Naturally Interesting

The Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including Arthur Andersen and Enron, has deferred prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years. These companies have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret. The problem:

companies may be willing to take more risks because they know that, if they are caught, the chances of getting a deferred prosecution are good. “Some companies may bear the risk” of legally questionable business practices if they believe they can cut a deal to defer their prosecution indefinitely, Mr. Khanna said.

And of course one of those involved is Monsanto. One could expect no less from such an upstanding company.

In 2005, federal authorities concluded that a Monsanto consultant had visited the home of an Indonesian official and, with the approval of a senior company executive, handed over an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The money was meant as a bribe to win looser environmental regulations for Monsanto’s cotton crops, according to a court document. Monsanto was also caught concealing the bribe with fake invoices.

A few years earlier, in the age of Enron, these kinds of charges would probably have resulted in a criminal indictment. Instead, Monsanto was allowed to pay $1 million and avoid criminal prosecution by entering into a monitoring agreement with the Justice Department.

In the NY Times.

In Al Gore’s brand-new slideshow he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of “generational mission” — the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement — to set it right.

Despite what you may think, Mr. Gore largely get the climate science right. Yes, he over dramatizes some stuff in order to make a point, but for the most part it’s all correct.

Watch the video here.

A team of scientists has completed a carbon dioxide emissions inventory of the United States plotted down to 100 square kilometer chunks.

read more | digg story

Here’s the summary: Biofuels are bad. Government mandated biofuel demand drives increased prices for crops and increased cultivation. The result is increased deforestation, or in the U.S. removal from CRP programs, and a net increase in GHG emissions. In addition food prices are soaring because of competition from biofuels.

Time Magazine has a well-written piece, The Clean Energy Scam, some highlights:

• An explosion in demand for biofuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate. “You can’t protect it. There’s too much money to be made tearing it down, out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work.”
• Using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon. Deforestation accounts for 20% of all current carbon emissions.
• [Last November] Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled an eye-popping plan that would require all stations to offer ethanol by 2017 while mandating 60 billion gal. (227 billion L) by 2030. “This is the fuel for a much brighter future!” she declared. Members of Congress love biofuels too, not only because so many dream about future Iowa caucuses but also because so few want to offend the farm lobby, the most powerful force behind biofuels on Capitol Hill.
• Someone is paying to support these environmentally questionable industries: you. In December, President Bush signed a bipartisan energy bill that will dramatically increase support to the industry while mandating 36 billion gal. (136 billion L) of biofuel by 2022.

But as noted at Grist there is some good news:

The rapid increase in ethanol production has demonstrated how quickly the nation can mobilize to produce new energy resources. With the right policies — such as a stable production tax credit — we might mobilize the economy just as quickly to create and sustain a boom in wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, low-impact hydro, and bioenergy from feedstocks that have positive net carbon and energy benefits. Among them are cellulosic materials grown on degraded and untillable land, organic municipal and agricultural wastes, and algae.

Read more at:

• Climate Progress
• Grist

Covered various places. Apparently you don’t need 8 glasses a day. You get most of your daily water needs from food.

A suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 liters daily in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is 1 milliliter for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.

Treehugger has an article on how Louisiana’s cypress forest, the same forest that serves as a natural bulwark against hurricanes, is being cut down and turned into mulch (available at Lowes). How is it that people are always surprised by natural events? If you build on the coast you are going to have erosion problems. Develop the 25 year flood plain and odds are some time in the next 25 years your house is going to be flooded. Fill in the swamp and delta and there is nothing to stop the next hurricane and storm surge.

read more | digg story

Hu Jia, campaigner for the environment, religious freedom and for the rights of people with HIV and Aids has received a 3.5 year jail sentence. He was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system.”

The US was “dismayed” by the verdict, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Beijing said, while the European Union called for Mr Hu’s immediate release.

Dismayed enough to boycott the Olympics? No, not that dismayed.

“As for critics’ view that China is trying to increase its efforts to arrest dissidents ahead the Olympic Games, I think all these accusations are unfounded”

Premier Wen Jiabao, 18 March 2008

It’s not all bad news all the time.

A Long Year in the Life of the U.S. Coal Industry - Timeline

February 26, 2007: James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a leading climate scientist, calls for a moratorium on the construction of coal-fired power plants that do not sequester carbon, saying that it makes no sense to build these plants when we will have to “bulldoze” them in a few years.

February 26, 2007: Under mounting pressure from environmental groups, TXU Corporation, a Dallas-based energy company, abandons plans for 8 of 11 proposed coal-fired power plants, catalyzing the shift from coal-based to renewable energy development in Texas.

April 2, 2007: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and that EPA’s current rationale for not regulating this gas is inadequate.

May 3, 2007: Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signs a bill that prevents new power plants from exceeding 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour of electricity generated, creating a de facto moratorium on building new coal-fired power plants in the state.

