This year, Santa is bringing kiddo books!  In celebration of the winter holidays, I’ve compiled two lists for you: one of the books that have gotten top reviews on the blog and the other of online storefronts that benefit veg-related charities.

Vegbooks Favorite Reads

1. Busy Kitties by John Schindel and Sean Franzen – ages 0-3
2. Who Is the Beast? by Keith Baker – ages 0-8
3. Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss – ages 3-8
4. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey – ages 3-8
5. The Lady and Spider by Faith McNulty and Bob Marstall – ages 4-8*
6. All In A Day by Cynthia Rylant and Nikki McClure – ages 4-8
7. The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake – ages 8-12

* This book is out of print; look for secondhand copies.

Fabulous Book Storefronts That Support Charity

1. Shop at Farm Sanctuary
2. Natural Resources Defense Council: Shop for Books
3. ASPCA Bookstore
4. Humane Society Press
5. Vegan Action

Here’s a nice list I found while searching the web, and I thought was worth sharing. It’s from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental action group that combines the grassroots power of 1.3 million members and online activists with the courtroom clout and expertise of more than 350 lawyers, scientists and other professionals.

Top 10 Reasons to Eat Grass-Fed Meat

1. Perennial grasses are better for soil.
2. Animals that are grass-fed their entire life are healthier—and their meat safer for you.
3. Grass-fed animals produce the right kind of fat.
4. The corn fed to feedlot cattle is fossil-fuel intensive and heavily subsidized.
5. Perennial pasture reduces flooding and pollution-laden runoff.
6. Grazing animals don’t need the large quantities of antibiotics that feedlot cattle do. 
7. Perennial pasture is a carbon sink.
8. Modern grazing methods match the efficiencies of industrial-scale grain production.
9. Pastured animals are treated more humanely.
10. Grass-fed is more expensive.*

This stuff is what Michael Pollan talks about in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. And, it’s just common sense. For more details, read the full article on the NRDC website.

*While you pay more for grassfed meat up front, there are hidden costs in feedlot meat that most people don’t think about: environmental impact, health costs to consumers ingesting antibiotics and hormones, and the cost of petroleum to grow and move the corn that is fed to feedlot animals.

Saturday means an opportunity for a post-run stop at Bagels Galore, the South Bay’s best. Today’s choices, poppyseed for me and onion for The Counselor. Taste-ee! Also picked up the latest edition of Random Lengths, the amazing San Pedro publication that is a thorn in the side of… well, everone. Gotta love these guys. That is, you’ll love them unless you’re anti-labor or have a beef with the ILWU.  This edition’s “Community Voices” piece is representative: criticizing the Port of Long Beach for an under-the-table sweetheart deal with the trucking industry titled, “Back Room Deal Stinks,” penned (we still say “penned” when no ink or paper is involved in typing!) by a senior attorney for the NRDC. (I can’t link you to that story, because although I have the print edition in front of me, the Web site still has October’s edition).

And, Random Lengths has their long-running promo ad featuring Charles Bukowski holding a copy open in front of him, headed by a salty promotional quote from our late San Pedro poet laureate, who lived just a few blocks down the hill from where I now sit.

The paper’s masthead tells us that they’re a member of aan, the association of alternative newsweeklies (the lowercase is theirs, not mine). Despite all Random Lengths’ poor copyediting, odd phrasings and diatribe-prone stance, if the publication is any representative of aan, that may be an organization that merits the support of individuals interested in journalism more than infotainment-in-print.

According to Carbon Control News, environmental activists are urging urge lawmakers to change the biofuels tax credit when it expires in 2011 to require environmental benefits in order to get the credit, possibly by linking it to ecosystem service standards and EPA’s biofuels greenhouse gas (GHG) lifecycle analysis, an effort that may get a boost from a recent Government Accountability Office report that criticizes the existing tax credit for not driving ethanol production.

Natural Resources Defense Council’s Nathanael Greene is touting the idea of a greener biofuels tax credit, according to a recent Web posting. The approach would replace the existing biofuel tax credit, which is based on the volume of biofuels blended with gasoline, with a tax credit that would pay up to $1 per gallon for any fuel that receives perfect scores for GHG reductions and ecosystem services.

Last week brought a lot of good California water news. Restoration of the San Joaquin River took a giant step forward, as the first flows were returned to the channel in accordance with a settlement agreement negotiated in 2006, ending years of litigation by NRDC. As Steve and I noted, removal of four dams on the Klamath River moved one step closer to reality. And for the first time since the California legislature adjourned in disarray there are hopeful signs on the Bay-Delta, where the federal government is showing signs of engaging in a way it has not done since the end of the Clinton administration.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the hub of California’s water system, site of the massive pumps that deliver water from the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project to many of California’s cities and farms. State and federal project operations are closely intertied, and subject to a complex web of overlapping state and federal regulatory authorities to protect water quality and fish and wildlife. In the mid-1990s, faced with the prospect of paralyzing litigation, California and the U.S. negotiated the Bay-Delta Accord, an agreement intended to meet environmental needs while also assuring reliable water supplies for municipal and agricultural users. The Accord led to CALFED, a novel state-federal collaborative governance, which was formally launched in 2000.

