It is tough to argue with a man with a net worth that begins not with an "m" but with a "b." The man didn't inherit his billions, he got them by investing early in promising but not yet proven technologies. This suggested the billionaire had the power of clairvoyance and, so, when he talked about the future of the planet and global warming, I had to listen.

What the billionaire had to say to me was shocking. He argued that the public, you and I, do not really matter when it comes to global warming. It is all about technology, he said. People will always chose the cheapest, most convenient way.

In his view, the only way to keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is for clever engineers to come up with cheaper more convenient methods to get the job done while producing less greenhouse gas. In other words, this very rich man was arguing that it matters not a whit whether or not the public is educated about threats to the environment. Deliver folks cleaner, cost-effective technology and that is how the problem gets fixed.

I thought a lot about this conversation with the billionaire as I climbed to the top of the world to examine clear and present signs of global warming. My destination was the Himalayan glacier that feeds the sacred Ganges River in India, a glacier that scientists say is endangered as the climate changes. I was accompanied by Conrad Anker, the famed mountaineer who discovered George Mallory's body on Everest.

The plan was to take our television audience on a memorable voyage of discovery (to India, among other places) with a compelling travel companion (Conrad) consulting with experts along the way. The operating assumption was the more people engage the global warming issue, the better, regardless of which direction their engagement points them.

But what if the billionaire was right and it is all about economics not about public understanding? If that is the case I could have left the TV cameras home, spared myself the climb to 15,500 feet, and instead found a convenient beach.

As we continued reporting this project (which airs on PBS Friday, April 17) it became clear how wrong the billionaire was, his business acumen notwithstanding. During our travels, we came across no course of action when it comes to global warming where there is a free lunch, delivered through technology. Every single course of action on climate change--do a lot, do a little, do nothing--has a cost to the public.

It seems to me the crucial question policymakers should be asking the public is "Since you have to pay one way or another, how much are you willing to pay for the outcome you want?" These are tough decisions and it is policy that needs guidance from an informed public that will be asked to make sacrifices under all scenarios.

But don't listen to me. Of all the b-words people hurl my way, none of them is "billionaire."

More about "On Thin Ice."

Related Links:

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

Water, conflict, and security on the banks of the Hudson

Salvadoran mudslides: A plea for climate change solutions and holistic water policy

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak displays a beaker of colorless, odorless, pathogen-free liquid manure distilled from human excreta. The fertilizer is created using a low-tech, five-step process that includes sand and charcoal filtering and exposure to ultraviolet rays. Methane is captured and burned as cooking fuel.

Kevin Ferguson

DELHI, India -- Ah, the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets! How's that for a place to take the wife and kids on a Sunday afternoon?

It's hard not to smirk when this museum's name is first mentioned. It sounds like a roadside attraction, something you find just a ways down the road from the World's Oldest Rug (St. Augustine, Fla.) and the World's Largest Ball of Twine (Cawker City, Kan.).

But when you visit the museum, the smirk evaporates. It's not the museum itself -- a rather small collection of lavatory oddities that includes a replica of Louis XIV's throne with a hidden commode that allowed the monarch to evacuate his bowels while giving audience -- that changes a visitor's mind. Instead, it's the trip to the museum through the streets of Delhi, India. There, where 18 percent of the population still defecates openly and where 20 percent of children who die under the age of five do so from water-borne diseases, the true purpose of the museum becomes evident: It's a way to lure in visitors and introduce them to the Sulabh International Social Service Organization and its Sulabh Sanitation Movement.

Sulabh, which translates to "simple" in Hindi, is the brainchild of Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, a Brahmin snoot-cum-egalitarian who has transformed the lives of millions of impoverished people across South Asia with the introduction of low-cost composting latrines. Because they require little or no water to operate, the latrines solve the problem faced by poor cities and rural areas alike: no sewage system.

Sulabh has also rescued and retrained more than 120,000 "scavengers," members of the low-ranking Dalit caste in Indian society whose lifelong job is to empty household latrines, carrying the contents away in buckets on their heads. The practice is now illegal but continues in many rural areas. Sulabh's organization offers scavenger families vocational training and formal education.

"I am a pragmatist," says Pathak, when asked about the prospects of truly ending the practice. "What we are saying is that all castes are the same. Brahman can sit down with the Dalit." That includes the dining room and the bathroom.

