Taken to an extreme, Gaia has been touted as more religion than science. But there’s also solid study behind Gaia and Lovelock has some serious science street cred. So, when he says present day society isn’t smart enough to save itself, NBN feels it’s worth writing about. Especially, when we have a litmus test like the Gulf oil spill to help measure his arguments.While the spill appears stopped, the nation’s response to it over the next few weeks might say a lot about where our priorities really are. In the meantime, the tea leave are telling us Lovelock has an argument to make. Take this this piece in Louisiana’s Tri-Parish Times. It quotes St. Mary’s Parish, LA, officials going to bat for the 75th Annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival slated for this September in Morgan City, LA.

*First there's this quote from the story:"We are sympathetic, heartfelt and empathetic people in south Louisiana…over 50 non-profit organizations make a good portion of their annual budget from our festival." Nathalie Weber, president of the La. Shrimp and Petroleum Festival board.
*Then there’s this: "We can't let anyone attack the pride that we have with the oil and shrimp industries working together, both ecologically and economically," St. Mary's council chairman Albert Foulcard.
*Finally, this. "Should [the festival] go on as usual? I say hell yes. To be honest, if I were still involved, I would highlight the BP catastrophe and use the festival as a vehicle to raise even more awareness of what this industry and our people do for our country," former festival organizer Connie Thomas.

Empathy, arrogance, and fidelity. When you have local officials proffering such a plethora of political platitude, you know this festival will go on as planned. We also know this self righteous indignation, no matter how counter intuitive, among the recently wronged Louisianans is not enough for NBN to completely agree with Lovelock’s condemnation of all mankind. So, NBN enters into evidence exhibit No.2: The recent reading of last rights over the Cap and Trade legislation by Time magazine and a few dozen other publications. The Time analysis blames pro-oil Republican congressmen, and their feckless Democratic colleagues, for the bill’s demise. But after reading all 1,700 words—well almost all—NBN concludes there’s someone the writer left out.

In fact, there are a couple hundred million someones to be blamed for the death of Cap and Trade. That’s right, the American People. Beyond token press releases by every Green Group in the country, vocal public support of Cap and Trade has been almost non-existent, while opposition to excess taxes is grabbing 20 percent of the headlines. How could any politician in their right mind, or with even a hint of courage over political expedience, vote for raising taxes on the life-blood of a nation in the middle of a crippling recession? Even if it could be our first small step toward saving the planet, getting approval for anything so threatening to the interests of huge corporations and average American's pocketbooks at the same time is doomed to failure. Right now far more people are opposed to offshore drilling than in favor of Cap and Trade. Yet in the long run, by far the most effective tool against Global Warming is Cap and Trade. So what do we get? A ban on offshore drilling while Cap and Trade dies from bad timing and lousy public relations.

Taxing wasteful energy use is far less heart-felt than brown pelicans drowning in oil or polar bears clinging to icebergs. Tragically, many of those powerfully driven to save the planet,are driven as much, or more, by passion than practicality. You can argue such folks are as “unevolved” as the Drill-Baby-Drillers. Also, consider for a moment that wasteful energy use is actually good for the economy—albeit on a tragically short-term scale. That’s a very powerful disincentive to taxing it. Especially in this economy.

So, where do we stand on Lovelock? As tempting as it is to agree with him, NBN has to rule against. In the Gulf oil spill, it’s hard to condemn as stupid people reluctant to abandon an industry that’s fed their kids for five generations. Are they short-sighted? Surely. Desperate? Definitely. Pathetic? Possibly. But not clever or evolved enough, to quote Lovelock? Let he who is without sin…as they say. As much as Lovelock, and so many others, want to paint environmental issues as black or white, everything has a touch, or torrent, of gray. It’s in that gray light we’d like to suggest that Lovelock’s comments weren’t that clever or highly evolved.

Aimless conversation with the deli owner down the street has become an integral part of my local shopping experience. But when another patron picked up on our conversation recently about the Gulf oil spill, the exchange became anything but aimless. I was sarcastically sounding off over Louisiana’s objection to Obama’s offshore drilling ban when this skinny, tattooed guy smelling of cigarettes said that the spill was the fault of government restrictions on inshore drilling. The restrictions were forcing BP and friends to drill riskier wells in deeper water, he said. ‘”Funny,” I said, “I’ve never heard that.” “Oh yeah,” he said with certainty, and went on to explain why drilling bans inshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge were profoundly stupid policy.

He no doubt was making some descent points which were all lost on me due to my conviction that if we just improved the fuel efficiency of our cars, and outfitted every roof in the country with solar panels and wind turbines, half the world’s problems would disappear. My zeal for converting this nonbeliever yielded quickly to anger when he scoffed: “Yeah, you go buy an electric car.” It’s funny how you always get most angry when you know you’re wrong. Not about the offshore drilling thing. On that point the redneck was dead wrong. I couldn’t find anything on the internet supporting his statement. But he’s right about the car. When my wife and I decided to buy a new car, we were scared off by the hybrid prices and the compactness of the sub-compacts. We ended up with a Honda CRV that averages about 25 mpg between highway and city driving. We love the CRV and its roughly 20 percent fuel efficiency improvement over our Jeep Cherokee, which is now officially my car. But realistically, we could have done considerably better mileage-wise for about the same price with a dozen or so reliable models on the road right now, not pictured at left.

So why didn’t we buy one? That question could be one of the biggest impediments to correcting some of the most pressing problems this country faces. It’s what stands between $380 billion a year being shipped over overseas to people that hate us and declaring oil independence without having to sink another oil well. When even a militant environmentalist like myself refuses to do something as simple as buying a Honda Fit instead of a Honda CRV, just so there’s leg room for grandchildren and the annual haul of Christmas presents, something’s seriously wrong with this picture. Let’s not forget the solar panels and wind turbines you’ll not find on my roof, even though I’m convinced everybody else should have them. Make no mistake, I do my part. As noted in Popular Wisdom this week, there’s a fan in my office window where an air conditioner normally sits. The entire house is outfitted with compact fluorescent light bulbs, we recycle with messianic zeal, and I spend some 25 hours per week unpaid writing these little environmental admonishments for NBN. Yet, ask me to fork over an additional $10,000 for a Prius or $30,000 for a half way decent solar panel/grid conversion installation? Forget it! I have the money, almost. But, I’m afraid to make the jump.

