Eco-Compass, the Island Press blog, is a forum for scientists, politicians, and other environmental activists on issues ranging from e-waste to the green job market to population concerns, and more.

 

Contributors include:

 

• Rep. Jay Inslee (Congressman from Washington's 1st district, and author of Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy)
• Robert Engelman (VP of Programs at the Worldwatch Institute, and author of More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want)
• Terry Tamminen (architect of California's groundbreaking environmental laws, and author of Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction)
• Elizabeth Grossman (environmental journalist, and author of High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health)
• Kevin Doyle (President of Green Economy, and author of The ECO Guide to Careers that Make a Difference)
• Christopher Leinberger (land use strategist and founding partner of a progressive real estate development firm called Arcadia Land Company, and author of The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream)
• Ann Vileisis (freelance writer, editor, and scholar, and author of Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Our Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back)
• Callum Roberts (Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York in England and author of The Unnatural History of the Sea.)
• Courtney White (co-founder and Executive Director of The Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building bridges between ranchers and conservationists, and author of Revolution on the Range: The Rise of a New Ranch in the American West.)

 

LATEST BLOGS

In June 2006, 49 heifers were delivered to The Quivira Coalition’s ranch on the 36,000-acre Valle Grande allotment on the Santa Fe National Forest atop Rowe Mesa, southwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. They were the first installment of what would become a 124-head herd of heifers, plus three Corriente bulls, all under our “Valle Grande” brand, and all under our management.

And just like that, a bunch of conservationists became ranchers.

This was an intriguing turn-of-events for the staff and Board of The Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit whose original mission was to create common ground between ranchers and environmentalists. It was also a surprising twist for me personally...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

As I was making the morning’s first cup of coffee and comforting the cat who spent the pre-dawn hours cowering during a cacophonous thunderstorm, the morning news brought a story about the organic milk that I was pouring into a mug at that very moment. Escalating grain prices are expected to prompt a steep rise in the price of dairy products - especially organic milk prices. Apparently, the more grain a cow eats, the more milk it produces. With current competition from biofuels, farmers are receiving record prices for those crops. These high prices are beginning to erode the premium organic farmers have been getting for produce grown without synthetic chemicals - prompting speculation about a jump in the price of organic milk ($8.00 a gallon was cited) and questions about the loyalty of farmers who went organic for the price they can charge and consumers who pay them...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

Next year could herald the beginning of a momentous change to the way the sea is managed around Britain, my home country. Members of Parliament (MPs) are holding hearings into the draft of a “Marine Bill” that will be debated in Parliament later this year. If the Bill gets through in anything like its current form, it will provide the means to establish a national network of marine protected areas, some of which could be highly protected from exploitation and other sources of human impact. It would also establish a Marine Management Organisation to unify governance roles that are now splintered

among countless entities. These are worthy aims and the Bill has cross-party support. So why am I worried?...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

I recently stumbled on an example of the economic power of walkable urban development, which can be sparked by rail transit and appropriate mixed-use zoning. A small Washington Post item in the local news section, buried on page B4, announced the sale of two pieces of land by the Metro transit agency (it could just as easily have been another government agency or for that matter a private party) to real estate developers. The land is located in a formerly very troubled southeast neighborhood, adjacent to the Anacostia River. Five years ago, this neighborhood was home to the worst DC housing project, where hundreds of murders took place during its infamous history, and was the drug dealing center of the region...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

It’s been just over 21 years since the United Nations released Our Common Future and introduced the term “sustainable development” to the popular culture.  I was thirty years old when I read it, and I remember highlighting whole sections and inserting exclamation points, and adding notes in the margins like “Exactly!” Many environmental professionals (me included) eagerly embraced the notion that humanity’s hopes for ecological health, social justice, and economic security were inextricably interwoven and might be addressed together through coordinated policies and actions.

One of the consequences of the “sustainability” idea was a reconsideration of what it means to be an environmental professional. Recognizing that the protection of ecological systems was wrapped up in the economic and social justice conditions of people, we began to imagine a new kind of “sustainability” professional who could develop environmental solutions that simultaneously advanced social and economic goals. Or, I suppose, social justice solutions that promoted ecosystem health.

