Environment & Natural Resources

When a slick new company arrives on the scene with lofty promises of social responsibility, you have to wonder if there might be a catch. But when that company is in the business of selling bottled water alongside pricey cups of coffee, well, you can probably stop wondering.

As a world-peace kind of guy, I admit I was drawn in by their ongoing advertising pitch:

"By purchasing Ethos Water, customers can join a growing community of individuals who are committed to make a difference. For each bottle purchased, $0.05 will be donated toward Starbucks goal of contributing $10 million over the next five years to help alleviate the world water crisis."

See what I mean? It sounds pretty good, doesn’t it. As long as you don’t really stop to think. As long as you ignore the fact that the company is offering nickels when you could give dollars instead – if you got your water from home. As long as you close your eyes to the staggering environmental costs of America’s growing obsession with bottled water.

I overheard some college students talking this morning about the new oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico.

Student 1: Looks like no more oil crisis. Now I can get me a Hummer.

Student 2: No shit. Fuck a bunch of Middle East oil.

According to the NY Times, there could be as many as 15 billion barrels of oil buried deep in the gulf. And according to an expert on NPR this morning, those 15 billion barrels are enough to cover less than two years of US oil consumption.

Why do I hate this man? No, it's not what you think. I don't hate him for any of the things he has done. I hate him for the things he won't do over the next three years that ONLY he could accomplish.

This piece of North Carolina's natural heritage in Henderson County is up for sale, and the State is considering purchasing it in order to preserve it as a park.

Much of the acreage has been maintained in pristine condition, and some scientists have described Hickory Nut Gorge as one of the most biologically diverse areas in the state. Todd Morse said he and his father shared a desire for the next owner to “carry on the legacy of stewardship that we’ve started here.”

The North Carolina Legislature was very busy in 2006, but I want to point out some of the good things they accomplished:

Session Law 2006-206 requires a committee to study the feasibility of reducing the state's energy and water usage by 20% by January 1, 2012. The study report is due in February 2007. The legislation also requires the state to develop a plan to implement a 2005 law that requires the state to reduce petroleum usage by transitioning to alternative fuels by January 1, 2010.

The following "leisure read" is one day of Dean Naujok's journals from the 2006 Tour de Neuse -- an annual paddle trip down the Neuse River in the spring. Adair Pickard, a member of the DWJC was among the paddlers in this section, as was Mayor Don Rains of Princeton.

Each day's journal entry offers the reader an education in things he would otherwise never know. For instance, did you know that development run-off over recent years has so silted the Neuse river that our section of the river no longer has many fish or mussels in it at all? Tell that to Fred Smith and the County Commissioners and see if any of them act like they give a damn.

Ooops. This is supposed to be a break from politics, isn't it?

A BP oil field in Alaska has been shut down because of unexpectedly severe corrosion in a pipeline. Sort of makes you wonder about the wisdom of having oil and gas lines strung out underwater along the North Carolina coast. Why our state's Congressional Republicans are happy to take these kinds of risks on the Atlantic continental shelf is beyond me. We Americans might be addicted to oil, but our elected officials of the right wing persuasion are more likely addicted to oil profits.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. began shutting down the Prudhoe Bay oil field Sunday after discovering unexpectedly severe corrosion and a small spill from a transit pipeline.

Prudhoe Bay represents about half of Alaska’s oil production and about 8 percent of U.S. production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Company officials said it would take days to shut down the oil field. Once completed, it’s expected to reduce oil field production by 400,000 barrels a day.

I figured that the rest of you stuck inside during your summer vacations like me, and for me this is my last summer, would appreciate this blog post by Time's science writer. Essentially his point is, there is no way to tell for sure how Global Warming affects individual heat waves but be ready for more frequent and hotter waves than would otherwise occur:

Next summer may not be especially hot--but over the next several decades, expect more and more heat waves like this one--and a few that are even worse. Expect them to show up more often, last longer and affect larger areas. And expect those other signs of warming--the storms, the droughts, and even such counter-intuitive events as the unusually harsh, snowy winter now going on in South Africa--to come along more often and be more severe as well.

Hey y'all,

I hope that this isn't too obscure, but it is surely an issue close to my heart. It is becoming more and more difficult to either turn a profit as a full time farmer or to simply raise crops or livestock for your own family. It is very tough in western North Carolina, where land is typically too rugged for large scale farm operations like those of the west and mid-west, to compete economically on the enormous and overwhelming commodities market. And, increasingly, land is too expensive, and the cost of living too high, to get started in small scale farming or to have the time for "hobby-farming."

If you track the rhetoric of government haters at the John Locke Foundation, you know that one of the things they hate most is planning. Just ask their "expert" from Houses R Us, an objective group of homebuilders who think nothing should stand in the way of them throwing up more houses wherever they want. These folks are fundamentally opposed to smart growth because it costs more than stupid growth. Imagine that! Well, hold on to your hat, because stupid-growth advocates are also hot and bothered about transporation planning. Consider John Hood's silly column today.

Foolish or dishonest advocates of transit argue that there is a huge pent-up demand for bus or rail just waiting to be tapped if only those skinflint conservatives would get out of the way. More sensible advocates realize that building transit must be only part of a far-larger agenda of transforming the way most of us live, work, shop, and recreate.

What Hood doesn't understand - on purpose I assume - is that no "responsible advocate" has a far-larger agenda of transforming jack shit. "Responsible advocates" understand that the path we're on is leading over a cliff. From global warming to dependence of foreign oil to the massive loss of productivity resulting from poor transportation systems, the costs of our current development model are unsustainable. And we can't wait until the the problem is acutely destructive before we act.