Pathak's notions are, indeed, simple. The toilets come in 11 models, ranging from a handsome bamboo and mortar model that costs 1,600 rupees ($31), to the crème de la crème -- a cement, brick and fiberglass dandy that costs about 14,000 rupees ($275). Each uses the same basic technology: two pits of varying size that are used alternately. When one pit is full, the incoming waste is diverted into the second pit. In about two years, natural processes transform the sludge, leaving it almost dry and pathogen free, thus safe for handling as manure. Pathak has also designed biogas cooking systems, which capture the methane from human excreta and pipe it right back into the kitchen stove, and water filtering systems that reclaim effluent for irrigation.

Simple? Yes. But in India, a nuclear power on one hand but also a place where it's nearly impossible to find around-the-clock water service, simple is seldom easy. So, any progress in water and sanitation takes on special meeting.

The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) recognized that much two weeks ago when it awarded Pathak the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize. SIWI is the world's pre-eminent research and advocacy organization in the sector, and winning the prize is comparable to capturing a Nobel. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden will present the Water Prize at a royal banquet in August.

Pathak models a low-cost toilet made of bamboo, mud and mortar. Price: 1,600 rupees ($31), including jute door.

Kevin Ferguson

"The results of Dr. Pathak's endeavors constitute one of the most amazing examples of how one person can impact the well being of millions," the Stockholm Water Prize nominating committee states in its citation. All told, 1.2 million residences and buildings use the Sulabh pour-flush toilets, and more than 10 million people each day use Sulabh-design public toilets, including the one just beside the museum's entrance.

Pathak's work remains just a drop in the chamber pot, however. More than 2.6 billion people in developing countries -- the vast majority in South Asia -- have no access to a toilet. And Sulabh's message of urgency, though well known and lauded by humanitarians, doesn't always penetrate the hearts and minds of policymakers in India. The result, according to the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program, is rank: 80 percent of surface water pollution in urban India is due to municipal sewage.

"Enough with holding a candle in the darkness," says Gaurab Chandra, a coordinator at Sulabh International, referring to the exhortation attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. "We need a Halogen lamp here. Twenty of them."

Related Links:

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

Ask Umbra’s video advice on composting

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

A cloud of soot and other pollutants, blanketing Asia in a haze nearly two miles thick, is darkening cities, damaging crops, and killing thousands of people. But look at the bright side -- it's mitigating some impacts of climate change! Hey, they don't call us a beacon in the smog for nothin'.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Related Links:

Global boiling declares war on Thanksgiving

Disappearing slave history

New interactive map shows devastating effects of global temperature rise

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

Global boiling declares war on Thanksgiving

You may have heard that oil prices are flirting with $100 a barrel; what's an oil-dependent, energy-hungry globe to do? In Asia, home to a third of the world's proven coal reserves, the answer seems obvious. Across the continent, billions of dollars are being poured into R&D of coal-to-liquid fuel and coal-bed methane extraction. Some tout the new technologies as clean 'n' green -- but coal by any other name is still coal. Period.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Leaders of 14 Asian countries, along with Australia and New Zealand, have signed onto a climate pact that says -- well, nothing in particular, really. Maybe it's the thought that counts, but setting specific goals for addressing a rather important global crisis would count for a hell of a lot more. In our humble opinion.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

Ever wonder what the military government of Myanmar is up to when it's not quashing peaceful, pro-democracy protests? According to environmental groups, the regime has allegedly been profiting from large-scale illegal logging operations that feed sawmills across the border in China. Green group Global Witness estimates that up to 95 percent of Myanmar's timber exports to China are illegal. Trade in imperiled-species body parts and extensive mining for precious metals and gems are also lucrative deals allegedly supported or aided by the junta. In the past 10 years, over 20 dams have either been built in Myanmar or are planned; at least a few dams in the works would provide electricity to China and Thailand. A dam planned for the Irrawaddy River is expected to displace some 10,000 residents and also harm fish. "This region is one of the world's biodiversity hot spots," said environmentalist Naw La. "If this dam is built on the Irrawaddy, the fish populations will decrease. A lot of people will be suffering because their livelihoods will disappear." All of which makes for a catchy bumper sticker: If you want biodiversity, work for justice ... Or something like that.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Related Links:

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks

Rockefeller Foundation offers climate aid to Asia, Africa

Comin' on over to the dirty-hippie side, the Rockefeller Foundation has announced an investment of $70 million over the next five years to help communities in Asia and Africa withstand the effects of climate change. The foundation will focus on developing adaptation strategies for affected populations, and, admirably sidestepping the blame game, will not hinge the assistance on nations' plans (or lack thereof) for limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. "Emissions mitigation is fantastically important, but that is about changing behavior relative to future climate change," says foundation president Judith Rodin. "In the meantime, data and almost daily news reports show climate change is already happening." (Thanks for the shout-out, Jude!) The foundation's major goals include helping cities like Mumbai and Bangkok assess and mitigate flood risk, and assisting African farmers whose livelihood is at risk from drought.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Will Africa’s farmland become a ‘resource curse’?