Over time, a conversation developed about how best to educate and train “sustainability” professionals.  Broadly speaking, I’ve observed three arguments in this conversation.

One approach calls for interdisciplinary education of what might be called “sustainable solutions” professionals...

(originally posted on 6/26/08)

Yesterday, the front page of The New York Times business section ran an article headlined: “Dow Chemical Raises Prices For Second Time in a Month.” Citing energy and feedstock costs, Dow raised prices for its products some 25 percent, following an increase last month of 20 percent, the largest such raises in the company’s history. A spokesman said this could affect the price of products ranging from fabric, cushions, and CD cases to car parts. The story goes on to mention similar price hikes by other chemical manufacturers and per shipment fuel surcharges. It discusses rising costs of raw materials for steel manufacturers, and mentions plastic wrap and pesticides. But nowhere does it talk about convenience. Or the string on the chicken I bought for dinner.

First the string: It was nearly 7PM by the time I got to thinking about dinner so I walked to the local market for inspiration.

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

(originally posted on 6/25/08)

It’s ironic that the images of flooding in the mid-west are accompanied by stories about government agencies pleading with people in those hard-hit areas to conserve water, because the floods have contaminated drinking water supplies. The recent salmonella poisoning of over 300 people in the US from tainted tomatoes can also be traced to polluted water used for irrigation (add to that the e-coli outbreaks from tainted irrigation water used on spinach and other row crops in the past 2 years).

OK, so I’m a broken drum, constantly beating everyone with “what’s good for the environment is good for the economy.” But it’s a hard theme to ignore when the examples are so abundant—and when we are in such desperate need of improvements in both these days...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

With gas prices rising to over $4.00 per gallon, long-hidden costs of the fuel embedded within our food system are beginning to show with higher prices at the supermarket checkout. The legacy of once-cheap oil, petroleum now pervades every phase of America’s food production. It’s used to make fertilizer and pesticides, to pump water for irrigation, to power tractors and other farm equipment, for ripening fresh fruits, for processing into cans and boxes, and, of course, for shipping foods from distant farms to our market shelves. Anticipating scarcity, critics long have warned about the amount of oil in our diets—that foods travel more than 1,500 miles from farm to plate—that it takes more than 10 calories of fuel to make just one calorie of food.

But criticism of such inefficiency in our modern food system goes back farther than you might expect...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

Keeping a book short is no easy task, especially on a set of topics as complex and controversial as population and the reproductive intentions of women. Now that I’m discussing my latest book, More, widely, and the publication is gaining some reviews, I’m developing a list of topics I hope to develop further if I ever write the sequel. The title could be More More, or maybe even More, Longer More.

Many points that some readers feel I’ve missed are actually in the book, though perhaps not highlighted or explored in depth as much as people would like. That’s the case with the topic of individual consumption of natural resources, which I discussed in an earlier blog (“All Consuming Question,” June 6). And I do make the point clearly (as have some reviewers and questioners) that many women aren’t able to use contraception at all because of social pressure from their partners and others in their lives.

By contrast, some topics could use more attention in a future treatment of this linkage...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

In the agricultural age, the 18th and 19th century, the American Dream could have been summarized as “40 acres and a mule”.  An independent Jeffersonian “yeoman farmer” was an ideal that attracted many immigrants here.  In the industrial age, the early and mid-20th century, the American Dream could have been summarized as “a single family house in the suburbs with a white picket fence around it”, what I call drivable sub-urban. 

That industrial age was predicated upon steel manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, marketing and maintenance, auto finance and insurance, road-building, tire manufacturing and marketing, finding, processing and distributing petroleum and all the great drive-in possibilities that unfolded.  As you “saw the USA in your Chevrolet”, you were making yourself wealthier.