By 2005, the CALFED experiment was in tatters. Irrigators had not gotten the extent of pumping increases they felt they had been promised but the Delta ecosystem was crashing, water quality standards were not met, environmental groups were headed back to court, and the state and federal leadership that produced the Bay-Delta Accord had vanished.

Since then, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Federal District Judge Wanger found that biological opinions produced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Endangered Species Act were inadequate, and ordered them redone. The new biological opinions imposed additional restrictions on pumping to protect Delta smelt, chinook salmon, and killer whales which feed on those salmon in the ocean. A second round of litigation quickly followed, alleging that the new biological opinions were not scientifically justified. Meanwhile, California’s governor and legislature have been trying to figure out how to replace CALFED with state institutions that could govern water resources sustainably. A high-profile effort failed to produce results in the last legislative session.

Throughout this period, the feds have been conspicuous by their absence. Of course they haven’t literally been absent. The federal agencies that implement the ESA have been squarely in the cross-hairs of litigation, first by environmental groups and more recently by water users. And the Bureau of Reclamation continues to operate the Central Valley Project, in some tension with the wildlife agencies. But the feds have not been engaged in the larger project of trying to find ways either to make the CALFED process work or to find other arrangement that could produce sustainable Bay-Delta governance. Nor have they lived up to early commitments to contribute funding. Throughout the Bush administration, and certainly as CALFED collapsed, the federal attitude has seemed to be that the Bay-Delta is California’s problem, for which California must find the solutions. That federal indifference, in turn, has made it easier for Governor Schwarzenegger and some California legislators to blame the biological opinions for all the Bay-Delta’s woes.

Now it looks like the Obama administration is ready to come back to the table. Shortly after appointing David Nawi, a veteran of the Clinton administration’s CALFED and Bay-Delta Accord efforts, as a senior advisor, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wrote to Schwarzenegger that Interior and other federal agencies are “committed . . . to work with the State and other stakeholders to solve the problems surrounding the Bay-Delta.” That message was reiterated in a Washington meeting between state and federal officials. At that meeting, the administration unveiled a Memorandum of Understanding committing six federal agencies to work with the state toward restoring a healthy and sustainable Bay-Delta ecosystem.

Federal engagement on the leadership level is long overdue. The feds are undeniably major players in the Bay-Delta. California cannot deal with either the environmental or water delivery issues in the region, let alone with both, without federal cooperation. The feds are also in a position to put some pressure on the state, which might help break the legislative logjam that stalled a package of water reform bills. Federal leadership and funding are both essential to making real progress on the Bay-Delta.

Still, federal engagement may not be entirely positive. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) says she is working on drafting a major Bay-Delta restoration bill, along the lines of the Everglades and Chesapeake Bay efforts. That’s very good news in the sense that it could provide significant funding and assure some level of permanence. But according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Feinstein suggested waiving the Endangered Species Act to facilitate water deliveries, a move that could undercut any leverage for environmental improvement.

Feinstein has also pushed for review of the biological opinions by the National Academy of Sciences; Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke have now endorsed that request, and promised to approach the National Academy. That review seems unlikely to be helpful. Both biological opinions have already been reviewed by independent scientific panels. There will be substantial pressure to fast-track this review, issuing a report before the beginning of next spring’s water delivery season. It’s difficult for the National Academies study (or any process that does not rely on experts who are already deeply engaged in Bay-Delta work) to proceed that quickly. A comparably rapid initial study in the Klamath Basin following the 2001 irrigation cut-off there produced a preliminary report that, in part because it was not carefully wordsmithed, fanned the flames of controversy.

Still, while it does not seem particularly useful, its hard to imagine how a National Academies study of the Bay-Delta biological opinons could make the situation worse. If the Academies can frame the study in a larger way than just a narrow review of the scientific support for, and compatibility of, the two biological opinions, it might even offer some insights into the effects of the controversial proposal for a peripheral canal. And in the long run, getting more scientists interested in the problems of the Bay-Delta and how they might be resolved is likely to be a good thing.

Last year the National Pest Management Association created in industry defined green standards certification called QualityPro Green. This past spring of 2009, the NRDC (National Resource Defense Council) approached NPMA ( National Pest Management Association) with a request to conditionally join in the effort to create a better national green program. NPMA wisely found common ground with NRDC, listening and absorbing several of their concerns and designing a better green program under a newly marketed label – GreenPro. GreenPro will now have environmental advocates from outside the pest control industry sitting on its’ board of directors.

Will NRDC find that they have a true partner in NPMA? It’s an open question. Time will tell. By not requiring a front-end audit and an audit of a larger segment of multi-branch companies, they are taking a substantial risk with their own membership and with the potential for the process to be easily subverted. It will be incombant on NPMA and individual GreenPro certified companies to prove they are worthy of the trust extended by NRDC.

