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The Best vs the Good

2008-06-30T22:37:04Z

I recently wrote about NRDC's public opinion research program and promised to tell additional tales from the often-humbling land of surveys and focus groups.

In the category of humbling, we were recently told that the American public is deeply skeptical about the environmental movement; folks believe environmentalists, writ large, to be deeply impractical beings.

This finding came from the same researchers who worked on the global warming project I detailed in Pascal's Wager.

In a slide titled "The Best is the Enemy of the Good," the researchers told us that theoretical debate "turns off" large numbers of Americans and that scientific back and forth is inherently considered theoretical and thus impractical.

That opinion is even held by many of what are considered to be "thought leaders," the people who tend to be the most engaged in current affairs and those whose opinions tend help shape public perceptions.

So how do we fix our bad reputation? The researchers told us that environmentalists must talk about concrete solutions that can be quantified and measured. We need to talk about jobs created, dollars saved and lives improved.

They told us that we must make the idea of "practical" our benchmark for success. Its a message that we at NRDC are taking to heart and that is increasingly being reflected in our work.

Take the ads we developed and placed in Washington on behalf of many environmental groups during the recent debate on the Climate Solutions Act proposed by Senators Lieberman and Warner.

As you can see from the sample above, the ads featured the faces of American workers and spoke of jobs that can be created by global warming solutions. And we supported our advertisements with practical analysis such as that presented in a report -- Job Opportunities for the Green Economy -- published by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and in a series of fact sheets by NRDC.

Furthermore, we will work to bring our message of practical solutions to ever broader swaths of the American public. Solutions like those presented by a group formed to give unemployed vets of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the training they need to get so-called green jobs.

NRDC excels in science, law and policy. And our advocacy for the last 40 years has also been deeply rooted in practicality. It's one of the things that most drew me to the organization three years ago and it's what our members constantly tell us they admire most about NRDC.

Our challenge then is to persuade those who are not NRDC members. I shudder to ask, but anyone out there have any ideas how we at NRDC and in the broader environmental movement can shake our bad rep when it comes to practicality?

The Explorer Has to Go

2008-06-26T22:21:55Z

I'll admit it. There's a Ford Explorer towering over the Honda Civic hybrid in our driveway. A gas-guzzling monster of an SUV that my husband inherited years ago. But it will not be there much longer.

Yep, rising gas prices and increasing embarrassment at owning one of the dinosaurs led us to a decision just last week that the Explorer has to go. We're still fighting about what to buy next but given the state of the American car industry, I can pretty much guarantee that it won't be a car from Detroit.

As I've previously written, I'm a big fan of voting with my dollars and I'm way too angry at American car makers to vote for them anytime soon.

That's why I shouted out a big silent "YES" when I saw the editorial in the June 10th issue of Advertising Age titled "A Proactive Detroit Could Have Owned Green Market." (I would have been more verbal but folks tend to look at you a bit oddly when you start shouting on a crowded airplane.)

Now I don't know how long Ad Age has held this position and one can imagine that the magazine has previously supported the actions of some of the biggest advertisers on the planet but the editors now seem firmly in the green camp.

"You'd think Detroit would have learned a lesson back in the 70s," the magazine writes. "It doesn't take an economic historian to remember how Japanese imports got a toehold during the last years of fuel crisis in the states."

In fairness, the editors do point out "that gas-guzzling SUVs weren't driving themselves out of the dealership." And they note that the industry defends itself by saying "they were just giving US consumers what they wanted." (And I will admit that our current SUV isn't the first one we've owned. The first car I actually bought was also an Explorer but that's been gone for years now replaced by the aforementioned Honda Civic Hybrid that I love.)

I also love how the Ad Age editors drive their point home.

"Trucks and SUVs have been one of the few strong areas for General Motors and Ford in the past year," they write. "But it puts us in mind of a group of Neanderthals stumbling across one last herd of wooly mammoths and figuring, 'Hey, we're going to survive after all.'"

Amen. Sorry Detroit, I'll be voting for a more enlightened group of automakers with this upcoming car purchase. But I do believe in evolution so maybe the American car industry will surprise me in a couple of years and I'll reconsider.

But something tells me not to hold my breath.

Hurray for Home Depot!

2008-06-24T15:36:27Z

This weekend, the husband and I stopped by Home Depot to see if we could find shelves to house my out-of-control Kidrobot collection. We got our shelves -- at a huge discount in fact -- but still walked out a couple thousand dollars poorer.

How? Well, we finally bought a new refrigerator, replacing our ancient grumbling sweating box with a sleek French door model from LG. Most importantly, it was an Energy Star model and from I could tell from comparison shopping, it operates at the lowest end of the energy consumption scale.