May 30, 2007:Progress Energy, an energy company serving approximately 3.1 million customers in the Southeast, announces a two-year moratorium on the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

July 2, 2007:The Florida Public Service Commission denies Florida Power & Light the permits needed to move forward with the massive 1,960-megawatt coal-fired Glades Power Park, citing uncertainty surrounding future carbon costs.

July 13, 2007:Florida Governor Charlie Crist signs an Executive Order establishing “maximum allowable emission levels of greenhouse gases for electric utilities.” Under the emissions cap, building new coal-fired power plants in the state seems unlikely.

July 18, 2007:Citigroup downgrades the stocks of Peabody Energy Corp., Arch Coal Inc., and Foundation Coal Holdings Inc., prominent U.S. coal companies. The decision reflects the growing uncertainty surrounding coal’s future in the United States.

August 18, 2007:After opposing new coal-fired power in Nevada, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he is opposed to building coal-fired power plants anywhere.

October 18, 2007: The Kansas Department of Health and Environment denies Sunflower Electric Power Corporation air quality permits for two proposed 700-megawatt coal-fired generators on the basis that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant and should be regulated.

January 3, 2008:Merrill Lynch downgrades the investment ratings of Consol Energy Inc. and Peabody Energy Corp., two leading U.S. coal companies.

January 22, 2008:The Attorneys General of California, six eastern states, and the District of Columbia submit a letter to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control opposing the proposed 1,320-megawatt Pee Dee coal-fired power plant. They note that emissions from this plant would “seriously undermin[e] the concerted efforts being undertaken by multiple states to address global warming.”

January 30, 2008:Citing escalating costs, the Bush administration pulls the plug on federal funding for FutureGen, a joint project with 13 utilities and coal companies to build a demonstration coal-fired power plant that captures and sequesters carbon.

February 4, 2008:Investment banks Morgan Stanley, Citi, and J.P. Morgan Chase announce that any future lending for coal-fired power plants will be contingent on the utilities demonstrating economic viability under future carbon costs. Demonstrating economic viability would require speculation of future costs, imposing a risk on the investment.

February 8, 2008: The U.S. Court of Appeals overturns two EPA mercury rules covering coal-fired power plants, thus requiring new coal-fired plants to implement the most stringent mercury controls available. Compliance is expected to raise the already considerable costs of 32 proposed coal plants, some already under construction.

February 12, 2008:Bank of America announces that it will start factoring in a cost of $20–40 per ton of carbon emissions in its risk analysis when evaluating loan applications from utilities.

February 19, 2008:The federal government suspends a low-interest loan program for rural utilities seeking assistance for new coal-fired power plants.

March 11, 2008: Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) introduce a bill that would block the EPA and states from issuing permits to new coal-fired power plants that lack state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage technology. Since this technology is at least a decade away from commercial viability, if this bill passes it would essentially place a near-term moratorium on new coal-fired power plants.

Source: Earth Policy Institute

That settles it. Senator Obama, you have my vote.

He’s somebody I talk to on a regular basis. I’m already consulting with him in terms of these issues, but climate change is real. It is something we have to deal with now, not 10 years from now, not 20 years from now.

Covered at The Sietch and Treehugger.

I wrote the other day a post criticizing the Big Green organizations for sacrificing environmental objectives in order to maintain their centrist appeal. While this essential point is true, perhaps Big Green deserves another look.

The Sierra Club’s endorsement of the Clorox Company is not an isolated event. The Big Green organizations have a long history of similarly dubious alliances and backing down on key environmental issues. While it is great in theory to stand firm for your environmental principles, the large environmental organizations over the last 20 years have evolved from radical, reactionary groups to pragmatic realists. Today they leave the radicalism and agitation to the smaller organizations and those on the fringe. They have recognized that strong environmental views don’t resonate with Joe Citizen, may alienate potential allies, and can inhibit environmental progress.

While your local environmental group may be an excellent choice to save the city park, they are usually going to be less effective working at the state or national level. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of different environmental groups in the U.S. alone. They are often just a few people, with limited funding, interested in a particular topic. This distributed nature, and lack of single leadership, often leads to various groups taking conflicting views on difficult environmental issues. It is on these state and federal campaigns that Big Green has achieved success, by speaking and acting with one voice. Big Green’s large membership, large budget, corporate structure, and centrist position allows it to mobilize effectively and exert influence on state and federal environmental issues. The catch is that the result achieved is usually less than hoped for. Big Green has realized that pushing for drastic change is often a fruitless endeavor, and may be counter-productive. Instead, they have opted for the baby steps approach, advocating for small changes, a little bit at a time. This allows them to maintain their centrist appeal, and business and political ties.

I have no problem with the pragmatic approach to environmental progress. What concerns me is when a supposed environmental organization, representing the people, abandons its transparency and begins to act like an oligarchy. In total 95% of what Big Green does is great, but when they do something not so great they need to recognize that and respond openly - not in the manner the Sierra Club has.