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Grist News
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Top environmental news from around the globe.
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Snippets from the news
• Bush admin bars drilling near Alaska's Lake Teshekpuk in exchange for OK to drill elsewhere.
• Australian kangaroos may be culled after all.
• Obesity contributes to global warming.
• Climate change will lead to barbarization.
• Illinois requires green cleaners in schools.
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Conservative Christians launch skeptical climate campaign
Conservative religious leaders have launched a "We Get It!" campaign that just goes to prove that saying something doesn't make it so. The campaign aims to gather a million signatures on a petition opposing climate-change action, with the argument that tackling global warming will hurt the world's poor. "Our stewardship of creation must be based on Biblical principles and factual evidence," says the petition. "We face important environmental challenges, but must be cautious of claims that our planet is in peril from speculative dangers like man-made global warming." The campaign is in large part a response to the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which urges climate-fighting legislation and notes that global warming ain't exactly going to be a party for the impoverished. So far, the We Get It! petition has less than 100 signers, but those include such climate-savvy luminaries as Focus on the Family Chair James Dobson and Sens. James Inhofe and Tom Coburn (both R-Okla.).
sources: Christian Post, The Oklahoman, Baptist Press, CNSNews.com
see also, in Grist: Southern Baptist leaders urge action on climate change
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Bush admin debuts final recovery plan for spotted owl
The Bush administration has released a final plan for helping out the northern spotted owl, after a prior plan was deemed to have been watered down by political interference. Critics admit the plan is an improvement over last year's draft -- which relied heavily on, ahem, taking out predator barred owls with shotguns -- but still wish more emphasis had been put on restricting logging in the threatened bird's old-growth forest habitat. "We are definitely concerned this is not going to be sufficient to recover the owl," says Steve Holmer of the American Bird Conservancy. "It does appear to have some pretty significant loopholes." U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say the spotted owl could be recovered within three decades if all goes well; the recovery plan will be reviewed in 10 years to see whether it's working.
sources: Associated Press, The Columbian, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
straight to the plan: 2008 Final Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl
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Greens celebrate two holidays today
If you saw a tiger riding a two-wheeler to the office this morning, that's because it's Endangered Species Bike to Work Day. Wait, wait, we're getting a memo -- oh, actually, it's both Endangered Species Day and Bike to Work Day. (Then what the hell was that tiger doing?) In honor of Bike to Work Day, bicyclists in many cities picked up free swag along their commute routes this morning. In honor of Endangered Species Day, nearly one-third of the world's species went extinct between 1970 and 2007. That's 25 percent of land-based wildlife, 28 percent of salt-water animals, and 29 percent of freshwater fauna, according to WWF's Living Planet Index. But hey, look at it this way: the less animals there are, the less endangered animals there are! Let it never be said that we aren't optimists.
sources: BBC News, Reuters, League of American Bicyclists
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EPA plans to loosen air-quality rules near national parks
Call us crazy, but rewriting the Clean Air Act to ease the way for new coal plants near national parks seems to fly in the face of that whole "clean air" thing. But sure enough, the U.S. EPA plans to make a change allowing the government to calculate the average annual emissions of power plants near parks and wilderness areas, instead of tracking (and potentially punishing) the spikes in pollution spewed during peak energy times. "It's like if you're pulled over by a cop for going 75 miles per hour in a 55 miles-per-hour zone, and you say, 'If you look at how I've driven all year, I've averaged 55 miles per hour,'" explains Mark Wenzler of the National Parks Conservation Association. The NPCA estimates that the rule change will ease construction of 28 new coal plants within 186 miles of 10 national parks. And those parks are hazy enough as it is, laments one National Park Service engineer: "It would really be a setback in trying to make progress."
sources: The Washington Post, Reuters
straight to the NPCA report: Dark Horizons
see also, in Grist: An interview with Tom Kiernan of the National Parks Conservation Association
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