Currents

The worst spill in the history of oil development on Alaska’s North Slope last week shut down one of five petroleum-processing centers in the region while clean-up crews hurried to mitigate environmental damage. State officials estimate that as many as 260,000 gallons of crude from a leaking transit pipeline in an oil field jointly owned by ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips covered about two acres of frozen tundra near Prudhoe Bay. They expect the clean-up to take a couple of weeks, at which point operators will be able to re-open their processing center and restore production to pre-spill levels.

Shoppers at any of 19 rural Northern California Holiday Quality Foods supermarkets will be the first consumers in the nation to get a taste of certified low-mercury content seafood marketed there under the new Safe Harbor brand. In partnership with Pacific Seafood, one of the nation’s largest fishing and seafood distribution companies, the supermarket chain is testing whether or not their customers will buy more fish if they can be sure the mercury content is low. Seafood sales have been dwindling in recent years across the country due, at least in part, to consumer concerns that high levels of mercury in fish can compromise human health.

Senators from both sides of the political aisle are balking at an attempt by the White House to sell as much as 300,000 acres of national forest land to pay for extending what has been a successful program to fund schools in rural, economically distressed regions of 41 states. With the so-called "county payments" law expiring in September, the Bush administration is positioning the land sale as a viable way to keep the funding flowing to pay for rural schools.

Eugene Linden’s book, The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather and the Destruction of Civilizations (Simon and Schuster) has only been out for a month, but already it’s in its fourth printing. That is, one hopes, an indication that the public’s interest in global warming is accelerating, even as the planet itself is sending increasingly desperate signals.

A Japanese newspaper reported last week that Honda Motor Company, Japan’s third largest automaker, plans to launch the world’s least-expensive mass-produced gas-electric hybrid car early in 2007, a modified version of its popular Fit subcompact model. Consumers in the U.S. can expect to pay under $17,000 for the car–about $4,000 less than Toyota’s popular Prius hybrid–when it is released globally next year. And given the car’s small size and excellent gas mileage projections, Americans can apply generous government tax credits to their purchase of the car, bringing the total cost down to less than $15,000.

To the surprise of those who still view Americans as laggards in terms of alternative energy development, more new wind power generation facilities were installed in the United States in 2005 than anywhere else in the world. According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), an international trade group which helps promote wind power globally, the U.S. installed 2,400 megawatts—equivalent to the energy produced by five large coal-fired power plants in a year—during 2005 alone.

I never met actor Dennis Weaver, but I sure wish I did. Not only was he anyone’s idea of an environmental hero, he also sounded like a whole lot of fun. The brief obituaries of this well-known actor, who died of cancer at age 81, stressed the part of his life taken up with Gunsmoke and, later, McCloud. They often included only a single line about his activism. "Off-screen, Weaver served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and was a vegetarian and activist for environmental and charitable causes," said one.

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that increased concern about global warming in many of the so-called "red" states, which ushered George W. Bush into the White House, will make it tougher for conservative politicians at all levels of government not to favor stronger reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in future elections.

Seven years after the Clinton administration declared that our nation’s symbol, the bald eagle, was no longer endangered, the federal government is finally getting around to removing endangered species protections for the majestic raptor. Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its bald eagle delisting proposal for public review.

Based on a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an Arizona-based environmental group, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has embarked on a formal review to determine whether or not polar bears should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to their sea ice habitat melting as a result of global warming.