Peter Berle passed away on November 1st, 2007. WAMC is grateful for the years we spent working with this brilliant environmentalist. Below, you'll find many of his most popular WAMC commentaries.

8/13/07 - COSTLY CARBON

Taxing carbon emissions as a strategy to combat climate change is an idea which is gaining increasing support. The concept is to make it expensive to discharge carbon dioxide. It is assumed that consumers will protect their pocket books by changing their behavior so they burn less fossil fuel.

Increasing the tax on gasoline to encourage fuel efficient autos has long been advocated by the environmental community but scorned by almost everyone else – the auto industry and anti-tax politicians in particular. This may be changing.

It is reported that Congressman John Dingle from Michigan, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is planning to introduce legislation in September which could have a significant impact on the economics of carbon. He would put a fifty cent per gallon tax on gasoline. He would impose a $100 per ton tax on C02 emissions across the entire economy and he would eliminate the tax exemption for mortgage interest on houses over 3,000 feet in size. The latter is a direct attack on the explosion of McMansions – our current manifestation of conspicuous consumption - which is increasing energy use 5 bedrooms at a time. Dingle has long been considered the “Bette noire” of environmentalists because of his staunch opposition to imposing fuel efficiency standards on vehicles. Representing Dearborn Michigan for decades, he has touted the industry line throughout his career. His current desire to limit greenhouse gas emissions, albeit through tax rather than mandatory standards, provides significant impetus to the Climate Change movement. An attitude shift within the auto industry itself may be germinating. Ford Motor Company CEO Allan Mulally told an automotive conference last week that the U.S. “should consider imposing a European style gasoline tax”. He also opined that a modest tax such as Dingle’s proposed fifty cents a gallon would not be sufficient.

Another economic penalty for auto carbon emissions is being advocated by the mayor of London. He proposes to have drivers of heavy SUVs pay a higher congestion tax during rush hours than that charged to other city drivers.

With respect to an increase in the American gas tax, predictably President Bush remains opposed. When suggested as a means of financing an overhaul of the country’s bridges inspired by the collapse in Minneapolis, he said that a higher gas tax would hurt the economy, and that congress should reexamine its priorities. I wonder if he thought that one through. A great many congress people would opt for identifiable taxes to rebuild bridges in Minnesota, over the Iraq war which has been waged off budget from the beginning.

Broader support for increased gasoline taxes designed to increase fuel efficiency will encourage the debate over whether economic incentive or command control regulation will be a more effective curb on greenhouse gas emissions. But the debate is sterile. For some, no tax will be sufficient to confine the gas guzzler in the garage. Without strong economic penalties and direct regulation we will be unable to harness the climate change dragon.

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8/6/07 - SUBSIDIES AND ATOMS

On this anniversary of the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima we reflect on the future of nuclear power. The atomic energy industry in the United States is reawakening. Nuclear plant construction has been virtually halted for the last 30 years with the exception of a generator in Tennessee that went on line in `1996, The Tennessee plant took 22 years to build. Today however, power companies have tentative plans to build 28 new reactors at 19 different sites around the country. But there is a rub. At 4 to 5 billion dollars apiece, a nuclear plant costs approximately 3 times the amount of a fossil fuel facility. Wall Street is unwilling to lend the power companies the money to build the plants unless the federal government will guarantee the loans. We are talking about real money here – 50 billion dollars over the next couple of years. It is in this context that the nuclear energy debate is now taking place as the energy bills passed by the Senate and House move to conference this fall. Apparently there is ambiguous language in the Senate bill which arguably gives the Department of Energy authority to approve atomic loan guarantees of an unlimited amount.

Unfortunately there are so many unknowns in the nuclear equation that any policy option can either be justified, or dismissed as absurd. The plus side of the ledger is augmented as we understand more about climate change. What extra value does electric power generated without greenhouse gas emissions have within the context of planetary health? How many extra cents per kilowatt is it worth to have an energy source which frees us from dependency on oil producing nations who may not be our friends?

Calculating the costs on the negative side of the nuclear balance sheet involve even more imponderables. We still haven’t figured out what to do with nuclear waste over the long term – and thus we don’t know what the real cost of nuclear power is, or how to compute it. What is the risk of radiation exposure due either to engineering malfunction, natural disaster such as the recent earthquake in Japan, or terrorism?

