Author: Grist – the Latest from Grist

by Tom Philpott

Twenty of these won’t even get you an apple a day to keep the doctor away. As most readers of the Grist food section know by now, school lunches draw a meager share of the national budget. The federal government reimburses school cafeterias at a rate of up to $2.68 per student per day—a level that leaves administrators with well less than a dollar to spend per kid on ingredients.

It’s no wonder that, to supplement the program, schools resort to offering all manner of “competitive foods”—e.g., chips, candy, corndogs, soda. It’s also no wonder that the quality of school lunches tends to be scandalous. For inside looks at just how bad things are, see Ed Bruske’s great recent series of posts; or the Fed Up blog, which features snapshots of the daily offerings at a school in Illinois. Or contemplate the “pink slime” scandal.

Overall, the government spends about $11 billion per year on the lunch program. That sounds like an impressive figure—but it’s well less than to what we spend each month on our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to Spencer Ackerman, “Obama is spending more on defense than Bush.” The Pentagon will burn through $166 billion in war cash in fiscal 2010, Ackerman reports—about $14 billion per month. (And that figure does not reflect massive future costs like VA care.) For a single month’s mayhem in Afghanistan and Iraq, we could more than double the school lunch budget!

For those hoping for such a thing, President Obama’s budget, released Monday, offered bitter news. Reports Kim Severson:

The president is proposing an additional $1 billion a year for 10 years to be divided between school food programs and WIC, the program for low-income pregnant women, women who have recently given birth and children up to age 5.

So Obama’s plan would award lunches an additional $1 billion per year—to be shared with another vital nutrition program, WIC. How much would that add to cafeteria budgets? Here’s Severson:

Quick calculations show that at best, the president’s plan might offer less than 20 cents more per school lunch.

That’s not meaningful reform; as pioneering school lunch advocate Ann Cooper told Severson, that’s not even enough to provide an additional apple per kid per day.

This is depressing news, because the (less than!) two dimes Obama is flipping to cafeteria operators would seem to represent a ceiling on any budget increases. In other words, I can imagine any number of “fiscally responsible” Congress critters trying to whittle down this Dickensian allotment; but I can’t picture anyone in either chamber who has the clout to push through a more substantial increase.

That’s tragic. Stiffing the school lunch program—enshrining it as the site where the food industry dumps cheap processed crap and shapes the tastes of kids—is the opposite of “fiscal responsibility.” It’s saddling millions of future adults with hefty medical bills they won’t be able to pay—and with lives diminished by chronic bad health.

I hope I’m wrong that Obama’s budget proposal amounts to a death knell for meaningful school-lunch reform. I’ll be trying to get advocates and school lunch analysts to comment below on what Obama’s plan means for school kids.

Related Links:

A teacher’s blog takes a withering look at school lunches

Washington Times puts screws to city’s food provider, Chartwells

Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: Better school food—can we get there from here?

by Jake Schmidt

In December 2009, more than 120 Heads of Government attended the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, the largest meeting of world leaders in history (the previous largest one was the funeral of the Pope according to Wikipedia). Many of the leaders came to Copenhagen with new commitments to actions on global warming pollution (as I discussed here and here). Under the accord, all of the big emitters are expected to record their commitments officially by Jan. 31, 2010 (in Appendix I and Appendix II).

Countries used to say: “We’ll act if you act.” Coming out of Copenhagen they are saying: “We’ll all act together.” So now that we’ve passed the end of January, where are we towards those commitments?

Presidents and prime ministers from more than two dozen key countries that represent more than 80 percent of the world’s global warming pollution hammered out the Copenhagen Accord (as you can see in this table). So actions by these countries to reduce their emissions will be critical to solving global warming.

While the accord didn’t accomplish all that we will ultimately need to address global warming, the Copenhagen Accord made progress on one of the key foundations for international efforts—actions by key countries to reduce their global warming pollution (as I discussed here, my colleague discussed here, and NRDC’s President discussed here). 

NRDC will be tracking the commitments that countries outline to reduce their emissions. We will also follow the steps taken to implement these commitments—the laws, policies, programs, etc.—and countries progress towards those commitments. And we’ll be tracking the support that is provided to assist developing countries in deploying clean energy, reducing deforestation emissions, and adapting to the impacts of global warming. Follow progress on our new webpage. 

We’ve now passed the Jan. 31 deadline—the timeframe established in the accord for countries to register their emissions reduction actions.  So let’s look at what key countries have registered as their actions towards reducing their global warming pollution.

United States—reduce emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, 42 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050 and ultimately in line with the energy and climate legislation passed by Congress. See David Doniger’s post for more details on the U.S.

China—reduce emissions per unit of GDP of 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and a commitment to increasing energy from non-fossil fuels to supply 15 percent of China’s primary energy consumption by 2020. Also committed to increase forest cover by 40 million hectares by 2020 and increase forest stock volume 1.3 billion cubic meters above 2005 levels by 2020. See my colleague Barbara Finamore’s post for more details on the actions in China.

India—reduce emissions per unit of GDP of 20 to 25 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. To meet and exceed this goal, India is increasing fuel efficiency standards by 2011; adopting building energy codes by 2012; increasing forest cover to sequester 10 percent of India’s annual emissions in their forests; increasing the fraction of India’s electricity derived from wind, solar, and small hydro to 20 percent in 2020 (from the current level of 8 percent). My colleague Anjali Jaiswal’s will post for more details on the actions in India.

Brazil—reduce emissions growth by 36 to 39 percent below business-as-usual levels by 2020—a level estimated to bring down Brazil’s emissions to 1994 levels. Brazil also pledged to cut deforestation by 80 percent from historic levels by 2020 (as I’ve discussed here).

European Union—reduce emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and would increase their commitment to 30 percent if other countries commit to ambitious efforts.

South Africa—reduce emissions growth 34 to 42 percent below business-as-usual levels by 2020 with finance, technology, and capacity-building support from the developed world. See my previous post on South Africa for more details.

Mexico—reduce emissions 50 percent below 2002 levels by 2050 and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 million tons per year starting in 2012 with its own means and funds.

Indonesia—reduce emissions by 26 percent by 2020 from business-as-usual levels and by as much as 41 percent with international support. See my previous post for more on Indonesia.

South Korea—reduce emissions to 30 percent below projected levels by 2020, which equates to a target of approximately 4 percent below 2005 levels. See my previous post for more context on South Korea’s actions.

Some of these commitments are being conveyed to the U.N. as “voluntary commitments.” And I’m sure some will say, “well those aren’t meaningful since the country isn’t saying that they’ll definitely do it.” But these countries are actually putting in place laws, regulations, and programs in their domestic context to actually meet these objectives. That is important as that is where the rubber meets the road. And with the agreement on transparency in the Copenhagen Accord (as I discussed here) we’ll actually have regular mechanisms to evaluate the progress of countries towards their commitments.

These commitments are not enough to curb global warming, but they could be the first steps on a new pathway to real progress in reducing emissions and moving to a global low-carbon economy. They signal a real willingness of countries to move past words and to concrete actions to curb their global warming pollution. 

So now is the time to move past words and to action. As the international efforts continue, let’s continue to focus on the actions that countries take to reduce their global warming pollution—after all that is what will actually solve global warming. I hope you’ll help us keep track and make sure that the Copenhagen Accord leads to climate action.

Related Links:

The Climate Post: In which it feels like everything has come to a full stop

Climate accord gets boost, but key elements still missing

Where things stand on the Copenhagen Accord and international climate politics

by Jonathan Hiskes

You might not have heard, because almost nobody reported it, but new clean-energy projects attracted more global funding in 2008 than fossil-fuel projects did. For the first time ever, investors put more money in solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower than in fuels that must be burned, according to a U.N. report. And when venture-capital funding tanked in 2009 because of the recession, cleantech weathered the downturn better than any other sector. People with money to invest are choosing clean energy over dirty.

But lawmakers who shape energy legislation are not, quite possibly because they don’t don’t have a good understanding of the energy landscape. Because they spend their weekends with oil lobbyists. In Miami Beach:

Twelve Democratic Senators spent last weekend in Miami Beach raising money from top lobbyists for oil, drug, and other corporate interests that they often decry, according to a guest list for the event obtained by POLITICO.

The guest list for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s “winter retreat” at the Ritz Carlton South Beach Resort doesn’t include the price tag for attendance, but the maximum contribution to the committee, typical for such events, is $30,000. There, to participate in “informal conversations” and other meetings Saturday, were senators including DSCC Chairman Robert Menendez; Michigan’s Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow; Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; Claire McCaskill of Missouri; freshmen Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Begich of Alaska; and even left-leaning Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Ben Smith’s piece in Politico notes the hypocrisy of senators pretending not to be in the pocket of corporate interests when in fact they are. But even if lawmakers want to make honest choices, “winter retreats” like this are giving them a skewed understanding of what’s really happening in the energy industry, for one. If they knew what investors know, they might rethink the tremendous advantage they give to fossil fuels via subsidies and tax breaks:

Publicly funding climate change.

Related Links:

Cleantech execs learn to lobby

Climate accord gets boost, but key elements still missing

Digging into Obama’s 2011 budget on energy and the environment

by Sean Casten

Lisa Margonelli’s got a great piece in The Nation on the potential for “Gray Power.” The article makes the case for the Midwest to invest in waste heat recovery and other areas near and dear to my self-interested heart. She also puts out a pretty clever idea for a “Clean Power Authority.” She describes it thus:

… a federal agency tasked with recycling energy in
  the South and Midwest—would work like a utility, buying power generated
  from recycled waste energy and using it to meet federal, state and local
  government needs.

I like it.

Power markets are broken. We’ve spent 30 years being blessed with falling prices for power by virtue of the fact that we haven’t built any new generation. We’ve paid generators for their fuel, but not their physical plant. That’s fun while it lasts, but can’t last forever. Eventually, you get to the point we are today where prices aren’t high enough to build anything new (clean or otherwise). Therein lies an opportunity.

If we were more socialist, we’d fix this by raising the price for power, economic pain to electricity users be damned. But we aren’t, and so we sit around slowly waiting for the price to rise to a level necessary to justify new investment. Our plight is best understood by a driver who avoids a traffic jam by hopping the divider and speeding down the deserted (but wrong way) pavement on the other side. It’s great as long as there aren’t any trucks coming, but only an idiot (or an economist) would argue that our speed represents the optimal outcome of an infallible process.

So what do we do about it? Current average retail power prices in the US are about $100/MWh, but closer to $50/MWh for the biggest customers who drive so much of our demand. Wholesale markets are trading at $50 – 60/MWh depending on where you are in the country, but post-Lehman Brothers, no one is willing to sign the kind of long-term contracts you’d need to justify a big capital investment.

Meanwhile, no one’s building any new assets of any significant size for less than ~$110+/MWh, and even those often come with big tax subsidies that disguise the full price of power (see: wind). It’s short-term political suicide for anyone to argue for increases in retail rates to justify investment, but long-term reliability suicide to keep driving in the wrong lane.