I keep hoping the tax incentive stars will come into alignment and we’ll be able to shell out for solar panels: Warning personal anecdote approaching—we missed out on Cash for Clunkers by one meesly mile-per-gallon. My Chevy S10, the Little Engine that Could of American Cars, got 19 mpg gallon and the CFC  cutoff was $18 mpg. So, I sold the truck on Craigs List for $450, when for the sake of 1 mpg I could have gotten $4,000. Now, that’s a government subsidy. I pondered all this as I walked out the door of the deli and past this fellow’s F350 pick-up. At least this fellow is completely true to his complete lack of environmental convictions. I’m guilty of half measures and I know I’m far from alone. It might be time to price out a few solar panels. And I hope when the Jeep finally gives up the ghost, electric cars will cost less than BMWs, because I’m buying one. When it comes to cleaning up the environment, it’s time to cook or wash dishes.

We didn't want to write this opinion piece below, yet this article Sunday leaves little choice. We started out writing this week with lofty aims; writing a piece in Good News  about the Gulf oil spill sending a message to the oil-loving Red State folks that maybe this nation should start looking at other ways to heat our homes, power our cars and electrify our pencil sharpeners. We edited out all sorts of self righteous remarks about the Drill-Baby-Drillers getting the ultimate comeuppance that just might move them to support alternative energies that don't require mortgaging the future to finance McMansions.

We really didn't want to be mean to people suffering a disaster akin to losing kin. But these folks organizing the 75th Annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival make it impossible not to dip our pens deep into our inkwells of sarcasm. The Diamond Jubilee Anniversary of this oxy-moronic occasion has not been canceled on account of the Gulf oil spill—or a sudden infusion of common sense in the face of the mounting evidence that aggressive, multi-faceted exploitation of natural resources may not be the best cause for a celebration. We believe passionately in not kicking a person when they are down. (The effort to find the internet image file of the festival logo above proved that every comedian in the country is piling on the 2010 Shrimp and Petroleum's 75th.) But when someone symbolically flips you the bird as they cry on their sleeve, it tends to temper compassion.

So, this little reminder to the folks down in oil country; The Gulf of Mexico doesn't belong to Louisiana or Texas, any more than Georges Banks belongs to New England or Canada. These are vital international environmental resources that you draw paychecks from. This spill will now likely neuter for years to come environmental treasures like Dry Tortugas National Park, pictured here; home to this country's most pristine coral reefs. Yet these folks are going ahead with a celebration: “that will prove that oil and water really do mix.” We're betting/hoping common sense prevails and the festival is canceled. If not out of a sense of humility and common decency than as act of contrition.

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The LATimes last week took this book promotion piece and turned it into an interesting argument that, says despite all the apparent turmoil around us, human beings have never had it so good. The argument rests on the idea that the value of the average American's possessions today is much higher than what the average caveman owned. In other words, we're a lot richer today than the average caveman was in his or her day. At least 10 times richer, according to the article. What the writer fails to ask is this: Where did all this wealth came from? The answer we propose is this: We've pilfered it from this planet and some day soon we'll have to give it back. To explain that last sentence we first have to break down the arguments in the article.

We start with another question the article author overlooked: Can we put a modern price tag on a caveman's possessions? Let's give it a shot. A decent cave should have a few wooley mammoth bones, hopefully with some fresh meat hanging off; a comfy rock, a flat wall to draw on, a few medicinal herbs maybe a bow and a few arrows; and the biggest item of all, a roof over his head. I don't know about you, but there have been times in my life I would have shelled out a few bucks for that. Matter of fact, I have. Now, walk into your average Upper East Side, Manhattan apartment. You've got dry-age prime strip streaks next to the pork chops, peas, orange juice and ice cream in the freezer; sectional seating with recliner in the air conditioned living room. There's probably a marble bathroom, entertainment center with DVD, TiVo, 32-inch flatscreen TV, and don't forget the Benz in the four-story garage nextdoor. After a few days, your average caveman could probably get pretty comfortable in such surroundings and consider himself quite wealthy. Does that mean we are wealthier today than 6,000 years ago? Not nearly as much as we'd like to think.

This is where the article misses the boat. Einstein said matter can not be created or destroyed. NBN says neither can wealth. The planet is paying dearly for all these flatscreen TVs. They're made with some nasty stuff called nitrogen triflouride that we've just discovered is to global warming what volcanic ash is to air travel. Then there is all the gold, silver, copper, silicon, nickle, mercury, platinum, and cadmium to name a very few that has to be properly disposed of when you up-grade to that 42-inch flatscreen you've always wanted. Then there is the environmental toll of mining and refining all those metals and chemicals. Lets move to the fridge. While the meaty bones in the cave may lack for shelf life, they come at relatively little cost to the environment:. That one-pound dry aged prime strip steak is expensive, and not just the retail cost.. It required 6 to 20 pounds of corn to grow it. Pesticides, fertilizer and herbicides were needed to grow the corn and it took oil to power the tractor that applies these chemicals to the ground that grows that corn. All paid for by planet earth. Do we need to move onto the marble quarry that produced the bathroom or the forests that produced the hardwood flooring and cabinetry or the smoke stacks needed to produce the electricity this apartment sucks up? The price tag for modern living is a lot bigger than we often realize and we never cover the whole bill. In fact we haven't been for generations.

So, what do we do? Go out and find a cave and start honing our spear throwing and hand painting skills? Sadly, there are not nearly enough caves to go around. We also can't forget that all these creature comforts we indulge in are putting a lot of people to work. So, what do we do? Perhaps we all could learn to get along with a lot less. A 42-inche flatscreen may seem like must-see TV, but perhaps we can wait until out vacuum tube tube dies first. And what of all those people making those flatscreen TVs? Remember the days of TV repairmen.? Maybe a few of those assembly line workers can pick up a tool box. And do we really need to buy a new car every three years? Remember the days of auto mechanics? Remember shoe repair shops?