A farmer friend of mine reminds me that you can always make money farming as long as you do not count all the costs. Following that logic, proposals now under consideration to limit greenhouse gas emissions could change the nuclear equation substantially. If you decide that the cost of nuclear power includes merely the construction and operation of a nuclear generating facility, a carbon tax could equalize the cost of atomic and fossil fuel generated electricity. A tax on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted by a coal or gas plant could raise the per- kilowatt cost of the electricity it generates to be equal to that of the more costly nuclear plant which produces no CO2 emissions and thus pays no tax.

The nuclear power industry has made these calculations, and is said to be lobbying hard for carbon taxes in jurisdictions now attempting to limit greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Treaty.

While the societal and global costs and benefits of nuclear power seem almost impossible to quantify, the technical challenges of long term nuclear waste disposal are not theoretical. We need develop a technically and politically acceptable solution to deal with nuclear waste. We need to determine the costs before we subsidize a construction binge. If we do arrive at a waste disposal cost, one uncertainty in the cost-benefit determination about nuclear power is reduced, but the rest remain. At that point we will still be faced with making a SWAGE decision about further subsidies for the nuclear industry. For those who are not familiar with SWAGE decision making, SWAGE stands for SCIENTIFIC WILD ASSED GUESS.

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7/30/07 - FARM BILL

Once every 5 years the Farm Bill comes up for reauthorization in the congress. Last week the first stage was completed when the 2007 Farm Bill was passed by the House of Representatives. While the number of farmers within the range of this broadcast is limited, the Farm Bill is one big deal for all of us. Over the next 5 years it is a $286 billion dollar deal, some of which makes sense, and some does not. Out of that 286 billion,-$42 billion goes to farm subsidies. 190 billion is allocated to food stamps and other nutrition programs; 25 billion to conservation programs; and $29 billion to rural development, research, and energy. The bill continues subsidies for the commodity crops; corn, soybeans, wheat and sugar – and the subsidies have been the source of the most controversy. A bi-partisan group of House members led by Ron Kind, Democrat from Wisconsin, and Jeff Flacke Republican from Arizona unsuccessfully sought to amend the bill to reduce the subsidies and shift funds to renewable energy research, rural development, conservation, nutrition, and a farmer financial stabilization fund. They are not the only ones that are unhappy. Also opposed to the bill in its current form are many members of the environmental community, the Bush Administration and the Editorial Board of the New York Times to name but a few.

A modest reform was adopted, which cuts off subsidies to producers with over a million dollars in income, but this change is limited at best. The House Reformers wanted to set the cut off point at $250,000 and the Bush Administration would peg it at $200,000. The bill does increase allocations to support fruit and vegetable production and marketing, in recognition of the fact that we need to eat more green stuff.

Unfortunately the politics of the day make farm subsidy reform extremely difficult. Ten of the Democratic freshmen members of the House of Representatives come from districts which receive substantial subsidy payments. With the exception of one New Yorker, they come from the Midwest and payments range from 30 to 900 thousand dollars. House Speaker Pelosi, whose support for the bill was singled out in a NY Times editorial for particular rebuke, may have decided that subsidy reform which could wait for another day was not worth risking the newly gained Democratic control of the House.

Since the Senate will not be taking up the farm bill until September there is still an opportunity to reform this legislative and financial behemoth. Today prices in the commodity sector are high, particularly for corn which is being diverted to ethanol production in record amounts. Thus the question is why continue subsidies? A more rational approach would be to fund farmers only when prices fall below farm sustainable levels. High prices incent cropping lands that have been previously set aside for conservation and wildlife. This calls for strengthening titles in the law which protect set aside lands.

Consumers have created a market for organic foods that did not exist a decade ago. The bill should help farmers who seek to shift to organic production. Also the increase in farmer’s markets particularly in the Northeast shows that buying fresh locally produced food is an idea that is catching on. Supporting this emerging aspect of the farm economy can stem the disappearance of the small family farm which in turn preserves open space.

Just as energy prices and politics in the Middle East have increased demand for ethanol – i.e. corn, we can anticipate a massive shift to the use of other agricultural crops for fuel production as new technology emerges. Now is the time to ensure that continued use of soils and water is sustainable as new demands develop.

