Tuesday, 10 May 2005

Yesterday, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt announced the debut of "ecomagination," a commitment to increase investments in clean energy and water technology, reduce company-wide greenhouse-gas emissions, improve energy efficiency, and report openly on the results. It's not for show, he says, and it's not a moral crusade -- it's a way to make money in burgeoning markets. Says Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute, it's "enough to make even a gloomy environmentalist hopeful." Muckraker reports from the scene.

Lead and Circus

EPA lead regs quietly morph from mandatory rules to voluntary standards

The U.S. EPA has fallen a bit -- and by "a bit" we mean nine years -- behind schedule on issuing lead regulations pertaining to building renovation. But better late than never, right? Maybe not. Turns out the EPA has quietly shifted its regulatory course from issuing mandatory rules for contractors to that old Bush administration chestnut: voluntary standards. The jettisoned approach would have allowed only certified contractors -- whose employees are educated on the safe handling of lead -- to renovate buildings built before 1978, the year when lead paint was banned for residential use in the U.S. But internal documents show that sometime in mid-2004, under then-acting EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, the approach took a turn for the, uh, more flexible. The EPA estimates some 1.4 million kids in the U.S. are threatened with lead-paint exposure each year, which is linked to developmental and behavioral problems. Lead paint and lead dust are often stirred up by remodeling.


After a horrendous oil spill in San Francisco Bay in 1971, John Francis did what anybody would do: gave up riding in cars, entirely. Shortly thereafter, he gave up talking. For years, he walked around the U.S. and South America, silently, hoping to inspire others to drop out of the petroleum economy. He started speaking again on Earth Day 1990, and he recently spoke to Mark Hertsgaard about his peculiar life path, bridging the divide between African-American and white environmentalists, the decency of red staters, and more.

Fiddler on the Hot Tin Roof

Climate scientists grow more concerned as Rome burns, Nero fiddles

In most fields of science, lay opinion tends to be more alarmist than scientific opinion, says Carbon Mitigation Initiative codirector Robert Socolow. "But, in the climate case, the experts -- the people who work with the climate models every day, the people who do ice cores -- they are more concerned. They're going out of their way to say, 'Wake up!'" In part three of her magisterial New Yorker series on climate change, Elizabeth Kolbert says those calls are finding a mixed reception. In the Netherlands, a quarter of which is already below sea level, the government is funneling millions into projects to widen rivers, raise dikes, and alert the public. However, in the U.S. -- which is responsible for more than 20 percent of planet-warming carbon-dioxide emissions -- public debate is woefully confused and action woefully inadequate. "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself," concludes Kolbert, "but that is what we are now in the process of doing."

Private Eyes Are Watching Ewe

Remote sensors, cameras able to monitor earth's health

Technological advances in the burgeoning field of environmental monitoring are allowing scientists to take frequent and accurate measurements of weather conditions, animal behavior, and even contaminant levels without leaving their workstations. By placing tiny wireless instruments -- no larger than a cell phone or a deck of cards -- in an environmentally sensitive area, researchers are able to remotely access data produced by the devices' cameras, robots, and sensors, providing them with a detailed account of the area's health. The devices, called motes, are often networked together, able to power down when not needed or compensate for sensors within the network that are not working correctly. The field is relatively new, but spreading, with over $1 billion worth of sensors planned or in place in areas such as California hardwood forests and the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Says William Kaiser of UCLA's Center for Embedded Network Sensing, "It's going to change the way we think."