What's surely not going to be forgotten is the mess we're in the process of leaving for the generations to follow us. Forget for a second the whole global warming thing. Think about the mercury that's been dispersed all over the planet. That stuff isn't going away anytime soon. What about all the ground water contamination. Do you think there is a city in the world where you can just sink a well into the ground and drink the water? That stuff's not going away anytime soon either. What about all the plastic trash in the world? If the animals are eating it, so are we and so will our children. So, are we really richer than than caveman? If we are, we've certainly piled up some bills that I don't want to pay. That cave with the comfy rock is starting to sound pretty good. It might be time to go find one, crawl inside and let these guys pick up the tab.

Open-mindedness has its drawbacks. On Saturday I was reading this NatGeo piece about the sonic booms from the offshore oil exploration expected from Obama's recent opening of offshore oil exploration areas. I'm reading this piece thinking: Maybe it's not such a bad idea to open these areas to exploration. It's clear this country will always need some form of high-energy fuel like natural gas and oil. The country can't run on solar and wind power alone and we're never going to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions. Heck, a forest fire puts out a truck load of greenhouse gasses. As I read deeper into the NatGeo piece, the pros and cons of Obama's new policy emerged. The article said estimates are 61 days’ worth of oil and two years’ worth of natural gas are in the areas Obama opened up. The article also said those figures are old and it's likely more careful exploration will find more. Then there's this New York Times piece by energy consultant Michael Lynch, not someone likely to short-sell the oil industry, saying there's $10 to $25 billion in oil tax tax revenue in the offing. Nearly twice that, he said, if the Pacific Northwest waters were opened to exploration. Lynch concludes with: “Clearly, the petroleum from the new areas isn’t going to offset our 12 million barrels a day of imports, and the tax revenues aren’t going to put a huge dent in a budget deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Increasingly, it's sounding like the offshore oil exploration is a coin-toss. Is it? Warning personal anecdote approaching. I thought again about the sonic booms needed to more accurately measure those energy deposits and my own experiences diving off the East End of Long Island. The NatGeo article said the noise from the sonic booms dies off a few hundred yards from the boat making them. My own experience is noise gets louder as you go deeper. That's what I found with the ferry boats that used to pass about a quarter of a mile from me while I was under water. The noise got deafening as I swam deeper. It was disorienting, not to mention scary as heck. Talk about surround-sound. Add to that the environmental risk inherent in extracting noxious chemicals like oil and natural gas out of the ocean floor and the inherent benefit, both environmental and economic, in expanding the nation's production and use of alternative energy and once again I'm thinking: this is ano-brainer. The last thing this country, this planet, needs are more fossil fuels.

But, you know what really becomes a no brainer about exploring for oil offshore? If there were serious oil or natural gas reserves out there, we'd have drilled into them already. With a Congress that's been for sale since its inception, it wouldn't take a lot of campaign contributions to get the legislation needed to promote rather than ban offshore drilling. The only reason there's not been greater exploration offshore is because it's not worth it. But it sure makes for good political theater. Let's just hope that's all this new policy comes to. A move to placate the “Drill, Baby, Drillers.

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Picking through the same Nat Geo issue, there was this story providing a logical explanation for near-death experiences. Dammit! First it turns out that Polergeist isn't a true story and now the same bright light I was hanging all my afterlife hopes on is just gas build-up in my blood stream. Am I alone, or does it get a little tiresome to see science tear down one hope after the next that life is more than a collection of biochemical reactions and physics slugging it out in this auditorium we call a planet. You muster the faith in all things ethereal to think that science isn't everything, then something like this comes along and we go running back to the Ph.Ds for perspective. Then they tell us there's nothing there. What's a poor believer to do?

Keep your faith in science. No, that's not a contradiction in concepts. It's doesn't take a large leap of imagination or faith to see that this great big world around us is, perhaps, the best evidence of all that everything may not be as it appears. Take the high speed particle collider in Switzerland at CERN labs. The more they cleave particles in two the more ethereal those particles become. We've got black holes, electro-magnetic fields, anti-matter: All this really weird stuff that seems to ask more questions with every answer. In many respects, science has as many unanswered questions as the Bible. Speaking of which, if Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Able, how do you get more children?

Welcome to NBN’s Wednesday puzzle page. Can you spot all the environmental problems in this picture? Here’s one hint, look past the neon green lawn to the woods on the left-hand side. Now, look at the slightly aqua-marine pond. That’s right, this gorgeous piece of landscaping was once a vernal pond in the middle of the woods. Want to try the puzzle again? Ok, we’ll help you again. Start with the lawn, without plenty of lime and fertilizer this would look more like the “before” image of a Scotts Lawn Care commercial. Now, look at the stone bulkhead surrounding the pond. The yellow spotted salamanders, wood frogs, fairy shrimp, blandings turtles and spring peepers that have used this pond for breeding since the last ice age, have now got to hurdle that bulkhead. However, the bulkhead does nothing to stop mosquitoes from breeding, you need pesticide for that.

What other environmental hurdles do we have here? See that real cool putting green in the left corner? It's an impermeable surface creating more road-runoff. Ditto, for the two paved driveways you can't really see. For that matter, the blue-green tint in the pond in the picture above, might suggest cyanobacteria, which bloom in ponds overcome with fertilizer creating a nasty toxin. Then there's the bridge connecting to the fixed deck. The deck is doubtless a great place to have a drink, provided you've killed all the mosquitoes. Hence my suspicion that this entire landscaped leisure-land is one big chemical sink that has neutered what was once a vibrant vernal pond. If we're having too much fun at the expense of this fellow's hard work and beautiful landscaping, we apologize but can't recant. If we're not 100 percent accurate, how far off can we be?

This is quite likely what the pond in the picture above looked like before the backhoe. This pond is about a quarter of a mile down the road from the landscape job. It looks pretty funky, who can blame the homeowner, it's an amazing bit of landscaping. But again, we have to look at the price paid here. First, what happens to all the animals that used his pond before it was landscaped into sterility. It's possible a few frogs may still be attracted to that pond each spring. But nothing compared to the riot of wildlife that once was. Next we have to consider the money spent to neuter a pond like this. So, this homeowner works his tail off to maintain this chemical oasis at the expense of thousands of little critters, some of which are endangered. You tell me: What's wrong with this picture?