So what transformed a simple trip for cheap shelving into a major investment in home appliances? Home Depot was offering a gift card worth as much as $250 for buying an Energy Star appliance. Combine that with a 10 percent sale and free delivery and removal of the existing refrigerator and I figure we saved about $600. That's real money and we're not even talking about the energy savings.

After our credit card failed to melt at checkout, I felt good about the purchase and about Home Depot for offering the $250 gift card as an incentive to switch to Energy Star. I recognize that it is their enlightened self interest to help sell refrigerators and other appliances but it also educates -- and prods -- folks like us who knew our refrigerator was a energy monster to make the shift.

And then this morning, while flipping through The New York Times, I saw the prominent news that Home Depot has started a recycling program for compact fluorescent light bulbs. Home Depot -- the nation's second largest retailer -- will announce today that it will take back CFLs at all of its 1,973 stores in the United States, a move that the Times says will create "the nation's most widespread recycling program for the bulbs."

CFLs carry a very small amount of mercury -- roughly equivalent in size to the tip of a ballpoint pen -- and, according to an excellent NRDC fact sheet, it is sealed within the glass tubing.

I've previously applauded Home Depot for starting, among other programs, a new line of environmentally friendly paints and for actively encouraging the purchase of energy saving bulbs.

"We're trying to do the right thing," Ron Jarvis, Home Depot's senior vice president for environmental innovation, told the Times. "Some of the things we do are for the community and not for the bottom line."

The cynical journalist in me finds that really hard to swallow, but in this case I'm prepared to let go and believe. It feels good to do that every once in a while.

Public Enemies

2008-06-23T14:31:44Z

Today's Guardian newspaper quotes NASA climate scientist James Hansen calling for the executives of large fossil-fuel companies to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one [of] the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organizations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime," he tells the newspaper.

Crime is an interesting word. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I do believe massive malfeasance is at work. And not particularly at the oil companies. They have a product to sell and the world stupidly keeps buying it.

Where I think the finger should be pointed is at our political leaders, people like Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma who tells the Washington Post today that Hansen, Al Gore and everyone's favorite punching bags -- the media -- "have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980's."

"But Americans are not buying it," Inhofe says, citing the recent failure of climate legislation to reach the 60 votes necessary to end a Senate filibuster. "It's back to the drawing board for Hansen and company as the alleged 'consensus' over man-made climate fears continues to wane and more and more scientists declare their dissent."

Interesting stuff, Senator. Yes, the climate legislation was unable to climb past your obstructionist roadblock although it received more support than ever before.

And perhaps some scientists are coming out against the idea that humankind has warmed the planet and continues to spew increasing pollutants into our atmosphere. If so, they are awful quiet about their challenge. Perhaps they should post their arguments here and let NRDC's real climate experts take them on.

But truthfully, what proves that Senator Inhofe is part of an increasingly isolated cabal is that much of corporate America understands that we cannot continue unabated our polluting ways. The United States Climate Action Partnership includes some of the biggest names in business and the environment coming together to say this issue is real and a solution must be found. The daily newsletter Environmental Leader cites business after business scrambling to take steps to cut carbon pollution.

Is some of it greenwashing? Probably so. Is a good deal of it real? Most certainly.

The First Amendment correctly protects folks like Senator Inhofe from prosecution for their political views. But the Constitution certainly cannot protect Inhofe's future standing in American history. It is there that his behavior is likely to be judged criminal in the broadest sense of the word.

Pascal's Wager and Global Warming

2008-06-21T03:37:12Z

Public opinion research is part of my responsibilities at NRDC and its a piece of my job that I love. There's nothing quite like watching a group of folks from behind a one-way mirror talk about the issues that NRDC works on each day. Often it is an enlightening experience; sometimes it can be deeply humbling.

As part of our research program, we recently cosponsored some work on public attitudes toward global warming. The results were, as suggested above, both enlightening and humbling as researchers from SRI Consulting Business Intelligence looked at the motivations behind views, opinions and behaviors around climate change. This was diagnostic research, designed to help organizations like NRDC understand best how to tell the critical story of climate change and energy consumption so I cannot go into too much detail here.

But there was one area that I found particularly fascinating.

The idea is based on a theory developed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who in the 1600s argued that believing in God was a useful "wager" since the potential consequences of being wrong about the existence of a higher power were so scary.

Applying that theory to the question of climate change, the researchers said, could be a powerful argument for action. Even if not completely persuaded that global warming is real (remember what I said about humbling!) voters could be persuaded to cut global warming pollution when they considered the potential consequences of being wrong.