This is where the CPA could come in. The federal government is the largest electricity purchaser in the country. There is no reason why it could not enter into long-term contracts with clean-electricity generators to stimulate their construction, at rates higher than retail but lower than the costs of new coal.

Keeping the system economically and environmentally honest would require only that CPA purchases come only from new sources of power, and that those sources meet some standard of cleanliness. In short, something like a Clean Energy Standard Offer, but instead of forcing utilities to buy clean power at those prices, the government leads by example.

Most intriguingly, it bypasses many of the hardest issues associated with electricity reform. Whenever the federal government tries to dictate how (state-regulated) local monopolies buy or generate power, states-rights claims inevitably arise. These are conveniently avoided in a CPA, since this is stipulating only how the federal government buys power. When we pass tax-incentives for clean energy, they are perpetually bedeviled by technology-specific incentives, sunsetting tax provisions, and their annoying habit of not being useful to anyone who doesn’t pay taxes. This would bypass all those issues by simply giving long-term contracts to clean energy sources, without all the goofy inefficient innate to tax policy.

What say you?

Related Links:

Bill Gates thinks about energy innovation

Smart meters save energy, water, and dollars

State of the Union: Inefficient

by Terry Tamminen

What was it that Joe Friday in the old radio and TV show “Dragnet” used to say? “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” Facing just the facts last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that publicly-held companies must disclose their exposure to potential losses from climate change, including carbon emissions that are the subject of growing regulation in the U.S. (and already highly regulated in Europe). Reaction has been both partisan and predictable, but make no mistake—the carbon cops are coming and the SEC is simply pointing out how to stay one step ahead of them.

Just days before the SEC decision, the Pacific island nation of Micronesia took legal action against the Czech utility CEZ Group over its plans to extend the life of a large coal-burning generator. The plant is one of the largest in Europe and the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the Czech Republic. Micronesia fears that more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will accelerate sea level rise, ocean acidification (which harms marine fisheries), and create more intense storms—impacts that would disproportionately hammer exposed islands.

Similarly, the Inupiat Eskimo village of Kivalina, Alaska is suing Exxon/Mobil, Shell Oil, and others for up to $400 million in damages to its coastal real estate, not unlike the suit brought by Mississippi coastal residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. New York City and eight states, including Connecticut and California, have filed suit to force the federal government to rapidly mandate carbon reductions before the impacts are completely unaffordable and irreversible. Looking at this growing trend, the Insurance company Swiss Re issued a report last year comparing these kinds of lawsuits to those that ultimately bankrupted asbestos makers, predicting that “climate change-related liability will develop more quickly than asbestos-related claims.”

Regardless of one’s opinion about using the courts in this manner, those industries that have fought the hardest against carbon regulation in the U.S. and internationally (and you know who you are) would do better to examine the net cost to the bottom line of energy efficiency upgrades, renewable energy installations, and other carbon-cutting measures (many of which pay for themselves in a few years) compared to open-ended asbestos-like court judgments or settlements. Nor should Corporate America dismiss the SEC’s reasoning with the notion that asbestos was a one-off. Can anyone say “tobacco”?

Of course the action by the SEC won’t forestall all litigation in these cases, but companies that comply and use this as an opportunity to understand their carbon liabilities—and fix them ASAP—will be in much better shape to defend themselves in court, especially the all-important court of public opinion. Companies that hear the wake-up call will become more honest with shareholders and much more valuable—cutting carbon is cutting waste, which adds real net value to the bottom line of any company.

By stepping in as reasonable carbon cops, three of the five SEC commissioners, who voted for these disclosures, did the business world a huge favor. At the very least, C-suites that take this issue seriously now will not someday hear yet another famous phrase from one more iconic cop show of the past—“Book ‘em, Dano.”

Related Links:

In 3-2 vote, SEC requires companies to disclose climate risks to investors

Everyone Poops – – and a few spin gold

Only the numbers count—and they add up to hell on earth

by Daniel J. Weiss

President Barack Obama’s proposed FY 2011 budget includes
some important proposals to invest in clean energy, but it also
includes a nuclear bombshell. The budget will seek at total of $54 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power. This would require a $36 billion increase over the existing $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees,
a program created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005—none of which
has been issued yet. And while they loan guarantee proposal cheered
some pro-nuclear senators, it has not garnered their support for
comprehensive, bipartisan clean energy and climate change legislation.

None of the four “top-tier” project proposals inspire confidence:
all have “rising cost estimates, delays related to reactor designs, and
credit downgrades,” according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

For instance, one of the top four pending applications for a loan
guarantee for reactors in Texas may be withdrawn by the utility
proposing it, NRG Energy. The project was supposed to be a joint
venture with San Antonio’s municipal utility, but the latter is having
second thoughts due to enormous estimated cost increases that would
bring the project from the initial $5.4 billion to at least $17 billion.

The San Antonio city council was poised to approve a
$400 million bond issuance in late October but held back when new
numbers came to light that indicated the nuclear project could cost
more than it expected.

The nuclear industry wants loan guarantees because Wall Street
investors are unwilling to lend money to these projects because of
their high level of risk—they are too prone to default. The Congressional Budget Office found that nuclear investments are very risky.

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan
guarantee to be very high-well above 50 percent. The key factor
accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be
uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative
to other electricity generation sources.

Despite this high potential for losses from default, The Hill reports that the nuclear industry wants a very low assumption of default risk to lower its credit costs.

It wants to keep the ‘credit cost’ at 1 percent or below
the anticipated total cost to build a new plant. A company would be
required to pay DoE $100 million to reduce the risks for a $10 billion
project, but industry critics have sought a much higher percentage.

The guarantees would mean the government would step in to repay 80 percent of a loan should a company default.

Since the going rate of a nuclear power plant is $8 billion or more,
such an approach could stick taxpayers with at least a $6 billion bill
for every plant that defaults. A $54 billion loan guarantee program
with a fifty percent default rate could cost taxpayers billions, and
provide no electricity benefits. During this time of trillion dollar
deficits, this is a very imprudent use of taxpayers’ money.

The nuclear energy industry has sold itself as a large potential
source of low-carbon electricity. The Energy Information Agency has
predicted that by putting a price on global warming pollution under the
American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454, would lead to a big
increase in electricity generated by nuclear power.

According to the Energy Information Administration’s 2010 Annual Energy Outlook business as usual scenario, electricity generation from nuclear power
will increase by 9 percent from 2010-2020, and only another .3 percent
by 2030. It is important to note that EIA assumes that new plants will
be much less expensive than real world experience. Under ACES, nuclear electricity will increase by 11 percent from 2010-2020, and by 77 percent from 2010
to 2030. Putting a price on global warming pollution would make
nuclear power more economically competitive.

If EIA’s projections are accurate, then enactment of global warming
pollution reductions would provide a huge boost in nuclear energy
generation without additional loan guarantees beyond the existing
program or the ACES Clean Energy Deployment Administration that can
provide up to 30 percent of its funds for loan guarantees for new
nuclear technologies.

Tripling of the loan guarantees is also dubious political strategy
because it provides huge subsidies for nuclear power without securing
the support of pro-nuclear senators for comprehensive, bipartisan
global warming pollution reduction legislation.

USA Today noted that

Obama’s pitch to expand U.S. nuclear power is seen by
some members of Congress and analysts as an effort to win GOP support
for his legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, passed by the
House of Representatives last year but pending in the Senate.

Indeed, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), whose state is suffering more
than any other from global warming, spoke positively about the loan
guarantee proposal, calling it “a good first step toward expanding our
use of clean nuclear energy.” She is also the author of the “Dirty Air
Act,” to block the Environmental Protection Agency from establishing
limits on global warming pollution. Sen. Murkowski has yet to join
Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman
(I-Conn.) in their efforts to craft a bipartisan bill.

The Associated Press reported on long-time opponent of global warming legislation Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.):

‘I see an evolving attitude on energy by the
president,’ said Sen. Lamar Alexander, who has called for 100 plants to
be built in the next 20 years.

Yet Sen. Alexander continues to oppose comprehensive clean energy jobs and reductions in global warming pollution legislation.

In 2009, the Senate Appropriations Committee (subs. req’d) approved Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) proposal to add
$50 billion in nuclear loan guarantees to the pending Recovery bill.
Fortunately, it was dropped due to the opposition of the Obama
administration and the House Appropriations Committee. Sen. Bennett remains a fierce opponent of reductions in global warming
pollution, yet his proposal was revived by the administration for the
2011 budget.

Nuclear power will likely play a role in the effort to reduce global
warming pollution. Yet it does little good to provide Senate nuclear
proponents with an expanded loan guarantee program without first
securing their support for global warming pollution reductions, such as
the bill that Sens., Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman are drafting. At
the same time, tripling the loan guarantee program before the existing
funds are exhausted does not make fiscal sense. The Obama administration should withdraw this flawed proposal or failing that,
Congress should reject it.

Related Links:

Sen. Lindsey Graham on the importance of passing climate legislation

A Critical Moment for Energy Leadership

Obama talks about ‘clean coal’ and solar during YouTube Q&A

by Sue Sturgis

During the energy portion of his first State of the Union address last week, President Obama called for “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.”

That raises a question: Exactly what generation of nuclear power is
Obama talking about—and what makes it an improvement over the
generation we now have, with its high cost and threats to public health and the environment?

The
commercial nuclear power plants operating in the United States today
are what are known as Generation II reactors. Built through the 1990s,
they include the design types known as pressurized water reactors, which comprise the majority of all U.S. nuclear plants, as well as boiling water reactors,
the other type used by the U.S. power industry. Both of them are what
are known as “light water reactors,” which means they use ordinary
water to cool the reactor.

Before the reactors of today came
those of Generation I, the first commercial nuclear power plants in the
U.S. Among them are Shippingport near Pittsburgh, which operated from
1957 to 1982; Fermi on the shore of Lake Erie about 30 miles from
Detroit, which began operating in 1957 and closed in 1972, six years
after experiencing a partial fuel meltdown; and Dresden Unit 1 at Exelon’s existing nuclear plant near Morris, Ill., which went active in 1960 and retired in 1978.

The
so-called Generation III reactors have designs similar to their Gen II
predecessors but have incorporated some improvements, like more
advanced safety systems. These models include GE’s Advanced Boiling
Water Reactor, the design selected for the planned expansion of the South Texas Project on the Colorado River 90 miles southwest of Houston, and Mitsubishi’s
Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor, two units of which are planned for
Luminant’s Comanche Peak plant 60 miles southwest of Dallas. There are
also what are known as the Generation III+ reactors; these include
Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor, 13 of which are slated for plants across
the Southeast. However, the AP1000 still has not received Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval due to serious design flaws.

And then there are the Generation IV reactors.
At the moment, these designs are largely theoretical and aren’t
expected to be available for commercial construction for at least
another decade. They include so-called fast reactors, which require richer fuel and are cooled by substances other than regular water, such as liquid sodium.