As Asian economies grow, increased pollution affecting world's weather

Scientists say smog from Asia is drifting east, seeding storm clouds, and intensifying weather in the Pacific. On a typical spring or summer day, they say, nearly a third of the air high above the U.S. West Coast comes from Asia. And according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, high-altitude storm clouds in the northern Pacific have increased as much as 50 percent in the last 20 years. "The pollution transported from Asia makes storms stronger and deeper and more energetic," said lead author Renyi Zhang of Texas A&M University. "It is a direct link from large-scale storm systems to [human-produced] pollution." The trend could affect climate change, with soot-filled warm air potentially making Arctic ice melt faster. With new stats from China indicating that the country will overtake the U.S. as the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter as soon as this year, things are looking bleak. But hey -- we're gonna be No. 2, and we didn't even have to lift a finger!

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

New energy pact signed by 16 Asian and Pacific nations lacks targets

Yesterday, the leaders of 16 Asian and Pacific nations bumped into each other on the street, chatted for a few minutes, then promised to "totally get together for lunch some time." At least, that's one interpretation of the signing of a landmark energy pact that reaches from Australia to India. While the agreement promises an increased emphasis on biofuels and energy efficiency and seeks to cut reliance on oil from the Middle East, it doesn't require compliance or, for that matter, include concrete targets. Some say concerns about the vagueness of the document -- issued just after the conclusion of a summit of Southeast Asian nations that also addressed terrorism, free trade, natural disasters, and nuclear security -- are out of place. "This is very early days in the east Asia context to be talking about targets," said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, somewhat incoherently. Observers worried by the region's booming greenhouse-gas emissions, however, say there's simply no time to waste.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Scientists discover 52 new species on the island of Borneo

Over the last 17 months, scientists have identified 52 new plant and animal species in the rainforests of Borneo, a Southeast Asian island, the World Wildlife Fund announced yesterday. The finds include 30 unique species of fish, two tree-frog species, three new trees, a plant that grows only a single large leaf, 16 types of ginger, and a partridge in a pear tree. The world's second-smallest vertebrate -- a fish 0.35 inches long -- was discovered, as well as a catfish with an adhesive belly and protruding teeth. (Alas, the legendary Wild Man remains elusive.) No wonder Charles Dickens described Borneo as a "great wild untidy luxuriant hothouse made by Nature for herself." As always, the diverse habitat is threatened by human activity; only half of Borneo's original forest cover remains, thanks to deforestation for rubber, palm oil, and paper pulp production. And we had been so optimistic there for a moment.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Deliberate forest fires cause choking haze in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia has been suffering through hellish smog over the last few weeks thanks to Indonesian farmers and owners of timber and palm-oil plantations who have set massive fires to clear land. Slash-and-burn practices are illegal in Indonesia, but nonetheless take place every year and rarely result in punishment. This year, the air quality is particularly bad, triggering health problems, causing traffic accidents, forcing children to stay indoors, and putting a damper on outdoor recreation and tourism. James Hosking, a Brit vacationing in Singapore, complained, "I'm supposed to be brown. I told my friends I'd be lazing out by the pool sunbathing. I've been here nine days and I haven't seen an hour of sun." With visibility as low as 650 feet in certain areas, the thick smoke has shut down some airports. The haze -- which experts fear could last until late November -- could cost the region more than $9 billion. Ironically, some of the palm oil that will come from newly cleared plantation land will be used to make "eco-friendly" biodiesel.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Asia-Europe Meeting provides lots of talk, little action

