ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

DATA INCONCLUSIVE RE GLOBAL WARMING IMPACT ON HURRICANES

     From Reuters today, July 31, 2006:

MIAMI (Reuters) - Officials tracking the approach of the peak hurricane season told President Bush on Monday that data linking a series of devastating storms to global warming was inconclusive.

***

Showing Bush the maps and other devices used to predict storms, Max Mayfield, the hurricane center's director, said one question he is asked often is whether the powerful hurricanes of the past few years, like Katrina, Rita and Wilma, were the result of the earth's warming.

A scientist at the center, Christopher Landsea, told Bush there was "not a consensus" linking the two.

GLOBAL DIMMING OFFSETTNG GLOBAL WARMING--IS THIS GOOD OR BAD?

     CTV (Canada) carries a story with today's date that is, perhaps, the most confusing global warming story I've yet read.  Here's how the story starts:

'Global dimming' is darkening the globe: experts

Updated Sat. Jul. 29 2006 10:07 AM ET

Andy Johnson, CTV.ca News

Global dimming may be the yin to global warming's yang.

The theory is that the amount of sunlight, or solar energy, falling on the earth has been dropping steadily over the past 50 years or so.

That could mean, scientists believe, that global dimming is actually mitigating the effects of global warming.

That sounds quirky and intriguing at first, but a closer investigation turns up some frightening results.

     The story proceeds with, perhaps, great science but incoherent explication by the reporter, and states:

... the most alarming possible effect of dimming is that it may have offset the full effects of global warming and the greenhouse effect.

Dr. Peter Cox, one of the world's top climate modellers, told the BBC that could be very bad news.

He expects CO2 levels in the earth's atmosphere -- which acts as the fuel for the greenhouse effect -- to continue to rise in the years to come.

Meanwhile, the world's industrial nations seem to finally be reining in particle pollution. Ironically, that could be the catalyst that speeds up global warming.

     So, global dimming may be offsetting global warming.  Isn't that good?  No, because to fight global warming, countries have been reining in particle pollution--which could, in turn, speed up global warming.

     Please tell me we're not paying tax dollars for this stuff.

TWO PENDING BILLS IN CONGRESS RE CALIFORNIA WILDERNESS

     From the AP, as reported today in The Press-Enterprise [Inland Empire], the House Resources Committee forest subcommittee is holding hearings on these two bills:

...the Giant Sequoia National Monument Transition Act of 2006 [authored by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare], has two components:

_It would allow completion of logging projects on 2,413 acres in the 327,769-acre Giant Sequoia National Monument. These projects were under contract with Sierra Forest Products when the monument was designated in 2000, but the company set them aside for several years. ...

_The bill also would speed a forest-thinning and restoration project called the Kings River Research Project covering more than 130,000 acres in the southern Sierra Nevada.

The committee also heard testimony on a second California environmental bill that has more widespread support. The "Eastern Sierra Rural Heritage and Economic Enhancement Act" by Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, would protect 40,000 acres of wilderness area in Mono County and designate 26 miles of the Amargosa River in Inyo County as wild and scenic river. It also would create an 11,000 acre snowmobile recreation area near the Sonora Pass.

HOUSE ENERGY SUBCOMMITTEE TO HEAR CHALLENGE TO GLOBAL WARMING CONCLUSION

     A key House Subcommittee is set to hold a hearing later this week to receive testimony challenging the recently highly-publicized study (see Post on this Blog of June 23, 2006)which concluded global warming is occurring and that the 1990's were the hottest decade on record.  According to a statement by the Chair of the Subcommittee:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, July 19 at 10 a.m. in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building entitled, “Questions Surrounding the ‘Hockey Stick’ Temperature Studies: Implications for Climate Change Assessments.”

     Conclusions from the forthcoming testimony include:

• [The previous study] misused certain statistical methods in their studies, which inappropriately produce hockey stick shapes in the temperature history. [The new study] concludes that [previous study's] work cannot support claim that the1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium.

Report: “Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported by the MBH98/99 analysis. As mentioned earlier in our background section, tree ring proxies are typically calibrated to remove low frequency variations. The cycle of Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age that was widely recognized in 1990 has disappeared from the MBH98/99 analyses, thus making possible the hottest decade/hottest year claim. However, the methodology of MBH98/99 suppresses this low frequency information. The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable.”