One
of the loudest cheerleaders for Generation IV nuclear power plants—particularly the fast reactors—has been James Hansen, director of
NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and an outspoken advocate for
addressing manmade global warming. In a recent interview posted at the Big Think website, Hansen makes the case for Gen IV nuclear as a necessary piece of a warming world’s energy future:

And there’s also the possibility for fourth-generation nuclear power. That’s a technology which allows you to burn all of the nuclear fuel. Presently, nuclear power plants burn less than 1 percent of the energy in the nuclear fuel. Fourth-generation nuclear power allows the neutrons to move faster, so it can burn all of the fuel. Furthermore, it can burn nuclear waste, so it can solve the nuclear waste problem. And the United States is still the technology leader in fourth-generation nuclear power. In 1994, Argonne National Laboratory, now called Idaho National Laboratory, was ready to build a fourth-generation nuclear power plant, but the Clinton-Gore administration canceled that research because of the antinuclear sentiments in the Democratic Party. Well, we still have the best expertise in that technology, and we should develop it because it’s something we could also sell to China and India, because they’re going to need nuclear power. They are not going to be able to get all of their energy from the sun and from the wind.

However, not everyone is as keen on Gen IV nuclear as Hansen. Amory Lovins, a leading sustainable energy expert with the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, argues that there is no economic, environmental, or
security rationale for the kinds of Gen IV reactors most often
promoted, including fast reactors. In a recent analysis titled “‘New’ Nuclear Reactors, Same Old Story,” Lovins points out that these reactors are touted for their ability to
burn plutonium, a radioactive waste product created in currently
operating nuclear power plants. However, that would require plutonium
reprocessing facilities, which creates a whole other bunch of thorny
problems:

Reprocessing of any kind makes waste management more difficult and complex, increases the volume and diversity of waste streams, increases … the costs of nuclear fueling, and separates bomb-usable material that can’t be adequately measured or protected. Mainly for this last reason, all U.S. Presidents since Gerald Ford in 1976 (except G.W. Bush in 2006-08) discouraged it.

Lovins also challenges Hansen’s claim that fast reactors “can solve the nuclear waste problem” by burning the waste:

[Fast reactors] are often claimed to “burn up nuclear waste” and makes its “time of concern … less than 500 years” rather than 10,000-100,000 years or more. That’s wrong: most of the radioactivity comes from fission products, including very long-lived isotopes like iodine-129 and technicium-99, and their mix is broadly similar in any nuclear fuel cycle. [Fast reactors’] wastes may contain less transuranics [that is, radioactive elements with atomic numbers greater than uranium], but at prohibitive cost and with worse occupational exposures, routine releases, accident and terrorism risks, proliferation, and disposal needs for intermediate- and low-level wastes. It’s simply a dishonest fantasy to claim that such hypothetical and uneconomic ways to recover energy or other value from spent [Light Water Reactor] fuel mean “There is no such thing as nuclear waste.” Of course, the nuclear industry wishes this were true.”

But with U.S. efforts to
address climate change hampered in part by powerful corporate
interests’ stranglehold over the legislative process, at least one
longtime anti-nuclear group has said it’s willing to discuss Gen IV
nuclear as part of the potential solution to man-made global warming.

Last week, the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network wrote to Hansen in advance of his Feb. 1 speech at UNC-Chapel Hill.
In the letter, Executive Director Jim Warren said his group’s respect
for the scientist—along with the severity of the accelerating
climate crisis—meant it was “willing to be persuaded” on
fourth-generation nuclear power technology.

While noting its
opposition to Gen II and III plants as well as the problems with Gen IV
fast reactors and associated nuclear waste reprocessing, N.C. WARN has called for a “vigorous and honest debate” … that “could help determine whether
and where it might be necessary to pursue new nuclear—or put all
available resources behind clean, efficient energy.”

But the
question remains: Is this Gen IV technology—with all its promise and
perils—what President Obama was talking about in his State of the
Union address when he referred to a “new generation” of nuclear power?

It
appears that the answer is no, given that Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year
2011 Department of Energy budget unveiled today will reportedly triple the taxpayer loan guarantee program for new reactor construction to $54 billion. That program is providing
financing for building Generation III reactors—not the Gen IV
variety promoted by Hansen.

Obama’s decision to promote the continued building of old-school nuclear reactors—which as a candidate he said he did not embrace because of safety concerns and the need for huge taxpayer subsidies—is especially perplexing given that his administration has canceled plans to store radioactive waste in the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.

That
raises another question: What does the president plan to do with all
that radioactive waste that’s currently piling up at nuclear power
plants nationwide? To date, Obama still has not offered the American
people an answer.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South.)

Related Links:

Sen. Lindsey Graham on the importance of passing climate legislation

A Critical Moment for Energy Leadership

Obama talks about ‘clean coal’ and solar during YouTube Q&A

by David Roberts

In his extraordinary, unscripted dialogue with House Republicans last Friday, Obama had an interesting exchange with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. It’s worth reprinting in full:

CONGRESSWOMAN CAPITO:  Thank you, Mr. President, for joining us here today.  As you said in the State of the Union address on Wednesday, jobs and the economy are number one.  And I think everyone in this room, certainly I, agree with you on that.

I represent the state of West Virginia.  We’re resource-rich.  We have a lot of coal and a lot of natural gas.  But our—my miners and the folks who are working and those who are unemployed are very concerned about some of your policies in these areas:  cap and trade, an aggressive EPA, and the looming prospect of higher taxes.  In our minds, these are job-killing policies.  So I’m asking you if you would be willing to re-look at some of these policies, with a high unemployment and the unsure economy that we have now, to assure West Virginians that you’re listening.

THE PRESIDENT:  Look, I listen all the time, including to your governor, who’s somebody who I enjoyed working with a lot before the campaign and now that I’m President.  And I know that West Virginia struggles with unemployment, and I know how important coal is to West Virginia and a lot of the natural resources there.  That’s part of the reason why I’ve said that we need a comprehensive energy policy that sets us up for a long-term future.

For example, nobody has been a bigger promoter of clean coal technology than I am.  Testament to that, I ended up being in a whole bunch of advertisements that you guys saw all the time about investing in ways for us to burn coal more cleanly.

I’ve said that I’m a promoter of nuclear energy, something that I think over the last three decades has been subject to a lot of partisan wrangling and ideological wrangling.  I don’t think it makes sense.  I think that that has to be part of our energy mix.  I’ve said that I am supportive—and I said this two nights ago at the State of the Union—that I am in favor of increased production.

So if you look at the ideas that this caucus has, again with respect to energy, I’m for a lot of what you said you are for.

The one thing that I’ve also said, though, and here we have a serious disagreement and my hope is we can work through these disagreements—there’s going to be an effort on the Senate side to do so on a bipartisan basis—is that we have to plan for the future.

And the future is that clean energy—cleaner forms of energy are going to be increasingly important, because even if folks are still skeptical in some cases about climate change in our politics and in Congress, the world is not skeptical about it.  If we’re going to be after some of these big markets, they’re going to be looking to see, is the United States the one that’s developing clean coal technology?  Is the United States developing our natural gas resources in the most effective way?  Is the United States the one that is going to lead in electric cars?  Because if we’re not leading, those other countries are going to be leading.

So what I want to do is work with West Virginia to figure out how we can seize that future.  But to do that, that means there’s going to have to be some transition.  We can’t operate the coal industry in the United States as if we’re still in the 1920s or the 1930s or the 1950s.  We’ve got to be thinking what does that industry look like in the next hundred years.  And it’s going to be different.  And that means there’s going to be some transition.  And that’s where I think a well-thought-through policy of incentivizing the new while recognizing that there’s going to be a transition process—and we’re not just suddenly putting the old out of business right away—that has to be something that both Republicans and Democrats should be able to embrace.

As usual, these comments are something of a Rorschach blot. On one hand, it’s easy to be irritated that, just as in the State of the Union the other night, Obama’s manages to discuss “clean energy” at length without making any mention of wind, solar, geothermal, or even biomass. Instead it’s all about nukes, coal, oil, and gas.

Then again, all the fossil talk can be seen as a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down, and the medicine is in the last paragraph: WV will have to make a transition. It can be a gentle transition rather than an abrupt one, but it’s got to happen.

But is the president delivering that message bluntly enough? And are West Virginians and other coal-dependent folk hearing it? Is the talk of “clean coal” and “increased production” creating a false sense of security?

When he said “I am in favor of increased production,” Obama was probably talking about oil and gas production—the offshore stuff he cited in the SOTU—but he followed it with, “I’m for a lot of what you said you are for.” What Capito would like is more coal production, and that’s not going to happen. A January report from Downstream Strategies, “The Decline of Central Appalachian Coal and the Need for Economic Diversification” (PDF), makes the point pretty clearly:

Downstream Strategies

Coal production is on the wane in Appalachia; it’s shifting to low-sulfur coal from the Powder River Basin. Here’s a look at their comparative prices:

Downstream Strategies

Just as production has been declining, so too has employment:

Downstream Strategies

Notice two things: the percentage of coal coming from surface mines—and in Central Appalachia that increasingly means mountaintop-removal mines—has increased sharply. It’s been enough to prompt a slight rebound in jobs, back up to 30,000. This can be seen as a kind of last-minute binge: With the easy coal seams increasingly mined out and the EPA cracking down on mountaintop removal, it’s hard to see how employment is sustained even at these diminished levels.

(For a closer look at the report, read this piece from Ken Ward Jr.)

In short,  coal production is a rapidly declining source of jobs and economic vitality in West Virginia. Here’s what Obama would have said to Capito in my fantasy political world:

“I recognize and honor the fact that coal has supported West Virginian families for generations; those mining families deserve our thanks and gratitude. But coal is on the wane in Central Appalachia. Production is projected to decline and employment is down by half since the early ‘80s. There’s little that can be done to reverse these trends, even if I shut the EPA down tomorrow and passed no further energy policies. That’s something West Virginia’s leaders and citizens alike are going to have to come to grips with. The sooner they do, the sooner they’ll be willing to join my administration in passing policies that can accelerate the transition to the clean energy economy of the 21st century. West Virginia is in for a bumpy transition and the nation owes them help getting through it; the sooner it begins, the gentler it will be.”

And then he would have flown away on the back of a unicorn, in a puff of fairy dust.

Related Links:

A Critical Moment for Energy Leadership

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Pulling carbon out of the air (and out of coal smokestacks) just might be possible

by Brad Johnson

Cross-posted from The Wonk Room.

For the first time, the Pentagon’s primary planning document
addresses the threat of global warming, noting that it will accelerate
instability and conflict around the globe. Former Senators John Warner
(R-Va.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) added language requiring the
department to consider the effects of climate change on its facilities,
capabilities, and missions to the 2008 National Defense Authorization
Act. The Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review, officially released today, discusses the department’s “strategic approach to climate and energy:”

Climate change and energy are two key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment.
Although they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change,
energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked. The
actions that the Department takes now can prepare us to respond
effectively to these challenges in the near term and in the future.

The QDR notes that climate change affects the Department of Defense
“in two broad ways:” first, global warming impacts and disasters will
“act as an accelerant of instability or conflict,” and second, military
installations and forces around the globe will have to adapt to rising
seas, increased extreme weather, and other effects of global warming:

Assessments conducted by the intelligence community
indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical
impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental
degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate
change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the
spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration. While
climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an
accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on
civilian institutions and militaries around the world.