The biggest dollar numbers in the Farm Bill involve nutrition programs which include food stamps and school lunches. Here the primary focus should be on a healthy diet rather than providing an outlet for farm surplus.

As strategies to diminish our carbon footprint and stem greenhouse gas emissions and resultant climate change emerge, innovative thinking about food and food production needs to be encouraged. Personally I am intrigued by the concept of reducing food miles, which means consuming food produced nearby, rather than vittles that are shipped across the country in diesel powered trucks. The idea is that trans continental trucking burns fossil fuel. Think of the opportunities to revolutionize the processed food market by reformulating basic American standbys like baloney. Baloney consists of non-descript meat and corn syrup – i.e. sugar. Instead of using left over scraps from a slaughter house in Nebraska, and corn from Iowa for a baloney sandwich in the North East how about local gourmet baloney made from say - road kill and maple syrup? Baloney aside we should not loose this once in 5 y ear opportunity to make major changes in the way we produce, market and consume agricultural product. The action is in the U.S. Senate in September.

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7/23/07 - SUE FOR SURVIVAL

Conservation biologists tell us that we are in a period of mass extinction unknown since the great die off 65 million years ago which finished the dinosaurs. While theories abound as to what caused the prehistoric beasts to go extinct, one thing is certain. Humankind had nothing to do with it because we weren’t around. Extinction today is different because we as humans have everything to do with it. Whether by gun, fishnet, chemical pollutant, or bulldozer humans are causing plants and animals to permanently disappear – to become extinct. Thus in theory, we should be able to do something about it. In 1973 the congress passed the Endangered Species Act which requires the US Fish and Wildlife Service to list species that are threatened or endangered, and draw up plans to protect the species from becoming extinct. Listing occurs after substantial field research which assesses the condition of the species, the cause of its decline and provides the basis for a recovery plan. Recovery plans usually mandate the protection of the habitat the listed species requires. And here is the rub. Usually somebody wants the land, or the swamp or the trees for their own purposes. Being told they can’t build, or harvest or extract on land they own because an endangered bug or animal or plant might become extinct conflicts with the idea that if you own land, you should be able to do what you want with it. The Federal Endangered Species Act became the red flag to the raging Property Rights Bull the day it went into effect, and has fueled continuing bitter controversy between conservatives and environmentalists ever since. Recently we celebrated the de-listing of the bald eagle as the population of our national symbol has rebounded from near extinction, in part because of the protection the bird and its habitat received from the Endangered Species Act and the associated Recovery Plan. While the eagle enjoys broad popular support, few other plants and animals being driven to permanent oblivion are as fortunate. Few loggers in the Northwest think the spotted owl should keep thousands of acres of tress from the sawmill. Few developers are sanguine about giving up a project because it will endanger a listed salamander or insect, creatures which most people have never seen.

Today there are 1,326 species that have been listed in a process that has been going on since 1973. When biologists determine a plant or animal is about to disappear, it becomes a candidate for listing. Listing occurs when the Fish and Wildlife Service concludes the scientific evidence justifies it. Until the year 2000 both Democratic and Republican administrations listed consistently. During the four years of the first Bush administration for example, 231 species were added to the list.

When George W. Bush became president the whole process was virtually shut down. Candidate species are not being processed on a timely basis and the number of candidates has risen to 278, almost 100 more than were waiting to be processed in 1996. This administration has listed only 58 species, but the appalling thing is the 54 of them were added as a result of litigation. This means that an environmental group went to court seeking an order requiring the Fish and Wildlife Service to do what the law requires it to do, and a federal judge found the Fish and Wildlife Service had not listed the species as required. Budgets for the Endangered Species program have been cut, the program staff has a 30 percent vacancy rate and the Service’s Director slot has been vacant for over a year. The person in charge of the ESA program recently resigned when the Inspector General of the Interior Department found she had ordered scientists to alter their findings and shared documents with anti-ESA lobbyists.

If it takes a lawsuit from a private party and a court order to get this government to follow the law, prospects for protecting the New England cotton tail rabbit, the Sonyata mud turtle, the Kuai creeper and the 275 other candidate species are dim.