Personally, I love this line of reasoning. It speaks to a hard-headed realism that I've consistently found in our public opinion research. This realism helps balance the helpings of humble pie we often must eat when we find that public opinion lags on the specifics of one environmental challenge or another.

I'll be writing more about our public opinion research in future posts. While never the final word, our research helps us understand how to approach our work. And I think that understanding should be shared as widely as possible. So stay tuned.

It'll Cost You

2008-06-18T17:45:36Z

Couldn't resist this nugget from the front page of today's USA Today: "Speeders to Pay Extra for Police Fuel."

According to the paper, the City Council of suburban Holly Springs, GA, decided to help cover the spiraling cost of gasoline by charging speeders an extra $12 "fuel surcharge."

Holly Spring Police Chief Ken Ball tells the paper:

"I was hearing that Delta, pizza deliverers, florists were adding fuel charges to their services and I thought, why not police departments."

Why not indeed. In some ways this seems to be the perfect response to high gas prices because in addition to being against the law speeding cuts your gas mileage.

In fact, the Alliance to Save Energy says that road rage activities such as "speeding, rapid acceleration and rapid braking can lower gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds." My colleague Deron Lovaas writes often about these issues on his Switchboard blog. His posts are well worth reading.

Apparently the Atlanta city council has already passed a similar surcharge and Chief Ball says he is being inundated with calls from other government officials around the country eager to follow his lead.

As Holly Springs Mayor tells USA Today: "This is a self-taxing system. If you don't break the law, you don't pay the tax."

Nega Whats?

2008-06-18T17:05:51Z

When we purchased our slice of paradise near New Hope, PA, we knew the house had not received much tender loving care. But we did not realize at the time, however, that it hadn't really been touched in the 30 years since it was built by a guy who apparently did not know what he was doing.

So step by step, we're tearing the place apart and slowly but surely, we'll end up building a new house where the old one stands. A few weeks ago, for example, we sadly decided to get rid of the greenhouse that stretched the length of the back of the house. Broken seals and a heating system that stopped working a long time ago meant the greenhouse was little more than a heat bomb in the summer and a refrigerator in the winter. Trying to heat it or keep it cool drove our electricity bills ever northward and our plants never really stood a chance.

And now it is time -- finally -- to get rid of the refrigerator, oven and stove. We're not certain, but it seems like they were original to the house which means that they were manufactured long before Energy Star was even on the drawing board. Oh yeah, and there's the central air conditioner that hasn't been doing much of late as the East Coast suffered through an early summer heat wave.

All of this to say that I'm really getting into energy efficiency. I've long found it a fascinating topic but more on a theoretical level. But now as a homeowner of an energy disaster, I'm really diving in. And luckily for me, my day job also requires that I do a lot of thinking about energy efficiency.

My most recent find was an excellent authoritative briefing from the editors of the Economist, one of my favorite magazines that I rarely have a chance to read when it comes out. This weekend, I had a chance to catch up on reading (and recycling) and found a deep dive on Energy Efficiency. Titled "The Elusive Negawatt," the article quotes many energy efficiency experts such as NRDC's own MacArthur Award winning genius David Goldstein and Art Rosenfeld, the subject of a long article in NRDC's OnEarth magazine a while back.

The crux of the article -- as well as NRDC's advocacy on the topic -- is that energy efficiency has long been known as the best method of curbing the world's increasing demand for energy. And that the term "negawatt" is quickly becoming the preferred shorthand term for energy efficiency.

There is so much in this article to reflect on that that I'll be returning to it in future posts. But the bottom line, according to the Economist, is that "big investments in energy efficiency would more than pay for themselves, and fairly fast ... Moreover, with ample profits to be made, financing should be easy to attract." The amount that needs to be invested, the Economist reports, is in the tune of $170 billion a year until 2020, a staggeringly large number but only 1.6 percent of global annual investment in bricks and mortar and other fixed capital.

I'm persuaded that my home infrastructure investments will provide a speedy return on my dollar. Luckily for our survival on the planet, it seems like business and government are beginning to see the opportunities too.

Turning Buzz into Reality

2008-06-16T15:11:56Z

Has corporate America suddenly seen the “green” light? It’s a question I’ve raised frequently in this space, noting that everywhere you turn, another company is announcing a new green initiative. No matter what their motivation -- whether it’s saving money, earning good publicity, or a genuine interest in running a sustainable, profitable enterprise -- these companies seem interested in changing.

Of course, the clamor from all those announcements can seem deafening. The New York Times Style Section made just that point on Sunday in an article titled: “That Buzz in Your Ear May Be Green Noise.” The thesis of the article by Times reporter Alex Williams is boiled down by a quote from Mary Burnham of San Francisco: “Heck, I’ll come out and say it. I’m a little overwhelmed.”