The military is working on not just responding to the impacts of
global warming, but also mitigating the threat by reducing global
warming emissions. Increased use of renewable energy and energy
efficiency not only lessens the military’s enormous carbon footprint,
but also delivers immediate security benefits:

Energy efficiency can serve as a force multiplier,
because it increases the range and endurance of forces in the field and
can reduce the number of combat forces diverted to protect energy
supply lines, which are vulnerable to both asymmetric and conventional
attacks and disruptions.

The military’s overall agenda is backed up by specific action. In
line with President Obama’s executive order to devise a greenhouse
pollution reduction plan, the Department of Defense has committed to
cutting emissions from its non-combat facilities by 34 percent by 2020. The Air Force, long dependent on billions of gallons of imported oil, is investing deeply in all forms of renewable energy. The Army is making major investments in battery technology, renewable energy, and electric drive vehicles.

As Vice President Gore has noted repeatedly, the “climate crisis,
the security crisis, and the economic crisis have a common thread”—our
dependence on fossil fuels. If we continue the status quo, threats will
continue to multiply on every front—a fact our military, if not our
politicians now in the Senate, now recognizes.

Related Links:

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

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The U.S. military’s battle to wean itself off oil

by Tom Philpott

Where does your food come from? In this Illinois public school, the answer is: plastic. Photo: Fed Up: School Lunch Project blogI normally don’t have much time for blog stunts—you know, I’m going to cook my way through such-and-such famous cookbook in a year, or stop using toilet paper, and then roll out a book and a movie. (By the way, still waiting for that bidding war over Meat Wagon rights.)

But here’s a blog stunt worth studying—one that trains a withering gaze on the way we as a society treat children.

Working from an unnamed Illinois school,  an anonymous teacher calling herself Mrs. Q vows to eat what’s being served up in the cafeteria each day, and chronicle the experience with a simple photograph and a few lines. Mrs. Q opened her blog, called “Fed Up: School Lunch Project,” like this:

It’s very challenging to teach students when they are eating school lunches that don’t give them the nutrition they need and deserve. Oftentimes what is served barely passes muster as something edible. And after a meal high in sugar and fat and low in fiber, they then must pay attention in a classroom.

I’m going to attempt to eat school lunch everyday in 2010. As a teacher it’s available to me for $3.00. Most of the students at my school get free lunch or reduced ($0.40). I’m going to take pictures of the school lunch and post them.

Normally I shop for organic fruits and veggies. I avoid processed foods and food high in sugar and high fructose corn syrup, but I normally eat food brought from home, including leftovers, a sandwich, or a “healthy” microwave meal for lunch with yogurt and a piece of fruit.

In the posts that follow, we get a simple, powerful exposé of how our schools teach kids—specifically kids from low-income families—that food is flavorless junk plunked down on little paper plates, wrapped in plastic, and heated.

The amount of packaging documented here is stunning—even the cheese sandwich comes pre-wrapped. Beyond the obvious mountain of waste, you have to wonder about the wisdom of serving kids food heated in plastic—given what we know about the link between plastics and serious health problems.

Of the dismal food on display, what struck me as most tragic was the “PB&J” entree. Now, peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches are pretty simple operations, as culinary projects go. You take two slices of bread, spread peanut butter on one, jelly on the other, and combine. But in Mrs. Q’s school cafeteria, it seems, no cooking at all takes place—and “PB&J”‘s are procured pre-made and wrapped.

Let’s just say that Mrs. Q found the resulting sandwich impressive—but not in a good way.

In a recent interview, Mother Nature News asked Mrs. Q why she started the blog. Her reply:

I just have seen what the kids eat at my school and it makes me sad. I know that I feel bad about myself when I eat food I know is bad for my body. The last thing that the kids from my school need is to feel even worse about their circumstances. The meals send a message to the kids that they are not cared about.

Her blog is really about the withering away of the state—about what happens when the state pulls back from its responsibilities to its citizens and lets private-sector “solutions” like pre-wrapped PB&Js fill the void.

As Congress considers the School Nutrition Reauthorization Act, I hope Mrs. Q’s blog generates plenty of attention—and a book contract and move deal for its intrepid author.

Related Links:

Obama’s budget proposal serves up thin gruel for school lunch reform

Lesson for schools: sweetened junk shouldn’t count as food

Thoughts on The Atlantic’s attack on school gardens

by David Roberts

After the Copenhagen Accord was “noted” by the UN in December, there was a great deal of insta-analysis. In truth, there was no real way to evaluate the Accord because the meat of it—the emission-reduction commitments from participating countries—was blank. Literally:

The deadline for participating countries to submit their commitments was Jan. 31—yesterday. So, how do things look now that the cards are on the table? Where do we stand on international efforts to address climate change?

Here’s the bad news:

[Climate consultancy] Ecofys reckons that the promised curbs will set the world towards a [disastrous] 3.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperatures, not 2.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said that on current projections the world would exceed an estimated “carbon emissions budget” for the first half of this century by 2034, 16 years ahead of schedule.

The question is, how bad is the bad news? We’re-doomed bad, or we’re-maybe-doomed bad?

Nationalism

The big underlying story in international climate relations is that focus is steadily shifting from top-down, legally binding targets to bottom-up, voluntary national action. The BASIC countries—the emerging economies of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China—have made it clear that they are sticking with the Kyoto framework in one key respect: developing countries will accept no legally binding commitments. According to the Guardian (which is, admittedly, pessimistic about climate negotiations 100% of the time), a binding treaty is unlikely next year in Mexico:

… a global deal at the next major climate summit in Mexico is impossible, says the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, now the Council of Europe’s rapporteur on climate change. “I don’t care if it’s government ministers or NGOs, if they think you can get a legal agreement all signed up by November in Mexico, I don’t believe it.”

Similar opinions are being expressed worldwide. “In 2010 perhaps we’ll manage some success, but I think a definitive deal is very difficult,” said Suzana Kahn, a key negotiator in Copenhagen and Brazil’s national secretary for climate change.

Despite what folks on both sides say, it’s quite difficult to determine if this is a net positive or negative. Climate Internationalists have long been fixated on binding targets, but as some people have pointed out, ambitious targets are entirely abstract (and thus highly polticized) until there are national policies and programs to support them. Just because targets are legally binding doesn’t mean unprepared or unwilling countries will hit them, as Kyoto should have made clear.

Climate Nationalists argue that what matters above all is action, not signatures. Every country needs to get started and learn over time what it is capable of. Grand pledges can be built only on a foundation of smaller successes. From that perspective, the commitments in the Copenhagen Accord are heartening:  they represent the first time all the world’s major emitters have made separate, concrete, public commitments.

The Internationalists don’t have a ton to show for the last 20 years. We’ll find out in the next decade if the Nationalists do any better.

What, from whom?

Let’s take a look at a few of the commitments. (The best place to see all of them in one place is this chart from the US Climate Action Network. According to their latest estimate, “30 countries are likely to or have associated, representing 73%  of global emissions.”)

The U.S. has formally committed to the target contained in the Kerry-Boxer climate bill: 17% below 2005 levels (aka 4 percent below 1990 levels) by 2020. This pledge is at once criminally weak, relative to what the international community expects and what will be required to avert catastrophe, and quite risky, given that the climate/energy bill in the Senate could easily fail and leave only the EPA to achieve the target.

Another way of saying “quite risky” is “unreliable.” Why should international partners believe that Obama can back up his pledge? As Matt Yglesias points out, the fact that Obama can’t credibly promise anything that would require Congressional approval means that “essentially all diplomatic intercourse with the American government is worthless.” In the end the U.S. will achieve what votes 55 through 60 in the Senate allow.

On the other side of the spectrum, the Maldives, which has become a moral clarion call on climate, has promised 100% carbon neutrality by 2020. In a letter to UNFCCC chief Yvo de Boer,  Maldives Foreign Minister Dr. Ahmed Shaheed said that the commitment is “voluntary and unconditional” and that it should be “internationally measured, reported and verified.” That’s what ambition (not to say desperation) looks like.

Aaaand … back to the other side of the spectrum. China has promised to continue on the trajectory it determined in its latest economic development five-year plan. (Read Michael Levi on China’s commitment.) In its official letter to the UN, China said it “will endeavour to lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP [“carbon intensity”] by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 compared to the 2005 level.” That would, of course, allow China’s emissions to continue rising in absolute terms; it has said it foresees emissions peaking in 2030.

If China stays on this trajectory it will be very, very difficult for developed countries to make big enough cuts to compensate. But there’s some grounds for thinking that China is being deliberately conservative in its estimates (it has reduced traditional pollutants far faster than it projected).  I discussed China’s under-promise-over-deliver strategy—at once resisting international commitments and aggressively pursuing clean energy development—in a Seed piece last month.

The big news from the EU is that it will not raise its 2020 target to 30 percent, as it said before Copenhagen it would do if the US raised its target. Instead it will stick with 20% by 2020 from 1990 levels.

Other biggies:

India has pledged carbon intensity cuts of 20-25 percent by 2020.
Brazil has pledge absolute emissions cuts of emissions by 39 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, mainly through measures to slow deforestation.
South Africa reportedly plans to submit a target of 34 percent below projected levels by 2020, though there’s some concern whether it can back that ambitious target with action.
Japan reiterated its plan to achieve absolute emissions cuts of 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, provided other major emitters pledge ambitious plans as well.
Indonesia may be late, it’s said to be contemplating a cut of 26 percent below projected levels by 2020.
Canada will submit the same lame target as the U.S.: 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
Australia has pledged absolute emissions cuts of at least 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, up to 25 percent contingent on the actions of other countries.

What to make of all this

It’s now fairly clear that the long-time environmentalist dream of having a binding international treaty that imposes ambition on participating countries is forlorn. The iron law of geopolitical relations is asserting itself here: countries will do what is in their own best interests based on their own circumstances … and no more.

If there is to be a solution to the climate crisis, it will come because a)  clean energy becomes an economic prize, and b) the impacts of climate change threaten to become crippling. When that happens countries will compete to lower their emissions. If that dynamic doesn’t take hold, and fairly soon, it is unlikely that future generations will avoid immense suffering.

Related Links:

Turning the Copenhagen Accord into action on global warming

U.S. slips in Environmental Performance Index

Will Google’s fight with China stymie climate negotiations?

by Darby Minow Smith

Scallop and dungeness crab salad wrapped in prosciutto topped with lumpfish caviar and avocado: A Hajime creation. Photo by Phu Son Nguyen of sushiday.comGrowing up in small-town Montana, two things just made no sense: vegetarians and sushi. Why eat tofu, or raw
fish, when you could just as easily have a big juicy steak? Coming from
generations of cattle rancher stock, I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s ringing
defense of vegetarianism, Eating Animals, with trepidation. But the only
beef I ended up having with Foer was that he ruined my ability to enjoy the raw and the rolled—right after I had moved to sushi paradise, Seattle.