Over the years, support for forestalling extinction has had persistent moral and economic support. Life should be saved for its own sake – or perhaps a cure for cancer or other malady will disappear as extinction overtakes organisms with medicinal attributes. This Administration chooses to ignore all of that and spends money and effort unsuccessfully fending off lawsuits based on its dereliction of duty. It provides employment for litigators but is tough on the planet.

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7/16/07 - LADY BIRD

We remember Lady Bird Johnson who was put to rest yesterday next to her husband in the cemetery on the LBJ ranch along the Pedernales River outside of Austin Texas. A few years ago, together with a group of environmental activists, I drove to the Ranch to visit with her. It was summer and the roadsides, for practically the entire 50 mile stretch between the Ranch and Austin, were illuminated by flowering bluebonnets. The wildflower is a blue blue, comparable to a clear sky on a September day. While a monument marks her grave, the lasting legacy of Lady Bird are banks of wildflowers which cradle federal highways across the land, vast plantings of flowers and trees in our cities, and park projects initiated under the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. She was the architect of the Act, and as First Lady was lobbyist in chief in the drive to get it passed. The Act limits billboards on federal highways and was bitterly opposed by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America which represents billboard owners. To this day the billboard lobby campaigns to nullify the restrictions which the Beautification Act imposes on its members.

The civil rights movement and the escalating calamity in Vietnam preoccupied the nation in 1965, so Beautification was criticized as a distraction. Lady Bird had a larger perspective. Commenting about Beautification she said “many may think it is a lightweight proposition in a world with heavyweight questions – and it is. But I think we’ll live on, and I think it is a joy to live in a more beautiful world.”

Lady Bird was an environmentalist who taught us that environmentalism goes beyond measuring pollution in parts per million and determining actionable levels of polychlorinated biphenyls. She showed us that landscaping public parks in urban neighborhoods and sowing wildflower seeds along highways had the power to lift spirits and inspire. Her thoughts were reflected in President Johnson’s statement on October 22, 1965 when he signed the Beautification Act which she had campaigned so hard to pass. He said:

There is a part of America which was here long before we arrived, and will be here, if we preserve it, long after we depart: the forests and the flowers,

The open prairies and the slope of the hills, the tall mountains, the granite, the limestone, the caliche, the unmarked trails, the winding little streams—well, this is the America that no amount of science or skill can ever recreate or actually ever duplicate.

This America is the source of America’s greatness. It is another part of America’s soul as well…..

Well in recent years I think America has sadly neglected this part of America’s national heritage. We have placed a wall of civilization between us and between the beauty of our land and our countryside. In our eagerness to expand and improve, we have relegated nature to a weekend role, and we have banished it from our daily lives….

Now this bill does more than control advertising and junkyards along the billions of dollars of highways that the people have built with their money, not private money. It does more than give us the tools just to landscape some of those highways. This bill will bring the wonders of nature back into our daily lives.

This bill will enrich our spirits and restore a small measure of our national greatness.”

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7/9/07 - MISSILES AND TOOTHPASTE

Like some kind of virus, the desire to build a missile defense shield grabs some conservative defense intellectuals and Republican Presidents on a periodic basis. It is almost like athlete’s foot. About the time it appears to be permanently cured, it comes back. During the Reagan era it was Star Wars – the hugely expensive missile system that was going to shoot down Russian intercontinental missiles somewhere over the arctic. Parts of it were developed and the test missiles largely missed the targets even though the trajectory and flight time of the target projectiles were known in advance. The effort was scaled down and we moved on to other things.

Then President Bush got it into his head that we needed to build a missile defense system to protect ourselves from “rogue states”, specifically Iran and North Korea. Missile attacks from either one of those places some time in the future are not beyond imagination but neither have the capability of launching an ICBM at us anytime soon. That is fortunate because we haven’t developed a missile defense either. One congressional critic of the current missile shield proposal characterizes it as a shield that doesn’t work against a threat that doesn’t exist.

The idea is generating its own threats however. Russian President Putin sees the deployment of a new missile system to bases in Poland and Czechoslovakia as a threat to Russian security which he will meet by targeting his own missiles on Europe. It sounds a lot like the cold war arms race all over again.