Please take the opportunity to review and discuss “A Suprise Marriage” published by Pest Management Professional Magazine in its’ September 2009 issue. In this article I review my own perspective and experience as an active pest control operator.

Feel free to post your replies. All comments are welcome.

This post originally appeared in Switchboard, from NRDC. It was written by Frances Beinecke and Sigourney Weaver.

Our oceans feed the world, provide jobs, and generate most of the planet’s oxygen. Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth and contain more than 97 percent of the world’s water. Our survival literally depends on their health. And yet few people realize that the oceans are suffering from a grave affliction caused by increased carbon pollution.

More than one quarter of the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels enters our oceans, where it makes the water more acidic. Scientists have just recently discovered that this rising acidity is threatening ocean life as we know it.

This week, we are joining with Senator Frank Lautenberg on Capitol Hill to host a screening of the groundbreaking documentary, Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification. This will give our lawmakers — those with the power to limit carbon dioxide pollution — the opportunity to better understand what is happening to our seas due to our dependence on fossil fuels.

Acid Test, which premiered on Discovery Channel Planet Green, was produced by our colleagues at NRDC and narrated by Sigourney. We’ve been friends since high school and we even shared an apartment as young professionals in New York, heading down our very different career pathways. Now we have come together for one of our most important- and most urgent- collaborations. Acid Test (which you can watch online here) vividly illustrates what is happening to our oceans, and offers solutions to revitalize them.

Excess carbon dioxide is making marine waters more acidic, which causes a drop in carbonate — the key component in shells. When carbonate levels fall, it is more difficult for organisms to make their shells, which become thinner and more brittle.

Ocean acidity has increased an average of 30 percent since the industrial revolution. If we continue to dump carbon dioxide into our seas, ocean acidification could result in a “global osteoporosis,” harming not only commercially important shellfish, such as lobster, crabs, and mussels, but also key species in marine food webs such as corals and plankton. That could send shock-waves up the food chain, threatening fish, birds, and mammals.

Rising ocean acidity will also hit our economy hard. In the United States alone, ocean-related tourism, recreation and fishing are responsible for over 2 million jobs. Indeed, the U.S. ocean economy creates two and a half times the economic output as the agricultural sector, contributing more than $230 billion to the nation’s GDP annually.

We don’t have to watch these economic opportunities evaporate in the face of acidification. We can take steps to turn back the tide.

The first step is for Congress to pass clean energy and climate legislation. This week, Senators Kerry and Boxer will be introducing a comprehensive clean energy bill that we hope will jump-start the Senate to move forward with this vital legislation. Along with policies to drive investment in clean energy and reduce carbon pollution, we hope this bill will include additional adaptation provisions to help make our seas more resilient and better able to withstand the stresses of acidification.

The next step in defending our oceans is to deepen our understanding of this phenomenon. The main reason ocean acidification was ‘under the radar’ for so long is that we have never routinely monitored the impact of rising carbon dioxide pollution on our oceans. The Senate can change that by fully-funding the ocean acidification research bill introduced by Senator Lautenberg.

Already, we have seen a dramatic spike in attention around this issue. Now we need our lawmakers to take the necessary steps to restore our oceans. These measures can lead us to a future of more clean energy and less pollution — a future that is safer and healthier for our people, our planet and our oceans.

Save our Oceans from Acidification: Tell your senators to help save our oceans by passing strong climate legislation.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sigourney-weaver/taking-iacid-testi-our-ne_b_302287.html

Thanks to Ann Marie Brown and the NRDC for writing about one of the best hikes in the Bay Area: a 7-mile loop that starts at the Pantoll Ranger Station in Mount Tamalpais State Park, arcs out to Stinson Beach via the Matt Davis Trail — traversing paths shaded by redwoods and framed by lush foliage, over footbridges and under fallen trunks, running along sunny and windswept ridges, descending by switchbacks cooled by the coastal breeze. You start to hear waves crashing, and then finally, the trail  emerges from the shadows. Before you is sweet Stinson Beach …

The Matt Davis Trail

View from the ridge ...

going down ...

the payoff ...

joining the party, soaking the toes ...

The trip back begins on the beautiful and infamous Dipsea Trail, heads inland and connects with the Steep Ravine Trail — otherworldly as well, running beside Webb Creek on the way back up Mount Tam: You ascend 1,000 feet in two miles …

stairway to heaven ...

Deep breaths and deep sighs as I walked away ...

Bring it!

no half-stepping this hike ...

This trail lives up to its name ...

From start to finish, I went from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m., with a half hour to relax on the beach. Lots of small stops along the way — to snap photos, take in the natural beauty, and quite frankly, catch my breath and hydrate … Strenuous? Definitely.

But I’ll do it again. Let me know when you’re ready ;^)

Shamans throughout history have played a role in awakening humanity to its individual and collective responsibility to steward planet Earth.  With this blog post I’m initiating what I’ll call an “Earth Alert”, inviting some specific political action that we can take here in the United States to honor and protect the planet.

