Thursday, 10 Aug 2006

Earlier this year, still reeling from the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin signed an order allowing the creation of a massive landfill for household debris. Its location next to the country's largest urban wildlife refuge and a Vietnamese-American community raised hackles of all sorts, and last month, Nagin agreed to let the landfill close. But in stepped landfill operators Waste Management, Inc. with a lawsuit, which will be heard in court tomorrow. Wayne Curtis explains the mess.

So Much For "Beyond Petroleum"

BP pipeline fubar fallout continues

Oil giant BP is weathering a ginormous poopstorm over its discovery of severe corrosion in an Alaskan oil pipeline and subsequent announcement that it would shut down its entire Prudhoe Bay oil field -- 8 percent of total U.S. production -- while it repaired the damage, which could take until January 2007. Alaska governor Frank Murkowski, whose state could lose $6.4 million a day from the shutdown and has instituted a total hiring freeze, questioned why BP needed to shut down the entire field, a move he called "precipitous," and pledged to hold BP accountable for damages to the state. Federal regulators blasted BP for poor maintenance of the pipeline, and the press revealed that the company had been warned about corrosion as far back as 2004 by employees concerned over cost cutting. Enviros said negligence by allegedly "green" BP demonstrated the folly of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. BP responded to critics by saying it may only shut down half Prudhoe production, and please try not to leave bruises.


When Wal-Mart starts selling organics and Pat Robertson calls for action on climate change, you know you've rounded a corner. So why are some progressives still so reluctant to embrace the latest signs of progress? With election races heating up and global health on the line, Sierra Club President Lisa Renstrom and ecoAmerica President Bob Perkowitz say it's time for greens to get real.

Economies of Bale

Straw-bale construction a little less marginalized

Straw-bale construction has slowly been catching on in the green-building set, but its positive performance in recent fire, durability, and eco-friendliness tests could take it to the next level. The latest was an independent fire-resistance test, which proved that the material lives up to industry standards when it's covered with fire-resistant plaster in its use as a building insulator. The test "opens the doors to every realm of construction" for straw bales, said funder Bruce King. Though there are no official stats, it's estimated that only a few thousand straw-bale buildings exist in the U.S., mostly single-family homes. But as the material proves itself, insurers are more and more likely to insure buildings made with it, and bankers more likely to fund construction with it, allowing schools, businesses, and other structures across the country to insulate with dried grasses instead of typical foam or that creepy, unnaturally pink fiberglass stuff.

Words Fail Us

Hummer propaganda aimed at kids through McDonald's Happy Meals

Sometimes a story comes along that so perfectly captures a culture's pathologies that it should be put in a time capsule, so future generations ... oh, right, there won't be any future generations. It seems that, according to fast-food behemoth McDonald's, this is a "Hummer of a Summer." A new series of TV and radio ads depict happy families on their way to fatten their children and clog their arteries at McDonald's in GM's gas-guzzling Hummer. When they arrive, soon-to-be-obese boys can choose from eight different toy Hummers with their Happy Meal (happily, girls can learn their proper gender roles from Polly Pocket fashion dolls). Charlie Miller of Environmental Defense thinks it's kind of a bummer of a summer: "Anything that sends a message to kids that these are the cool vehicles to buy is the wrong message." At today's prices, it costs about $96 to fill up the gas tank of a Hummer H2 -- but don't worry, a double cheeseburger's only a buck.