Meanwhile there is a real and immediate threat to our national security and personal well being of all which can and must be blunted. It can be met with existing technology that does not include yet to be developed rocket science. The threat is the ubiquitous presence of toxic chemicals in the food we eat.

I worry more about foodstuffs poisoned with industrial chemicals and pesticides that have been arriving on our shores and disseminated widely throughout the country than I do about non existent missiles. Consider the 900,000 tubes of toothpaste purchased from China by US hospitals, prisons and mental institutions. They were contaminated with a poisonous chemical used in anti-freeze. Consider the pet food containing an ingredient also imported from China that was contaminated with rat poison. It took the death of cats and dogs and a scramble by toxicologists to identify the problem. Thousands of bags of pet food bearing a host of brand names had to be recalled from every corner of the country.

Apparently the Chinese government has recognized it has a problem with toxic food and recently shut down 180 manufacturers of foodstuffs as news of contaminated product has spread through the global market place. One report involved formaldehyde in biscuits, candy. Given that there are thousands and thousands of plants making food products in China, the closures may be little more than symbolic. The severity of the toxic condition of the Chinese environment was recently reflected by a warning from State Environmental Protection Administrator Zhou Shengxian. He said that environmental conditions were so bad that civil unrest was occurring. United Nations officials in a recent survey fixed the annual death toll in China from pollution related illness at 750,000.

We need a public health defense more than a missile defense. We should spend money and energy on inspecting foodstuffs entering the global market, and developing and enforcing global standards which keep toxics out of food. If the cold war warriors must have the missile system, could they do more for national security by targeting ships at sea bringing poisoned food to American tables? The ships would be easier to hit than nonexistent Iranian ICBMs. The strategy could be called having your missile and eating safe food too. It sounds pretty silly, but so is our current failure to protect our health from poisons exported in food from the developing world. I’m Peter Berle.

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7/2/2007 - THE EAGLE HAS RETURNED

What better way to celebrate the fourth of July this year than to toast the continuing recovery of the Bald Eagle. Ever since Ben Franklin lost his bid to have the wild turkey named the national bird we have seen the Eagle as a symbol of our republic. Last week the Bald Eagle was removed from the list of species protected under the Endangered Species Act. The reason is that the eagle population in the lower 48 states has increased from 417 nesting pairs in 1963 to more that 11,000 today. Reportedly eagles can now be found in every state. The sight of a soaring eagle in the sunshine against a blue sky is unforgettable. The brilliant white plumage on the bird’s head and tail appears to be the whitest white in the natural world. With a wing span of 6 to eight feet the eagle dwarfs everything else that flies.

The history of our relationship with the bald eagle is telling. As we were stamping its image on coins, dollar bills and seals reflecting the presidency and all other symbols of American power, we were applying more and more DDT to kill bugs in farm fields, forests and suburban neighborhoods. In the 70s ornithologists began to suspect that the reason that shells of eagle eggs and other birds of prey were so thin that live chicks did not hatch was DDT. It took some time before their suspicions were validated after the obligatory denials by the pesticide industry a la the earlier industry efforts to debunk Rachael Carson. The banning of DDT has enabled the eagle to recover. The story here is that the dangers that DDT posed to wildlife were not known or understood when it was introduced into the market place. The chemical has been a significant weapon in the fight to curb malaria and insect caused crop loss but analysis of the costs and benefits of its use did not come until after it was sprayed all over the place and the eagle was almost gone.

Another element of the eagle’s recovery has been the Endangered Species Act. When a species is listed as “threatened” or “endangered” it is afforded protection under federal law. Not only is the creature protected but its habitat is as well. Ever since the Endangered Species Act went into effect, developers have howled that stopping a project because an eagle or some other listed species has a nest in a tree is confiscatory, unjust and un-American. Repeatedly conservatives in Congress have unsuccessfully sought to eliminate or blunt the habitat protections of the Act. They say today that the eagle success does not justify the Endangered Species Act – it was the DDT ban that did it. They ignore the fact that a DDT free environment alone didn’t save the great bird. The creature needs trees, food, prey, water and open space a lot of which disappear as subdivisions and shopping centers sprawl over the land.

