The U.N. estimates that there are 450,000 great apes left in the world; conservationists fear they could be extinct within 10 to 15 years.

List Me Baby, One More Time

Group Petitions for Protection of Hundreds of Imperiled U.S. Species

A coalition of enviro groups, scientists, and artists petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday to add 225 species to the official federal list of endangered and threatened species. The 225 are now on a candidate list that affords them no protection. It was, by a wide margin, the largest listing petition filed since such citizen requests were authorized under the Endangered Species Act in 1982 (the act itself passed in 1973). The move was designed in part to draw attention to the dysfunctional listing process that has plagued the agency for years, but has grown more acute, critics say, under the Bush administration. The species have been on the candidate list for an average of 17 years. FWS officials estimate it would cost $153 million to list all the species. "You can't just go to Congress and ask for $153 million to clear up the backlog," said the agency's Betsy Lordan. "You'd get laughed at." The coalition included the Center for Biological Diversity and science luminaries Jane Goodall, E. O. Wilson, and Paul Ehrlich.

Self Empowerment

California Businesses Hop on the Fuel-Cell Bandwagon

A number of California businesses -- rattled by the 2000 energy crisis, with its rolling black- and brown-outs, and the state's generally unreliable electricity grid -- are turning to hydrogen fuel cells to provide a reliable and self-generated source of power. The move is fueled (ahem) by the California Public Utilities Commission's increasingly popular Self Generation Incentive Program, which provides $66 million a year in incentive funding for green energy systems; more than 500 projects have been funded to date. Most of the fuel cells run, for the time being, on hydrogen converted from natural gas, but some businesses are finding ways of generating the hydrogen from their own waste products, creating "energy neutral" systems that produce as much power as they consume. Since fuel cells will be more expensive than standard energy sources for several years, they will require government subsidies. As Joel Makower of green energy consultancy Clean Edge puts it, fuel-cell adoption "has more to do with political will than with technological problems."

The Lead Badge of Courage

Vermont Senator Proposes Stricter Drinking-Water Legislation

Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.) announced this week that he will introduce legislation that aims to eliminate lead from the nation's drinking water. The Lead-Free Drinking Water Act, the first major proposed revision of the Safe Drinking Water Act in 14 years, would ban plumbing fixtures with more than 0.02 percent lead and require water utilities to test more regularly for lead, notify the public more quickly if a problem is detected, and pay large fines if they fail to do so. It would also require the U.S. EPA to revisit current standards governing lead in drinking water and consider whether to make it a federal crime to exceed the standards, and it would offer $200 million a year for four years to help utilities comply. "It is time to get the lead out of the pipes, out of the water and out of our families and out of our lives," said Jeffords. Top EPA water official Benjamin Grumbles said that national legislation on this issue is "premature."

Terminator 4: Demise of the Machines

Schwarzenegger to Kill Machines, Again -- This Time, the Polluting Kind

California officials seeking to ameliorate the state's persistent smog problems are focusing on a common group of culprits: old machines. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is meeting with business groups, enviros, and legislators to develop a plan to rid the state's roads of old cars, trucks, and buses by offering their owners financial incentives to trade them in. Five percent of California's vehicles -- primarily older models -- cause half the state's vehicle-related air pollution. No means of funding the proposal has been agreed upon yet, but ideas range from a gas tax to increasing vehicle licensing fees. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the South Coast Air Quality Management District announced a program to offer owners of old, gas-powered lawnmowers who trade them in to be scrapped $300 toward the purchase of an electric mower. According to the agency, a typical gas-powered mower pollutes as much in a year as 43 new cars driven 12,000 miles apiece. Finally, it seems, California's obsession with youth is doing some good.