Thursday, 16 Jun 2005

Greg Nickels is the new pied piper of climate activism. The Seattle mayor has been persuading other municipal leaders around the U.S. to adopt the emission-cutting goals of the Kyoto Protocol, even if the Bush administration won't play ball. An unexpected victory came this week when the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously endorsed his initiative. In an interview with Grist, he talks about battling climate change from the local level.

It's Not Your Overall Coughing, It's How Many Times You Cough Per Hour

Court hands coal-fired power plants huge victory on pollution regs

The long-running legal battle launched by the Clinton administration against aging coal-fired power plants -- the nation's largest industrial source of smog-, asthma-, and global-warming-causing emissions -- was dealt a decisive blow yesterday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that Duke Energy did not need U.S. EPA permits to modify eight power plants in the Carolinas between 1988 and 2000. The permits would have triggered new-source review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act, requiring Duke to install more effective pollution controls. Why no permits needed? Well, the changes to the plants enabled them to operate longer hours, thus increasing their overall pollution, but they didn't increase the plants' hourly rate of pollution, you see. Explaining this distinction to your asthmatic children may be tricky, but it makes perfect sense to Scott Segal of industry lobbying group the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, who says the ruling "eviscerates the legal basis" of the Clinton interpretation of NSR. President Bush has been trying to roll back NSR since his first term.

One Step Forward, Two Scoots Back

Updates from yesterday's Senate energy-bill debate

Highlights of yesterday's energy-bill proceedings: The Senate voted to double the amount of ethanol to be added to the nation's gasoline supply by 2012, from 4 billion to 8 billion gallons. Florida Sens. Mel Martinez (R) and Bill Nelson (D) successfully blocked attempts to end the congressional moratorium on oil and gas drilling near Florida's tourist-friendly coastline. When Senate Democrats proposed cutting U.S. oil imports by 40 percent within 20 years, Republicans cast them as crazy dreamers who would disrupt the nation's transportation system. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) "envisioned everybody this summer or next year traveling with their little Segways -- two or three piled on each one." Using less oil, ha ha, what a goofy idea! Meanwhile, financial disclosures required from members of Congress revealed that dozens of senators and reps on both sides of the aisle have investments in energy firms -- more than $3 million worth as of the end of 2004.

Between a Bush and a Warmed Place

G8 climate statement edited into submission to appease U.S.

An action plan on climate change being prepared for July's G8 summit has been substantially weakened in the lead-up to the meeting, the latest leaked draft anemic even by the not-terribly-strenuous standards of, uh, the last leaked draft. References to "setting ambitious targets and timetables" for cutting globe-warming emissions and calls for funding of R&D into clean technologies and fuels have been expunged from the document, and a statement about the world's top scientists calling for action has been marked with square brackets, meaning the text is controversial and may be dumped. On the other hand, "zero-carbon" nuclear power is explicitly endorsed. Some suspect the edits are concessions by U.K. Prime Minister and G8 meeting host Tony Blair to his ally-cum-daddy President Bush. But Blair may ultimately be forced to choose between keeping Bush on board and leading the rest of the G8 industrialized nations in cooling the planet. Says one climate activist, "The twin targets of trying to get something done on climate change and getting George Bush to sign up to it just don't go together."

Us Magazine

Seattle births hip, witty, best-ever-in-the-universe green magazine

Seattle has become an epicenter for environmentally themed web ventures -- an appropriately green characteristic of the so-called "Emerald City." Heh heh. That's the kind of witty juxtaposition you can expect to find in "Grist," an inscrutably named but apparently quite humorous web magazine on all things green, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports today. Grist is known, particularly amongst its own staff members, for being funnier than the average eco-source, as reflected in its pun-laden headlines and its slogan, "gloom and doom with a sense of humor." The magazine was born in 1999, the work of a crazy dreamer named Chip Giller who likes to stand on his head. "I can't say [infusing it with humor] was a strategic decision," says Giller. "It came more out of fatigue." That sense of punch-drunk exhaustion has characterized the magazine ever since, as it has grown from humble origins to its slightly less humble current status as a big fish in the wee pond of the environmental internets. We've never checked out the site, personally, but you hippie types might like it.