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NBN tends to keep politics at arms length, if for no other reason than to avoid the sniping and cheap shots that make up the nation's daily political diet. But every so often something comes along that's too good to pass up and, as we'll soon point out, even politics is all about the environment in the end. Here we have this study saying conservatives and religious right are less evolved than atheists and liberals. Putting aside, for a moment, all the jokes and speculations about anyone undertaking such a study in the name of science, let's start the analysis.

The premise of the study is the liberal left tends to more readily embrace change, even at the cost of personal freedom, while the conservatives want to roll back the clock, and a trillion or so dollars worth of government programs, to embrace a much more limited role for government in our lives. You have to admit, the latter sounds pretty nice. Who wants to be told what size car to drive or what sort of refreshments to drink. But what do we do when the car we drive starts damaging the environment we all live in. And the soda we drink causes a diabetes epidemic sending everyone's doctor bills through the roof.

This is where the environment comes in, in the form of the one shrinking world we all have to share. Back when the Constitution was written, there were about one billion people in the world. Today we have six billion. (BTW, the US population growth rate eclipses that.) Now look at the rising standard of living across the world, as measured by the only metric that matters, the amount of stuff people buy. Not only do we have six times the world population, but each person is extracting way more natural resources than each of us did back when horses and outhouses ruled the planet.

This quote from the study: People who later admitted to being "not at all religious," and who classified themselves as "very liberal" politically had higher IQ scores as teenagers than those who were "very religious" and "very conservative."

This chart says it all. It shows the growth of the world's gross domestic product, also known as all the stuff people buy. About 1,000 years ago there wasn't a GDP. Look where we were during the American revolution. Look where we are now. What intelligent life form is going to try and stuff today's way of life back into a hands-off government mold made 230 years ago for a much smaller and poorer population. This is where politics, the environment and evolution collide.

These folks say the world can only sustain about 2.5 billion people. They seem to have a bit of a bias, but if they are even half right, there are way too many people on this planet. This is where human evolution grinds to a halt. When how you live your life restricts how others live theirs, even slightly, we as a species tend to start killing each other. That's called devolution. And as each of us suck up ever more oil, metal, and clean air, water, and earth in our daily routines we leave less for those around us. We either learn to share and conserve, or strive to compete and horde. That means we either grab guns or pay taxes.

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Time to challenge Darwin's theory of evolution. Why does NBN dare go where no sane scientists have gone before? We're a little short on copy today. It's kind of hard to see who put this press release together, or why. Given its frequent reference to the allegedly fabricated fossil findings of evolution-minded archeologist, we assume the author is no fan of Charles Darwin. Hey, we can sympathize. We'd much rather view ourselves as derivative from something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel than having to reconcile ourselves with having relatives in the Bronx Zoo. Still, there's something innately logical about random mutation and natural selection that makes us tread cautiously here. Allow us to introduce the science of ethology to confront this conundrum. (Now, we're really going to start playing fast and loose with facts. If anyone out there wants to correct us, please do: (comments@nbnpress.com.) Ethology, very roughly speaking, is where cognition meets chromosome. It's examines the role of evolution in learning and, more radically, the possible role of learning in evolution. While there is obviously fertile ground here for the study of the evolution of animal instincts, ground zero in ethology is the human mind and the role, if any, our remarkable learning skills play in our evolution as a species. In short: can learned behavior somehow make its way into our DNA? (Anyone still reading?) If you accept this possibility, that learning can drive the process of evolution, than all animals, but particularly humans, are not just a product of random chromosomal screw-ups that provide an occasional competitive advantage over those less lucky.

Space, and the alarming rise of adult ADHD, suggest that's enough about ethology in this column, suffice to say we gather some spiritual solace knowing learning could play a role in how we became human. It has a certain open-endedness that gives us high hope for what humanity can eventually become.

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There was an unwritten rule in the various newsrooms I've worked in: never ridicule the reader. So, it is with a sense of unease that I sit down at the computer this morning. Perhaps the intent here is to chastise. A wake-up call? Certainly, NBN doesn't have nearly enough readers to say with certainty any of this criticism applies to them. Anybody who does reads this website is definitely putting in the extra effort vis-a-vis the environment. Still, this WSJ piece and another in Time magazine both hinting that the nation's woes may not  only be in Washington got my fingers flexing.

The WSJ article cites the departure recently of Sen. Evan Bahy, and the elevation of the filibuster as a tool of governance, as evidence of an end to leadership in Washington. Left unmentioned in the article is the  role of the average American in this mess. We're not looking for leaders these days, we're looking for politicians willing to point the finger of blame at anything other than ourselves.

Here's where the Time article comes in. It notes government sponsored home energy efficiency programs in tree-hugging Boulder, CO, have failed largely because the measures don't make a big enough dent in home utility bills. Why weather strip your doors, caulk your windows and use compact florescent bulbs if you can only hope to knock $20 off a $150 utility bill? By extension, across the country, it's also easier just to stick bottles and paper in the trash, drive a Hummer and turn up the thermostat. America is far and away the most wasteful nation in the world. It's what we call our high standard standard of living. It's what made made us the most powerful nation in the world.

Not for long, my fellow Americans. Right or wrong, about seven times the United States' population is chomping at the bit to do our jobs for a quarter of your paycheck. And, it's not just Detroit that's vulnerable. Our tax returns, x-rays and who-knows-what-else are being emailed en-masse to Asia while we sleep in our Sealy Posturepedics. Still, NBN believes that the US can still crush the competition, largely because of the lead we've already built up. Our existing schools—public and private—municipal infrastructure, our bank-accounts and particularly or high standard of living can all be leveraged into a leaner--not meaner--brand, shiny new America.

We can live with truly competitive wages—or dramatically reduced work hours—if we embrace this country's world leading information technology. At the same time, social programs must go down and taxes must go up. We start driving minivans and Volkswagons again. Wear a sweater around the house. Recycle everything. Mother's once again must remind their finicky kids of the starving children in China, although they may now have to come up with another country. We need sacrifice at home before we can expect leadership in Washington. For now, it looks like our leadership in Washington is a pretty good representation of the people that elected them.