“Imagine being served a plate of sushi. But this plate also
holds all of the animals that were killed for your serving of sushi. The plate
might have to be five feet across,” Foer writes. At current rates of fishery depletion, scientists
predict the demise of most seafood by 2048.

Foer describes modern fishing as warfare. Hajime Sato has a
similar take: “[It’s] like someone is beating somebody and I’m just walking by
and noticing it but not doing anything about it.”

But Sato isn’t an environmentalist author or even a
vegetarian. He’s chef and owner of Mashiko, a Seattle sushi restaurant. Not wanting to
throw punches himself anymore, he revised his menu to include only sustainable
fish last August.

Sato, who not only serves sushi but teaches others how to
prepare it, knew the dreadful truth about certain fish. For a time, however, he
served them anyway. But then he met Casson Trenor, author of Sustainable Sushi.

Trenor knows just about everything that’s wrong or right
about what can end up between your chopsticks. For instance, the most
disgusting thing about shrimp isn’t even their visible poop veins: “Some shrimpers have been known to discard
more than ten pounds of unwanted sea life for every pound of shrimp they keep,”
he writes.

After talking to Trenor about sustainability, Sato said,
“Okay, within three months, I’ll change it [the menu] entirely.” Trenor didn’t
believe Sato. But, Sato recalls, “I said ‘No, when I say I’ll do
something, I’ll do it. That’s me.’” And he did.

Not your typical sushi chef. Not your typical sushi. Photo by Phu Son Nguyen of sushiday.com“Don’t do anything mediocre,” he says. Not a surprising personal
motto from someone who races motorcycles and whose diners are greeted by a sign
that reads “Please wait to be seated. Unless you’re illiterate.”

Sato took a big risk with his 15-year-old, award-winning
restaurant.

The first few months were rocky; Sato couldn’t sleep for
worrying. “Should I go back? Am I doing the right thing?” he asked himself,
“People don’t get it.”

But business rebounded and he continues to be resolute about
sustainability. He finds careless pescatarians’ logic odd and is
incredulous that there are international laws against eating cheetahs, but
Bluefin tuna have only very limited protection. “You can basically wipe the
entire species out in a week and say okay, next …”

Although the plight of the Bluefin tuna has made headlines
recently, Sato points out that eel (unagi) is the worst fish to serve. “Eel is
actually [at] the category of extinction. It’s not even endangered anymore. But
people are still eating it,” he says.

Whatcha doin’ back there? This mysterious lover is a breed of eel that won’t end up on your plate. Its populations also happen to be healthy. Photo courtesy Richard Ling via Flickr The spooky thing about eels, besides their mean mugs, is
their mysterious breeding habits. It’s not just that eel lovin’ is an
unpleasant subject: “They [eels] go back and forth between fresh water and salt
water about four or five times in their
life. And we have no idea how they mate, how they reproduce at all. So let’s
not really touch the eel.”

Wild or farmed, eating unagi is never a good idea. In eel
farms, they take the young from the wild and fatten them up. Those eels never
even get the chance to do whatever only God knows they do in the dark.

Eel is classified as a red fish in Trenor’s book. Helpfully,
he divides fish into three color categories. 
Green means chow down: “These
fish and shellfish are caught or farmed in ways that don’t have any major
adverse effect on the environment.” Nimbly nibble yellow fish: “Animals in this
category are from fisheries that are either poorly understood or have some
troubling characteristics. Limit your consumption of these animals.” And red, of course, means by all means stop:
“Fish and shellfish are caught or farmed in a manner that is inordinately
deleterious to the health of the oceans.”

Sato mostly serves green fish, but he serves some yellow,
too. Occasionally a customer will ask him, “Are you 100 percent okay with this?”
“No,” he replies, “I eat the same as any other practice I do. I drive a car.”

But what if every fish out there was classified red
tomorrow?

Then I’m not going to serve. I’m going to have a vegetarian
restaurant. Which is totally fine. But I’m trying to prevent it. I’m trying to
prevent it so we can do this. People tend to wait wait wait until the last
moment and then freak out. Let’s freak out just a touch more right now.

Keeping up to date on the status of each fish he serves
takes a lot of time. “You cannot just stop learning about it,” he insists.

Trenor and Sato’s relationship continues. Sato reads
Japanese publications on sustainability and Trenor reads English sources. They
talk three times a week to share what they’ve learned.

Sato, the first traditionally trained sushi chef to go
sustainable, can’t understand Japanese aversion to sustainable sushi: “The reality is, if you really read the history of sushi,
tuna actually was not in there, [nor] toro, unagi … I’m basically going back to
what traditional is. They didn’t have a huge fleet of boats.”

Though he doesn’t intend to challenge veteran sushi chefs
(“They’d kill me with a knife”), Sato hopes to promote sustainable sushi and
bring more chefs into the fold. He understands the difficulties of switching to
and finding sustainable fish, but he’s willing to share his experience and
support those who face the same hardships.

Have you ever even heard of the Sanma fish? Photo by Phu Son Nguyen of sushiday.com“I had to say goodbye to distributors that I’d been using
for 15 years, which is really tough. They sometimes helped me out when I was in
financial trouble,” he says. He went from having four or five distributors to
nearly 20 in order to fill out his menu. 
He sees this as a plus for his diners, giving them choices far beyond
the standard fare. “There’s so many
other fish. But some people don’t get that,” he says. Sato recommends diners
relax and expand their tastes. “Today eat this, tomorrow eat that. It’s good
for the ecosystem, economy, everything.”

In the past, his business philosophy was to make sushi
affordable for everyone. He’s kept his prices low and his sushi delicious, but
his philosophy has changed to something he calls egocentric: “I’d like to keep
my business longer than the next five years.”

Ultimately, Sato believes the fate of the fish and our
ability to eat them in the future is up to the consumer. He hopes we choose
wisely.

If you’re not in the Seattle
area, bring Trenor’s book with you to your favorite restaurant, the grocery
store, the fish market. Ask questions.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a good, simple pocket guide as well. And you can see how your local seafood restaurants measure up at Fish2Fork. Finally, check out Mashiko’s website sushiwhore.com, where you can read Sato’s blog about sustainability, peruse his mouth-watering menu, and watch silly sushi videos. (And it’s pointed out that sake is sustainable.)

Related Links:

Why America’s greenest mayor got no love

Break with consumerism to save the world, Worldwatch report urges

How do I find a green job?

by Umbra Fisk

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

I
am wondering if you can help me with this question: What makes jobs in
sustainable manufacturing “sustainable” (as opposed to just
“manufacturing” jobs), and what do employers look for in determining
whether a candidate is right for a “sustainable” or “green”
job? And while we’re thinking about jobs, do you know where one can see what
jobs are out there in the sus-man sector?

Yours,
Jesse
W.
Chicago

A. Dearest Jesse,

Have
you ever been to a wedding reception where someone’s toast begins with some
variation of, “The dictionary defines marriage as…”? My eyes always glaze over
a bit at that point. I blame a substitute teacher I had in first grade who made
us copy pages out of the dictionary verbatim for an entire school day. I hope,
Jesse, that you never had such a scarring experience and will stick with me as
I relay a couple of carefully researched (not in dictionaries, mind you)
definitions of sustainable manufacturing.

The
U.S. Department of Commerce defines it as “the creation of manufactured
products that use processes that minimize negative environmental impacts,
conserve energy and natural resources, are safe for employees, communities, and
consumers, and are economically sound.” Nice
and thorough—though as the National Council for Advanced Manufacturing helpfully
points out, sustainable manufacturing can refer to both the manufacturing of
sustainable products and the sustainable manufacturing of all products.

So
how does one go about snagging one of these sustainable manufacturing jobs?
Sounds like you have a manufacturing background, so if you want to add some
green sheen to your skills, seek further training—and make sure you have a
passion for the subject (as Confucius said and I reiterated, “If you love
what you do, you’ll never work another day in your life”). Look for green job
training programs in your area or sign up for a continuing education class in
renewable energy—resource and energy efficiency are important elements in
the sustainable manufacturing landscape. Plus, it’s hopeful/helpful to hear
that renewable energy and energy efficiency technology created about 8.5
million new jobs in 2006.

Finally,
you might try searching for manufacturing jobs on sites like The
Environmental Careers Organization and Green Dream Jobs. And don’t
forget Grist’s own job board—you never
know what will float by on that forum. Good luck!

Hard-hattedly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

I
have heard that a recent study out of Boulder, Colo., has determined that the
fish in the upper Gore Creek are found to be sexless due to the amount of hormones
that exist in the water. Pray tell!

Amy
Vail,
Colo.

A. Dearest Amy,

Oh
how I wish this was just an errant tabloid headline. Alas, you heard correctly—and this sexless fin-demic isn’t limited to Colorado.

A U.S. Geological Survey study released in the
fall found that 40 percent of smallmouth bass and one-third of largemouth bass
sampled from the Colorado River (the Gore Creek is a tributary of the Eagle
River, which is a tributary of the Colorado) were intersex, a condition
indicated primarily in male fish that show female organ growth and occasionally
female fish with male characteristics. The study was nationwide, covering
1995-2004 (the Colorado River data were from 2003), and intersex fish were
found in about a third of all tested waters.

While
no particular chemicals or environmental conditions were pinpointed as the
cause, one likely culprit is rising levels of human-sourced river pollutants
like drugs, farm chemicals, and detergents. The study findings didn’t indicate
how the hormone disruptions in fish impact humans who drink water sourced from
these same rivers. The USGS kindly left that to our imagination.

Scary
stuff, I know. But in the meantime, while scientists continue to research the
sources, you can do your part by becoming a more conscientious consumer of
products that may eventually end up in these waterways. Opt for household and
personal items that don’t contain endocrine disruptors (free of pesticides,
plasticizers like BPA, parabens, etc.). Check out my advice on proper
pharmaceutical disposal. And the best advice of all: Don’t use toxic stuff if
you don’t need it. Sexless fish across the country will thank you.

Swimmily,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

I
don’t buy disposable plastic. I especially wouldn’t buy a disposable plastic
lighter after seeing photos of those things inside dead albatross chicks. I
don’t smoke, but I do light candles.

I
always assumed that matches were the most eco-friendly alternative for
generating flame, but recently I started wondering about the chemicals on match
tips and how toxic they are. Do you
know? I also wonder what percentage of matches is made from recycled materials
or FSC-managed forests.

So
forgetting disposable plastic lighters, which is more eco-friendly: using disposable wood/cardboard matches or
refilling a metal lighter with petroleum-based fuel?

Beth
T.
Oakland,
Calif.

A. Dearest Beth,

Big
ups to you for steering clear of disposable plastic lighters, and for the extra
gruesome yet important detail about those poor birds—though I can’t
recommend doing an Internet search for “dead albatross chicks” and “disposable
lighters” right after lunch.

Anyway,
as you already know, disposable lighters are out when it comes to an eco-fire
starter option—more than 1.5 billion of them end up in landfills each year
already. For sway-prone concert-goers, might I suggest a virtual lighter app for your phone or just showing
your appreciation in a different way. Clapping? Whistling? Anything’s possible.