Hey Mary, I’m a professional environmentalist and I’m confused too. When Williams called me last week to discuss his article, I couldn’t have been in more agreement with his thesis. We all need help reducing the signal to noise ratio.

Luckily I was able to tell the Times about one of our tools for helping cut the clutter. It’s an ever-growing NRDC web program called SimpleSteps where we give clear advice in a “minute, a morning or month” format. In other words, if you have a minute and want to make better choices for your family and the environment, we’ve got a tip. If you have a morning, we’ll take you a bit deeper and -- if you have a month -- well dive on in.

Williams was writing for the Times Style Section. Had he been reporter for the business sections of the Times, though, I would have directed him to another newly launched resource which is designed to build on NRDC’s long experience working behind the scenes to help businesses and other large organizations green their operations.

Building on that expertise, we just launched the NRDC Greening Advisor to open the vaults of our business-based expertise.

The Greening Advisor was developed as a free, web-based tool for small and mid-sized businesses interested in finding ways to reduce the environmental impacts of their operations. It’s full of practical tips that can help any company establish and achieve a green goal. It tackles topics such as energy efficiency, water conservation, waste reduction and paper use, and also points out how environmentally friendly business practices can improve the bottom line.

Does the thing really work? Ask Major League Baseball, the NBA and the GRAMMYs -- they’re just a few of the groups that have already made use of the Greening Advisor. And many many more are working with our experts to get started.

So stay tuned. Maybe someday soon we’ll be able to persuade the business pages of the Times to follow up on this weekend’s excellent Style Section story to help corporations and others turn buzz into reality.

Press Clips: airline fuel economy, a conservation deal, integrated pest management, more

2008-05-10T02:24:33Z

NRDC in the News (May 9, 2008)

NRDC’s Deron Lovaas scored some valuable real estate on the front page of the USA Today business section discussing attempts by airlines to reduce fuel use. Lovaas, director of NRDC's Vehicles Campaign, told the paper, "The airlines have historically done a much better job than the auto companies at increasing efficiency."

"They feel fuel prices,” Lovaas explained, “much more than your average consumer feels changes in fuel costs at the pump."

More on airlines and fuel economy

***

Speaking of valuable real estate, quotes from NRDC's Joel Reynolds book-ended a New York Times piece detailing the conservation efforts of the Tejon Ranch development deal in California that secured easements on 240,000 acres of uniquely biodiverse land.

''This is the Holy Grail of conservation in California,'' Reynolds said.

The paper concludes by saying that Reynolds “also noted that public access to the ranch, from the grasslands to the gnarled Joshua trees, would be guaranteed, and that a 49,000-acre park would most likely be created."

More on Tejon Ranch deal

***

In Women's Health, NRDC's Kim Knowlton plugged NRDC.org while drawing reader’s attention to the connection between global warming, smog, allergies and asthma.

More on allergies, asthma, and climate change

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In another health magazine – surprisingly titled Health – NRDC’s Jen Sass told readers about integrated pest management and advised caution when dealing with toxic pesticides, which, she warns, "aren't selective killers" and may increase cancer risk or neurological maladies such as Parkinson's disease.

More on alternatives to toxic pesticides

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NRDC also maintains a strong presence in Canadian media with analyst Susan Casey-Lefkowitz telling the Vancouver Sun about the Alberta tar sands' dubious future in US energy policy. “We want our energy,” she said, “but not at all costs.” To this end, the Sun reports, "The Natural Resources Defense Council and 26 other US and Canadian environmental groups sent a letter to members of the US Congress" to maintain a section of our energy bill that prohibits use of tainted energy sources like Canada's oil sands.

More on Alberta’s tar sands

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Press Clips is a new feature on Switchboard that will provide a highly selective view of the world as seen through the eyes of NRDC staff quoted by mainstream media outlets. Roundups will appear daily, Monday through Friday.

RSS / subscribe to Switchboard's Press Clips

Press Clips: spin from Detroit, restoring the San Joaquin, stopping sewage overflows, more

2008-05-09T02:12:37Z

NRDC in the News (May 8, 2008)

NRDC's Roland Hwang shares an irritating tale with NPR's Marketplace [listen] about how -- despite spending millions to fight higher CAFE standards in Congress -- Ford has had fuel-efficient technology all along. A bit of the transcript:

The auto industry's main argument against higher fuel economy standards was that meeting them would be too costly and would harm the already struggling US auto industry. Roland Hwang, with the Natural Resources Defense Council, says Ford's actions prove they've been crying wolf.
“They know how to do this,” Hwang says, “but of course a lot of these technologies have been used for higher performance, higher acceleration and making the vehicle fleet bigger.”
Hwang says with the era of the gas-guzzling SUV coming to an end, automakers can now apply these technologies to lighter and smaller cars, adding up to more savings at the pump.