Today’s knowledge-based economy is “driving” yet another redefinition of the American Dream as it plays itself out on the ground.  This new version is based upon choice; choice of living as either a rural gentleman farmer, in suburban splendor or in a vibrant walkable urban place…or all three depending upon time of life and financial resources...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

 

Kevin Doyle: In Praise of Environmental Careers

(originally posted on 6/20/08)

Recently, I received a review copy of a handbook for people seeking “green” careers. This has been beat for a long time now, and I’m always interested in other people’s wisdom and advice. I was vaguely troubled after reading it, but I couldn’t exactly say why. There was just something wrong.

The handbook was informed and up-to-date, so there was no problem there.

The authors emphasized the fact that sustainable economy careers were often in the business world and that one could promote greater ecological health from a job in traditional business professions like sales, marketing, finance, investment, human resources, facilities management and product design. I make those same points in my own presentations, so that wasn’t a cause for concern...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

Elizabeth Grossman: What We Know Now

(originally posted on 6/19/08)

Unintended consequences. Do we wish we knew then what we know now? I encounter the phrases often while investigating environmental and health impacts of the materials that go into consumer products. News this week reminded me why it’s time to retire these crutches, take a close look at history and consider the big picture as we try to solve our biggest environmental problems.

On the campaign trail yesterday Senator John McCain called for more nuclear power, which he calls a “proven energy source that requires exactly zero emissions.” McCain’s goal: forty-five new reactors by 2030 on the way to his desired goal of one hundred new U.S. reactors. (Senator Barack Obama has said he’s not a proponent of nuclear energy, but that it should remain an option in the mix of national energy sources.) No new nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. in over thirty years...

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org]

Terry Tamminen: And Then There Were Two

 

(originally posted on 6/18/08)

 

Yes, it finally happened. We’re down to two in the race. The others have dropped out, the final holdout brushed aside and the main event begins.

 

Of course I’m talking about the NBA finals. Great east-west rivalry with two teams that have very different DNA and game plans. Sounds a bit like the Presidential race, but whatever your “home team,” let me offer some advice to the next President no matter whose jersey he wears.

 

Score some quick points for the economy by tackling energy efficiency and an alternative to oil in your first week on the job. Lots of experience in California and a growing number of states that are taking up the climate change challenge have shown that energy efficiency measures are cheap and pay themselves back in 18-36 months.

 

Create a pool of capital so businesses can rapidly retrofit inefficient old lighting, HVAC, printers, copiers, and other energy hogs...

 

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org ]

 

Jay Inslee: Liftoff

(originally posted on 6/17/08)

 

Rocket launches are always exciting. So are clean energy revolution launches. Although I have never attended the launch of an American space rocket, I have been there at the launch of a clean energy revolution, a more terrestrial but just as important effort – one that will surely be as big a leap for mankind as the one that took place on the Sea of Tranquility.

 

There is a difference between the starting points of these two types of endeavor, of course. The launch of a rocket has well defined and inarguable starting point – the electric moment when the dragon roars to life and spits incandescent clouds of flaming gas into the Florida sky. The countdown is precise, and the ignition point a thunderclap of promise.

 

The launch of clean energy revolution is, in contrast, a nuanced affair...

 

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org ]

 

  

Robert Engelman: Egyptian Population Concerns-More of What Men Want

 

(originally posted on 6/16/08)

Some people think policies aimed at slowing population growth are foisted on the developing world by heavy-handed industrialized countries. Actually, most population policies are home grown, and sometimes none the better for this. I have a hunch there's not much gender diversity in the circles that develop them. And those who write about them often fall into the same trap.

 

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak recently endorsed a new $80 million campaign that reportedly focuses on the slogan "Two children per family—a chance for a better life." Mubarak took office in 1981 in a country with about 45 million people. Egypt today grapples with food scarcity and riotous bread lines in one with 78 million.

 

Almost all the country's arable land lies along thin strips on either bank of the Nile River, whose waters traverse nine other countries, all with growing populations, before reaching Egypt. So it's not hard to understand Mubarak's concerns about the future of human numbers in the ancient nation...

 

[Read more at: blog.islandpress.org ]