Monday, 24 Jan 2005

A Big To-Doo-Doo

EPA offers air-pollution immunity to factory farms

On Friday, while inaugural revelers were still shaking off their hangovers and tending to their square-dance-induced blisters, the Bush EPA officially unveiled a deal whereby factory farms can get more than two years of immunity from the Clean Air Act if they join a voluntary program to measure their emissions. The feds, who say they need the emissions data in order to develop a good enforcement program, tout their collaborative plan as far better than slapping factory farms with lawsuits one by one. Enviros say the strategy stinks as bad as the huge piles of doo-doo that are emitting toxic gases at factory farms around the country. Get a whiff of this one in Muckraker -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

Hope Against Slope

Bush admin poised to open sensitive Alaska North Slope land to drilling

The Bush administration plans to open to drilling more than 400,000 acres of Alaska's North Slope thought to be vital to migratory birds and caribou, after the Bureau of Land Management determined that drilling can be done with "minimum impact" on wildlife. Interior Secretary Gale Norton is expected to give a final go-ahead for the plan this week. The area is part of the 22-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska; 87 percent of the NPR-A was opened for drilling by President Clinton, but the northeast corner, home to Lake Teshekpuk and key wildlife habitat, was put off-limits. Well, so much for that. The Bush team now says the oil and gas in the area is needed. Enviros, of course, disagree and plan to fight the move in court. "You do need to have oil and gas development in the NPR-A, but not on every single acre," said Eleanor Huffins of the Wilderness Society.

Days of Wine and Honey-Rosés

Jordi Honey-Rosés, butterfly protector, InterActivates

Jordi Honey-Rosés had his environmental "aha!" moment working at an internship in Spain where he sold Oreos, Chips Ahoy!, and other Nabisco products. Now he's living in Mexico near the pine and fir forests that are winter grounds for the migratory monarch butterfly, working for the World Wildlife Fund and collaborating with the Mexican government and local organizations to stop logging in the area. Find out how he went from hawking biscuits to saving butterflies -- in InterActivist, today on the Grist Magazine website. Send Honey-Rosés a question of your own by noon PST on Wednesday, Jan. 26.

Design of the Times

Electronics manufacturers hop on the cradle-to-cradle bandwagon

Mindful of the growing impact of consumer electronics on the waste stream -- and of the likelihood that government regulations could one day require them to recycle their own wares -- electronics manufacturers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Panasonic are beginning to design products with their full lifecycle in mind. Some are eliminating lead, mercury, and brominated flame retardants, toxic substances that pollute landfills and make gadgets difficult to recycle, from their products entirely. Some are trying to reduce the use of plastics in favor of metal, which is easier and more profitable to recycle, and reduce the use of screws and glues in favor of easier-to-disassemble snap-together parts. Some are trying to reduce the total number of parts. All of this brings designers to the fore, part of a movement described by author and sustainable-design guru William McDonough in the book Cradle to Cradle as a shift away from disposable living and toward a genuinely reusable and recyclable material life.

Lather, Rinse, Rethink

Umbra dispenses tips on making your own cleaning products

The kitchen's a mess and the bathroom needs scrubbing, but with all those scary chemicals in cleaning products, what's an eco-conscious reader to do? Advice guru Umbra Fisk says four simple ingredients and some elbow grease are all that's needed to keep an eco-friendly house from getting grimy. Get the essentials on clean, green living -- in Ask Umbra, today on the Grist Magazine website.