Tuesday, 29 Nov 2005

Indulge Us

Grist comes up with another creative way to ask for money

If there's one thing environmentalists are good at, it's feeling bad. As 2005 comes to a close, are you fretting about that cruise you took, that car you bought, those plastic bags you tossed? Well, here's a way to feel better: buy a Grist Indulgence! Yes, for two weeks only, when you make a (tax-deductible) donation, we'll send you a guilt-easing certificate and enter you to win fabulous eco-prizes. Your money supports world-changing journalism, and we support your need to be loved. We love you, we really do.

See the Forest for the Fees

Tropical nations want payment for protecting carbon-sinking rainforests

"Cough up the dough, Mr. West, or the forest gets it!" OK, we're being a little dramatic. But a group of 10 developing nations has made it clear this week at the U.N. climate summit in Montreal that it wants a little ... inducement ... to preserve its rainforests. The "Rainforest Coalition," led by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, argues that the world free-rides on the carbon-sink effect of its forests, while its easiest options for economic growth involve razing them for timber and cropland. The coalition proposes being included in the Kyoto-spurred global carbon-trading market so it can sell rainforest-generated carbon credits to countries that produce an abundance of greenhouse gases -- with revenues providing financial incentive to save the forests instead of destroying them. "We are trying to arrange it so that the Brazilian squatter farmer gets as much out of these schemes as the fat, cigar-chomping London banker," says carbon-trading entrepreneur Edward Seyfried.


Over the last two decades, Joel Salatin has earned a reputation as an innovative, low-tech, sustainability-minded farmer who produces a mighty fine pork chop. Now he's giving the public (that's us!) the chance to feast on his knowledge in a new book, Holy Cows & Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food. How goes the transition from pitchfork to pen? Fellow farmer (and Grist blogger extraordinaire) Tom Philpott weighs in.

Parkinson's Lot

Evidence grows linking Parkinson's disease to pesticide exposure

Put down the Raid and back away slowly: Scientists are growing more confident that long-term exposure to toxic substances, notably pesticides, is implicated in most cases of Parkinson's disease. Researchers first made a link between Parkinson's and paraquat, a weedkiller long popular around the world, in the early 1980s. Since then, hundreds of studies of animals, at least 40 of human patients, and three of human brain tissue have found "a relatively consistent relationship between pesticide exposure and Parkinson's," according to British scientists whose research was published in a recent issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Without these environmental exposures, researchers think, people would still get Parkinson's, but in smaller numbers and later in life. Over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used in U.S. farms, gardens, and households every year.

Carbon Choppy

Northeast greenhouse-gas pact delayed

The long-negotiated and much-anticipated -- by us climate geeks anyway -- cap-and-trade climate pact among nine Northeast states, originally set to be announced this week, has been delayed. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has extended negotiations, saying that with recent spikes in energy prices, the plan would raise the cost of electricity too much for end users. Romney wants price caps set on what power-plant operators would have to pay to exceed their pollution allowances under the agreement. New York and New Jersey argue that customers would be fine without price caps, and that such controls would undercut incentives to move to cleaner energy. If it ever gets off the ground, the pact would be the first such regional cooperative action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions -- and a major challenge to the Bush administration's "What, me worry?" stance on climate change.


Your run-of-the-mill conference isn't just a snooze -- it's an environmental debacle. Attendees fly in from all over, drive miles to far-off convention centers, collect reams of unwanted paper, eat unappetizing food off disposable plates, drink everything from bottles and cans. But a few enterprising event planners are starting to go eco-friendly. In today's Toiling Point, Joel Makower looks at their efforts and offers tips for greening big gatherings.