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At face value it appears China is trying to improve its clean energy reputation. By becoming the World's leader in wind turbine and solar panel exporters, it looks as though the country is paying attention to the environmental crisis at last. Though it may appear like this industry is doing good for the world, however, it is wrecking havoc in the political and economic spheres. Therefore this article, juxtaposed to Maniates' "Individualization" raises interesting questions regarding the limitations of "good intentions" in helping the environment. Sometimes doing good in one sense can be detrimental in another. "China Takes Lead" also illuminates the complexities regarding clean energy technologies due to their economic ramifications and political biases. 

One of the cornerstones of the early modern environmental movement, the Clean Air Act is now forty years old.  This brief article reviews events around the 40th anniversary and discusses controversial extensions to control carbon dioxide emissions.

"... researchers were especially surprised to find that wealthy nations were no better at safeguarding their rivers than developing nations." GIS mapping used here too. After the Willamette River cleanup this past Saturday, this topic has been on my mind. I think we really need to address the chemicals we're dumping into our water, and this doesnt just mean the typical concerns around oil and extremely toxic compounds. We have a mentality that water is only here for us to use to get rid of our waste. We emphasize the importance of "clean water" for people's health because we use clean water for cleaning things, but we forget that even though we're clean, the water's not anymore. And the truth is, water does a lot more than function as a human waste disposal. We should know better than to think that we wont have to deal with the effects of the chemicals in our shampoos, toothpastes, and agricultural chemicals once the drain/rain takes them away. It just takes the effects a little longer to cycle back around, but clearly, they have.

I like this article. It solidifies a vague discomfort I've had with the climate emphasis lately. It doesnt say that environmentalists and PCCCCE are mutually exclusive titles, but they should be different. "For one thing, not all environmentalists are primarily PCCCCE (people who care about climate change and clean energy) -- there are still some, believe it or not, who focus on things like land preservation or biodiversity."

Analysis of why the heavy democractic defeats this week won't neccessarily be a major impediment to progress on clean energy - something at admittedly was not progressing anyhow. Also argues for a private sector approach, turning clean energy into a commodity American's will want to make a part of their regular lives.

Perhaps alternative energy technology's most promising industry, wind, is finding itself to be far more controversial as it becomes far more common and popular. Partially, this is just a good old example of showing us how nothing is perfect. But it does beg the question of large scale energy industry period - are those who see no place for that, in any form, on to something?

Primitive stoves that produce toxic smoke are one of the leading causes for death and disease in third world countries. It is also a huge driver of climate change. Proposal to provide 100 million clean burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia, and South America

This Nick Kristof op-ed on Occupy Wall Street is good in that he recommends three key policies protestors could advocate to clean up our major financial institutions, and all have been clearly specified by certain experts. What it left me wondering, however, was: what would a comparable enviro protest look like? Where would it occupy, and what exactly would it demand? Our ENVS 220 class will be discussing the recent ELF documentary soon, and I just saw a few flyers on campus of an old-growth logging campaign, yet my students who've visited Douglas County learn that these issues are much more complicated than they appear in Multnomah County. Is there anything today in contemporary environmentalism that's as clear an injustice as Wall Street wealth?

I thought that this was an interesting article because it discusses uranium mining and the possible environmental contamination concerns that increased production are causing. Specifically, inappropriate clean-up processes are leading to contamination of aquifers and drinking water in areas where mining and production are occuring. This article relates to many of the energy debates and concerns that are brought up in many current environmental books--specifically in many of the books that were reviewed in ENVS 400. -Isabel Kuniholm

Probably a must-read for those interested in climate issues, since this article makes the claim that glacial losses may be 10% that of what we once thought. Which raises the question of how serious climate change is, versus what we say it is, how issues like this reflect on environmentalism, and more. In particular, it calls to mind environmentalism's dependence on science as justification, which often works well, but sometimes scientific knowledge is improved and (therefore) changed. It isn't a clean way of accessing the truth, and you're taking a risk with much of science when its new. Those in hydrology can appreciate how imperfect much of the data collection and interpretation we have is, to speak to this point. For those who get nervous, the Christian Science Monitor is not religiously run or influenced, only founded by a religious institution historically. And they cover climate change news on the regular, without an agenda for skepticism. So don't let that throw you.

This article is about a waterway in New York that has been designated a Superfund after years of industrial activity along its banks. There is another canal in New York and other waterways across the country are Superfund sites as well. I'm interested to see what happens now and how they go about cleaning up toxins and contaminants from waterways.

An example of how alternative economic models (or even longstanding ones, applied to a new product) can make things like clean energy more feasible for people, even if the initial costs of installation, production, or what not remain the same. Important to remember that how you move things of value around matters, perhaps just as much as what the values are in the first place? If nothing else, the importance of looking at things in a new way, allowing for more options.

