Monday, 21 Nov 2005

Beep Beep, Beep Beep, Yeah!

Car mileage testing will catch up with reality, EPA declares

After years of criticism from greens and independent testing groups, the U.S. EPA announced on Friday that its rules for testing automobile fuel economy will finally be updated and revised. New standards should be in place for testing 2008 model year cars. It's a move long opposed by the automobile industry, since the revisions could decrease mile-per-gallon estimates for new vehicles by as much as 10 percent. EPA chief Stephen Johnson says the new standards will reflect the realities of driving conditions and auto technology in 2005 -- rather than, say, 1977, when testing standards were first established, or 1985, when they were last updated -- like more stop-and-go driving, greater use of air conditioning, and faster highway speeds. A GM exec objected that it's not the aged testing standards that are the problem, but variations in people's driving habits, which skew how far they get on a gallon of gas. See, people? You're just driving 'em wrong.


It seems only fitting, during this week of over-the-top American feasting, that advice maven Umbra Fisk should address a topic vital to any Thanksgiving feast: toilets. Specifically, composting toilets. A reader who's greening her home wonders whether Grandma and other guests will recoil at the concept, and Umbra handles the question with aplomb.

The Constant Guardians

African parks and preserves face complex challenges

Conservationists struggling to protect Africa's nature preserves face challenges ranging from pirate trawlers to locals hunting monkeys for food. At Conkouati National Park, a joint project of the Republic of Congo and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, oil company reps recently showed up accompanied by government officials and announced their intention to prospect for oil near the park's borders. International trawlers, many from China, use huge nets to fish just offshore, catching and killing many of the endangered loggerhead turtles near Conkouati's protected shores. Park managers must contend with the bushmeat-hunting habits of the 20,000-odd villagers who live within the park, and many wild areas once inaccessible have been opened up by logging roads, bringing in new hunters. With population in Africa expected to rise by almost a billion to 1.7 billion by 2050, even as African countries establish more nature reserves to protect wildlife and biodiversity, the pressures will only increase.

General Electric Slide

Leaked memo raises doubts about thoroughness of GE's Hudson cleanup plan

Remember the historic settlement announced last month between the U.S. EPA and General Electric? The one that would have GE clean up PCBs in the Hudson River, one of the largest industrial cleanups ever attempted? Yeah, well ... don't get your hopes up. GE intends to cap off much of the pollution in the river instead of removing it, even though the cap could be washed away in a storm and release the remaining PCBs, according to a leaked internal government memo from a coastal-resources expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the EPA. The NOAA expert also says GE plans to largely omit restoration of riverbed habitat destroyed by the cleanup. The memo's existence suggests NOAA and EPA could be at odds over the terms of the settlement -- and gives skeptical conservationists more proof that EPA may be going easy on GE.

When Turkeys Attack

Wild-turkey comeback means more human-critter confrontations

As Thanksgiving approaches, we offer this warning: The turkeys are back, and they're not happy. From its nadir of perhaps 30,000 around 1900, the U.S. wild-turkey population has gobbled all the way up to about 7 million today. But this conservation success story has sharply increased confrontations between territorial wild birds and anxious suburbanites, who share habitat along the fringes of undeveloped lands. The be-wattled birds, which can stand four feet tall and boast a five-foot wingspan, are chasing joggers, harassing backpack-laden school kids, and roosting in trees along traffic-heavy routes. "There's a point where nature and people can't live in harmony," says one mom from Dover, Mass. -- anonymously, for fear of retaliation from the town's bird fans. But though there is "an element of absurdity that keeps [turkeys] out of the adorable deer and bunny category," says turkey champion and author Hannah Holmes, the gobblers' return is "still a little awe-inspiring to see."