Eco-mania from Sierra

Sierra magazine's July/August issue offers some interesting eco-mania tidbits.

Last May, the Interior Department finally figured out that melting sea ice is threatening the habitat of the polar bear. Here's what they did to "solve" the problem: they moved the polar bear to the list of endangered species. But they were "adamant that the listing won't halt oil and gas drilling in their habitat or be used to promote greenhouse-gas regulations."

Last March, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a new set of rules that allow the destruction of wetlands so long as "developers help create other wetlands somewhere within the same watershed, even many miles away. The decision ignores a 2005 congressional study that found the Corps of Engineers couldn't tell whether the wetlands creation, known as 'mitigation banking,' was actually being performed."

This is the same Corps of Engineers mostly responsible for the recent flooding of Iowa and Missouri. They built "structures" in the river to make it easier for watercraft to navigate, but these structures also made it impossible for the river to move over the floodplain as usual, thus causing the flooding.


One of the major sources of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide emissions in the U.S. are factory farms which produce 500 million tons of cow, pig and chicken manure every year. The Bush's EPA, following its usual procedure of NOT protecting the environment, "is about to abandon rules that require these farms to report how much waste they are spewing. The losers are the farms' neighbors, who will have no way of pinpointing the source of their pollutant-induced respiratory problems."


Of an even more serious nature is a report by the GAO (Government Accountability Office). This report noted that "EPA reviews of the health risks posed by nearly a dozen common chemicals, including formaldehyde and perchloroethylene, are hampered by the meddling of nonscientists, often in secret."

Sheesh! Even when the EPA finally tries to do its job, da Bush and friends butt in!

Evidently, EPA scientists find that various personnel from the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, as well as NASA, are "looking over their shoulders and causing delays since the White House modified the EPA's review process in 2004."

The Union of Concerned Scientists concluded from its own study that "more than 800 EPA scientists have reported some form of political interference in their research in the past five years.

"Those who work in offices that write regulations or perform risk assessments were most likely to report meddling [and] industry groups and the White House's Office of Management and Budget were the most common sources of pressure."

This is not new news, but it does accent the fact that the Bush administration, rather than attempting to protect the people from various kinds of chemical risks, is protecting those who produce the risk-inducing chemicals.

Par for the course, as they say.


A bit of good news and remember, small steps are better than no steps. Japan has been trying to meet its Kyoto Prococol emission goals and one step that country has taken came from the Nippon Professional Baseball commissioner: he suggested speeding up baseball games. Cutting just six percent from the playing time of a game will reduce "carbon dioxide emissions by more than 200 tons over the course of a season."

Thus these new rules: Players are required "to take the field within two minutes and 15 seconds after the side is retired" and the pitcher must "throw the ball within 15 seconds of receiving it."

Methinks that would make most baseball games a heck of a lot more fun, too. There's nothing more boring than watching a pitcher chew his wad, turn his neck, stretch his back, check the bases, check the bases again, look for the sign, wave off the sign, until finally, he winds up and throws.


Both political parties intend to pretend they care about global warming during their conventions this summer. The Democrats have a "Green Team," which is promising to "compost, reuse, or recycle 85 percent of the waste generated by the party faithful and to power a portion of the festivities with solar and biodiesel." The City of Denver is also providing 1,000 bicycles for use by those attending the convention.

Those bikes will then be sent to St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican convention. The Repubs will be meeting "on carpets made of recycled materials, under energy-efficient lighting and nonplastic banners."

I don't mean to be cynical (ah hell, I do, too!) but considering how Republicans view the threat of global warming, the only reason I can think of that would make them use recycled material carpets and energy-efficient lighting and nonplastic banners is that all of the afore-mentioned were made by corporations that donate big-time to the RNC.