For the record, if I understood Richard Bettega of facilities correctly, a lease-based program similar to this is what is behind our current solar panels on Pamplin. If a wealthy enough investor can be found, we'll be starting up another program here on South Campus or above the swimming pool. I'm not sure on the details, but they're along the lines of this.

As the elections in Hawai'i approach, candidates are jumping on the "green" bandwagon to pioneer alternative sources of energy. Will they follow through on it? Will the consequences weigh out the benefits. In Hawai'i, we've been having lots of problems w/ clean energy because it disrupts native ecosystems, in turn reducing biodiversity. How are we able to balance the needs of humans and still keeping in mind the intrinsic value other living systems?

Recently, a politician who may take a role in our energy committe made comments against the clean air act because it shut down coal mines in the United States that couldn't meet its standards. Demand for coal on a global scale still exists, however, and now China has pollution akin to that in our industrial era. When the U.S. makes laws that help make economic actions "fair", "green", "safe", or otherwise it makes the market function better according to our values. But when other nations don't have those same regulations, business moves out, and we ship things like our waste and pollution to the third world. This video highlights a means of solving that problem. While the speaker addresses common concerns, I'm not convinced. I think he's pretty optimistic all around. How does one convince nations operating for their own good to impose limitations on themselves that might slow their growth? Easy for us to sacrifice some growth for environmental health, but a higher standard of material living matters more in impoverished areas - the conception is that taking care of environmental issues, or social issues, is a luxury derived from wealth. I really don't see a solution yet - I like what the speaker is doing, but I'm skeptical about its reliability. The store price of a good remains, I think, most people's measure of a succesful buy. Is a culture shift required to change that? More information? I'd certainly start with the latter, for the sake of doing something...

From the Chief Economist at the Clean Economy Development Center. Also a Grist article (clearly the first Jevons they ran got readership), one of three (I'll post a link to the next one as well), this is a fairly lengthy article on Jevons' that basically comes down to this: "So you'll have to pardon my incredulity when I hear people like Owen claim that Jevons effects are everywhere, because everywhere I look, I can't find them." He then argues that contrary to Jevonian logic "All that's really clear is that for significant periods, energy efficiency has not increased fast enough to cause energy use to go down." Another case for persuing more energy efficiency, not less. One fair critique is that both this fellow and Lovins have vested interests in efficiency efforts. But they do the math right before your eyes, so I'm fairly comfortable with what they're saying. Beyond the math, there are a bunch of theoretical arguments that also force Jevons to take a far humbler stance in environmental and economic theory.

This is a fairly direct critique of the Owen's piece from the New Yorker by the same fellow as my last article, the Chief Economist at the Clean Economy Development Center. Its a harsh one. In the comments he also addresses issues of population being the real problem with increasing energy use, for any interested in a little bit of that debate.

We all have heard the phrase "job-killing" applied to environmental regulations, and many may roll their eyes. But how exactly does one assess benefits and costs of regulations, and what sort of time/space frame will various interests allow in calculating benefits/costs? This takeoff on recent Obama decisions suggests some complexities.

This article from NPR looks at how the temporary suspension of Environmental regulations in an effort to speed up the post-Irene damages may cause even more environmental damage than Irene originally made.

Connecting immigration sentiments to the anti-invasive fervor of environmentalists (a stylistic, more than a substantive trick, I think) this writer questions the war against non-native species, citing the dynamic and evershifting nature of, well, "nature." I appreciate the sentiment and the focus more on the function of ecological systems, rather than its ever-shifting make up (species lists being as much a burden to ecological thought as a blessing), but its a hard line to tread when you start picking which non-natives and which natives to battle. Zebra mussels, for example, were cited in the piece as lake-cleaning food sources for many small fish and in turn birds. This is true, most research shows that the zebra mussel is becoming a major food source around the great lakes. But is it an improvement? It is a difference, certainly. From a human perspective, its much worse: even beyond the obvious decimation of fishing industries (note the author says it increases populations of SMALL fish), try walking barefoot on a beach cluttered with the remains of zebra mussels. No fun. Lots of blood. Whole generations forced to wear water shoes where bare feet once sufficed. So, if we're forced into acknowledging that we can't rely on the essences of stable-state ecosystems as our guide to how ecological systems should be, what do we use? And can we (should we?) get past anthropocentrism (maybe I should sacrifice my feet, the fishing industry, and the various non-human populations of organisms getting hit by zebra mussels for the zebra mussels, small fish, and birds) in doing so? This is a big question, and I definitely don't have any great answers. But its worth pondering.

For anyone looking to see what the proposed budget cuts might mean for national parks, the EPA, various clean this-and-that regulations, and more.

More details: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0405/Five-ways-House-Republicans-are-striking-fear-in-environmentalists/Greenhouse-gases-and-farm-dust