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has reported that the U.S. Senate will vote this week on the critical spending bill that funds the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior and other agencies that oversee environmental programs. Although the bill, for the most part, is a bipartisan pro-environment bill, the Senate is expected to vote, possibly as early as today, on amendments that would significantly weaken the bill and block key activities to combat global warming

One particularly worrisome amendment, sponsored by Senator Murkowski (R-AK), would prohibit the EPA from regulating global warming pollutants from power plants under the Clean Air Act even though in May the EPA officially recognized that this pollution poses a danger to our health and therefore is subject to regulation under the act. Another harmful amendment, proposed by Senator Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Harkin (D-IA), would prevent the EPA from calculating and informing the public of the full environmental impact of biofuels. The amendment would overturn a 2007 law that requires a complete analysis to ensure that biofuels will actually reduce global warming pollution.

Send a message today urging your senators to support strong funding and oppose any weakening amendments in the Interior appropriations bill (H.R. 2996).  You can send your message through the NRDC action center here.

I’ve received two calls to action this morning, one from the Indigenous Environmental Network and one from the Natural Resources Defense Council stating that this Wednesday, September 16th, President Obama will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Harper at the White House.  Canadian oil companies are trying to vastly expand tar sands oil production to the United States with new pipelines and refineries that endanger U.S. farm country and increase global warming pollution.  This comes at just the time we need to enact legislation to reduce global warming and build a clean energy economy.

Tar sands oil is created by mining tarry sands out of pristine boreal forests and using huge amounts of energy and water to turn the sands into a very heavy crude oil — most of which is piped for upgrading and refining into gasoline in the United States. Tar sands development has been called the most destructive project on earth because of the excessive global warming pollution it produces and the way its toxic mining operations devastate Alberta’s boreal forest and waters.

President Obama can use his meeting with Prime Minister Harper as an opportunity to send the message that America does not need expanded Canadian tar sands oil production to meet its transportation needs and that existing tar sands oil development needs to be cleaned up.

What to do

These two organizations are asking Americans to tell President Obama to send a clear message that tar sands oil expansion has no place in America’s clean energy future.  Take action here.

China doesn’t say it’s going to change. It doesn’t ask you to believe in it.  But it’s happening.

I’ve often written about this country’s extreme paradoxes, how I can never seem to decide if it’s righting its course or steadily eroding. China is fascinating and frightening. It’s grotesque and inspiring.

And now, China is our only hope.

It hurts to say. I feel unpatriotic, a traitor to my upbringing. The good ol’ US of A is meant to kick ass and take names, to lead. And yet, as inspired as I was by Barack Obama’s historic ascent to the presidency, I’m equally horrified by the impotency of his tenure and the implications of our collective behavior.

For what seems like months, in reality is years upon years, I’ve witnessed Washington quibble over plans for universal healthcare.

I just don’t get it. How is this so difficult?

And what now? You’re bringing assault rifles to speeches? Town hall fights? What is this madness?

Burning flags, gay marriage, prayer in the classroom. We spend months and months and months working on this in Congress, and pass nothing. But on big issues, big like Andre-the-Giant-standing-on-a-ladder-on-Mt. Everest-type issues, we revert to mind-numbing partisan hack jobs. We choose paralysis over politics. And worse, we citizens allow it.

Chinese know they cannot openly question their government. But in a country where we can, the best we can muster is crazy gun-totting homophobes carrying Bibles to town hall? Holy Baby Jesus.

As we bicker and point fingers and nod our heads to the lunacy of TV pundits, here’s what China is doing.

1. Cracking down on corruption at the highest levels.

October 1st is the 60th anniversary of the PRC. Chairman/President/His Holiness Hu Jintao is expected to announce major achievements in righting some of the massive wrongs of corruption over the last, well, forever in China.

“Every month for the past year, at least one cadre at the level of assistant minister or above has been nabbed for ‘economic crimes’ and allied felonies,” writes Willy Lam in a phenomenal piece on the anti-graft campaign. Long-standing party members and mafia frontmen are feeling the heat.

The crackdown recently nabbed Kang Rixin, head of China’s nuclear energy program, one of the most powerful 204 cadres in the country. It’s progress, mind you, not an end-all solution.  Corruption in China will continue. As Lam writes,

Doubts remain as to whether the Hu administration will go one step further and introduce institutional checks and balances, as well as allow scrutiny from the media and independent anti-graft agencies, to better eradicate the scourge of graft and related malfeasances.

But this much is known: if you want to skim off the top nowadays, you better have the skill set (or be Hu Jinatao’s son).