A club of 38 European and Asian leaders concluded a two-day summit in Helsinki, Finland, yesterday, saying what they always say and failing to make the concrete plans they always fail to make. The leaders agreed to continue to cut greenhouse gases after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, but didn't set new targets. Predicting that long-term climate-change mitigation will require technological breakthroughs, the summit attendees agreed to encourage investment in clean energy and share "cleaner and climate-friendly" technologies with developing countries, which have "legitimate priority needs" to grow their economies and attend to the poor. But hey, talk is underrated, says Japanese international politics professor Seiji Endo: "It's all the more important to have this kind of dialogue, in a world where the sole superpower is a country which thinks military power can solve any problem." Careful, Endo -- we're not afraid to bomb you.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Climate-change studies project fun future of droughts, floods, illness

The latest issue of the journal Nature has three new studies on the likely impacts of climate disruption. Turns out it's gonna be a cakewalk! Ah, sadly, we kid. Millions who depend on mountain snow and glaciers for their water supplies -- especially in Asia and South America -- are expected to face shortages as rising temperatures turn snowfall into rain and melt snowpack and glaciers faster than normal, according to one study. Another study forecasts dramatic changes in worldwide streamflow patterns, with many regions unprepared to handle the abnormally timed droughts or surpluses. And a third finds that warming trends have likely led to 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses every year for the past 30 years, and that climate change is likely to increase infectious disease outbreaks, respiratory illnesses, flooding, and other calamities -- with poorer countries the hardest hit. "Those least able to cope and least responsible for the greenhouse gases that cause global warming are most affected," said University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Jonathan Patz. "Herein lies an enormous global ethical challenge." And you know how well we handle those ...

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Asian men turning to Viagra over traditional animal cures for impotence

Far East penises are getting an assist from the pharmaceutical industry, and that's good news for the seahorses, green sea turtles, and other critters that have been used for years to get a rise out of reticent Asian members. According to a new study in the journal Environmental Conservation, Viagra may be slowly replacing traditional Chinese cures for erectile dysfunction. The researchers studied 256 Hong Kong men; of more than 30 who had sought traditional Chinese medicines for flaccidity, at least eight had switched to the little blue pill. Of 16 who were already using Bob Dole's recommended stiffener, none had shifted to the traditional cures. The trend could mean less poaching, though with traditional animal-based remedies still popular for other ailments, isolating Viagra's impact could be hard. Ahem.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

At a fork in the road, our guide points to the right. "That's the main road there," he says. "We'll go on this smaller road, deep into the jungle." A glance to the left reveals a narrow, unpaved track, which he tells us is used primarily by logging trucks. It's the dry season in Myanmar, and dead leaves hang like bats above us. The truck's idling motor blends with the cacophony of insects.

Beasts of burden.

Photos: Jennifer Hile.

I'm sitting next to one of Asia's most dedicated elephant conservationists, Sangduan "Lek" Chailert. In 1995, Lek sold her home and car, using the proceeds to start the Elephant Nature Park sanctuary in her native Thailand. She also runs a program called Jumbo Express, bringing free medical care to the animals and their owners in the countryside.

Lek's nickname means "little." She barely tops five feet, and looks to weigh around 100 pounds -- yet she's spent her adult life throwing a shoulder against the monumental downhill slide of Asian elephants. Three years earlier, I had made a documentary about the sanctuary for National Geographic. A few months of following her around with a camera had left me in awe of her work; when she invited me to meet her for this trek, I jumped at the chance.

Lek -- whose shaman grandfather was once awarded an elephant for saving a man's life -- has heard that the animal's numbers in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) are relatively stable. That's a stark contrast to the rest of Asia, where populations have been shattered by poaching and deforestation. "This country," she tells me, "is one of the last places of hope."

Myanmar is one of the last places in the world to see the centuries-old Asian tradition of domesticated elephants and their keepers working side by side. There are said to be hundreds of animals laboring throughout the country, but the very thing protecting elephants there may one day do them in. Many of them are used for logging; the country is home to more than half of Southeast Asia's remaining closed-canopy forest. As we plan our visit to logging camps in the central hinterlands, we know we will see a practice riddled with irony: these creatures are surviving because they're shielded from harm -- solely for the purpose of destroying their own habitat.

Just how many elephants we're talking about is unknown. As I prepared for my trip, I expected population numbers to be tough to find -- Myanmar's iron-fisted military government keeps it largely sealed off from outside observers -- but I was stunned to learn that current stats are all but nonexistent for all of Asia. A lack of funds, and often political will, means on-the-ground counts have been few and far between. (International wildlife conservation organizations have also faced criticism for working with ruthless leaders such as those in Myanmar for any purpose.)

Haul in a day's work.