With the Gloucester Times' self imposed recusal from objectivity over all issues involving commercial fishing in that iconic city, it took this article in the Cape Cod Times 50 miles to the south to prompt a mea culpa from NBN over the hot button issue of catch shares and bottom trawling. The top dog at NOAA is saying that fisheries enforcement has been heavy handed in New England and she now wants to know why. All we've done in these pages is harp on how the Gloucester Times has skewed this, and every other commercial fishing story, completely in favor of the fishermen and in complete ignorance of science.

Now, it looks like they got this story about the persecution of Gloucester fishermen at least partly right. Still, it's hard to take The Gloucester Times seriously because they've been such a cheer leader for commercial fishing interests. Sadly, the article linked above suggests that just because a news outlet only presents one side of a story, doesn't mean the side they present is inaccurate. Which is why it's so important to get your news from more than one source these days. Who can afford the time to read multiple newspapers? These days, we can't afford not to, and the internet makes it a lot easier.

Now, for our side of the story on these heavy handed fish cops. You have to apply logic in the absence of any reliable source of facts. So, ask yourselves, why would a law enforcement official deliberately try to hurt people making a living in one of this country's most storied industries? There's nothing in it for the cops. It just makes their jobs more difficult. This uneven enforcement is supposed to be happening throughout the northeast. It's not just one bad cop. On the other hand, northeast fishermen are something of a hold out against a global transformation of their livelihood that flies in the face of what, in many ways, makes a fisherman a fisherman. Gloucester is to American fishing tradition what Jerusalem is to the Bible. Under catch shares, there will not only be a seasonal limit on how many fish can be caught, but for the first time there will be a limit on what percentage of that seasonal allocation each boat is allowed to catch. It ends individual reward for individual effort. It removes the competitive element in a highly competitive industry. Small boats will be bought out by big boats and there will be a lot fewer fishermen working the wharfs of Gloucester.

These allegedly heavy-handed cops are enforcing wildly unpopular laws that will end family fishing traditions stretching across generations of hard working, salt-of-the-earth Americans. You think they might be a little unpopular around New England fishing ports? Do you think these fish cops may be the ones subject to heavy handed treatment on board these boats and around these docks as they attempt to reign in imploding fishing industries, like the ground fishing fleet based in Gloucester?

We include this video to present the fisherman's side of the story, but it might make it easier to see our side. Ask yourselves: why would the world conspire against these people? Why is there only one newspaper reporter printing the truth? He isn't, not the whole truth.

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It definitely kills a multi-million dollar shipping industry, immediately.  This debate gets at the issue of: what price to pay  to keep invasives at bay. We're spending $136 billion a year (pdf) to control invasives in this country.

We're not here to take either side. Rather, we just want to point out that many of these invasive battles are really just getting started. Those that have been waged for a while have not fared well. For example Kudzu, pictured at left. What's perhaps most interesting are the comments in the Globe piece linked above. Opinions are all over the map on this one. Solutions are in short supply with passions running high. If we threw up our hands and let invasives take over, nature will find a new balance. It's just a question of how long we're willing to wait and what will we end up with. Believe it or not, there's a house under all that Kudzu

On the wait-and-see side, we've been living with a lot of invasives for a long time. Kudzu,has been climbing over everything southeast of Indiana for almost 60 years. At the same time we've learned to live with it in some respects. The leafy material makes good hay. The roots are an edible starch. Perhaps we could find a use for Asian Carp. Maybe use them for fish farm food or protein meal for livestock. Show here is a plate of fresh-steamed red clawed signal crayfish, which have all but wiped out England's native white clawed crayfish. In the land of fish and chips, there's only one solution for sea creatures that get out of hand: eat 'em. This is an over-simple solution which, if followed, would mean financial ruin for the enormous Great Lakes recreational fishing industry, to take one many examples. NBN doesn't know what the answer it. We just want you to think about the question a little more because, make no mistake, we're under attack.

As many times as NBN has sided with the Cape Wind Nantucket Sound wind farm project (see Wind News today), this Boston Globe editorial by the Berkshire Natural Resources Council gives us pause. We still don't see anything wrong with placing turbines in Nantucket Sound—as we've pointed out before, the stanchions those turbines sit on provide habitat for sea-life while disruption to surrounding ocean floor ecosystems during construction will disappear within a year or two. It's a net-sum gain for Nantucket Sound marine life, not to mention reduced green-house gases for the rest of the world. However, the council notes that land-based windfarm installations aren't always so beneficial. Debate rages over bird kills from the turning blades. However, the Council makes the very good point that conservation efforts vis-a-vis our 42-inch flatscreen TVs and  our SUVs might be a much greener first step to take. The editorial suggests such frugality might be applied to surrounding communities before building projects like Cape Wind.

NBN offers up a recent trip to Palm Springs to lend a little perspective. Palm Springs is an oasis of opulence in an otherwise forbidding landscape powered to some degree by surrounding windfarms, pictured below. Tens of thousands of these things are happily turning wind energy into dollar signs at minimal maintenance cost and damage to the environment. But where is the green juice going? Palm Springs has some 130 golf courses. The Hyatt Grand Champion—yes, we stayed there—like the dozen or so other Palm Springs resorts is in part powered by these windfarms. The place has five swimming pools, a Home Depot-sized spa it's own golf course--pictured here--and countless flatscreen TVs. In short, it prides itself on opulence.

What is the point of all these wind farms if you're going to toss all that electricity away on irrigation systems, saunas and golf carts for a resort competing mightily with a dozen others in town? If places like Palm Springs really want to make a dent in their energy bills wouldn't a little more conservation make a lot more sense than building billion-dollar windfarms? In an ideal world, yes. However, what are the chances of the Cape Wind project going through if it comes with a caveat calling for greater community conservation in a place like Cape Cod.

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This is a tribute to a local bird lover I wrote in 2004. Sorry for the old copy, but it fits nicely with the days “nature lovers” theme and I wanted to get it into the public domain. There's no link to the original publication. They buried it in the back-o-the-book next to the weight-loss and stop smoking ads.