Here’s more. For the first time ever, China’s 10th meeting of the Standing Committee just passed a resolution declaring a commitment to fight climate change. Just words, yes. But this is the first time that the highest reaches of government have conceded climate change must be addressed. Some call it peanuts, I’ll call it progress.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of progress in China is that so much is left to be done and much of it is easily within in reach. Unlike the US, China has the ability to implement policy nationwide practically immediately. In other words, while the US jabs, China is throwing uppercuts. As Thomas Friedman writes,

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

That, the in-between-the-lines up there, used to belong almost solely to the United States. We called it Balls and Foresight. Now we have malls and foreclosures.

But it’s not the economy that worries me. I’m supremely confident Wall Street will find a way to make money off of others. That, to me, is a lock. They have plenty of time to find the next best method, because everyone is distracted by the nonsense that is now healthcare and tomorrow will be something else. Because as much as I want universal healthcare, I feel that half of my Congress is dead set on me not getting it.

So what I do care about is the environment. My ability to eat, drink, and breathe is very important. These three come before the health issues they may cause. And, as I said, progress is attainable here in China.

A new joint report by The Boston Consulting Group and The Natural Resources Defense Council reads,

If by 2015, the end of China’s 12th Five-Year Term, 5% of existing buildings and 60% of new buildings were to achieve levels of energy consumption 50% below those of comparable non-green buildings in similar climate zones, the subsequent annual energy savings would be 170 billion kWh electricity, equivalent to turning off all the lights in America for one month. CO2 emissions would be cut by 170 million tonnes.

It’s been proven. Beijing’s “Agenda 21 Building” applied existing technology and reduced energy consumption by 70%. According to Justin Fung, co-author of the report,

“What is not commonly understood is that building operational use accounts for around 25% of China’s total energy consumption… That is more energy than China’s cement, iron and steel sectors combined. And if you include energy used for manufacturing and transporting building materials and products, China’s buildings consume 30-40% of the country’s total energy.”

People like to say the United States is The Land Where Anything is Possible. Well, healthcare sure doesn’t seem to be. Does the shoe still fit?

According to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) a federal judge is allowing wolf hunts to move forward in Idaho and Montana, which means as many as 325 wolves could be gunned down in those two states this fall.

NRDC had joined with Earthjustice and 12 other groups in a last-minute legal attempt to block the first public hunting of wolves in the Northern Rockies in decades.  Their attempt failed.  But there may be good news in the judges ruling.  He stated that Interior Secretary Salazar’s decision last March to strip these wolves of their endangered species protection was probably a violation of the law.  And he found that NRDC is “likely to prevail” in their overall case, which seeks to restore wolves to the endangered species list and shield them from further state-sponsored hunting.  To learn more about this case and the NRDC’s efforts visit their site here.

Ahh, fall at my alma mater.

I don’t necessary think it’s a positive thing to come into a blog and talk about the weather, but we had such a sudden and startling switch from high summer temperatures all through the last days of August, to crisp, humid-free, and rather cool weather as soon as September came around the corner. It just begs reflection.

In March and early April, there is no season I like better than spring.

Then, I sit on the beach in June and eat hot dogs and pasta salad in July and think, “Summer, you’re the one.”

And then, like these first few days of September, the earth suddenly gets cool and you might (gasp) actually need a hooded sweatshirt, and something in the air just smells like back to school, apple picking, pumpkin bread, Halloween, Thanksgiving…etc.

There’s a sighing quality to the phrase, “Ah, fall. Welcome back. I’ve missed you.”

(BTW, I never, ever, say that in January when I have 3 layers on and get to the metro without feeling in my hands or nose or ears and the wind is ruthless and icy crap falls from the sky…No, winter is never in the running.)

The most exciting thing associated with the seasons for me (and especially this back-to-school time, as I return to school myself and anticipate student teaching next fall), is the change in produce. Like most cooks, I try to use the best in seasonal offerings, and when I am awake in time on a Saturday, I enjoy farmers’ market bounties. We’ve been in a bit of a limbo where the strawberry and blueberry prices have shot back up, and watermelons are still tasty but dwindling, but the apples haven’t appeared in bushels. I cannot wait to utterly manipulate the apple harvest into dumplings, pies, crisps.

As I say a teary goodbye to the last of summer tomatoes, corn, and zucchini, I will welcome the abundance of apples, eggplants, squash, pumpkins, and those funny little tiny gourd things that the grocery store sells.

A great resource for eating locally in your area, by the specific time of the month, is the Natural Resources Defense Council’s guide. You can enter your state and the month you’re looking for, and it’s a pretty helpful resource.

So I’m pretty excited about fall, yeah.

Atrazine is suddenly very much in the news. Today’s New York Times features a major story about whether the EPA’s current standard for acceptable levels of atrazine in drinking water is tight enough to protect human health. Yesterday’s Peoria Journal carried a story about a class action lawsuit filed in Illinois state court against Syngenta, the primary manufacturer of atrazine. And NRDC has just issued a report accusing EPA of ignoring the atrazine problem (summary here, full text here).

