Thursday, 24 May 2007

They Could Teach PBS a Thing or Two

United Nations meets pledge goal for Billion Tree campaign

Six months after launching a "Billion Tree" campaign to fight climate change, the United Nations has gotten more than a billion tree-planting pledges from around the world, with around 14 million trees making it into the ground so far. "The challenge now is to tell the world to go dig holes and plant seedlings," said Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize-winner who helped inspire the program by planting 30 million trees in Africa. "I've no doubt we will achieve our goal." The pledges come from countries and individuals; Ethiopia, for instance, will plant 60 million trees this year, and Canada will plant 50 million over the next decade. The real achievement, says U.N. Environment Program head Achim Steiner, "is a billion statements by people across this planet saying time has run out for debating about whether to do something." Alas, bubble-bursting critics point out, large-scale tree-planting will only help the climate cause if the location and types of trees are carefully considered.


As a longtime resident of coastal Maine, writer Wayne Curtis thought he knew all there was to know about living with water. But then he moved to New Orleans. As he explores his new habitat -- forever altered by the ferocious floods of Hurricane Katrina -- he is discovering how thoroughly saturated it is, from the pummeling of record rainfalls to the lazy meandering of the Mississippi River. In the first of a monthly series on life in post-Katrina New Orleans, Curtis reports on the city's liquid assets -- and liabilities.

Hitting Them Where It Hurts

Rebels kill ranger in Congolese national park, threaten officials and gorillas

Rebels attacked three ranger posts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park this weekend, killing one wildlife officer, wounding three more, and taking 13 hostages. While the human prisoners were released, the Mai Mai rebels still have hostages of a sort: they have made it clear that they'll start killing endangered mountain gorillas if rangers try to retaliate. About half of the world's remaining mountain gorillas live in the 2-million-acre Virunga, which is Africa's oldest park and a United Nations World Heritage site. It has been a long-standing hotspot for conflicts between locals who live in the park illegally and conservationists; more than 100 rangers have been killed in recent years trying to protect wildlife there. The Mai Mai are only one of several groups who have used violence to vie for power and resources in the area. "It's sometimes quite difficult to see what really triggered the violence," says one ape advocate. "The situation is very fragile."


Used to be that Big Ag stuck together when it came to big boosts for biofuels. But now there's a rift in the ranks, as major meat producers like Tyson realize the impacts of the booming fuel market on the prices and availability of feed for their livestock. Who will win this battle over bounty, and is there a third way in the biofuels debate? Or will U.S. consumers end up having to decide between bad food and bad fuel? Tom Philpott explores the latest twist.

The Coal Shebang

California says yes to stricter vehicle emissions, no to dirty coal

California keeps pushing to be the Greenest State Ever, No Seriously, Like Ever. At an EPA hearing Tuesday, state officials demanded permission to enact vehicle emissions rules that would be stricter than federal guidelines. Under the Clean Air Act, states can follow either federal or California law, and 11 states say they'll adopt the tougher rule -- which could cut car and light-truck emissions 25 percent starting with 2009 models. "This is more important than any issue that EPA's going to have to face," said state Attorney General Jerry Brown. Yesterday, the state also told municipal-owned utilities they can't sign new contracts with coal-fired power plants. Current contracts, such as whopping ones Los Angeles has with Utah and Arizona plants, can't be renewed unless the plants sequester carbon emissions. A California Energy Commission spokesperson said the shift, along with an identical new rule for privately run utilities, "will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions throughout the Western states."