Tuesday, 15 Mar 2005

Cap and Betrayed

Bush administration releases weak mercury rules

The U.S. EPA is releasing its plan to reduce mercury emissions today, and even jaded environmentalists are appalled. "This is ... the most dangerous, dishonest, and illegal air-pollution rule I have ever seen come out of the agency," said ex-EPA official and Natural Resources Defense Council attorney John Walke. If the agency had classified mercury as a "hazardous air pollutant" -- as the Clinton administration did -- existing regulations would have forced reductions of power-plant mercury emissions to five tons a year within three to five years. Instead, it reversed Clinton's assessment, opting for a plan that will reduce emissions to 15 tons a year by 2017. Instead of mandating reductions at every plant, the agency opted for a cap-and-trade program that critics say will leave high concentrations of mercury around several power plants, generally in poor communities. Both the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office and the EPA's own inspector general have found that the agency distorted scientific and economic analyses to justify the plan. Mercury is a neurotoxin that damages brain development in fetuses and young children.


While environmental leaders quibble over their own mortality, they're ignoring the real-world problems of the young, the colored, and the urban, says writer and activist Adrienne Maree Brown. She argues that environmentalism can't afford to die, but that it certainly needs to change its tactics, and she's got some ideas -- in Soapbox, today on the Grist Magazine website.

Ichi, Ni, Son!

Japanese town to pay cash to women who bear third child

Even as world population balloons (6,424,599,962 and counting), some countries that have been experiencing declining birthrates, such as Italy and Japan, are worried -- and not just about loneliness. The elderly worry new generations will be too small to support them, and the business community worries that the labor pool will shrink too much. Meanwhile, the town of Yamatsuri, Japan -- population 7,000 -- is worried about its very existence. On Friday, officials announced the town would begin paying women some $9,600 in cash when they bear a third child. To promote baby-making countrywide, the Japanese central government has been encouraging dads to take paternity leave and has also been building more daycare facilities. Japan's population is expected to peak at almost 128 million next year before dropping to about 100 million over the next 50.


Gristmill -- Grist's leafy green blog -- this week is publishing a five-part response by longtime green activist Ken Ward to the essay "The Death of Environmentalism." He starts out by agreeing with aspects of its diagnosis, but later this week he'll be diverging from its prescription. He'll recommend more protest and less hand-holding with progressives. Along the way, he's likely to ruffle a few feathers. Tune in, follow along, and share your own opinions -- in Gristmill.

The Death of Something Other Than Environmentalism

Monarch butterfly populations see sharp decline this season

Cold, wet weather in the U.S., illegal deforestation in Mexico, and strong herbicides used on genetically altered crops in the U.S. and Canada are, warn scientists, threatening the survival of the monarch butterfly. Researchers say the number of monarchs that made it to their forested, hilly wintering grounds in Mexico this winter was the lowest since record keeping began about 30 years ago, some 75 percent lower than last year. "There used to be rivers of butterflies, but now there are years when there are no butterflies at all," says Homero Aridjis of the area near his village. He helped set up monarch sanctuaries in the 1980s and calls the current decline in population numbers a "trinational crisis," referring to the three countries -- Mexico, the U.S., and Canada -- through which the orange and black insects migrate thousands of miles. Although monarch butterflies are known to be quite resilient following years of die-off, biologists say the continued habitat destruction throughout their migratory path may cause numbers to drop so low that the population will be unable to recover.