ENVIRONMENTAL OVERTONES OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION DEBATE

     The Sierra Vista Herald (Arizona) today published an article about a federal Bureau of Land Management study finding illegal immigration to be a significant cause of environmental degradation:

BISBEE — A new Bureau of Land Management report paints a bleak picture of the impact of illegal immigration and drug smuggling on public lands in Arizona, with estimates that as much as 25 million pounds of trash were left in the state’s borderlands during the 2000-2005 fiscal years.

***

The new BLM report summarizes the accomplishments of a bureau-led effort known as the Southern Arizona Project that sought to mitigate the environmental degradation of public lands over a three-year period. Volunteers recovered 25,000 pounds of trash, 600 abandoned vehicles and 1,725 discarded bicycles while also working to rehabilitate illegal trail routes and maintain roads, the report says.

     Of course, absolutely no environmental discussion is free from dissent.  Disagreeing with the implications of the BLM study, Peter Galvin of the Center for Biodiversity (Tucson) is reported by the article to claim:

...Border Patrol vehicles have damaged lands around the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and that the construction of border fencing has sealed off migratory routes for antelope in western sectors. And he worries similar fencing around the San Pedro River could negatively impact bird migration as well as efforts to rehabilitate local jaguar populations.

“We certainly agree that there are environmental impacts associated with illegal immigrants,” Galvin said. “But those impacts actually pale in comparison to the impact of the militarization of the border.”

     So:  illegal immigration degrades the environment; enforcing the border against illegal immigration degrades the environment.  Glad that's clear.

     FYI, a search guide to reports from BLM on illegal immigration and the environment can be found at http://www.blm.gov/az/search/az_external/search.asp?zoom_query=immigration (note: this is not the same link as in the Herald article; that link doesn't seem to work).

TIME MAGAZINE-WE'RE FREEZING; NO, WE'RE BOILING

Time Magazine, June 24, 1974:

As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

Time Magazine, early April, 2006:

The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame.

***

As fast as global warming is changing the oceans and ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on land. Droughts are increasingly common as higher temperatures also bake moisture out of soil faster, causing dry regions that live at the margins to tip into full-blown crisis.

     Time Magazine reports, even when it can't decide.  But at least the magazine's indecisiveness sounds certain.

CAL DTSC FACT SHEET RE RECYCLING OF CELLULAR PHONES

  The Cell Phone Recycling Act of 2004 became effective at the beginning of this month (July 1 '06).  The California Department of Toxics Substances Control has published a "Fact Sheet" about the law's requirements.  Go here.

"Are Black Molds Toxic?", from Article Dashboard.com, by Amy A. May

     I came across an interesting website, ArticleDashboard.com, which lists itself as "The Internet's premier website for article distribution."  Included at the site is an article, "Are Black Molds Toxic?", by Amy A. May.  I don't know her qualifications or background.  However, her commentary on toxic mold is not out of the mainstream of other comments on the still controversial subject of exactly what symptoms/diseases are provoked by mold exposure:

There are very few reports that toxigenic molds found inside homes can cause unique or rare health conditions such as pulmonary hemorrhage or memory loss.

These case reports are rare, and a causal link between the presence of the toxigenic mold and these conditions has not been proven. A common-sense approach should be used for any mold contamination existing inside buildings and homes. The common health concerns from molds include hay fever-like allergic symptoms. Certain individuals with chronic respiratory disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, asthma) may experience difficulty breathing. Individuals with immune suppression may be at increased risk for infection from molds.

    

CLEAN WATER AUTHORITY RESTORATION ACT HIGHLIGHTED ANEW IN LIGHT OF SUPREME COURT RAPANOS DECISION

     In a July 3, 2006 editorial, The New York Times highlights legislation currently pending in the US Senate and House that would effectively overturn the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Rapanos (see Post of June 19, 2006) and make plain that federal jurisdiction extends to all surface waters, even minor ones.  The Senate version, known as the "Clean Water Authority Restoration Act of 2005", was introduced by Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wisconsin) and is SB 912.IS.  The bill provides, among other things, that "waters of the United States" shall no ponger mean just "navigable waters" but shall instead mean

all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.'.

     The fuull text of the bill can be found by going to the Congressional legislative search engine and puting in the name or number of the bill.

     The companion House Bill is HR 1356.IH.

     By deleting reference to "navigable" waters, the legislation would side with the liberal wing of the Court in removing the central issue in Rapanos-i.e., did his relatively isolated wetlands nevertheless impact on such waters.

     The legislation is still in Committee in both the Senate and House.