Monday, 23 Aug 2004

Behind the Green Door-to-Door

Enviro Groups Go Door-to-Door to Reach Swing Voters

Environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters are mounting get-out-the-vote operations of unprecedented vigor and sophistication this election year. They are targeting what the Sierra Club calls "infrequent environmental voters," folks concerned about natural resources and environmental degradation who do not typically make it to the polls. (Surely there are none of those folks among the Grist readership!) Due to changing campaign-finance laws, the focus this year has shifted from television advertising to direct contact. Groups are busing members from across the nation to knock on doors in swing states and using poll data, voting records, and club membership rosters to target the households most likely to contain moveable voters. Perhaps the only thing Bush backers and enviros agree on this election season is, in the words of Bush campaign spokesperson Terry Holt, "The president's policies on the environment are unparalleled."

The Butterfly Effect

Illegal Logging Gangs Threaten Monarch Butterfly Reserve in Mexico

A guerilla war is underway in Mexico's idyllic Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, where millions of black-and-orange monarch butterflies alight every year at the end of a migratory journey that begins in Canada and the Great Lakes states. On one side lie conservation groups, government agencies, and local forest-watch community groups struggling to preserve the delicate, fragile ecosystem; on the other lie organized, armed, illegal logging syndicates. Whereas conservationists once believed the "starving peasant myth" that poor locals were the ones felling trees in the area, they now realize that the culprits are in fact well-funded criminal gangs operating out of large Mexican cities, says Jordi Honey-Roses, who heads a program whereby the World Wildlife Fund offers grants to communities that preserve surrounding forests. Since Mexican government efforts to fight the gangs are halting and underfunded, hope is now being pinned on local indigenous communities. Says Honey-Roses, "Our responsibility is to empower them to protect what is theirs."

Energy Asterisk

Ask Umbra on the Energy Star Label

The Energy Star label is a familiar sight on computers and home appliances. But eco-conscious consumers have quite wisely come to be wary of greenwashing and products with labels boasting of vaguely environmental properties -- think "natural" -- that mean little. Is Energy Star a happy-sounding bluff or the real deal? And who's behind it? Umbra wishes she may, wishes she might, get to the bottom of that star tonight -- in Ask Umbra, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Beyond a Shadow of a Drought

Report Warns Businesses to Heed Water Shortages

A new report warns that businesses should start preparing for severe water shortages, and warning their shareholders of the risk such shortages pose to their operations. The report -- from independent California-based think tank Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security -- focused on businesses that depend on high-volume water use. That group includes two of Americans' favorites: makers of cola and microchips. Pepsi and Coca-Cola both had major factories shut down in southwest India this year due to drought-induced water shortages. Among the report's recommendations are working more closely with local communities, carefully measuring water use, and accounting for water availability at proposed factory sites. Meanwhile, scientists at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm this week warned that an increasing global population and widespread complacency are making wars over water more and more likely; they recommended a doubling of investment in water infrastructure.

Good for the Goose, Good for the Pander

Kerry Trumpets the Benefits of Coal

In 2000, Al Gore narrowly lost the swing state of West Virginia, which (like so many other things) cost him the election. Many observers speculated that the loss resulted from Gore's reputation as a "radical" environmentalist, particularly his opposition to coal, which many state residents depend on for their livelihoods. John Kerry seems determined to avoid Gore's fate. In a campaign press release last week, he was quoted as saying, "Coal is abundant, coal mining creates jobs, and I believe that with the right investment and commitment coal can be an even cleaner part of America's energy future." Kerry promised $10 billion for development of technology to make coal burn cleaner, aligning himself with the state's popular Sen. Robert Byrd (D), who is renowned for funneling federal pork to West Virginia. Robert Rupp, a political science professor, admired the political maneuver, saying Kerry was "covering both bases" -- coal miners and environmentalists. Apparently nobody told Rupp that many enviros view "clean coal" as an oxymoron.