Simon Hedges, Asian elephant coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society, confirmed my finding. He emailed me an article he coauthored for Conservation Biology in 2004. "For many forest elephant populations, existing knowledge is often so inadequate that even deciding which are the most important populations to protect is not possible," the authors wrote. "The frequently cited global estimate of 30,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants is often acknowledged as little more than an educated guess ... Astonishingly, these estimates of the global population have been accepted without revision for a quarter of a century, despite major losses of Asian elephant habitat over this period."

When we spoke, Hedges was preparing to launch a study of the number and distribution of elephants in Myanmar's Hukaung Valley. Its vast forests provide ideal habitat, and scientists hope to find robust populations there. "What we already know about [the country], however, suggests there are smaller numbers of elephants than people had hoped," he told me.

Wildlife biologist Peter Leimgruber, of the conservation unit of the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, has spent years studying the country and its wild herds. Results from a recent search are called "sobering" on the Smithsonian's website. Leimgruber's team sighted wild elephants only twice, and the amount of dung they encountered "implies populations are significantly smaller than expected," he told me.

"I definitely would still consider the country a stronghold for the species," Leimgruber says, citing the amount of remaining forest and the importance of elephants to the culture. "But it's amazing how much we don't know."

What we do know is this: Asian elephants once grazed by the Yangtze River in China and in the dark forests of Sumatra. Their range covered nearly 3.5 million square miles. Now it's estimated at about 188,000 square miles total -- a 95 percent reduction -- spread across 13 countries. It's a patchwork of shrinking forests, fast being dismantled and piled into the logging trucks that rumble along the continent's back roads.

My trip with Lek started four days ago at a guest house next to the glittering, colossal temple of Shwedagon in Yangon (Rangoon). We rented a car and headed for the small town of Taungoo, in central Myanmar. I was beginning to wonder if we'd manage to find any elephants, given the grim statistics. But it didn't take long. Just outside Yangon, we saw our first -- in chains.

Myanmar's Department of Forestry keeps albino elephants on display for the general public. With pink skin covered in short white hair, these curiosities looked as if they'd been sprinkled with powdered sugar. They stared back at me with eyes the color of pearls. I watched as the youngest paced back and forth, reaching toward the others, bellowing and trumpeting with frustration. He will most likely spend the rest of his life tethered to this platform. White elephants, considered sacred throughout Asia, are said to bring peace and prosperity to a nation. Leave it to a military junta to shackle their good omens.

Lek and I didn't linger. As we drove off, she mused on the complexities of the situation. "In Asia, elephants are a very mystical creature, a holy animal," she said, important to both Hinduism and Buddhism. "But the elephant is also used for work and making money." That contradiction means the animals are both revered and violently subdued throughout Asia.

When we reached Taungoo, we asked the manager of our guest house to find Maung Soe, a guide whom Lek had met three months earlier, and -- poof -- within a half hour he appeared. "Easy to find elephant logging camps," he assured us. "Be ready at 5:30 tomorrow morning."

Now, on our fourth day out, we've been driving for five hours when Maung Soe points out the fork in the road. Before continuing on, Lek and I hop out to stretch our legs. She spies elephant dung, then soldiers -- evidence of what we came here hoping to find, and what we most hoped to avoid.

As the soldiers approach, wearing olive-green uniforms with old rifles slung over their shoulders, I realize they are younger than I'd expect. It's quickly obvious that they aren't concerned with us. No one asks for passports, a bribe, or any of the other harassments you hear foreigners subjected to in this hermetic kingdom. Instead, they tell us they're here to monitor logging operations, pointing to the small hut where they stay. It reminds me of a stranded whale carcass: ribs of bamboo arch across the top, with a few pieces of ripped, gray canvas overhead. A fetid trickle of river runs adjacent.

Trucks pick up where trunks leave off.

It's no surprise the government keeps an eye on logging. In 2004, the timber trade brought in $430 million -- 15 percent of the country's export earnings, according to the U.K.-based Global Witness. Of that, $300 million came from teak; Myanmar provides 75 percent of the international supply of that popular wood.

In fact, increasing global demand for teak and other woods means the illegal trade is flourishing. "The most severe logging is taking place in northern Myanmar" along the border with China, explains John Buckrell, a campaigner for Global Witness. In recent years, he says, "over 98 percent of the timber imported annually into China across the border was illegal." Buckrell adds that the area has been described as "one of the world's hottest biodiversity hotspots."