Back
to candles, let’s take a look at the metal lighter. They’re definitely a step
up from the plastic disposables; however, they are filled with butane or
traditional lighter fluid that typically comes in a can with a plastic top or in
a plastic bottle. The fuel, the plastic—both products made from our dwindling
and toxic petrochemical resources.

And
then we have wooden matches. Safety matches, the most common variety, are made
of woods like white pine and aspen and soaked in fire-retardant ammonium
phosphate and paraffin wax. The tip is treated with a mix of antimony
trisulfide, potassium chlorate, sulfur, powdered glass, and glue. Yum! I
couldn’t find a definitive answer on the toxicity of fumes from a briefly lit
match; however, good to know: The Diamond Match Company, the largest U.S.
producer of matches, patented our current nonpoisonous match in 1910 after its
employees became ill from inhaling the phosphorus used in match manufacturing
at the time. Another thumbs up goes to Diamond for using wood sourced from
responsibly managed forests. Even better option? A book of cardboard matches made from
recycled paper.

So
what are you using these candles for anyway? To unwind, destress? Well, perhaps
this will help you relax a little more: Despite the fact that there’s no
eco-perfect option for lighting a candle, striking a match isn’t going to make
or break us on the path to a brighter green future.

Lightly,
Umbra

P.S.
Keep an eye out for my video tomorrow on making your own seltzer. It’s going to
be fizz-tastic! (Sorry, all those bubbles have gone to my brain).

Related Links:

Ask Umbra’s video advice on making your own club soda

Messaging that can save the clean energy bill

Ask Umbra on toilet paper, dryer balls, and Twitter

by Ed Bruske

D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) has introduced landmark “Healthy Schools” legislation that integrates nutrition standards, locally produced foods, school gardening, broader access to subsidized meals and increased physical exercise to address obesity and other children’s health issues in the nation’s capitol. I recently submitted questions to Cheh about her bill, resulting in this interview by e-mail. The questions were submitted before I reported a six-part account of the food being served in D.C. schools. 

Q. What prompted you to write the “Healthy Schools” legislation now pending in the D.C. Council? 

A. There is a lot going on right now to reform the District of the Columbia’s public school system. And that reform is moving on several different fronts: central administration, teacher performance, special education, and facilities modernization. As a strong supporter of that reform, I wanted to ensure that we seize this opportunity to include students’ health as a priority in the reform effort.  While children are in the care of the school system, it is our responsibility to teach and encourage healthy living habits. 

Q. This bill takes on a number of complex issues, such as childhood nutrition, sustainable agriculture, environmental quality, the role of physical activity in good health. What was your approach to crafting legislation that addresses these many different complicated subject areas in the city’s schools?

A. When crafting this bill, as with many reform bills, I thought it would be best to consult the experts. That is why I worked with the American Heart Association to address obesity, the Allergy and Asthma Network Mothers of America on asthma, the D.C. Farm to School Network on providing local fruits and vegetables to students, and many other organizations. The bill is comprehensive but it needs to be if we are seriously committed to improving student health. 

Q. Your bill calls for incorporating recycling, composting, “green” architecture and local produce in the school routine. Some might wonder why D.C. schools need to concern themselves with global questions such as sustainability and where our food comes from. How do you respond? 

A. Although sustainability is a global question, it is also a local one. We can’t ignore the negative impacts that health and environmental factors have on the quality and effectiveness of education. The research is quite clear: healthy students learn better and live longer. 

Q. D.C. Schools operate the largest feeding program in the nation’s capitol. How well are they doing in terms of providing healthful meals to the city’s youth and what kind of upgrades are you calling for? 

A. I think that the investigation conducted by The Slow Cook into the food quality at DCPS is a good example of how we are doing. It could be worse, but we aren’t doing very well. My bill will see to it that students are eating fresh healthy food in school cafeterias throughout the District. 

Q. The D.C. Public School System (DCPS) currently offers free breakfasts to all students. Your bill would extend this program to the city’s charter schools. Can you give us an idea how many additional breakfasts this might entail and how they would be paid for? 

A. Charter schools serve lunch to about 24,000 students each day. We do not know how many of these students also receive breakfast. Increasing the number of students who eat breakfast is an important goal because studies have shown that students who eat breakfast learn better, have higher test scores, and are healthier overall. Like lunch, school breakfasts are reimbursed by the USDA. 

Q. Your bill calls for offering breakfast in elementary school classrooms, and a number of other breakfast options, such as a second-chance breakfast, for older students through high school. What is this about? 

A. Because many students arrive at school shortly before school begins, they are unable to eat breakfast in the school cafeteria before the first class period, which means that many poor students routinely do not eat breakfast. Experts say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. By serving it in classrooms, more students will eat in the mornings. Several DCPS schools are already serving breakfast in the classroom now and teachers there have reported that it is a successful program and they like it because their students are more ready to learn. 

Q. In about 70 percent of D.C. public schools, students who qualify for a “reduced price”—but not free—lunch because of their income level nevertheless have the usual co-payment of 20 cents waived. You would expand this program to all DCPS schools as well as charter schools. What is the reason for waiving the co-payment, and is this a cost the city can bare? 

A. The 20-cent co-payment should be waived so that it is not a deterrent for any student that wants to eat lunch. Given the chronic health and education problems that have plagued the District, we can no longer afford not to provide meals for our students. 

Q. “Healthy Schools” would require that students have a minimum 30 minutes to eat lunch. Why is this important, and are there schools where students currently do not have at least 30 minutes for lunch? 

A. When given a healthy meal, students need sufficient time to consume it. If rushed, students will rely on candy and unhealthy snacks. In some schools, cafeteria lunch lines are so long that students barely have adequate time to buy and eat lunch. Therefore, requiring students to have 30 minutes for lunch would ensure that they have sufficient time to eat healthy. 

Q. Your bill would codify policies adopted by the Board of Education to prohibit schools from selling sodas and to manage the portion sizes of what some people might call “junk” foods, such as chips, donuts, cookies, sold in vending machines or school stores. Why not just eliminate all vending machines and “junk” food from schools? 

A. Vending machines are largely banned from DCPS already; this bill would extend these strict limitations to include Charter schools. Instead of banning vending machines outright, though, we want to create the opportunity that they could be used to dispense healthy foods and beverages. 

Q. The regulations prohibit foods that contain more than 35 percent sugar by weight. Does that mean candy cannot be sold in D.C. schools? 

A. We are still working to craft the most effective health guidelines for foods that can be served outside of school meals. However, most candy would be banned under these guidelines. 

Q. Many jurisdictions are banning trans-fats. This bill calls for removing trans-fats from school foods over a four-year period. Why not ban them immediately? 

A. My goal is for trans-fats to be entirely phased out from public schools as quickly as possible. However, I want to be sensitive to charter schools and ensure that these guidelines are not too onerous. 

Q. You would place stricter limits on sodium, but allow more sodium in foods that contain other nutrients, such as fiber or vitamins. Why? Also, it appears that your sodium allowances are considerably more generous than what the USDA is now calling for in its commodity foods. Have you looked at that? 

A. Sodium is a significant problem and our students consume far too much of it. The bill seeks to reduce sodium consumption. However, this portion of the bill is still under consideration and could likely change moving forward. 

Q. Although this is not addressed in the “Healthy Schools” bill, there is a movement afoot in the country to remove chocolate and other flavored milks from schools because they contain only slightly less sugar than sodas. What are your thoughts on this? 

A. This issue was raised at the first working group my office hosted on this bill and the consensus among education and nutritional experts is that low-fat flavored milk is not a major problem in D.C. public schools. 

Q. Currently it is possible to walk into a public charter school and find a soda vending machine in the lobby. “Healthy Schools” would, for the first time, apply to charter schools the same nutritional and vending standards that are in force in the public school system, meaning charter schools would have to lose the sodas. The bill would also impose fines of $500 per day on schools that do not comply. Do you think this will require significant changes in the way charter schools operate, the revenues they generate from vending machines, and do you foresee some schools actually being fined? 

A. It is my expectation and hope that no schools will be fined for non-compliance with the Healthy Schools Act. Furthermore, I have not found soda machines to be a significant source of income for District schools. 

Q. The federal government has a program to provide fresh fruit and vegetables to needy schools, but apparently only 23 of the 88 eligible schools in the District participate. Is there something wrong with the way D.C. schools manage their food programs? 

A. No. The USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program provides limited amount of funds to the District. Unfortunately, there are more schools that are eligible for this excellent program than there are federal dollars to support it. 

Q. Your bill would require D.C. public schools to serve local farm products whenever possible, with a preference toward foods grown or processed in Maryland and Virginia. Why are local foods important, and wouldn’t this drive up the cost of D.C. school meals? 

A. Purchasing local foods is important because they tend to be fresher and have less impact on the environment. Furthermore, students are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables if they are fresh because they taste better. Experts have told us that local foods cost about the same as non-local produce grown in places such as California. 

Q. How many lunch meals are served by DCPS and D.C. charter schools every day? 

A. Our public schools serve about 70,000 lunch meals each day.  [Councilmember Cheh asked: “How can this be when we do not have that many students.”  DCPS enrolls about 45,000 students and the charters teach another 30,000, for a total of 75,000, and approximately 5,000 students eat lunches provided outside of the federal school lunch program.] 

Q. “Healthy Schools” would provide schools with a 5-cent bonus for meals that include locally produced foods. How much would this 5-cent incentive cost? 

A. This number will depend on the amount of schools that participate. However, our estimate is that it will it cost around $500,000 per year. 

Q. Incorporating local foods into school meals raises some obvious questions, such as seasonality and whether our local agriculture can supply enough food to feed the District’s school children year-round. Do you foresee a day when most or all of the food served in the city’s schools comes from local sources? 

A. The experts say that there is more than enough local food to serve our students everyday. Furthermore, local nonprofits have developed ways to bring in large amounts of fresh foods from local farms during the growing season. They then flash-freeze this produce, which maintains the nutritional value of the food. Flash-frozen food can then be easily stored and served all year long. This process is used now to serve local foods in thousands of local meals at homeless shelters. If we can serve healthy, local foods to the homeless, we can also serve them to our schoolchildren. 

Q. “Healthy Schools” goes further than other farm-to-school programs around the country in that it also requires local farm products to be “sustainably” produced, meaning without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, without non-therapeutic antibiotics and hormones, and using agricultural techniques that conserve resources. Why is that, and is such a requirement feasible? 

A. The current language in the bill would give a preference and a financial incentive to healthy foods that are grown locally and sustainably. In the bill, sustainably does not mean that the farms have to engage in organic farming or all of the techniques listed; the threshold is much lower. Farms would only have to engage in one technique to be considered sustainable. This, I believe, is feasible and would help encourage local farms to be environmentally friendly. 

Q. You would also require vendors to identify the source of all produce used in school meals. Does that pose an unrealistic burden on vendors and distributors? 

