Friday, 18 Feb 2005

Karen Hundt, an urban planner in Chattanooga, Tenn., doesn't call what she does "sustainable development." That term, she says, scares people off, associated as it is with "tree huggers." (Sigh.) But whatever you call it -- smart growth, good planning, etc. -- it's catching on. The biggest obstacle, she says, is outdated public policy. She reflects on her battles to change such policy, what you can do to help, and where to find good books on the subject -- in InterActivist, today on the Grist Magazine website.

A Current Affair

New data on warming oceans are strong evidence for climate change

Measurements of ocean temperatures presented yesterday constitute (still more) compelling evidence that global warming is upon us, say scientists. The data, introduced at the annual gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, show that temperature readings in the oceans for the past 40 years line up almost exactly with the predictions of climate models. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography spun several different scenarios to explain the warming -- natural climate variability, solar radiation, volcanic activity -- but "what absolutely nailed it was greenhouse warming," said lead researcher Tim Barnett. Also at the AAAS conference, a separate research team presented findings showing that some 4,800 cubic miles of freshwater had melted from Arctic ice and drifted into the northern Atlantic, threatening the conveyor belt of currents that moves warm tropical water north to keep the climate around the U.S. Northeast and Northern Europe temperate. "The debate over whether or not there is a global-warming signal is now over, at least for rational people," said Barnett.

Extreme Makeover: Factory Edition

Russian factories hatch plans to make money from Kyoto

Businesses in the Russian town of Archangel have big plans for capitalizing on the Kyoto Protocol. Under the treaty, more-developed countries can help meet their commitments by financing cleaner technologies in dirty facilities elsewhere, like the ones in Archangel. Vadim Eremeev of Archangel's Energy Efficiency Fund is blunt: "It's no secret that we see Kyoto as cheap money to help us modernize. There's huge scope for that across Russia." Taking another strategy, Archangel Pulp and Paper mill has set a voluntary goal of cutting its greenhouse-gas emissions by 12 percent, even while increasing production, figuring it can sell the resulting credits for up to $25 million, making money to reinvest in further modernization and efficiency measures. But while many in the business sector want to move fast to benefit from the newly enacted treaty, the Russian government is lagging behind in coming up with an implementation plan.

It Takes a Pillage to Raze the Wild

Illegal logging operation in Indonesia feeds China's appetite for wood

A three-year investigation of some of the last remaining intact tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region has revealed an enormous international smuggling ring, possibly the largest in the world involving a single type of wood, says a report from two enviro groups. In a billion-dollar-a-year operation, the criminals have been logging merbau trees -- used mainly for hardwood flooring -- from Indonesia's Papua province at a rate of more than 10 million cubic feet per month, according to the report. Despite an Indonesian government ban on the export of logs, "[t]here's no denying that military officers are involved in illegal logging," said Muhammad Yayat Alfianto of Telapak, one the groups that worked on the report. By paying bribes totaling some $200,000 per shipment, the loggers were able to transport the trees to a harbor in eastern China, activists say. Ever-ravenous China has become the world's largest consumer of illegal timber, according to the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency.

Cities Slicker

Seattle, other U.S. cities to hammer out their own Kyoto-like reductions

The Kyoto Protocol has arrived, and though the Bush administration has opted out, others in the U.S. are not so climate oblivious. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced Wednesday he's leading an effort to get major U.S. cities to agree to Kyoto-like reductions of their greenhouse-gas emissions, to show the feds that "the cost is minimal or there isn't a cost at all," he said. The mayors of 10 other cities including Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Portland, Ore., have already expressed interest in the effort, to be formalized in June at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Chicago. To help Seattle find creative ways of meeting Kyoto targets, Nickels has created a "green ribbon" coalition chaired by Denis Hayes, environmental leader and coordinator of the first Earth Day, and current-but-soon-to-be-former CEO of Starbucks Orin Smith. "This is not going to be 'turn out your lights when you leave rooms.' We'll be looking for ways we can dramatically decarbonize the economy and at the same time make it robust," said Hayes.