But logging with elephants may actually be keeping the devastation in check. "The cutting is done selectively, one tree at a time, as opposed to clear-cutting," explains Matthew Lewis of the World Wildlife Fund's Asian Mammal Conservation program. "That does a lot less damage to the forest" and doesn't require new roads to be built.

And though the work is hard on the animals -- especially on their skin and spines, Lek tells me -- it may be better than the alternative. When domesticated elephants are replaced by logging machinery, Lewis says, their numbers usually plummet. They are often abandoned and become crop raiders, likely to be shot by farmers. Or -- like many of the 3,000 elephants that were put out of work when Thailand outlawed logging in 1989 -- they wander dusty city streets as a tourist attraction. There is little wild to return to.

Lek and I shake hands with the soldiers, then jump back in the truck, bumping along for another three hours. The engine dies periodically. When the driver gets out, he sinks into ankle-deep dirt as soft and thick as fresh snow. We haven't seen an elephant today, but we've passed 16 logging trucks so far, their open beds piled sky-high.

We drive southwest all day and the next before reaching the village of Pyaung Chaung Wa, a cluster of bamboo huts along a shallow river. It's dusk, and the men are coming home from a day's work; Lek and I are both thrilled to see a line of elephants stretched behind them. Four adult animals lumber along, while one baby stays within trunk's reach. She periscopes her trunk in our direction when she sees us, sniffing the air, then darts behind her mother's formidable backside.

The villagers gather the animals by the river and slide off their harnesses. The elephants, wearing bells around their necks, wander slowly down the bank to graze. The late-afternoon light casts the scene in a dark, filtered gold.

Maung Soe points Lek and me toward a small, open platform where we'll sleep. It stands on stilts near the river; chickens nest beneath the floor. Children gather around us, and Lek starts giving out whistles and balloons donated by a volunteer at her sanctuary. In no time, every child is blowing like crazy.

"I worry that maybe one day there will be no elephants left," says Lek that evening, after a dinner of soup with fried noodles and basil cooked over an open fire. "I think without them, maybe all of Asia [will be] like an empty culture." As we talk, a crowd of people three deep encircles our sleeping platform. Every time I open my backpack or camera case, heads crane to see inside. Travelers are rare in this area, and TV and radio nonexistent. Tonight, Lek and I are the villagers' entertainment.

At dawn on my second morning at camp, the surrounding canyons blurred by mist, I see the elephants marching slowly toward the village with a hodgepodge of men and boys. I join the mahouts, or elephant keepers, to bathe the elephants in the river, tossing bucketfuls of frigid water over massive gray backs. The villagers are clearly surprised at my interest in their daily life, but are welcoming and helpful. (Women in this society are strictly caregivers and cooks, but as a foreigner, I'm exempted from social norms.)

After the bath, the mahouts tie a wooden harness to each animal and we head into the jungle, a trail of chains dragging behind us. We hike to a hillside where the villagers had cut down a dozen trees a few days earlier. Now the mahouts de-limb the trees with an axe. Then they quickly wrap the chain attached to the first elephant's harness around the base of one of the trees. Bamboo whips hover threateningly as she starts moving. "Chiti! Shet tho!" the mahout hollers. Maung Soe translates the directions behind me: "Left! Forward!" The elephant maneuvers carefully down the steep hillside, the tree dragging behind at odd angles, catching on debris.

At the bottom of the hill the elephant crashes into the river, deep enough in places for the 500-pound log to half-float behind her. The rest of the elephants and their cargo soon follow. The caravan begins making fast progress, kicking up spray. The canyon walls tower above us, and bird calls echo all around. I feel as if I've stepped into an ancient painting.

Later that morning, near the village, one of the elephant keepers points out a monster tree protruding horizontally from the base of a cliff. He guesses it weighs well over a ton. It fell years ago, and looks cemented into the granite rocks. Nonetheless, soldiers have ordered the villagers to extricate it so it can be used to build a nearby bridge. With trepidation, the men chain two elephants to the ancient tree.

The animals trumpet with the effort of trying to heave it forward. The men start shouting commands, hitting the elephants with bamboo whips, urging them on. The tree doesn't budge. The elephants are straining so hard, their foreheads come within a few feet of the ground with every tug.

Never break the chain.

With a loud crack, part of a chain snaps, and one of the elephants hits the ground hard, face first. A lesion on her stomach, probably from the friction of the chain, bursts open. The pressure of the work is obvious as the elephant struggles back to her feet. Today, this team catches a break. It is considered bad luck for an elephant to be seriously injured, so the men don't tempt fate. They quietly take off the chains and let the elephants off to graze -- the soldiers will have to wait.