A. I don’t think so. Many grocery stores already tell you where the produce you buy at the supermarket comes from. Also, for food safety reasons, it is important that schools know the source of the foods they serve. If food from a particular location needs to be recalled, school administrators can remove it from the food supply more quickly. 

Q. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 18 percent of high school students in the District are obese and 35 percent are overweight. The “Healthy Schools” bill sets minimum physical activity levels in grades K through 8, but does not address high schoolers. Why is that? 

A. The national standards recommended by the American Heart Association only address middle and elementary school students. Furthermore, High School students are required to participate in physical and health education to graduate. But, I remain open to new ways of improving student health in high schools.

Q. The recent trend has been for schools to cut back on physical education, sports, music and other activities in order to focus on core skills such as reading and math to meet “No Child Left Behind” requirements. Your bill moves in the opposite direction, requiring more PE. What do you say to those who think that devoting more time to physical education will hurt D.C. students in reading and math? 

A. I fundamentally disagree that requiring physical education lowers academic achievement. In fact, the research suggests quite the opposite is true. Students who exercise every day behave and learn better. 

Q. Your bill requires schools to recycle paper, bottles, cans and cardboard, including those from food services. Do you have any estimates on what this would cost? Further, the bill says recycling would only be required when funds are available. That could be interpreted as meaning it might never happen, don’t you think? 

A. DCPS has a recycling pilot program that is working well overall. The Healthy Schools Act would extend recycling to all schools—including the charters. Staff in the Chancellor’s office have said that the costs of recycling could be very little, which would be easily offset by the environmental and educational benefits.  

Regarding the language you cite (“when funds are available”), it is a technical legislative drafting practice that helps us guide how funds are allocated within the bill. It’s not something to worry about because I will make sure that my bill is funded. 

Q. “Healthy Schools” envisions food waste for D.C. schools being composted. Why is that important, and how do you see that happening? 

A. School cafeterias generate tons of food waste each week. Instead of going into landfills, this food waste can be composted and used sustainably. Composting is becoming increasingly common at many public and private institutions with significant success. This bill allows a four-year period for phasing out Styrofoam in D.C. school food service and phasing in more environmentally friendly products in lunchrooms. Why would this take four years? 

I am very troubled by the enormous amount of waste that our school cafeterias create. For example, each day, tens of thousands of Styrofoam trays are thrown away. Yet, I understand that our schools lack the infrastructure to have fully sustainable cafeterias. Disposable trays are used because many school cafeterias lack the resources to clean and wash trays every day. Therefore, it will take some time to develop the infrastructure needed to achieve this goal. 

Q. “Healthy Schools” calls on the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to develop a plan for expanding gardens in D.C. schools. Why are school gardens important and what is the likelihood they can be funded? 

A. School gardens are important for many reasons. They teach children about nutrition, how to grow food, and how to eat healthy. Gardens also enable school children to learn about the environment. Moreover, gardening can be good exercise. Serving produce grown in school gardens in school meals can encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables. 

Q. Currently, school gardens exist because of the individual efforts of some teachers and parent volunteers, sometimes with little support from school administrations more focused on reading and math. Do you envision the school system embracing the idea of gardening and building gardens on a large scale? 

A. My hope is that school administrators will embrace school gardens because of the educational value associated with gardening and teaching children to grow their own healthy, fresh foods. 

Q. Your bill calls for a plan to develop “wellness centers” in all of the District’s comprehensive highs schools by 2015. What would be the function of these wellness centers, and would they not duplicate services the city already provides? 

A. One-third of the children in the District live in poverty, and access to medical care is limited for many. Several DCPS high schools have had enormous success creating wellness centers, which offer students comprehensive medical services. There, doctors from Children’s National Medical Center and Georgetown’s medical school examine and treat students. Because this program has been so successful, I believe that the District should examine expanding this program to serve all of our high schools. 

Q. Do you see any hot-button issues in this bill that are likely to generate controversy? 

A. Requiring a specified amount of physical education may create some controversy. But as I said before, the research on this is very clear.  In my mind, the real hot-button issue is the fact that so many children are on the road toward a life of obesity and all of the serious, associated health risks. 

Q. If there is opposition to this bill, where do you suppose it will come from? 

A. If there is major opposition to this bill, I will be surprised. I think most District leaders and residents share my concerns about student health. If there is opposition, I expect that it will come from large food companies that do not have ownership over local sustainable farms and are not invested in our community. 

Q. Meals for D.C. Public Schools are currently provided by Chartwells, an institutional food company that is a subsidiary of the international food giant, Compass Group, and essentially runs school cafeterias and lunchrooms for DCPS. Has Chartwells or Compass Group had anything to say about the “Healthy Schools” legislation? 

A. Chartwells provided a lot of helpful background information this fall, but has not commented on the bill, formally or informally.

Q. Can you estimate the total costs for the changes called for in the “Healthy Schools” legislation? And in a time of budget deficits, how likely do think it is these programs can be funded? 

A. We are still examining the total costs of implementing this bill. However, improving the health of our children is vitally important and I will work hard to ensure that there is money in the budget to implement the Healthy Schools Act. 

Q. How would you rate the chances of this bill being passed? 

A. I expect that the Healthy Schools Act will pass this spring. With very high rates of obesity, juvenile diabetes, asthma, and other chronic conditions, we have a responsibility to take action to make our schools and schoolchildren healthier now. It can’t wait. I will do everything I can to ensure that my bill becomes law as soon as possible.

Related Links:

Washington Times puts screws to city’s food provider, Chartwells

Did Jamie Oliver meet his match in ‘America’s Fattest City’?

Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: Hold the fat and please pass the sugar

by David Roberts

I apologize to FMB’s five fans—I’ve slacked off the last few weeks. But 2010 music is rolling out, and lots of it is good, so I’m going to try to be more regular about it.

I don’t know much about Chris Joss beyond the fact that he’s a French producer that specializes in retro funk filtered through a turntable mentality. I do know that his new album—Chris Joss Presents Monomaniacs Volume 1, slated for release on Monday—is just what I needed today.

“Monomaniac” is right: it’s basically 40 straight minutes of wordless ‘70s cop show soundtrack. No, wait, more like a ‘70s porno, the first scene, where a comely lady is pulled over by a state trooper with a large mustache—the soundtrack for that. You don’t want this stuff in overly large doses, but 40 minutes is about right.

This song—“Backbeating”—should give you the idea.

Related Links:

Friday music blogging: Todd Snider

Friday music blogging: fun.

Friday music blogging: Harper Simon

by Jonathan Hiskes

Alex Steffen—futurist, Worldchanging editor, tall person—makes the provocative argument that there’s really no way to make outer-ring suburbs sustainable. He thinks cities vs. suburbs is the political conflict that will define the next decade, a fact that climate-focused groups have been slow to acknowledge. The real potential, he suggests, lies with urban dwellers who don’t identify as activists or environmentalists—people working in architecture, design, planning, community development, housing, building, local energy, local food, alternative transportation, and the like.

Some of this is in my piece on activism after Copenhagen. Here’s more:

Q. Where do the suburbs fit into the urban focus you’re calling for?

A. The biggest fight I think we’ll see in the next ten years is the fight between people in cities who are trying to transform them into ‘bright green’ cities and those economic interests in the [outer-ring] suburbs who see that as a threat to their livelihoods, and in some cases just despise it on ideological grounds.

Q. Are you saying the suburbs are hopeless?

A. “Suburbs” is a clumsy word because it can mean a lot of different things. One essential set of suburban interests are wealthier outer-ring suburbs, sprawl developers, highway builders, the auto industry, and oil companies. They are all in cahoots and have been for a long time. They’re a big part of the U.S. economy that is about building sprawl on the fringe. And they are pretty clear about their opposition to reinvesting in cities to and to fighting auto dependence.

If the big [environmental] groups really wanted to do something effective, they should start a bunch of campaigns helping inner-ring suburbs identify themselves as urban places, places that have a lot more in common with central cities than with outer-ring suburbs. That’s where the future of the environmental movement is going to be fought.

Q. What’s keeping green groups from doing this?

A. I think they don’t want to portray sustainability as something that is in juxtaposition to sprawling, auto-dependent lifestyles. There’s a sense of, “We don’t want to be in a war with the suburbs.” But I think the war is here, I think it’s at our door. And we didn’t start it.

We are in a situation where we have an opposition party, essentially running the U.S. government, that is willing to say things like, “Climate change is a hoax.” It represents a minority of Americans. It’s completely beholden to big business and is very clearly using xenophobia, racism, and fear of change to block environmental, climate, transportation, and energy action. Basically, they are making this about, ‘Do you really want urban people destroying your way of life?’

The idea that this is not already a fundamental conflict and that we can somehow squeak this by the suburbs is foolish. It’s a false hope.

Q. So there’s no point trying to show outer-ring suburbanites this future is in their interest?

A. One of the real problems is that we’ve spent the last ten years trying to convince that group that there is a vision of this future that is going feel to feel OK to them. I’m no longer convinced that there’s a vision of the future that will ever feel OK to them.
 
But there are so many more winners than losers in this fight that it’s a smart fight to take on. We are becoming an urban planet. We are already an urban country. When you add together cities and inner-ring suburbs and allied small towns, it’s a solid majority of Americans.

Q. What do you do with the fact that so much electricity and fuel comes from outside cities?

A. There’s a real tendency on the part of some climate activists to think in terms of what I call “the swap,” which is to assume that we need to keep the particular assemblage of technologies and land-use patterns that have made up suburban American life so far. Things like single-family homes in low-density developments, places that have no street grid, places that are income-segregated, the idea of bedroom communities, homes that are poorly insulated, products that are poorly designed so that people buy a lot of cheap crap that breaks all the time. A lot of people just assume that’s a given and we need to figure out how to power that with renewable energy.

I question whether that is even technically possible. But even if we could do it, it’s clearly not something that we’re going to do. We really better define our goal differently. It is very possible to have lives that are just as prosperous, and nicer, that use 5 percent of the fossil fuels and virgin materials we do now. But if we’re living anything like the average McMansion-ite, SUV-driving suburbanites, there’s simply no way that can be powered in a climate-friendly way.

Related Links:

How personal actions can kick-start a sustainability revolution

Climate groups grapple for a path forward from Copenhagen

Cities get rebuilt more often than you think

by Donald Carr

The Sundance Film Festival has
long been a celebrated venue for environmental documentaries, due in part to
Sundance founder Robert Redford‘s
green sensibilities. An Inconvenient
Truth, The Cove, and Who Killed the Electric Car? all attracted critical buzz at Sundance
before they made their way into theaters around the country. The festival’s 2010 lineup continues this
trend with a handful of well-crafted, compelling films that address crucial
environmental themes not yet in the public consciousness.

Gasland

Avant garde filmmaker Josh Fox grew up in Pennsylvania on
a pastoral stretch of the Delaware River,
which happens to sit on the natural gas-rich Marcellus shale formation. When he
got a $100,000 offer to lease his property for natural-gas exploration, Fox
felt compelled to chronicle the impact that the natural gas-extraction process
known as hydraulic fracturing has had on the American landscape. 