More on fuel economy

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Whatever the questionable behavior of corporate America, we should all be able to agree that government should make our lives less stinky. NRDC's Nancy Stoner tells USA Today how the government needs to better police and prevent sewage overflows. As the paper reports, her analysis of EPA data found "since 2003, hundreds of municipal sewer authorities have been fined for violations, including spills that make people sick, threaten local drinking water and kill aquatic animals and plants.

Local governments will be making improvements over the next 10 to 20 years, Stoner said, but the 1.2 million miles of underground sewers across the country present quite a challenge. Still, Stoner says, "When people flush their toilets, they think the sewage is going to the treatment plant, and that's where they deserve to have it go."

More on sewage overflows

***

That sort of common sense so often reflects the environmental point-of-view so it’s fair to ask why we always seem to be fighting against the political current? Imagine that quintessentially western tableau of salmon conquering bear-bordered waterfalls. Sometimes environmental advocacy can feel equally challenging.

Thankfully, as the Associated Press writes, both salmon and environmentalists breached the allegorical falls Wednesday with a US Senate settlement to restore salmon populations in the San Joaquin Delta, California. This case has raged since NRDC and other groups sued the Department of the Interior over the Friant Dam in 1988, which had dried up California's second-longest river (and a major salmon habitat) since the 50s. Hal Candee, lead negotiator for the NRDC, explains, "Today's vote is about reversing that trend [against salmon and salmon fishermen]."

More on restoring the San Joaquin River

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Also in California, another negotiated success hit this morning’s front page of the LA Times in a report on a historic conservation land deal that will preserve a huge parcel “eight times the size of San Francisco... [at] the juncture of four ecosystems: Mojave Desert grasslands, San Joaquin Valley oak woodlands, Tehachapi pine forests and coastal mountain ranges."

"We've come a long way from where we started," Joel Reynolds, senior attorney and director of the NRDC’s Southern California Program, told the Times. "This was an extremely complicated deal, but also a once-in-a-lifetime conservation opportunity."

In the negotiated settlement, NRDC and others won the conservation of 240,000 acres while agreeing to not oppose development plans on another 30,000 acres nearby; this development must proceed under environmental guidelines, including the capability to be retrofitted as future green opportunities emerge.

More on the Tejon Ranch deal

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Other conservation efforts have not yet come to fruition. As the Jackson Hole Star Tribune reports, NRDC and others have petitioned the federal government for more aggressive gray wolf conservation goals in Yellowstone. As NRDC geneticist Sylvia Fallon explains, current conservation levels leave a population too small to produce long-term genetic viability.

"[Original] recovery goals of 300 wolves across these three states were established over 20 years ago, and there's been a lot of developing science since that time,” Fallon told the Star Tribune. “The Fish and Wildlife Service has not incorporated any of this evolving science into its decision [to list the wolves as 'recovered']."

Fallon challenges, "Fish and Wildlife has not achieved a self-sustaining, recovered population of wolves." She offers a better solution: "Getting the wolves in Yellowstone connected naturally to large numbers of other wolves, so that they can naturally exchange genetic materials."

More on protecting Yellowstone’s wolves

***

For another trip to the bottom of the allegorical falls, we return to San Joaquin Delta. Though we may have helped the salmon upstream, the Contra Costa Times reports that a planned diversion of 20 percent more water from the Delta might cause problems for declining salmon runs while also threatening the overall balance of the Delta as a whole.

Though a state paper touts fish that have been saved in other areas, NRDC water policy analyst Barry Nelson rebuts the state report, "The [study] is biased in a way that disguises the potential impacts of the scenarios they analyze." Nelson continues, "There's absolutely no discussion here of what the Delta can accommodate and remain healthy."

***

Further north, Canada's Globe and Mail reports how NRDC senior attorney Susan Casey-Lefkowitz has opposed Canada's high-carbon-emitting tar sands, urging the US Senate to maintain a ban keeping the "tainted" fuel out of our energy portfolio.

The Mail reports that, in anticipation of attempts this week to rescind the fuel ban, a "letter [to Congress] was written by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an influential New-York-based environmental group, and endorsed by 26 other organizations."

The NRDC letter told the government it "will make the job of reducing global warming emissions even more difficult if it chooses to subsidize the development of high-carbon fuels through long term contracts."

