Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005

Perfect Pitch

Gristmill launches contest to find environmentalism's elevator pitch

Inspired by a similar (OK, nearly identical) initiative at fellow mag The American Prospect, we've launched a contest: We want you, dear readers, to develop an elevator pitch for environmentalism. Imagine yourself on an elevator with Jane Average Citizen, and you have seven floors to pitch her on environmentalism. What does it offer her? What does it ask of her? What are its core values and vision? Submit your entry of 30 words or less as a comment in our blog, Gristmill. The winner will receive a highly coveted Very First Official Grist T-shirt (VFOGT). Enter early, enter often.

The Lion, the Switch, and the ... Oh, Forget It

Neoconservatives and greens find common cause on energy conservation

And the lion shall lie down with the lamb indeed. A strange political alliance is taking shape in Washington, D.C., as neoconservatives anxious to sap political strength from their Middle Eastern nemeses form common cause with enviros anxious to slow global warming. What unites them? A desire to reduce oil consumption. The neocons who pushed for the Iraq invasion largely come out of the academy and think-tank circuit, and do not have the political and economic ties to the oil and gas industry that, well, just about everybody else in the administration does. So, being idealists, they are looking for ways to reduce oil use and the disproportionate geopolitical power of Islamic theocracies, particularly Saudi Arabia. Thus, an Institute for the Analysis of Global Security proposal to invest heavily in clean cars, plant-based fuels, and fuel-cell technology is being supported by both the Natural Resources Defense Council and ex-CIA director James Woolsey. Strange times, these.

McKibben's Decline and Fall of the American Empire

Bill McKibben sends dispatches from a global-warming conference

On the heels of yet another report on the imminent catastrophe that is global warming -- coupled with yet another plea for the U.S. to get off its duff and do something -- veteran enviro writer Bill McKibben is taking part in yet another conference looking for solutions. This one, he says, is focusing less on the big environmental organizations and more on scrappy outsiders finding solutions that work, including the authors of the now-legendary "Death of Environmentalism" paper. McKibben is sending reports from the scene this week -- in Dispatches, today on the Grist Magazine website.

The Clear Skies' the Limit

Lawmakers defend states' rights, introduce Clear Skies competition

Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) and George Pataki (R-N.Y.), in a letter to a Senate committee that's convening today to deliberate the Bush administration's Clear Skies bill, emphasized the importance of protecting state environmental enforcement powers. Both California and New York have put in place environmental regulations stricter than federal standards, which some enviros say may be weakened if Clear Skies is approved. Meanwhile, a bipartisan ... no, make that tri-partisan trio of senators -- Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) -- yesterday introduced a competing, more-strict clean-air bill. The legislation, dubbed the Clean Power Act, would require stringent caps on power-plant emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide beginning in 2010 and a 90 percent cut in mercury emissions by 2009.

Give Peas a Chance

War-torn countries fight to protect genetic variability of crops

Scientists and agricultural breeding specialists have developed a system to recover and restore rare but valuable crop varieties that might otherwise be lost forever to the ravages of war and heedless development. Called "smart aid," the strategy involves searching out important genetic varieties -- such as those able to withstand flood or extreme drought -- and revitalizing those stocks to help replenish damaged farmland. "Restoring agriculture is usually the first step in creating economic growth and laying the foundations for durable peace," says Ian Johnson, head of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Although the process has been successful in many countries, it may become more difficult as expanding international patent laws create a larger and more restrictive commercialized seed trade. The latest example of this can be seen in Iraq, where the U.S. implemented rules to prohibit the trade of patented seeds between Iraqi farmers. No word yet on whether that's helping to win hearts and minds.

Soap Opera

Degassed water may reduce need for detergents

Researchers at the Australian National University in Canberra have found an effective alternative to caustic, strong-smelling detergents: water. Good ol' water. Degassed water, to be specific. According to their findings, published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, if dissolved air present in everyday water is removed, H2O becomes at least as effective a degreaser as regular detergent, getting clothes clean, sans chemicals. This could be good news for the environment, since water can be degassed cheaply and efficiently simply by passing it through a porous membrane, a method much easier on the earth than manufacturing conventional detergents that have been linked to some nasty things, including massive algal blooms. So goodbye, detergent. And hello, water, soap of the future.