Tuesday, 25 Oct 2005

Cleanup on Aisle Six

Wal-Mart unveils specific, ambitious environmental goals

After weeks of scattered signs and announcements, today Wal-Mart issued a far-reaching set of concrete environmental goals. CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. announced that the company would invest $500 million in technologies to reduce its stores' greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent in seven years, increase its truck fleet's fuel efficiency by 25 percent in three years and double it in 10 years, design a 25 percent more energy-efficient store within four years, work to reduce packaging, and pressure its worldwide network of suppliers to follow its lead. Scott even called on Congress to raise the minimum wage. Activists across the U.S. struggled to maintain their cynicism. Said Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, "The reason Wal-Mart's leadership in this area is so important is that they have the scale and market power to change what is offered, and to change it rapidly." Alyson Slater of the Global Reporting Initiative was more succinct: "I thought GE was big. But Wal-Mart? Whoa. That's big."


Thanks in part to a recent public-relations blitz and some crucial assistance from the Bush administration, Big Agriculture seems to have won California's decades-long water wars. Irrigation districts in California's Central Valley are signing federal contracts that ensure taxpayer-funded water supply for the next 25 to 50 years. Meanwhile, multi-millionaire "family farmers" -- many of whom live in mansions miles from their mega-farms -- continue to receive millions in agriculture subsidies. Thus, taxpayer-subsidized water is pumped uphill with taxpayer-subsidized electricity to nourish taxpayer-subsidized crops. Not a bad deal for what state Rep. George Miller (D) calls "the most politically powerful welfare recipients in the world." Meanwhile, rivers and estuaries in northern California -- which received more water after conservationist campaigns in the 1990s -- are once again getting shorted and seeing their fisheries decline precipitously. Perhaps it's time for eco-groups to make an ad that shows a fish in overalls, crumbling a clump of dirt, squinting into the distance. Save the Family Fish!

Ol' Dirty Bastards

Oil companies made record profits, and all we got was this moral outrage

Pity the poor oil firms: The five largest are expected to reap a record $28 billion in collective earnings this quarter, and all signs point to a lucrative six months to come, but they can't brag about it -- at least not publicly. If they did, people might ask inconvenient questions, like: Why are we making you rich by paying so much for gasoline right now? Or: Why are we facing freezing our heinies off this winter because we'll have to choose between eating and heating our homes? Or even: Why is an industry at the peak of profitability getting gajillions in handouts from Congress? To avoid this kind of unpleasantness, firms may accentuate the negative in their upcoming financial statements, loading up on special charges like hurricane-related repairs and possible marketing losses, although higher prices for oil and gas are expected to more than make up for the costs of fixing damaged Gulf Coast oil and natural-gas infrastructure.


It's not the prettiest word, "infrastructure." And it doesn't describe the prettiest things. But a new coffee-table book from Brian Hayes turns this world's daily grind into art. With camera and pen, the award-winning writer reveals the functions and mysteries of roads, pipelines, landfills, wind farms, and other pieces of the built world that connects us. Spend time with Infrastructure, and you'll never look at your light switch the same way again.

Reefer Badness

Caribbean corals bleaching at unprecedented rate

This year's notably warmer-than-usual Atlantic waters -- fuel for 2005's intense hurricane season -- have been devastating some life below the waves as well. Water temperatures have remained elevated for about 15 weeks, causing coral reefs to bleach from the Florida Keys to Puerto Rico to Panama. The micro-algae that feed corals, and give them their bright colors, leave or are ejected when the water is too warm. Current stress levels are double what corals normally face, and may kill 80 to 90 percent of reef structures in some parts of the Caribbean. With about 80 percent of the Caribbean's reefs already lost to development, pollution, and other factors, researchers seem to be -- not to put too fine a point on it -- freaking out. "These levels are like nothing we've ever seen" in 20 years of monitoring, says NOAA Coral Reef Watch coordinator Al Strong. "We are talking extremely high percentage of bleaching and what seems to be extreme mortality."

The Blown Star State

Texas planning massive wind-energy project off Galveston coast

Texas has proposed what could become the nation's first offshore wind farm, about seven miles off the coast of Galveston Island in the Gulf of Mexico. The massive project would involve construction of around 50 wind turbines over some five years and would be expected to generate 150 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 40,000 homes. Herman Schellstede, president of Wind Energy Systems Technologies, the company developing the project, thinks the region's energy history lends itself to wind power. "Are Texas and Louisiana in the energy business or the oil business?" asks Schellstede. "If we're in the oil business, we're all going to go out of business eventually, but if we're in the energy business, these wind turbines will operate forever and furnish viable sources of energy." The Texas legislature has set a goal of developing 10,000 megawatts of clean-energy capacity by 2025.