Casey-Lefkowitz told the Mail, "The tar sands oil is very dirty." Beyond its dirty emissions, the paper explains that she notes "both the large amount of energy needed to process sticky bitumen from which petroleum is extracted and the dangers these massive mining projects pose to wildlife.”

More on Alberta’s tar sands

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Press Clips: corporate green, safe sushi, energy diet, more

2008-05-08T02:40:38Z

NRDC in the News (May 7, 2008)

Going green may be all the rage in corporate America, but some are starting to question what it all means. Linda Greer, Director of NRDC’s Health and Toxics Program, tells the Christian Science Monitor that "true sustainability requires independent certification, extensive consumer-education campaigns, and a desire and ability to review entire supply chains."

Sometimes this supply-chain analysis is beyond consumers' capacity.

"How do I know if a garment is 'green'?,” Greer explains. “The answer is: there's no way to know that. Even if you buy a T-shirt that's organic, you don't know the factories and the chemicals that went into dyeing it, or how much carbon they emitted into the air."

More on green business

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Similarly, Fox Business News.com carries a piece on oil juggernauts’ “green” PR programs and turns to NRDC advocate Deron Lovaas for analysis of campaigns by the likes of Exxon Mobil. "Presumably, these companies are following up on their promises to invest a part of these profits in alternative energy, but the amount they are investing at this point is unclear at best,” Lovaas said. “Exxon does some work with lithium ion batteries and BP some work with biofuels. But we need a clearer plan for the future."

More on moving beyond oil

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So you bike to work and shop at the Salvation Army? Well, you're still not off the hook – pun intended – when it comes to your choice of fish. O, The Oprah Magazine recommends NRDC's guide to sushi for the safest scales for your body and world.

More on mercury contamination in fish

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Even if you squirm at the sight of sushi, we all eat electricity in hefty helpings. Putting New Yorkers on a more responsible energy diet, the energy utility National Grid has proposed a sweeping efficiency initiative. In an article in the Syracuse Post Standard, NRDC's air and energy policy director Ashok Gupta applauded National Grid's “leadership in advancing this cost-effective energy efficiency program."

"The proposal presents a model for aligning company and customer interests in reducing New York's energy consumption,” Gupta told the newspaper.

More on reducing your energy consumption

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One questionable use of national energy devotes our tax dollars to predator eradication programs across the country. In a recent article in High Country News by NRDC wildlife advocate Lisa Upson, we learn that "the federal agency euphemistically known as Wildlife Services" provides "a taxpayer handout to the livestock industry" by spending over "80 percent of its mostly public funding as a political favor to agribusiness."

According to Upson, Wildlife Services often uses unsafe and inhumane tactics, including "gas cartridges to asphyxiate pups in dens" and "Compound 1080, a poison so lethal it's been banned in several states and countries." Upson identifies Wildlife Services as "a major force in eliminating wolf and grizzly bear populations in the early 20th century, [which] today spends over $100 million each year...to kill more than a million animals." Upson also reports, "Wildlife Services has killed an increasing number of endangered species... between 1996 and 2006."

More on wildlife conservation

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Finally, NRDC senior lawyer Ann Alexander has won recognition on a Crain's Chicago Business list of the city's "Women to Watch," rubbing shoulders with Michelle Obama and, in the process, offering a nice plug for NRDC. Crain's writes, "[A] love of nature and concern over humans' impact on it are at the core of her work as an environmental lawyer in the Chicago office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group with 350 lawyers, scientists and policy experts in five national offices plus a new outpost in Beijing."

The article describes how Alexander worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley last summer to fight a BP's proposal to increase it's pollution of Lake Michigan and Chicago's drinking source. The mayor's director of external affairs, Joe Deal, praises, "She's the kind of person you want in the room when you tackle a complicated issue."

Alexander graciously shares the credit. "I am working for an organization that could actually turn this country around on climate change," she says.

***

Press Clips is a new feature on Switchboard that will provide a highly selective view of the world as seen through the eyes of NRDC staff quoted by mainstream media outlets. Roundups will appear daily, Monday through Friday.

RSS / subscribe to Switchboard's Press Clips

Press Clips: Energy, Climate and Drought

2008-05-07T03:50:56Z

NRDC in the News (May 6, 2008)

An influential insider website, Environment and Energy Daily, talks with Dan Lashof, Director of the NRDC Climate Center, [transcript, video] about a joint NRDC/Ceres benchmarking report on greenhouse gas emissions of American power companies and the economic impact of emissions limits – such as those in the Lieberman-Warner bill currently before congress – on them and on energy consumers.

"The average customer's bill could actually go down under the Lieberman-Warner bill rather than up,” Lashof predicts. “If people are investing in more efficient lighting, appliances, building shells, air conditioning, their bills could go down and that really ought to be our goal."