And it was there that you could find Joe, alone, for a week each year when fall decidedly turns to winter. The birds congregate there in fantastic numbers—a million or more—and Joe would go there and revel in the spectacle. What makes it worth writing about here is how much Joe enjoyed what the rest of the world never knew about. It was his little secret and it took some work to get it out of him. He mentioned the grackle roost, as he liked to call it, as something worth seeing. But it took a few phone calls and some arguing to get an invitation. He didn't want his little corner of the world to be overrun, should word get out how fantastic his discovery really was.

The Christian Science Monitor had a piece a while back on increasing interest in ocean floor mining resulting from increased metal prices. Apparently, a Canadian company is scratching around some deep-ocean volcanic vents like the ones where those bizarre tube worms, pictured here, were discovered in the 1970s. As the piece points out, tube worms don't engender quite the sympathy that threatened polar bears and spotted owls muster. So, why not tear up the ocean bottom if there are jobs to be created and money to be made? Nobody will see or suffer the damage done, aside from a bunch of worms no one knew existed. The answer, as usual, is a question: how much damage do we want to do to this planet's natural systems and when do the long-term costs of that damage out weight the short-term benefits? Commercial fishing might hold part of the answer. A while back this video below surfaced of the damage done to the ocean bottom by fishing trawlers.

Why should it, when the ocean has always seemed so limitless and we never really see the damage done? But the chickens have come home to roost. The populations of all these tasty fish have plummeted and now fishermen are being driven out of work by ever-tightening restrictions aimed at bringing the fish back. Is there an environmental lesson to be learned here by the folks eyeing the volcanic vents?

Lets look at another ecosystem for another possible part of the puzzle. The Nature Conservancy has an excellent study out on oyster reefs that might answer this question from a slightly shallower perspective. The study found that 85 percent of the world's oyster reefs have disappeared. You have to stop a moment and consider what an oyster reef is to fully understand the significance of the study. Oyster reefs were the northern equivalent of coral reefs, with all the fish and water filtering benefits that come with such living landscapes. It's quite likely that years ago, oyster reefs were a keystone of northern inshore marine environments, kind of like the role coral reefs play in the tropics. But no one knows what role the oyster reefs played because they were wiped out early in this country's history through the same aggressive exploitation trawlers still exact in deeper waters today. Is it right to regard our deep-ocean floors in the same light as our inshore oyster reefs: something that can be wiped out before we can fully assess its value to the planet through modern day scientific measurement? Contrary to what Joni Mitchell sang, you don't always know what you had once it's gone.

It's likely these deep ocean ecosystems are not quite as rich in animals and plants as coral reefs are or oyster reefs probably were. Accordingly, damage there may not have the far reaching impact it likely had on the oyster reefs, and is now having on our coral reefs which are also now disappearing. The deeper-water ecosystems can probably withstand some assault. We should allow some ocean trawling. Perhaps the ocean vents should be opened to limited mining. But only if the value we place on resources harvested from such  areas more accurately reflects the costs of harvesting them. That includes the damage done by harvesting them. Translation: those delicious fish caught by trawlers should cost $30 a pound, not $7. Gold extracted by leveling mountains and polluting groundwater supplies should include the costs of restoring those ecosystems. If you want to wipe out the tubeworm ecosystems surrounding the deep ocean thermal vents, then the cost of the minerals harvested should include the cost of the damage done to those ecosystems. By extension, gasoline should include a greenhouse gas tax. Beef should include a deforestation tax to cover the costs of rain forest's burned to create grazing lands.

Admittedly, this is an over-simplification of a complex problem. And where does all this additional expense land us at a time when we're strapped for cash? It lands us somewhere back in the time before industry overtook this nation. This country was founded by folks who lived very close to the earth and were lucky to eat steak twice a month. Now, steak is what's for dinner. We do not pay enough for the resources we extract from this planet. The corollary is: we can get by on much less in this country and still have very fulfilling, possibly better lives, like this  mother and her boy who go boating now instead of buying laptop computers made with metals that should cost a lot more.

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Gloucester is to commercial fishing what Washington DC is to democracy: iconic. So, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to see a local paper closing ranks with local elected officials to back Gloucester fishermen in a battle over a proposed overhaul of the commercial fishing rules there. What bothers us is  the paper and the pols have abandon, even vilified, science in favor of politically expedience. In doing so, they abandon a public trust and global responsibility in deference to self interest. The paper has placed its obligations of objectively on this issue in the hands of a one-year reporter bent on befriending the local fishing fleet, staunchly defending its proud tradition against those seeking change based on clearly imperfect science. It's all over an issue about to become law in Massachusetts called catch shares: the division of the annual fish harvest into shares that fishermen can buy, sell and fill at their discretion. The newspaper accurately calls catch shares a privatization of a common commodity: the fish in the ocean. The problem NBN has with this paper is it barely pays even lip-service to the widely documented, calamitous declines in fish populations that’s driving the catch share legislation. Drastic action is needed to restore ocean ecosystems. Staus quo is not an option. Yet the paper ignores this half of the story it purports to cover objectively.

Here’s just the latest offering of what this paper calls journalism. In this article the paper is egregious in its ignorance of environmental issues in its sole focus on the economics of catch shares. Here, the same reporter focuses on a long-time fishermen forced out of the business because of excessive federal regulation. No where in the article is the term “over fishing.” And the Coup de Graz: this story belongs on the editorial page yet it passes for news. The paper has written dozens of stories like these as this issue has raged since the Feds proposed catch-shares be mandated this year.

 On the political front we have Republican Maine Sen. Olympia Snow joining with Democates Barney Frank and Frank Pallone of New Jersey seeking to ease federal fisheries protection laws. They argue the law is exacting too high a toll on American fishermen to the benefit of Canadian fishermen not so heavily regulated. Their reasoning is: if the Canadians are allowed to over-fish, we should  be too.

But that’s what Atlantic ocean fishermen have been doing since the 1500s, overfishing. It’s what’s caused Atlantic fish stocks to collapse. If you want another perspective, an objective one, read the book “Cod.” Fishermen since the 1900s have recognized there's been over fishing in the Atlantic. Yet, the local paper and politicians continue to carry water for people sawing off the limb they are sitting on.

