Good question: What year will coastal property values crash?

And as usual, Joe Romm has a good answer.

I heard Ed Mazria give a talk at the RESNET conference a few weeks ago, and he had some great and startling slides showing many cities before and after see level rise. It’s so dramatic, but it seems to be so far outside our imagination that there isn’t much response, other than amazement. I wonder when the response will turn to OH SHIT. That’s when property values will crash.

Unclean coal

Another stark reminder that there is no such thing as clean coal:

Coal Ash Spill Revives Issue of Its Hazards (NYT)

KINGSTON, Tenn. — What may be the nation’s largest spill of coal ash lay thick and largely untouched over hundreds of acres of land and waterways Wednesday after a dam broke this week, as officials and environmentalists argued over its potential toxicity.

Federal studies have long shown coal ash to contain significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, which can cause cancer and neurological problems. But with no official word on the dangers of the sludge in Tennessee, displaced residents spent Christmas Eve worried about their health and their property, and wondering what to do. (more…)

Add sanitation to the list…

From Green Car Congress:

Behind Food, Energy and Climate Crises Looms Water and Sanitation

Modes of sanitation for the global population. Click to enlarge. Data: SIWI.

The World Water Week in Stockholm concluded with 2,400 scientists, leaders from governments and civil society declaring that slow progress on sanitation will cause the world to badly fail the Millennium Development Goals while weak policy, poor management, increasing waste and exploding water demands are pushing the planet towards the tipping point of global water crisis.

This theme of the 2008 World Water Week was “Progress and prospects on water: for a clean and healthy world”. Eight workshops had two parallel directions. One set were sanitation-related and referred to safe handling of human excreta; the other related to water-carried pollutants and how to address water pollution abatement, wrote Professor Malin Falkenmark of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in a summary of the week.

The scale of the sanitation issue is “unbelievable” wrote Falkenmark. Out of a world population of 6.7 billion, only 1.1 billion have access to conventional sewage. Three billion use other types of toilets from pit latrines to poor flush/cess pits, while the remaining 2.6 billion use simple open defecation.

Why is sanitation so fundamental? Beyond human dignity and defecation security, the main reason is that human health critically depends on safe handling of human excreta—the origin of pathogen-related diseases. The disease link makes sanitation and hygiene nothing less than an imperative for any society to function properly.

(more…)

Chinook Salmon invade South America

(from WorldChanging):
Chinook salmon were introduced to southern South America about 25 years ago to be farmed, but they have not surprisingly escaped, and have now established themselves in the streams of Chile. This will cause unknown ecological consequences to Chile, but it also shows how resilient salmon can be in establishing a population in a new environment–a lesson that indicates that if the river environments of the western US can be restored, that the salmon population could also recover.

The human impacts of energy development–the case of Wyoming

Last year Alexandra Fuller had a remarkable article “Boomtown Blues” in the New Yorker about the effects of natural gas and oil development in Wyoming on the people and environment. Sobering story about how companies move in to rural areas and bring jobs and workers, but also drugs, alcohol, and prostitution.  Unfortunately I didn’t catch it in time to get a link to the on-line article (here is the abstract). I was thinking about it again during my trip last week to Ecuador, where hydroelectric development causes social and environmental distruction. Turns out Fuller has a new book out called The Legend of Colton H. Bryant which is the story of a young man who is killed working on a gas rig, and the New Yorker article is derived from the book. Fuller also has an op/ed article in the New York Times about Wyoming and energy development, and there is also a NYT article about her and the book.

I hope the complete New Yorker archive is on-line soon, because this is the kind of article I’d like to forward to my friends in Chile and Ecuador–it’s an American story of the downside to energy development–trading environment for jobs is not healthy for families or long term economic well-being. I’ll also put the book on my list.

Ecuador: people, environment and energy

I had the most amazing experience last week. I went to Ecuador with International Rivers to talk to the government in Quito, and at a forum “Agua, Energía y Derechos de los Pueblos” in Porto Viejo (near Manta, on the coast) about energy policy, especially efficiency and renewables. The general situation is that the government is rewriting the constitution and laws of Ecuador, and the Forum was intended to be a source of proposals related to protecting the rivers and the people who depend on them for their livelihoods from rash hydroelectric development. I was there to talk about the role of efficiency and renewables in California’s energy policy, and how we do resource planning and power plant licensing. It was a challenge to talk about policies that work in California, and be sensitive to that situation in Ecuador where indigenous people and peasants have limited incomes and no political influence, and the idea of rational planning and public participation are alien ideas. I was moved by the incredibly eloquent voices of the citizens who spoke. It was an important reminder that successful energy policy is not just about technology and policy, but also about people.

I made many new friends, some pictured below, with more photos on flickr.

What’s for dinner? Not salmon

There is an article in today’s NYT about the pollution and sick fish caused by the way salmon is farmed in Chile (Salmon Virus Indicts Chile’s Fishing Methods). I had heard complaints about this from my environmentalist friends when I was in Chile last year. I don’t understand fish farming, but can easily believe it’s not benign since it’s yet another application of industrial techniques to food production, a la Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. Here’s a picture of salmon farms I took as I took off from Puerto Montt last year on my way south to Patagonia–looks like a plume of pollution streaming from the pens…

Update 4/16/08 (NYT): Safeway the third-largest supermarket chain in America, has restricted some purchases of farm-raised Chilean salmon over concern about a virus that is killing millions of fish there.

The supermarket chain decided late last month to stop buying from its Chilean supplier, Marine Harvest, because Infectious Salmon Anemia, or the I.S.A. virus, was “impacting the quality of the product,” Brian Dowling, a Safeway spokesman, said this week. Mr. Dowling said the virus, which does not pose a risk to humans, was nevertheless affecting the size of the salmon, “which impacts the quality and the taste.”

Food v. fuel, part 2

An earlier post covered the consequences of using food for fuel. There has also been a lot written about using fuel to to make food–i.e., the energy and environmental consequences of meat production.

But it may be an early indicator when a NYT food writer writes about the energy cost and environmental damages of meat (“Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler“). Especially when the writer is not a vegetarian, but has written a vegetarian cookbook. Something is going on…

Europe takes Africa’s fish, and migrants follow (NYT)

Another painful example of resource mismanagement leading to social and political consequences.  As Europe worries more about immigration, they should think more about reducing economic incentives to move north–as should the U.S.  See also “Darwin’s Nightmare,” under “movies” for another story of how fish, Africa and Europe are connected.