All the News That's Fit to Blog

Green Goddess Gazette will be taking a short hiatus so I can bear down on some professional work-related deadlines.

Meantime, check out my latest post at WIMN's Voices.

I'll be back in a few weeks! Thanks for reading.

Environmental Contradictions

Pennsylvania is about to take massive action against mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants:

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Mercury from coal-fired power plants - currently responsible for the bulk of all mercury emitted in Pennsylvania - is expected to fall by 90 percent over the next nine years under a plan approved yesterday by a state regulatory board. The plan, vigorously debated for two years and heavily opposed by power plants and mining companies, trumps a weaker federal rule.” Said plan was proposed by Governor Ed Rendell.

Good news indeed. But here's this: The Pennsylvania State House of Representatives is about to vote on a bill, SB 1025, that would block state officials from implementing car emissions standards higher than the federal government's.

The national environmental organization Environmental Defense, for one, is not pleased. As they wrote in a mass email, “Pennsylvania's Environmental Quality Board has been moving forward to adopt clean-car standards to reduce smog-forming pollution and global warming emissions from new passenger vehicles sold in state after 2008. These standards are critical if Pennsylvania is to slow the fastest- growing major source of global warming emissions in the Keystone State.”

Hey, Harrisburg--does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? Why disallow noxious emissions from coal-fired power plants but allow them from cars?

This situation illustrates the power of a proactive governor. When it comes to making rapid, sweeping changes on behalf of the environment, that seems like a good thing compared with the plodding, often gridlocked legislative process. But since this can work both ways -- a governor ramming through bad policy -- we can't really afford to complain about the deliberative democratic process.

Still, if it could get behind tighter car-emissions standards, Pennsylvania could become an environmental leader. Right now, it's just sending mixed signals.

Same Story, Different Takes

There was another seeming contradiction in the press last week. On November 13, two journalists reporting the same story came back with different conclusions. The issue: how successful Congressional Democrats will be in attacking environmental problems such as global warming and toxic wastes.

A Reuters dispatch, by correspondent Deborah Zabarenko, was headlined “Environmentalists See Boon in Congress Power Shift.” The optimistic article opens:

U.S. environmentalists see a bonanza for green issues like sustainable energy and the push to mitigate global warming coming with the shift in Congress toward eco-friendly Democrats.

Meanwhile, a New York Times story, by Felicity Barringer, was cautious almost to the point of discouraging. Headlined “Environmentalists, Though Winners in the Election, Warn Against Expecting Vast Changes,” lead with this:

Last week’s election whipsawed the Congressional committees that are crucial bat-tlegrounds for environmental and energy legislation. But even many environ-mentalists believe that an ambitious new agenda is unlikely....

One possible reason for these differences is that the reporters interviewed (or chose to quote) different sources. The Reuters story quoted more environmentalists, whereas the Times story quoted more politicos (lawmakers and lobbyists). Perhaps the former were speaking their hopes, and the latter their fears-–or rather, from a more jaded and pragmatic perspective.

Fair enough. But how to explain it when two spokespeople from the same organization state different positions -- one predicting an uphill battle and one touting a victory for their side?

Melinda Pierce, a senior lobbyist with the Sierra Club, said in an interview, “The environmental community has to recognize how difficult it’s going to be to advance an environmental agenda with such narrowly held majorities.” (NYT)

Cathy Duvall of the Sierra Club said winning candidates made it clear to voters that a new more environmentally responsible energy policy was consistent with a sound economic policy./"One of the things that was apparent in what the candidates were talking about is that a new energy future, new energy technologies, a good economy and new good jobs all go hand in hand," Duvall said at a post-election news con-ference. (Reuters)

This discrepancy may simply illustrate that there's no such thing as "objective" reporting: Each writer's take can't help but slant her findings, at least a little.

Recommended Reading

I’m pleased to report that with its December issue, Mother Jones magazine now boasts a team of two women as editors-in-chief...

(Want to read the rest? Then head on over to my post at WIMN's Voices here. )

Technorati Tags: auto emissions, coal, Congress, environment,mercury, Pennsylvania.

The Simple Life, Part III

Farm Out!

I attended the 16th annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists Oct. 25-29. Since it was in Vermont, we visited several farms and met quite a few farmers. What struck me was how many young couples –- many not originally from Vermont -- are choosing the ancient, difficult, unsexy outdoor career of raising plants and animals for food. (Several were former "yuppies" -- and I don't mean that badly.) There's even a place in Burlington called Intervale that helps beginning farmers launch their enterprises.

All of the folks we talked to were tremendously committed, and viewed farming as an extension of their belief in environmental sustainability. What's more, they radiated pride and, yes, joy -- even as they admitted the challenge of breaking even. That was also the feeling I got meeting Steve and Nicole Shelly of Somerton Tanks Farm in urban Philadelphia last summer.

One farming couple, who lived and worked a ferry ride away in Essex, New York, told us they're inundated with volunteers -- young idealists moved by some romantic yearning. Farming, they said, is anything but romantic. Rising at 4 a.m., you must spend your days up to the knees in mud and poop. But they also said they absolutely love it. “We’re hedonists,” they told us. “And we happen to think working really hard is fun!” (I can tell you their vegetables and dairy products are delicious -- I hung around with journalist Dan Sullivan while he reported an article on Essex Farm, which is a year-round CSA. Look for it soon in the online journal The New Farm.)

Cow Power?

I also participated in a field trip to Blue Spruce Farm, where they’ve built a methane digester. A giant concrete marshmallow with a cave full of tubes inside, the digester transforms the the bacterial byproducts of their copious cowpies into energy. The University of Vermont supports the venture by purchasing power from the farm. Our hosts -- the farm family and spokespeople for the local utility -- boasted the "cow power" is renewable, clean energy. Ever the skeptical journalist, I asked the utility guy what, if any, emissions were released by the digester. "Only a little carbon dioxide,” he replied with a slight glare, explaining that this particular CO2 is simply a recirculation of the gas already in the atmosphere. If that’s accurate, it suggests that the press (including me) needs to better clarify that not all carbon dioxide emissions are villainous.

However, methane digesters aren't universally lauded. Many opponents are environmentalists, including the Sierra Club and GRACE. Their beef is that “poop power” requires large quantities of animal excrement to work, providing an incentive to maintain or even expand the “factory” farm model known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations. They're also concerned about emissions of ammonia and other nasty gases. Read about their positions here (Sierra) and here (Grace).

An op-ed in The New York Times this past March was adamant on the subject. Titled "A Load of Manure," its author, livestock farmer and environmental lawyer Nicole Hahn Niman, wrote:

For starters, manure simply does not contain enough energy to produce cost-effective power.... Electricity from manure-burning incinerators is also much more expensive than other power, requiring federal and state subsidies to make it competitive with other sources, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance….those subsidies tend to help factory farms. Traditional farms, which usually both grow plants and raise animals, recycle manure as organic fertilizer and thus bear the full cost of handling their waste. But large livestock operations can't do that….as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization noted last month, concentrated livestock operations threaten the environment and human health in a way that traditional farms do not.

As a small farmer, Hahn Niman may be biased. But before we cheer "cow power" as the next green thing, let's look more closely at the pros and cons of the process.

Technorati Tags: agriculture, cows, energy, environment,farming, methane digesters.