Atrazine is a herbicide commonly used to keep corn fields, lawns, and golf courses free of broad-leaved weeds. It is reportedly the most widely used herbicide in the United States and, correspondingly, the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters. EPA regulates atrazine under two laws, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Safe Drinking Water Act. FIFRA sets the terms for sale and use of pesticides, and the SDWA sets targets for allowable contaminant levels in drinking water systems.

Atrazine regulation has been contentious for several years. Atrazine was first registered for use in the U.S. in 1958, at a time when FIFRA was concerned almost entirely with whether claims made for the effectiveness of pesticides were true, rather than with their incidental effects on health or the environment. In 1988, Congress amended FIFRA, directing EPA to reregister older pesticides under modern standards, which require that pesticides not cause any unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, further defined as any “unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits” of their use. 7 U.S.C. 136(bb). Before EPA had reregistered atrazine, Congress in 1996 passed the Food Quality Protection Act, which required new safety findings for pesticide residues in food.

To comply with both of these laws, EPA undertook a human health and ecological risk assessment of atrazine.In 2003, it found that there were human “risks of concern” from drinking water, especially in the midwest, from occupational exposures, and from exposure to treated lawns. EPA concluded that the risks could be mitigated by adding restrictions to the labels and monitoring drinking water exposures. It concluded that atrazine was unlikely to be a human carcinogen, despite criticism from its own Scientific Advisory Panel, which thought the evidence did not justify that conclusion. Later, in response to a lawsuit brought by NRDC, EPA agreed to further study the potential association of atrazine with cancer. With respect to ecological risks, EPA found some risks to aquatic communities, but initially declined to consider potential endocrine disruptor effects on amphibians. A 2001 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract here, full text here for those with subscription access) had reported that low levels of atrazine interfered with development of the male sexual organs of frogs.

After wrangling with its Science Advisory Panel about what evidence it could consider, EPA wrote:

The Agency’s ecological risk assessment does not suggest that endocrine disruption, or potential effects on endocrine-mediated pathways, be regarded as an regulatory endpoint at this time. Nor does the Agency have evidence to state that there is no reliable evidence that atrazine causes endocrine effects in the environment.

It did commit to more analysis. After that analysis, EPA and the Science Advisory Panel agreed that there was enough evidence to justify a hypothesis that atrazine might have estrogenic effects on amphibians, but not enough to confirm or refute that hypothesis. Accordingly, EPA reaffirmed that the potential for atrazine to act as an endocrine disruptor did not justify any additional regulatory steps.

Finally, after a separate study of the cumulative effects of atrazine and other triazines, EPA found in 2006 that “there is a reasonable certainty that no harm will result to the general U.S. population, infants, children, or other major identifiable subgroups of consumers from aggregate exposure (from food, drinking water, and non-occupational sources) to cumulative residues of atrazine and the other chlorinated triazine pesticides.” It therefore finalized the re-registration of atrazine. (EPA’s decision documents on atrazine are here.)

The risk assessments supporting atrazine’s reregistration have been sharply criticized.  Washington Post writer Rick Weiss used the atrazine ecological risk assessment as a primary example of the ability of the Data Quality Act to suppress important regulatory information in a 2004 article.

Since that risk assessment, new concerns have been raised about the human health effects of atrazine in drinking water. Several studies have suggested an association between low levels of atrazine and low birth weight or birth defects. The ecological consequences of atrazine remain contested. A recent review (abstract; subscription required for full text access) inthe journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology concludes:

Based on a weight of evidence analysis of all of the data, the central theory that environmentally relevant concentrations of atrazine affect reproduction and/or reproductive development in fish, amphibians, and reptiles is not supported by the vast majority of observations. . . . For other responses, such as immune function, stress endocrinology, parasitism, or population-level effects, there are no indications of effects or there is such a paucity of good data that definitive conclusions cannot be made.

That review, though, is unlikely to resolve the question, because its authors are supported by Syngenta, a company with a history of using its research funding to suppress data or interpretations unfavorable to its interests.

Two general lessons emerge from the atrazine saga.

First, regulators cannot rely on firms with a clear economic interest in the outcome as the primary source of information about the effects of their chemicals on people or the environment. In principle, scientific data-gathering is an objective process unaffected by bias. In reality, however, there is plenty of room for judgment in science, from the selection of research questions and methodologies to the interpretation of ambiguous data. There is lots of opportunity for unconscious bias, and dependence on a chemical manufacturer for funding could be a powerful source of such bias. Even if it does not affect the investigators (and there are surely factors, such as concern for professional reputation, pushing the other way), studies funded directly by a manufacturer exacerbate public distrust. (Wendy Wagner and David Michaels detailed the problems associated with regulatory reliance on privately produced research at 30 J. Am. L. & Medicine 119 (2004).)

There is no need for studies that give the appearance of bias. It is wholly appropriate that manufacturers should bear the financial costs of testing their chemicals for adverse effects. But they need not fund studies directly. Instead of demanding that manufacturers perform studies, EPA should demand that the manufacturers provide research funds, which EPA (or NIH or NSF, if they are thought to have greater expertise in the subject) could distribute through typical competitive processes.

Second, the benefits of pesticides have not been sufficiently scrutinized. The most striking assertion, to my mind, in the NRDC report, is that”atrazine provides, at best, only minimal economic benefits to the farmers who use it.” NRDC explains:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates a ban on atrazine would result in crop losses of only 1.19 percent and decrease corn acreage in production by just 2.35 percent. Italy and Germany (both of which banned atrazine nearly 20 years ago) have not seen any drop in corn productivity or total acreage of land in production for corn since their ban on atrazine was put in place, although this was due in part to the use of other hazardous pesticides. However, Integrated Pest Management techniques could help farmers eliminate the use of atrazine and control weeds while reducing their use of other dangerous chemicals.

That sort of analysis should play a much bigger role in EPA’s FIFRA registration decisions than it currently does. While some environmental impacts would be “unreasonable” even if chemical use provided substantial economic benefits, any adverse effect should be enough to outweigh a minimal economic benefit. But EPA’s FIFRA review process not only does not require a careful accounting of benefits, it does not even require proof of efficacy. See Mary Jane Angelo, Embracing Uncertainty, Complexity, and Change: An Eco-Pragmatic Reinvention of a First Generation Environmental Law, 33 Ecology L. Q. 105, 182 (2006).

The best outcome of the current focus on atrazine would be for EPA to take a hard look not only at its atrazine regulations, but more generally at its approach to pesticide regulation.

If you want to know about atrazine in surface waters in your neighborhood, the NRDC report has some maps, and the USGS has this map site.

Fuzzy ideas in a spaghetti bowl
Dean Kamen’s “Thought Leaders” interview in Forbes magazine provides a delightful and motivational influence in a simple, single question – “What are we going to do about that?” In the context, it is also a call to service, a challenge to find the right and valuable problems to solve, and the importance of trading your time for something more important than money.

I learned a long time ago that the most important part of ending up with a great solution to a problem that maybe is not one that other people would come up with, isn’t in the process of accomplishing the goal. It’s in the process of really understanding the question. The answer is almost always, pretty much after the fact when you look back at it. The answer is almost sort of defined by the question. And I think a lot of invention comes when somebody looks at the same problem everybody else looks at and sees it differently.

Along the way there are also some interesting insights on the elimination of the arbitrary, choosing to be judged by what you make and by history rather than managers, the social environment of creation, and focus on the societal benefits of your success.

Opportunity briefs
In a startling contrast to the Kamen studio approach is this corporate approach.

For an idea to be considered for development, it has to meet Whirlpool’s three-pronged definition of innovation: It must meet a consumer need in a fresh way; it must have the breadth to become a platform for related products; and it must lift earnings. (Add-on innovations are expected to deliver results within months, while new-to-the-world ones are given three to five years.)

Without making judgments, it is simply very interesting to note the difference in what innovation is called when the question of “need” is so vastly different.

The Design Observer
The always delightful Design Observer blog launched its version 3.0 this week and its fresh look and organization was another reminded me of the importance of context. Its “Change Observer” tab brings thoughts about the role of design in a larger societal context.

This is what we aim to provide: thought-provoking reports, essays, reviews and dialogues about social innovation, presented through the lens of design. Debates rather than cheerleading rallies. Questions rather than sentiment.

Detroit as the first city to produce all of its own food within its borders
I’ve had a great concern rattling around in the back of my mind for quite a while about the proliferation of post-apocalyptic views of Detroit and proposals for balancing its now condition. A term used somewhere else –  “apocalypse chic” – and referring to the aesthetics of the return to the primitive, evoked the question of why it is that places like Detroit are treated to visions bred of resignation and despair, rather than motivations to a greatness. For too long, notions of “recovery” have bred a futility of nostalgia.

Perhaps my anxiety comes from inability to see a different vision in these abandonment proposals and, in the mode of Kamen’s explorations, uncover value in the expansion rather than critical diminution of the proposal. In other words, i tended to scoff at the AIA proposal to turn Detroit into a cluster of “English villages” (scenographic, sentimental, unaware of cultural and economic histories fo settlement patterns, etc., and this from the NRDC). But this exploration of the potential of achieving leadership through urban agriculture has enough power in the presentation that I’ll have to look further.

creativity, innovation, urban agriculture, Detroit, design briefs, opportunity briefs

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Each year, NRDC publishes a report on the sometimes-foul state of our beachwater nationwide.  This year’s Testing the Waters analysis shows that people are still regularly swimming in water with unsafe levels of E Coli and other pathogens, and that thousands of people likely get ill every year from a day at the beach.  In the northeast and Great Lakes regions, combined sewage overflows after rainstorms are a prime cause; here in California, surface runoff is a big reason. 

Why can’t we just close beaches when water is unsafe?  Part of the problem is a lack of funding for regular beachwater testing and monitoring–something that’s unlikely to improve in this year of state budget cuts.  But even when beaches are monitored, the current tests don’t give results for 18 hours or more — meaning that lots of swimmers have been exposed while we wait for a verdict.