Lashof also addressed how the variety of reports on the bill might offer conflicting economic data: "Different interests may cherry pick the analyses," he said, "[But] it's clear that the overall impact on the economy from the Lieberman-Warner bill is quite modest....the economy grows robustly with or without the bill." Lashof’s bottom line: "This is affordable."

Also in energy news, the Associated Press reports that NRDC is suing to stop seismic oil exploration in Arctic waters this summer. The article reports that NRDC, alongside other environmental and indigenous lands groups, has asked US District Court Judge John Sedwick for "a preliminary injunction, which would stop all seismic work until the court makes a final decision" about the seismic strategy's negative impact upon surrounding marine species such as whales and seals.

Another energy battle is playing out in New York City where Mayor Michael Bloomberg is engaged in what The Daily News called a "testy" battle with Astoria Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. over plans for a new power plant in Queens.

Despite complaints from Vallone about the new power plant being “another dagger aimed at our lungs,” NRDC’s Ashok Gupta tells the News that the new plant will “improve New York City’s air quality by displacing electricity from older, dirtier and less efficient generating capacity.”

Gupta explained that advancements in technology will allow the new plant to function on 30 percent less fuel per unit of electricity.

Better efficiency is critical, particularly as the consequences of fossil-fuels-produced energy usage become clearer and clearer.

One of these consequences has hit Florida where the increasing desiccation of the Everglades has forced the state to begin construction of a re-hydrating reservoir more massive than the area of Manhattan.

Though the project has promise, the Associated Press reports that NRDC has sued for a more toothy agreement to govern the reservoir's use. According to Brad Sewell, NRDC council attorney in water and oceans, without legally committing the water to re-hydrating the "river of grass," agricultural and development interests could hijack the benefits. Sewell told the news service, "The Everglades and everyone deserves better than that."

The world does deserve better. Still, as we race to do better for our world, it sometimes seems that logistical speed bumps conspire against us. NRDC's Darby Hoover, senior resource manager in the Urban Program, explains to Plenty Magazine how to sidestep one of these obstacles by taking charge of our own recycling.

According to Hoover, if you are struggling to find a place to recycle your newspaper bags, don't fret – it's actually better to reuse the skinny sheaths instead. "Think about it: preventing a new item from being manufactured in the first place saves more energy and resources than recycling one," Hoover says.

So, what to do with these daily deliveries to our personal waste stream? The article lists creative reuses for newspaper bags – braiding them into jump rope, wearing them while doing dishes, waterproofing your boots for rainy days, packing snacks for the road – and offers the crowd favorite in appropriately bold type: POOPER SCOOPER.

NRDC's Hoover explains, "I don't even have a dog, but I save them up for friends who do."

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Press Clips: Food vs Fuel, Port Emissions, Patagonia and Water Quality in Miami

2008-05-06T04:15:50Z

In “Is Ethanol Getting a Bum Rap?,” Business Week’s John Cary considers biofuels’ connection to soaring global food prices. He writes, “Certainly a rapid rise in food prices brings misery to poor countries.”

Cary looked to NRDC Senior Policy Analyst Nathanael Greene, who offered one silver lining of increased food prices: after this initial shock, he says, higher prices will level the playing field for farmers in the developing world who have long competed in futility against heavily subsidized grain from Europe and the United States.

Cary concludes his article by saying that energy costs – not ethanol – should be blamed for high grocery bills. He cites a group of a group of agricultural economists at Texas A&M university who wrote, "The underlying force driving changes in the agricultural industry, along with the economy as a whole, is overall higher energy costs."

Greene also gets a nice plug from The New York Times' City Room blog and writer Carol Murphy who directs her readers to Nathanael’s blog on Switchboard as "an excellent place to get more information and details” on alternative energy.

On the other coast, NRDC appears in a Long Beach Telegram article regarding rising cancer rates around the expansion of the Port of LA. NRDC Senior Attorney David Pettit notes that, while the port trumpets the emissions reductions in its plan, their admission of an increase in cancer risk “[seems to be] saying ‘We’re already killing a lot of people, so what’s one more?’" Pettit adds, "That’s just not acceptable.”

Also not acceptable, says Jacob Scherr of NRDC’s International Program, are retirement funds that often invest against the ideals of their beneficiaries.

In talking with the Canadian paper The Globe and Mail, Scherr laments a planned hydroelectric project -- partly-funded through two Canadian public-sector retirement funds -- that would dissect a practically untouched portion of Andean Patagonia.

