Monday, 10 Apr 2006

No writing in the last few years has done more to move the climate-change issue into the mainstream than journalist Elizabeth Kolbert's widely read and lauded trio of articles in The New Yorker, which have been collected and expanded into the book Field Notes From a Catastrophe. David Roberts chats with Kolbert about her experiences with scientists, the intransigence of the Bush administration, and her concern for her children's futures.

A Low Blow

Congressional committee OKs amendment to kill Cape Wind project

The Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound may have blown its final ... may have been blown ... in a gust of ... oh, never mind. We're out of wind puns, and the proposed offshore wind farm is out of steam: If a recent, sneaky effort in Congress succeeds, the project will die once and for all. A congressional conference committee attached an amendment to the Coast Guard budget bill that would give the governor of Massachusetts -- Mitt Romney (R), a longtime Cape Wind foe -- authority to block the wind farm. Congress will vote on the Coast Guard bill when it returns from a two-week recess. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) surprised many by switching sides to back the anti-Cape Wind measure, but green ire is much more focused on Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who normally champions environmental causes but backed this amendment behind the scenes -- preserving ocean views from his family's seashore compound at the expense of what would have been one of the world's largest wind farms.


A reader asks advice maven Umbra Fisk for the truth behind the heated climate-change debate. What is the state of the evidence? Is the U.S. really the only remaining country where folks seriously question the reality of global warming? Who are these skeptics, anyway? It's a big query, but Umbra warms right up to it.

I'm Wreckin' It

Greenpeace investigation links European fast food to Amazon destruction

Which came first, Chicken McNuggets or deforestation? A recent Greenpeace investigation has uncovered the depressing answer: the McDonald's supply chain begins with felled rainforest. Much of the chicken gobbled at European Mickey D's is supplied by a subsidiary of American agri-biz behemoth Cargill. For the last few years, Cargill and other agri-giants have been buying up massive quantities of soybeans (read: chicken feed) grown on fields that were cleared by torching portions of the Amazon in Brazil. Amazon deforestation rates have doubled in the past two years; last year, 10,000 square miles of forest were razed, mostly for soy production. Greenpeace claims public and indigenous land is often forcibly seized with bulldozers and slave labor, while environmental regulations are largely ignored. McDonald's Europe said it would look into the allegations. Meanwhile, activists in seven-foot-tall chicken suits invaded a number of McDonald's in the U.K. and chained themselves to chairs.


Charles Munn says that much rainforest ecotourism is a "buggy disappointment," and not very "eco" to boot. As leader of Tropical Nature, a conservation group that specializes in truly green eco-trips with top-notch wildlife viewing, he's raising the bar. The group's network of lodges produces sustainable jobs for locals, and its conservation advocacy has helped create whole new national parks. As InterActivist this week, Munn chats about the surprising perils of conservation work in Peru, and much more. Send him a question of your own by noon PDT on Wednesday; we'll publish his answers to selected questions on Friday. And speaking of eco-vacations, enter Grist's sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to Peru.

Dirk in a Full Nelson

Debate over offshore drilling may hold up Kempthorne's confirmation

A Bush administration plan to open 2 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling has created rifts in Congress and may hold up Dirk Kempthorne's confirmation as interior secretary. The sentimentally named "Area 181," south of Pensacola, Fla., is estimated to have resource capacity to gas a million cars and heat more than 500,000 homes over the next 15 years. Lawmaker opinions vary widely; Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) has introduced a bill to expand the drilling area to 2.9 million acres, while two Florida senators wish to reduce it to 740,000 acres. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has threatened to filibuster Domenici's bill and hold up Kempthorne's confirmation, saying, "[W]e ought to pursue positions other than the agenda of the oil industry, with its mantra of 'drill, drill, drill.'" Word up, Bill.