Back at camp, I'm eating more noodle soup when I look up to see an elephant dragging our overheated truck up a hill in the distance. Maung Soe had been fiddling with the engine, trying to figure out why it kept quitting, and it died again. The villagers decided to help out by using the local power source. Now Maung Soe sits behind the wheel as the truck moves forward, driver's-side door thrown open, trying to rev the engine back to life.

While I stare at the scene, a few people around me stare at a Vanity Fair magazine I've pulled out of my pack. I find myself wondering if we've already done too much damage to the truck's engine to salvage it. And then I can't help but think of the piecemeal destruction I've already seen, and of the work of Lek, Leimgruber, and Hedges. Theirs is an uphill battle indeed.

Related Links:

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

Tweet for the bees

James Bond calls for more marine protected areas

Freezing AC is status symbol at some Asian offices

In some tropical Asian cities, it's become a symbol of luxury to keep offices at an arctic chill. Hong Kong may be the world's coldest city when you're indoors, say researchers, who found the average office temperature is between 70 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit (72 to 78 is considered the optimum human-comfort range indoors). Workers in one office contend with 64-degree summer cooling -- so cold they do yoga in the bathroom to warm up. Patricia Shiu, who actually uses a space heater under her desk to stay warm at her frigid workplace, has joined a resistance movement of "thermal crime" spotters who helped Friends of the Earth compile a list of Hong Kong's most over-chilled buildings. Not only is it an egregious waste of energy, says FOE, but excessive air conditioning is sexist, favoring men in suits and ties over women in their lighter-weight garb. Since launching its campaign, the group says it's been getting a lot of technical inquiries from building managers who don't know how to change the temperature on their AC systems.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Staunch U.S. allies, enviro activists, and just about everyone else was caught flat-footed last week when the U.S., Australia, and four Asian countries unveiled a new pact intended to help curb greenhouse-gas emissions. In the days since, some details about the surprise alliance have trickled out, but its mission and intended impact remain murky.

Known as the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, the six-nation agreement was developed via clandestine negotiations orchestrated by the Bush administration over recent months with China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia -- nations that together produce nearly 50 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. A wholly voluntary, nonbinding agreement, its (vaguely) stated aim is to encourage the development and sharing of more efficient energy technologies.

The announcement prompted many to wonder: Is this new partnership a Pepsi to Kyoto's Coke or more of a ... Caffeine-Free Diet Coke?

Answers from the principals were opaque.

Australian leaders described the deal as a rival to Kyoto, the 141-nation alliance that both Australia and the U.S. rejected despite overwhelming support from the rest of the industrialized world. Said Prime Minister John Howard, "The fairness and effectiveness of this proposal will be superior to the Kyoto Protocol." Australia's Environment Minister Ian Campbell echoed that sentiment: "It's quite clear the Kyoto Protocol won't get the world to where it wants to go," he told reporters last Wednesday, one day before official announcement of the pact. "We have got to find something that works better -- Australia is working on that with partners around the world."

Many media outlets conveyed the same message. The newspaper The Australian, which broke the story of the partnership last Wednesday, The New York Times, and the Associated Press all published articles framing the pact as a Kyoto alternative, saying it was designed to "counter" or "replace" the protocol.

The Bush administration, however, used decidedly less aggressive terms. James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, emphasized to the press that the agreement would be "complementary" to the Kyoto Protocol and was not intended as a substitute.

Perhaps the talking-points memo didn't make it into everyone's inbox.

Meanwhile, as President Bush called the agreement a "results-oriented partnership," his administration struggled to pinpoint what those results might be.

When reporters at a press conference pushed Connaughton to explain the substance of the pact -- What technologies will be emphasized? What will the partnerships look like? Who will be carrying them out? What, exactly, is new about this alliance? -- he dodged questions with McClellan-esque aplomb. "[W]hat we're trying to do is create a framework in which we can define more effectively and on a faster timescale real programs of action that will deliver real investments and real places," he said.

He was careful not to guarantee concrete outcomes: "Hopefully, we'll get a convergence of some of these broader rhetorical commitments into a program of concrete action."

On the subject of technology, Connaughton put heavy emphasis on the administration's interest in expanding both clean coal and nuclear technologies, making about half a dozen references to each. He made only a passing mention of "bio-energy" and one of "renewables," but never defined what he meant by those catchphrases nor indicated that they were priorities.