Somehow, a press release extolling ESPN'S environmental sensitivity rings hollow. Every sports star you see is driving an Escalade and spending money like a, well, like a sports star. Being wasteful is an industry MO. So, we have to ask: does it bolster the planet's environmental ambitions to boast about the green measures taken by organizers of ESPN's annual ESPY awards? Or does it dilute those ambitions.

Here's the tale of the tape: The ESPY awards this year are using environmentally friendly straps, “lanyards” for holding event press passes. Event staffers were also asked to provide used clothing, purchased from thrift stores, which were then printed with the event logo and worn on the preparation days leading up to the award ceremony. Then there is the post-consumer recycled tote bags used for event deliveries, the red carpet made from post-consumer recycled fibers, and a solar powered DJ booth: panels to be donated to charity afterward. Big cars and big people, they just go so well together, unfortunately .

Host Samuel L. Jackson, will be joined by Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Dana Torres, Condoleezza Rice, Demi Moore, Kobe Bryant, and Rob Lowe. These folks are not famed for their conservative lifestyles. Have any of them done any commercials about the importance of recycling? It's wrong to just damn the effort by the ESPYs: any environmentalism is good environmentalism. These problems we face are not going anywhere, regardless of how we temporarily prostitute the movements dedicated to solving them. But it seems like ESPN is jumping on the bandwagon here, paying lip-service to a movement because it's trendy.

Turning the environmental movement into a trend is a disservice to the wonderful folks who work for nothing to increase public awareness. Why doesn't ESPN really do something about the environment. Get Tiger Woods to back a message that matters, not shill for clothing and watch makers as a poster boy for an industry that's about as damaging to the environment as ski slopes. Golf courses may look green but they neuter wilderness areas, much like ski slopes do. Kids pay attention to sports figures and when they see them driving around in Escalades and Hummers, to them it means it's a good thing to drive around in Escalades and Hummers. Is it? Sports figures should be pushed harder on this. My guess is they will step to the plate soon. They'll have to.

Along the same lines, the company that's promoting the Green ESPYs, a company called Beyond Zebra, sounds like they got off on the right foot: a couple of gals from Disney who wanted to take environmentalism a little more seriously. Read their mission statement, it's great. It's also completely at odds with this ESPY awards thing Beyond Zebra is now promoting. Then look at this group of Texas housewives, doing it for the love of the game, so to speak. And in Texas no less, taking their message into our nation's oil heartland. It's hard to say Beyond Zebra has sold out. I'd be doing backflips if ESPN called me to handle their PR. It's easy to sell out when no one is paying you not to. It's even easier when no one is paying you at all.

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There are too many opinions out there for anyone to take mine seriously, so I struggle to keep mine to myself. However, two things crossed my desk this morning that should be put in some perspective. First there is this release about some Florida GOP politicos forming an energy communications consultancy. They boast 50 years energy information experience and pro-nuclear resumes loaded with political clout. Then Sarah Palin said Monday the president's energy policy undermined national and economic security and that the nation should instead be focused on pumping more of our own oil. Both are espousing centralized energy generation and distribution: power plants. The president's focus on wind and solar energy decentralizes power production and distribution. Ask yourself which seems safer in terms of national security: electricity that's generated in small amounts across the country delivering energy for local consumption or large power plants generating large amounts of electricity for regional distribution. Which is easier to target if you are a terrorist?

Now ask yourself which seems better for our economy, the capital intense, highly localized construction of power plants, or the gradual, nationwide installation of solar panels and windmills. With power plants you have a huge burst of very centralized economic activity orchestrated by a large corporation. With solar panels and windmills there is a sustained, lower level of business distributed nationwide to small business owners. If you're not swayed so far we'll forget about global warming and environmental arguments.

This should all be obvious, which makes the last point particularly important. Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Fox News was backing Palin's remarks asking viewers why would anyone want to ignore American energy reserves in favor of remaining dependent on Arabian oil. What Huckabee seems to be ignoring is that solar and wind power sources replace the Arabian oil. Ask youselves, does argument make more sense than those listed above? Shouldn't we be  independent of the oil companies as well?

With the US at war in two countries it's easy to overlook another army of volunteers fighting a less violent battle back home. But with global warming taking center stage these day this is a battle that's bound to grow very big and folks are enlisting fast, which is why we write about it now. The Troubled Ipswich River. This Massachusetts River was declared the third most troubled in the country. It was doubtless great news for the Ipswich River Watershed Association's fund raising efforts. But when bad news becomes good news for such groups and the conflict they can face, that's when they start becoming political. Read on, please. There are 1.8 million IRS-certified non-profit groups. Safe to assume that at least 10,000 or more are environmental groups. These groups run the gamut. There's the small town roll-up-your-sleeves types like the Shawsheen River Watershed Alliance. There are the call-your-congressman types like the Merrimack River Watershed Council and The North Fork Environmental Council. Then there are the national groups like Sierra Club and Audubon. The latter have deep pockets and huge memberships, we're not going there. It's the second tier and third tier groups of interest to this column. The groups that survive on grant money and/or elbow grease.

When it comes to green groups a good rule of thumb is the more grant money in the annual budget the less elbow grease in the schedule of events. Take the Shawsheen group: this link says it all about them. The MRWC and the NFEC types are a little harder to figure. Six years ago the MRWC spent millions on some very sophisticated watershed analyses. This was science in its purest sense. They were doing chemical analyses, they weren't pulling old tires from the riverbank. When Massachusetts Gov. Mit Romney pulled the plug on the the state's five-year watershed initiative—in it's fourth year—the MRWA's efforts went down the drain. The executive director a skilled administrator named Donna Brazil was replaced by a considerably less able woman whose prime directive it seemed was to get people to pay attention to the SRWA.

There was one event she scheduled where a half dozen experienced state biologist explained their research to a sparse collection of lower caste state political staff and me, an environmental reporter for the Eagle Tribune. It was an excruciating exercise in bureaucratic thumb twiddling. I didn't even get a story out of it. Let's head about 130 miles to the southeast a few years before that. I find myself in a board room with the directors of the NFEC in Mattituck, NY. Standing out among them is Michael LoGrande head of the Suffolk County Water Authority and a former Suffolk County Executive. The NFEC was once much like the SRWA. My mother was president. Her fellow board members were just a couple of locals, like her. Now, its got a former top county official on board? Then there is the Ipswich River Watershed Association. In 2003 the Ipswich River was declared the third most endangered tiver in the country. For an organization in need of grant money the bad news about the river had to have been great news for the IRWA.