“I think a lot of Canadian pensioners would be very upset to realize that part of their legacy was destroying one of the most beautiful and pristine places left on the planet,” Scherr said. Moreover, the article reports Scherr’s assertion that such an “eco-gem” would bring “more value to Chileans over the longer term if it were left unspoiled.”

Albeit less pristine than Patagonia, Miami’s marine ecosystem also finds itself under anthropogenic attack. While many know South Beach for the diverse dating preferences of its inhabitants, the city’s pollution has created a less positive array of sexual diversity in the fish of its surrounding waters.

In a Reuters article carried by MSNBC.com, NRDC Clean Water Project director Nancy Stoner explains that the city’s dumping of "at least 300 million gallons of partially treated urban waste water...has been linked to abnormally developed fish that have both male and female characteristics."

Stoner says that pharmaceutical waste and pollutants such as endocrine disrupters "can drive hormone systems haywire.”

"The thing with pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupters and so forth is that people don't really know what the long-term effects are," she added. "I find that scary."

The article echoes her concern, pointing out that there are no effective programs in place in the United States to remove these types of pollutants from waste water. Although forced by environmental organizations and other activists to fix the problem, Miami authorities may take over fifteen years and $3 billion to re-route the ocean-bound waste stream.

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Turn Over Your Piggybanks. Now.

2008-05-02T15:39:34Z

No, this is not a plea for NRDC membership (although we wouldn't object, of course, if you wanted to wander over to the donation forms and make a contribution!) Instead, I'm writing with the fascinating observation in this week's Business Week magazine that we can turn our piggybanks green by no longer hoarding all those unspent coins.

Apparently there are some 150 billion coins stashed in homes around the country. That equals $10 billion dollars, or, according to Business Week, $90 per household.

And because we are squirreling away our coins, the US Mint needs to keep making new ones. And that involves copper mining and refining and huge amounts of power and water. Who knew.

Truth is that I hate carrying change. The minute I get home, I dump whatever I have in an old fare collection box I snagged years ago from the New York City MTA. When they were converting bus fare boxes to digital, some smart soul at the MTA decided to sell the old boxes and I was lucky enough to stumble on the sale. Ever since, I've dutifully dragged it from apartment to house and house to house as we've relocated several times. And each time it gets heavier and heavier from the accumulated weight of all those coins.

So I guess I'll be going to the bank soon to turn in my coins. And who knows, I may just make an extra contribution to NRDC with the proceeds. Its budget season here and maybe I can wrangle a few extra dollars for the communications department if I put a bit extra bit in the coffers.

Green It. Mean It?

2008-04-21T14:58:33Z

The following revelation probably won't likely earn me any brownie points with my policy crazy colleagues, but I'm a dedicated American Idol viewer. Amid all the hype and overwhelming commercialism, there's something inspiring about watching a bunch of talented kids gathering up the courage to sing before tens of millions. There's also more than a bit American gladiator each week as those same tens of millions watch someone's dreams crushed on live television.

Last week, however, something more than the annoyingly endless commercials and teary moments caught my eye. The ubiquitous Fox logo that lives in the bottom right corner of the screen morphed into what the network calls a celebration of the planet and a plea -- perhaps demand would be a better word -- that we "Green It." And "Mean it."

Fox, of course, isn't alone in its effort to urge us all to go green. Wandering through New York last week, I came across so many storefront windows hawking so-called green products that you'd think that Fifth Avenue had transformed from a citadel of commercialism to a blocks-long advertisement for NRDC and our fellow environmental groups.

Now I'm probably a bit more believing than most professional environmentalists when it comes to believing the green claims of corporate America. I truly do believe that something has changed in the corporate ether. Sure, thousands of marketing directors around the country have poured over hundreds of public opinion surveys and found that environment is beginning to matter to Moms and Dads everywhere and that folks are desperate for green advice. (We've been hearing the same requests and in response have launched Simple Steps, a special user-friendly guide to help those interested in improving their health and the health of their families and the planet. I'm particularly proud of Baby Steps. If there's a baby in your life, I highly recommend checking it out.)

Or maybe the business magazines are to be believed and corporate America has finally realized that there's hundreds of billions of dollars to be made in dealing with the climate crisis and other environmental challenges that threaten our future.

I wouldn't, however, fault anyone for being deeply skeptical about the depth of this new commitment. After all, its fairly easy to proclaim a new found greenness. But its another thing completely to mean it.

Only time will tell whether Fox listens to its own propaganda and takes the massive internal steps necessary to green its own operations. Early indications are good -- earlier this year, Rupert Murdoch has announced that his News Corporation and all of its worldwide operations will go carbon neutral by 2010 -- but it will take more than a news segment and a few hybrid cars and diesel generators.

Green it. Sure. Mean it? Only time will tell.