Thursday, 11 Nov 2004

It Takes a Value Village

Election serves as whack upside the head for enviros

Despite unprecedented efforts on the part of environmental groups to turn out voters, well ... you saw what happened. Some greens think it's now time to take a step back, do some hard thinking, and refocus the environmental movement around values. Many are also talking about reaching out to new crowds -- the religious, "security moms," Western outdoorsy folk, and others. Whatever approach enviros end up taking, they've got their work cut out for them. Get a taste of the soul searching, in Muckraker -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

Sage Brush With Death

Millions of oil and gas dollars at stake in sage grouse controversy

The question of whether to list the sage grouse -- a chicken-sized bird that roams the sagebrush plains of the U.S. West -- as threatened is shaping up as an epic conflict, with millions of dollars in revenue from oil and natural-gas drilling on the line. There were once some 2 million sage grouse ranging over the 270 million acres of "sagebrush sea" in the West; that land has since been carved up by grazing, agriculture, urban development, mining, and energy exploration, and fewer than 200,000 sage grouse remain. Problem is, if the bird is listed under the Endangered Species Act, severe federal restrictions go into place and could threaten efforts to get at the estimated $1.3 trillion worth of natural gas hidden under the Rocky Mountain range. As a result, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, other federal agencies, and private landowners are scrambling to show that private and state-level conservation programs can save the bird. Enviros, however, say that only federal ESA protections are sufficiently strong to protect the bird.

Flarey Bird

Umbra on birds bursting into flame

A reader noted with alarm a news story about a bird landing on a power line, bursting into flame, and starting a forest fire. Can this be so, she asked? Our inimitable advice columnist Umbra, after a detour about European settlement of the American West (oh, just read it), reveals the grim answer. You can almost smell it, in Ask Umbra -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

Himalaya Hatas

Himalayan glaciers melting; catastrophe in the wings

Researchers are raising alarms about the rapid rate of melting in Himalayan glaciers, the lack of current scientific data and monitoring thereof, and the possibility of resulting catastrophic floods in the short term and water shortages in the long term. Some 2,300 of the Nepalese Himalayas' 3,300 glaciers contain glacial lakes, and many of those lakes are swelling behind dams of ice. No major studies of the problem have been done since the 1990s, so researchers are uncertain how close the lakes are to bursting forth in floods that could wipe out entire villages in Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and India. In the longer term, as global warming continues, the danger is that the glaciers could disappear altogether, precipitating a water crisis in the many countries that depend on their steady supply of water. "In some rivers, the flow may go down by as much as 90 percent," said researcher Syed Iqbal Hosnain.

The Shipping News

Global warming may open Northwest Passage to shipping

Global warming may melt arctic ice enough to make the legendary Northwest Passage a viable trade route, trimming almost 40 percent (roughly two weeks) off the current Asia-to-Europe route, which involves a large detour down through either the Suez or Panama canals. Some view this as a bright spot in the otherwise grim report released this week on the impact of global warming on the Arctic. Enviros aren't so sure. The route would inevitably involve large oil tankers navigating narrow channels filled with ice. "The question is not whether an accident is going to happen but when and where," said Samantha Smith of the World Wildlife Fund, and "we do not know how to clean an oil spill on ice." The melting could also open the area to further oil drilling (oh, the irony!). Anyhoo, none of this will happen for 30 or 40 years, and by then we'll no doubt have any number of global catastrophes to worry about.