This is where the green groups start to get into a gray area. It's grossly unfair to paint them with a broad brush. Kerry Mackin at the IRWA, always seemed very sincere in my dealings with her. But these groups start to get political as they get bigger. They have to. But at what point are their energies going more toward politics then the causes the groups are found for. (Caution! Personal anecdote approaching.) Former NFEC president Howard Meinke, a neighbor and friend, started telling me about the relationship between his group and another called the Group for the South Fork which was starting to get involved in the North Fork. The Group for the South Fork, now the Group for the East End, wanted to consolidate with the NFEC. They wanted to bring their donor list of Hamptons high rollers with them. The NFEC balked, knowing full well it would mean the end of the organization. But the two groups concern themselves with the same environment: the Peconic Bays. They SHOULD be working together. Are egos getting in they way of mission statements. Worse, are jobs and grant revenues getting in the way improving the environment? This is the peconic bay Estuary, province of the Group for the East End and the NFEC.

The point here is you can't just sign checks to ease your conscious about doing the right thing by the environment you're most concerned about. You've got to get in a canoe and spend some time with these folks, before you donate. Good information about a group can be had through another no-profit called Guidestar, but that's only going to tell half the tale. If you really want to help the planet, you've got to get a little dirty. Just ask the SWRA.

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The federal government has cobbled together a consortium of Northeast universities to study climate change effects in the Atlantic. Can you imagine anything clunkier than getting five, top-tier schools working together toward teasing out the effects of climate change in the Atlantic? It reminds me of a story about a decade ago I did on NY's DEC taking fish, salt and water-clarity samples in Long Island's Peconic Bay. Watching a team of scientists weigh, measure, and count mountains of minnows pulled from nets pulled along the bay bottom seemed like a huge waste of tax payers' money. It looked more like an excuse for a bunch of biologists to go boating for the day. I have no idea what these folks on this boat are up to are up to, but it pretty closely resembles the scene on the boat I was on.

One scientist on the boat helped me see the light. She noted that while the information gathered that day had little immediate value, it was really intended for long-term research. Nobody knew what the normal salt level on the bay should be. They didn't know how many anchovies to expected to find at any given time of he year. They didn't know what the water clarity should. The information they were gathering she called called baseline and it's vital if we're every to tease out what environmental problems we have control over and which we don't have control over. At the time the Peconic Bay project was only a few years old, the information being gathered largely useless. I wonder if it's still useless, now that they've got 15 years for of “baseline” to work with.

The same sort scientific practice, gathering baseline data, is now the primary engine behind the nation's weather forecasting abilities. The federal government has been gathering baseline weather data for about a century. Hence there are about 18 different formulas, called models, which consist of millions of pieces of baseline information accumulated from countless snow storms, hurricanes and heat waves that are now employed to help us predict when to expect more of the same.

The same sort scientific practice, gathering baseline data, is now the primary engine behind the nation's weather forecasting abilities. The federal government has been gathering baseline weather data for about a century. Hence there are about 18 different formulas, called models, which consist of millions of pieces of baseline information accumulated from countless snow storms, hurricanes and heat waves that are now employed to help us predict when to expect more of the same. The same idea applies for this coalition being formed now to study the Atlantic. It will likely take years before for these folks find anything of immediate use. But the data collection starts now. Caution! Anecdote approaching. I did a story on Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's decision to end a five year data-gathering program on the state's watersheds. Romney killed the program in its final year. He did it to save money. In the process he threw out five year's worth of research before it could culminate.

f you you could have heard the voices of the state scientists who were seeing five years of their hard word halted before they could draw conclusions from it. The really painful part was they couldn't complain or criticize because it could cost them their jobs. There were a few folks in the agency's press office who were forced to tell me why it was such a good idea. Lets hope the feds keep this program alive a little longer. If global warming fast tracks like so many people say it will, we'll need all the information we can get. Along the same lines I ran into this piece. The Patrick administration in Massachusetts wants to study goundfish stocks. ROMNEY Ask Mitt why he ended five years of scientific effort to manage the state's rivers more effectively, leaving dozens of state scientists and various environmental organizations in the lurch.

This story is interesting in that it illustrates a retooling of sorts where American business is taking advantage of surrounding resources rather than importing resources that have no business being in such surroundings. A perfect example surfaced when my wife Laura and I traveled across the country in 2002. We came upon the remnants of a failed water park project in the middle of Moab, Utah. I was indignant and started regaling my poor wife about the absurdity of such a venture in one of the driest parts of the country and how happy I was to see that it never got off the ground. Lo and behold, this failed enterprise was supposed to be the competition for Butch Cassidy's King World Water Park which apparently opened 10 year before we got there. Butch's publicity shot is at left.

Butch's billed itself as “Southeastern Utah's Only Water Park.” There's a good reason for this folks. There's virtually no water in southeast Utah, except the Colorado River which Butch funneled into five slides and three pools spread out over a "17-acre Waterpark Oasis." Meanwhile the Colorado no longer reaches the ocean because too many other folks are tapping into it to power Phoenix golf course sprinkler systems. At left is a section of the Colorado, No doubt south of Phoenix and Butch's. There was no locater on the website I stole it from. However it's well established that the Colorado no longer makes it to the Gulf of Mexico. With the decreasing incidence of rain in the west, is there any doubt such scenes will only increase. Again, nature forcing man's hand. Goodbuy, Butch

Before I get too comfortable on this soap box, Butch's offered a heart rendering fairwell to customers where he pointed out Moab school kids, the park's best customers, will no longer be heard laughing and splashing about. And what more wonderful thing than being able to hit the water slides on a 110 degree Moab summer day. I'd like to put forth the argument that this planet can no longer afford such indulgences. If you want to go swimming move near the water. If you want to see one-of-a-kind natural rock formations amidst some of the most stunning scenery in the country, move to Moab