This may have something to do with the fact that, as Greenpeace USA research director Kert Davies observed, "The only thing that the U.S. has to sell the developing world is nuclear reactors and this unsubstantiated promise of clean coal. When it comes to developing fuel-efficient cars, solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal, and other renewables technologies, we are badly losing the race to Japan and Europe. We have a comparatively small stake in selling those technologies abroad."

Australian Prime Minister Howard also talked up coal during his remarks on the agreement: "Australia is the largest coal exporter in the world and it is in Australia's interests that we try and find a way of coal being consumed in a manner that does not add as much as it does now to greenhouse-gas emissions." He described the treaty's emphasis as "finding ways of reducing the greenhouse-gas emissions flowing from the exploitation of traditional energy sources."

This kind of commentary led Bob Brown, head of Australia's Green Party, to label the agreement a "coal pact," noting that Australia isn't the only big coal producer at the table. China, the U.S., and India are also top producers of this hot commodity, and aren't anxious to phase it out anytime soon.

But Aussie Environment Minister Campbell articulated a decidedly different technology agenda, painting the agreement as a means to spread clean-energy technologies: "By moving more and more towards renewable [energy], such as solar and wind, and a whole range of technologies that we can develop here in Australia and ultimately export to places like China and India -- building partnerships with these countries is going to be the solution."

Participants weren't even on the same page about the timeline leading up to the agreement's release: Campbell told the press that conversations have been going on for a year, while Connaughton said it was "five or six months."

However long it took, it didn't produce much in the way of programs, targets, timetables, or dedicated funding. Connaughton effectively confirmed that the pact is a repackaging of old ideas: "What we will be doing is we will be building on an existing platform of bilaterals, on sort of a grab bag of technology initiatives, and bringing it into a more consolidated and more aggressively managed program."

While pact participants were sending mixed messages, critics were fairly unified in their assessment: Without mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, the deal won't do much to forestall a climate catastrophe.

This view was neatly summed up by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): "The [Asia-Pacific] pact amounts to nothing more than a nice little public-relations ploy," he told Muckraker. "It has almost no meaning. They aren't even committing money to the effort, much less enacting rules to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions."

David Sandalow, a former Clinton administration State Department official who is currently a scholar at the Brookings Institution, said the pact shows very little substance or diplomatic progress. "It's a great lineup of countries; I just wish they were doing something serious," he said. "Basically these kind of technology-cooperation partnerships have been around for years. This seems to be nothing but a repackaging of existing technology partnerships tied up in a bow."

Barbara Helfferich, a spokesperson for the European Union's environment commissioner, similarly dismissed the effort: "We are not very convinced that a voluntary agreement of this sort will have the significant impact which we need to combat climate change," she told Agence France-Presse. "It can certainly not substitute for any commitment in terms of a Kyoto-like agreement."

To get a Bush administration response to these charges, Muckraker put in a call to the State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES), which handles all climate matters in the department. It was the department's Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick who formally announced the agreement last week at a press conference with his counterparts from participating countries, and yet OES staffers were unwilling to comment on how much involvement their bureau had in the creation of the pact, or even to discuss the pact on the record. Said one taciturn staffer, "[T]his is an initiative that has been led by the White House."

This seems further indication that the agreement represents politics without pith. According to Sandalow, former director of the OES, "It's very hard to imagine that a six-nation agreement of any real substance could be created without the State Department's involvement at multiple levels."

David Doniger, policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center, spoke for many when he argued that the pact's main function is to distract from what greens and much of the rest of the world see as the administration's failed climate policy. "The primary motivation for [the agreement] is to look busy," he said.

The pact was unveiled the same week that Congress passed Bush's energy bill, which, thanks to its heavy subsidies for the oil, gas, and coal industries, is unlikely to slow the rise of greenhouse-gas emissions.

And whether or not the Asia-Pacific alliance was designed as a rival to Kyoto, the pact will surely compete for attention. Its signatories intend to convene in Australia in November to flesh out plans -- the same month that Kyoto signers will gather for a U.N. conference in Montreal to begin hammering out strategies for the next phase in the global battle against climate change, intended to pick up where Kyoto leaves off, in 2012, and to bring developing nations actively into the fold.

Let's hope China and India aren't too busy cutting deals on advanced coal plants to discuss capping their greenhouse-gas emissions.

Related Links:

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets