Thursday, 10 Jun 2004

How Green Was the Gipper?

A Look Back at Reagan's Environmental Record

Amid all the hyperbolic hero worship and thundering lamentations, few pundits and politicians are actually examining former President Reagan's record in any depth. Today in Muckraker, we focus a green lens on the Gipper's achievements -- and the doings of his two most notorious environmental henchfolks, James Watt and Anne Gorsuch -- on the Grist Magazine website.

Rue the Day

Paris May Ban SUVs From City Streets

Parisian officials have determined that SUVs are no longer in vogue. The left-leaning city council yesterday passed a resolution that urges the capital's Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, to effectively ban the bulky four-wheel-drive vehicles from the city center during peak pollution times and deny their owners parking permits starting in 18 months. SUVs have become more popular in Western Europe in recent years, though they still account for less than 5 percent of the French car market, markedly below SUV sales numbers in the U.S. Paris has been dedicating more street lanes to bicycles and buses since a coalition of Socialists and Greens gained control of the city government in 2001, and an SUV ban would be yet another move to green the city's streets. London's leftist mayor, Ken Livingstone, is also no fan of SUVs; last month, he called their owners "complete idiots."

Those Were the Lost Days of Our Lives

Bush Pollution Plan Falls Short on Saving Lives

More than 90 percent of the 23,600 deaths caused in the U.S. each year by pollution from old coal-fired power plants could be prevented if the federal government adopted tough emissions regulations, according to a new study, but President Bush's preferred pollution-control plan falls far short of that mark. The study -- conducted at the request of a coalition of enviro groups by Abt Associates, a consulting firm that often does research for the U.S. EPA -- compared Bush's Clear Skies plan with two other legislative proposals and found that while his would save 14,000 lives per year, the competing plans would save 16,000 and 22,000. Enviros intend to make this an issue in the presidential campaign; they note that three swing states -- Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida -- now have the highest numbers of deaths from power-plant pollution. The study sponsors have set up a website that lets people track down power plants in their area and see how much pollution they emit and how many deaths they cause.

Waste Makes Haste

Umbra Dishes on Thermal Depolymerization

What do turkey offal, cavepeople, swine waste, and dinosaurs have in common? Believe it or not, the answer just might help solve the world's energy and waste dilemmas, as Umbra Fisk explains in her latest column -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

China Finds More Giant Pandas than Expected

Good news on the endangered species front (and you didn't think there was such a thing!): A comprehensive survey has found 40 percent more giant pandas living in the wild in China than previously thought -- nearly 1,600. The higher numbers may be the result of more sophisticated surveillance methods rather than an indication of a rebounding population, but researchers from the World Wildlife Fund and the Chinese government were still happy about their survey results. They caution, though, that pandas aren't out of the woods yet. The animals are still threatened by heavy logging in the bamboo forests where they live, as well as by poaching. Also, their fractured habitat complicates the breeding process, a problem the Chinese government is trying to address by creating corridors to connect isolated pockets of habitat.