As reported here in the LA Times, the House is proposing to mandate quicker tests.  The Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act passed Wednesday by the House would require the EPA to develop a test by 2012 that would allow the public to be alerted to contamination within hours of sampling, reducing the risk of exposure to disease-causing pathogens.

From: NRDC – Published July 29, 2009 12:15 PM

Beach Closing Days Nationwide Top 20,000 for Fourth Consecutive Year

“The water at American beaches was seriously polluted and jeopardized the health of swimmers last year with the number of closing and advisory days at ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches reaching more than 20,000 for the fourth consecutive year, according to the 19th annual beach water quality report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

“Pollution from dirty storm water runoff and sewage overflows continues to make its way to our beaches. This not only makes swimmers sick — it hurts coastal economies,” said Nancy Stoner, NRDC Water Program Co-Director. “Americans should not suffer the consequences of contaminated beach water. From contracting the flu or pink eye, to jeopardizing millions of jobs and billions of dollars that rely on clean coasts, there are serious costs to inaction.”

Using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NRDC’s report — Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches — confirms that our nation’s beach waters continue to suffer from serious contamination —including human and animal waste — that can make people sick.

NRDC’s report also provides a 5-star rating guide for 200 of the nation’s most popular beaches, based on indicators of beach water quality, monitoring frequency, and public notification of contamination.Five-star beaches included Gulf Shores Public Beach (AL), Laguna Beach-Main Beach (CA), Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach (CA), Newport Beach (CA), Ocean City (MD), Park Point — Community Club Beach in Duluth (MN) and Hampton Beach State Park in Hampton (NH). Some of the lowest ranking beaches (1-star) were Zach’s Bay at Jones Beach State Park in Wantagh (NY), Ocean Beach Park in New London (CT), Venice Public Beach (FL) and Central Beach in Point Pleasant (NJ).

Article continues: http://www.nrdc.org/media/2009/090729.asp ******************

Go to the NRDC website to read their report on your favorite beach, and keep in mind that when you toss trash in the street, it runs into the storm drains which do not filter that trash but rather end up dumping it into our oceans.

Some recent media I secured.

New York Times, for Natural Resources Defense Council

Platinum LEED Certified Green Building

Los Angeles Times, for Urban Land Institute

Urban planning and economic turnaround

In yesterday’s Science, a group of academics, mostly involved in the papers that kicked off the indirect land use change (ILUC) debate last year, join up to write a statement about the potential benefits of biofuels yet with a strong warning about getting the science right. The group is clearly focused on the debate in Congress where corn ethanol gets a 5-year moratorium from ILUC in the House version of the Climate Bill and comments by Senators, such as Sen. Harkin (R-IA), who said “We want no indirect land use, things like that in there — there is no scientific basis for that.”

Here’s what they group of academics write in Science Magazine:

In a world seeking solutions to its energy, environmental, and food challenges, society cannot afford to miss out on the global greenhouse-gas emission reductions and the local environmental and societal benefits when biofuels are done right. Biofuels done right can be produced in substantial quantities . However, they must be derived from feedstocks produced with much lower life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions than traditional fossil fuels and with little or no competition with food production.

The article outlines five types of biofuels feedstocks that the authors think would be ideal, but they make it clear that the list “may not be limited to” these five:

1. Perennial plants grown on degraded lands abandoned from agricultural use;
2. Crop residues;
3. Sustainably harvested wood and forest residues;
4. Double crops and mixed cropping systems; and
5. Municipal and industrial wastes.

Not surprisingly given Tim Searchinger’s involvement, it includes strong statements about the risks of market-mediated indirect land-use change. According to NRDC’s Nathanael Greene, Searchinger has a new white paper on “why the uncertainty around indirect emissions doesn’t justify ignoring them.” Greene says, “among the other smart points it makes is that if, as some argue, biofuels such as corn ethanol won’t have any impact on food supplies, then they don’t provide any GHG benefits because the carbon that the corn absorbs would have been absorbed anyway, so the corn ethanol isn’t causing any new absorption. So you basically have to assume indirect effects if you want to argue that corn ethanol can have any climate benefit.”

The group provides some policy recommendations:

Biofuels should receive policy support as substitutes for fossil energy only when they make a positive impact on four important objectives: energy security, greenhouse-gas emissions, biodiversity, and the sustainability of the food supply. Performance-based policies are needed that provide incentives proportional to the benefits delivered. Legislation that is vague could allow significant portions of the biofuels industry to develop along counterproductive pathways. Complementary policies must directly target related goals, such as land- and water-efficient food production, reduced agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, and the prevention of habitat loss from land-clearing.

Here’s what BIO says about the study:

The question will be whether anyone invests in these technologies or in additional biofuel production at all, given the current economic and social climate in which biofuel companies are operating. One possible factor in choosing the best biofuels ought to be how soon they can become a reality and whether they can be improved from there.