Gasland begins by deftly
explaining the complicated practice of hydrofracking, which involves injecting
toxic chemicals into the ground—often not far from drinking-water sources—to force natural gas to the surface. This allows the film’s central theme to
emerge: that average Americans are under siege from toxic water and air
contamination while cavalier energy executives brush aside their concerns.

With his untraditional
filmmaking background, Fox elevates the often-dry conventions of environmental
documentaries into a persuasive, mood-driven piece. But this is no art film.
Fox travels across 25 states, including the drill-punctured lands of Colorado and Texas,
to document the debilitating health effects endured by people who have had the
misfortune of living near natural-gas wells.

Gasland‘s subjects aren’t
crunchy types ensconced in eco-conscious enclaves like Boulder. Most are rural families and ranchers
who could easily have cast a McCain vote in the last election. Yet they seethe at an unsympathetic natural-gas
industry that clings to the eroding notion that its product is safe and
environmentally friendly, and that fights tooth and nail to protect its Bush-era
exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

And then there’s the flammable
tap water. In one home after another, Fox and his subjects put lighters to
faucets to show how sloppy drilling has let gas leak directly into drinking
water. The pyrotechnic parlor trick is good cinema; combined with images of
endless parades of heavy trucks to and from drill sites, it makes the visually
quantifiable point that the natural-gas industry has engaged in a rabid,
decade-long expansion without much thought to the consequences.

Fox is hopeful that a
distribution deal is imminent for Gasland.
Robert Koehler’s swooning review in Variety—which
says Gasland is so “potent” that it
could be the rare film that forces social change—could help make studio
distribution a reality. At Monday night’s screening at Sundance, Fox was
greeted by a roaring crowd and choked-up audience members during the Q&A
session. If that’s any indication, the future of Gasland is as bright as flaming tap water. 

See the flammable tap water:

——-

Climate Refugees

Director Michael Nash’s
alarming documentary, which details the impact that a billion humans displaced
by climate change will have on global security, should goose even the most
fervent climate deniers into reconsidering their positions. Nash uses lush
cinematography and first-person accounts to chronicle hellish experiences of
displacement caused by increasingly severe weather-related events like the ones
expected to be triggered by global warming. 

Climate Refugees begins with the tiny
sliver of Polynesian islands that make up the country of Tuvalu.
Tuvalu
is expected to be the first sovereign nation to become a casualty of rising sea
levels. This raises a central question of the film: What happens to the
political identity of people when their country no longer exists? In a world of
tightly controlled national borders, climate refugees have many more barriers
to relocation than political refugees.

And what will happen when
larger groups, in the hundreds of thousands or even millions, are displaced and
have no country in which to relocate? Will they pour over borders and
destabilize already shaky governments in Asia
and the South Pacific? 

When the film pivots from the
recent Bangladesh cyclone to
the U.S. disasters of
Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, it makes the point that America is also in deep danger from
displaced refugees. Crime rates have spiked in towns and cities where Katrina
survivors relocated. Viewed in the context of tens of millions of refugees
potentially rushing our border from the South, our current immigration problems
seem trivial.

The film alternates between
heart-wrenching accounts of survivors of climate disasters all over the globe and
interviews with leading environmental experts such as Lester Brown.
Political leaders like Sen. John Kerry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
also provide insight and commentary, with Gingrich saying he became concerned
about climate change in part because the U.S. military has warned that the
phenomenon threatens to become a serious destabilizing force around the world.

Climate Refugees doesn’t address the causes of climate change, opting not to get bogged down in
that distracting debate. But Nash makes a frightening point near the end of the
film. If climate change is human-made, we have a chance to head off the global
threat of climate refugees. If it’s naturally occurring, we’re screwed.

Watch the trailer:

——-

Born Sweet

Oscar winner Cynthia Wade’s
short film Born Sweet follows Vinh Voeurn, a 15-year-old Cambodian boy suffering from
arsenic poisoning. Arsenic occurs naturally in Cambodia’s volcanic soil and has
been poisoning Vinh’s village water supply for years, recently causing the
death of a young neighbor girl. The arsenic is permanently in Vinh’s system,
leaving him anemic and with ugly dark spots on his body. Yet in this moving but
hopeful short, Vinh comes to terms with his illness and potential mortality,
all while nursing the normal teenage hope of meeting a girl.

In Vinh’s village, the main
source of entertainment is singing along with Cambodian karaoke music videos,
and Vinh dreams of escaping his desperate future with a career as a karaoke
performer. When aid workers connect Vinh with karaoke video producers in order
to make an arsenic PSA, his life changes in a way he and his family could never
have imagined.

Watch the trailer.

——-

And two more worth a mention: Mark
Lewis introduced a 3-D update of his 1988 comedy/documentary about the misguided introduction of amphibians into Australia, called Cane Toads: The Conquest. And Wasteland,
a film by Lucy Walker, shows how Brazilian artists use found objects, in this
case from vast garbage landfills, to make inspired creations.

Related Links:

Oscar smiles upon ‘Food Inc.,’ stiffs ‘Mr. Fox’

In State of the Union, Obama panders to conservatives on ‘clean energy’

Coal power plant timelapse

by Ashley Braun

A new coal-gasification company has named itself LoraxAg, after the consummate Seussical eco-hero, The Lorax. It’s admittedly part of a move to brand the company as advancing the mythical-sounding “Green Coal Technology.” (That’s trademarked, naturally.)

“Green Coal” doesn’t sound musical to the Seussical.Photo: Chris1051 via Flickr

“The Lorax is the protector of the truffula trees,” LoraxAg president Mike Farina said. “We think this is the greenest use of coal.”

In response to the outright ridiculosity of the occasion, I’ve composed a brief tongue-in-cheek homage to one of my childhood heros, Dr. Seuss. (Let me just say it was a glum day in first grade when I found out he passed away.)

“Mister!” he said with a coal-ashy sneeze,
“I am the Lorax. I speak for coal lobbies.
I speak for ‘Green Coal,’ for they have no monies.”

Do you hope the Doctor Seuss their green-washed eggs and ham off?

(Hat tip to The Wonk Room.)

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by Tom Laskawy

There is a battle going on in the White House for the very soul of the organic dairy movement—and possibly over the future of small family-operated dairy farms—and you don’t even know it. I’d like to think that I’m overstating things but no. At issue is an obscure rule in the USDA Organic label that requires “access to pasture” for organic dairy cows. Barry Estabrook, ex of Gourmet, lays it out for us:

In the early 2000s, virtually all of the nation’s organic dairy
farmers—not to mention the millions of consumers willing to pay a
premium for organic products—agreed that milk certified as organic by
the United States Department of Agriculture had to come from cows that
had access to pasture.

As government regulations go, it sounds pretty straightforward: room
to roam, clean air to breathe, fresh grass to eat. And that was the
general consensus on what the National Organic Standards required.

But beginning in the mid-2000s, at about the time when it became
evident that the green “USDA Organic” label translated into bigger
profits, huge Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) with herds of
up to 10,000 cows located in western states got into the organic milk
business.

And that’s where things started to get ugly. The giant dairies wanted a piece of the organic action and began to work the rules to qualify. Here’s what “access to pasture” meant to companies like Horizon Organics or Aurora Dairy, the milk giant that supplies many big box discounters with organic milk:

In some cases, a narrow, grassless strip outside the vast
barns in which the animals were kept was considered “pasture” because
some hay had been spread there. National Organic Standard Board (NOSB) allowances for cows and their very young calves to be kept
indoors for a short period after birth were twisted to include all
milking cows being kept inside 24/7 for 310 days a year.

Either through bureaucratic lassitude or willful neglect,
the big producers were helped every step of the way by USDA officials.

Estabrook helpfully links to some photos of what an organic CAFO looks like—not much pasture anywhere to be seen.

Finally, in response to complaints from groups like the Cornucopia Institute, the USDA acted by forcing Aurora to adjust its practices. And now the USDA has updated the “access to pasture” rule in a way that, according to USDA officials, will:

… be in line with an understanding
organic producers arrived at by consensus in the early 2000s: Milk cows
will graze on pasture for the entire growing season, or for at least
120 days in areas of inclement weather, getting 30 percent of their food from
pasture.

But before that rule goes into effect, it must be approved by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It’s a prime opportunity for those with access to do a little lobbying:

And guess who has
been lobbying hard to “sway the Obama administration,” according to the
Organic Consumers Association? None
other than Aurora Dairy (whose chairman Mark Retzloff and his wife,
Theresa, contributed $4,600 to the 2008 presidential campaign of Thomas
Vilsack, the current head of the USDA, according to Campaignmoney.com) “That level of donor historically buys access,” said Kastel.

OMB has no expertise in this area, of course, and who knows what seemingly minor alterations at the prompting of large dairy lobbyists could do to undermine the rule’s intent. The Organic Consumers Association is meanwhile running a phone and email campaign to urge President Obama to approve the new rules as written.

The real debate, of course, isn’t over what is or isn’t pasture. It’s over whether organic agriculture is just a better version of industrial agriculture—in the case of dairy, one with slightly more humane CAFOs but still based on a grain-fed commodity system that favors low prices and high output over farmer income or product quality.

Or rather should organic agriculture be a government-supported “safe haven” market for small and medium-sized farms that receive a premium for avoiding the temptations of industrial efficiencies of scale and instead approach some sense of sustainability? It’s a debate we’ve willfully avoided—and now we’re faced with the result. If the OMB changes the rules and the “organic dairy CAFO” gets the USDA seal of approval, we’ll know that, whatever the positive rhetoric coming from the White House and the USDA, they will have allowed large-scale producers to come a step closer to ownership of the USDA Organic label. Organic may soon become just become another big business marketing tool and more and more dairy farmers will go out of business as large-scale producers take over. There is, sad to say, nothing sustainable about that.

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And the winner of the USDA food safety sweepstakes is …

by Agence France-Presse

DUBAI—Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden blamed industrial nations for global warming and urged a boycott of the U.S. dollar to end “slavery” in an audio tape aired by Al-Jazeera television on Friday.

“All industrial nations, mainly the big ones, are responsible for the crisis of global warming,” bin Laden said in the message attributed to him by the pan-Arab news channel based in Doha.

In an unusual message possibly timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, he warned of the impact of global warming by saying that “discussing climate change is not an intellectual luxury, but a reality.”

“This is a message to the whole world about those who are causing climate change, whether deliberately or not, and what we should do about that,” he said.

The Al-Qaeda leader then slammed the U.S. administration under former President George W. Bush for not signing the Kyoto protocol on combating climate change. “Bush the son, and the Congress before him, rejected this agreement, only to satisfy the big companies,” he said.

Bin Laden then went on to urge a boycott of the U.S. dollar. “We should stop using the dollar and get rid of it … I know that there would be huge repercussions for that, but this would be the only way to free humankind from slavery … to America and its companies,” he added.

The broadcast came less than a week after bin Laden praised as a “hero” Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to detonate explosives on a U.S. plane approaching Detroit on Christmas Day, in another audio message.

Bin Laden has a $50 million bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years. He is widely believed to be holed up along the remote mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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