Another Green Monday
"There has never been a month --- not at least since the heady days of the early 1970s --- when environmental policy has moved so dramatically towards a sustainable future. The challenge now is to keep up the pace." That optimism came from Carl Pope, the former Executive Director of the Sierra Club, last Thursday, examining the momentum of positive environmental **news since he announced he was stepping down, which, coincidentally, was three days after January 20th. (Read: A very green President.) History is happening quickly; there's little time to look back yet comparisons to the early 1970's are not coincidental either. DTE has a mind-blowing project to evoke the Expo '74 Spokane theme, "Celebrating a Fresh, New Environment" on the horizon. More on this later, but for now, there's no plans on slowing down here Mr. Pope.
“No mom, dumpster diving really does count for credits.” Some 200 University of Idaho students recently emptied and sorted through the garbage from ten of their campus garbage bins as part of their enrollment in the "Field Activities in Environmental Science 102" course which, under the direction of Tom Nagawiecki, a master’s student in Environmental Science, was part of a waste characterization study. According to a recent U of I press release that discussed the results, “thirty-eight percent of what individuals throw away can be recycled using the current University of Idaho recycling programs, and an additional 30 percent of what is thrown away can be composted.” Read more of the press release HERE, and for the results, view this Excel file.
Who is the greenest of them all? This article would have been timely had we had put it on last Monday’s President’s Day AGM, however, it is still interesting to consider – because who doesn’t like lists. Bill Chameides of the National Academy of Sciences recently wrote about the greenest presidents of all time, and called for President Obama to, “distinguish himself from Democratic administrations that promised a lot but delivered little on the environment.” The list is fascinating, if for only the fact that it gives validation to DTE’s long-held belief that despite all of President Nixon’s mistakes, his environmental record is one to be honored. Read more HERE.
Up against a deadline without all of the information. That’s how county commissioner Bonnie Mager described the county commissioner’s vote to allow CH2M Hill Constructors Inc. to begin construction on the wastewater treatment facility near Freya and Boone. “I guess I’m just disturbed that once again we find ourselves in a position to be shoved up against a deadline without all the information to make a really informed decision,” she said in The Spokesman-Review on Saturday. “My main concern … is still that we don’t build a plant that we will have to mothball even for a short period of time because we don’t have a place to discharge.” If you’ll recall – the discharge proposals still haven’t met EPA standards meaning this plant could get built before anyone knows how water will be discharged and at what cost and effect. Read more from the Spokesman HERE and go back through our archives to catch up on this story.
The cost of climate change action versus doing nothing. A recent study by the University of Oregon's Climate Leadership Initiative and ECONorthwest predicts that the cost to the state of Washington for doing nothing to fight climate change would equal out to about $1,250 annually per household come 2020. In a similar study by the Colorado-based Western Business Roundtable, it was predicted that if Western states enacted the Western Climate Initiative that it would cost households approximately $2,300 annually by 2020. It’s confusing to consider these two studies side by side, and it’s frustrating that talks of climate change have no taken on the lingo used by Wall Street execs, but in this economic climate, it might be the only way that citizens and bureaucrats can make sense of it all. As for making sense of these conflicting reports, The Oregonian did a wonderful job of that recently. Read more HERE.
“No Lunch Left Behind.” Oh Alice Waters. You never let us down. He added, “Seriously, one 20-something with access to Google could have done a better job than all of them combined.” Full post HERE.
Waters co-authored an editorial, along with Katrina Heron, asking government to take a better look at the National School Lunch Program because, let’s face it, children are basically served fast food while obesity and Type 2 diabetes continue their grim development. One suggestion is for the Biden Express to “come to the table by making school lunch a priority of his White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families.” Read the column HERE.
DTE was always ostracized for packing a lunch to school, K -12. Ha. We think we turned out okay. Right? Except chicken nuggets were more exotic than they should’ve been. Talk about a let down. Ech.
Tell Them Wally Boy Was Here. One of Spokane’s favorite sons, Timothy Egan, has been tearing it up lately at the New York Times. It’s not unusual to see his blog posts in the most emailed stories section, and his latest focuses on environmental author Wallace Stegner, who was on the seven books list last week. “The West is politically reactionary and exploitive: admit it,” Stegner said. “The West as a whole is guilty of inexplicable crimes against the land: admit that, too. The West is rootless, culturally half-baked. So be it.” He really didn’t mince words as you can tell. Egan’s piece HERE. 
David Roberts from Grist on the larger implications of columnist George Will’s poor science and the fact checking at the Washington Post’s brain trust:
“If you want to find the best journalism now on climate -- the most science-based, the most fact-based, the most relevant to your lives and the lives of your children and the people you care about and indeed all of humanity -- you must go to the web, specifically the blogosphere.”