The eagle teaches us that there is no simple formula for survival – no single chemical regulation, no single land use regulation can prevent the extinction of life that exists because it derives strength from all of nature around it. Unfortunately all the forces that almost wiped out the eagle could do it again. We are better at analyzing the effects of toxic substances but our mechanisms for keeping the harmful ones out of the environment are far from foolproof. Our understanding of all the natural interdependencies that enable a top predator to be nourished is not complete. As the gene jockeys in laboratories of industry and academia create new plants and organisms new threats to the eagle’s survival may appear. Protection of eagle habitat under the Endangered Species Act slips away with the delisting of the bird. State wildlife laws and other federal law put a shield between the eagle and the person with a gun and afford some protection from disturbance but the forces that almost destroyed the eagle are still extant and intensifying. Climate change presents a new threat to some habitat not conceived of when DDT was taking it toll. Our arrogance about managing nature and our rapaciousness is unabated.

The survival of the eagle proves we can reverse some of the consequences of our unknowing destruction of nature. But the bald eagle will only remain in the sky if we see its survival as a continuing work in progress. We are awed by the strength and size and beauty of the creature but as our national symbol it also reflects how vulnerable we are if the environment is destroyed.

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6/25/2006 - STEM CELLS, AGAIN

Once again President Bush has vetoed legislation, passed by comfortable margins in both houses that would lift the restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. His stated rationale was that, in his words, “destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.” The federal funding which he prevents would support research on stem cell lines in surplus embryos that fertility clinics destroy. Despite the veto, the clinics will continue to dispose of unwanted and unused embryos as they have been doing for years. The anomalous result of regarding an embryo in a Petri dish a “human life” as the President would have us believe, is that it is OK to get rid of embryos for the sake of cleaning the freezer, but to not to help cure diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease.

Clearly the ethics of the stem cell research issue are more complicated. The majority of both houses of congress and a majority of the American public believe embryonic research is appropriate and ethical. In the view of many, the unethical course of action is preventing the research. At what point do the ethical values of the public at large trump the personal views of a single government decision maker? Most of us see the prospect of curing disease which afflicts millions of people of greater ethical consequence than preserving embryos so they can be deposited in the fertility clinic’s waste disposal system.

Fortunately the structure of our governance makes it possible for stem cell research to take place albeit without federal funding. University research centers financed privately are hard at work. States such as California have made massive commitments to build facilities and hire scientists. Some American researchers have migrated to laboratories abroad to participate in robust embryonic research taking place there. But the conventional wisdom is that US federal funding would provide the impetus to produce significant breakthroughs in the prevention and cure of disease.

Congress will shortly consider overriding the President’s embryonic stem cell research veto. Vote counters estimate that an override is unlikely. One suspects that the political strength of the religious right will have at least as much persuasive power as ethical values in determining the outcome of the debate. The politicians need to consider that increasing numbers of people with illness in their families that might be cured through stem cell treatment are a political and ethical force as well. Indeed in this case they make up the overwhelming majority.

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6/18/2006 - LAWYERS

As a lawyer, I tire of lawyer’s jokes. It’s not that some are not funny the first time around. Unfortunately they get repeated over and over. No matter how old and stale, the teller recites them with relish presuming he has come up with the ultimate “put down” which will enable him to dominate the rest of the conversation. In recent days we have seen the conduct of 3 lawyers which should fuel a new and original line of lawyer’s jokes which would be refreshing if the conduct itself was not so appalling.

Consider Michael Nifong, District Attorney of Durham County North Carolina. He is the fellow that prosecuted the Duke University lacrosse players for alleged rape of a black woman. He made inflammatory and slanderous statements about the defendants, playing the race card in his reelection campaign which he was waging as the case progressed. Disciplinary hearings before the North Carolina State Bar revealed that he withheld evidence favorable to the accused, including DNA tests. Defense lawyers charge he lied both to the Court and to them in pre-trial hearings. While he was getting front page publicity in the national press, he refused to talk to the attorney from one defendant who had evidence showing that his client was somewhere else when the alleged rape took place. Ultimately the State Attorney General took over the case and dismissed all charges. Defending the ethics charges filed against him Nifong, admitted wrongdoing and inexperience in handling felony cases. Note: he had worked in the District Attorney’s office for 29 years. Meanwhile the wrongfully accused will have to reassert they were innocent for the rest of their lives.

Another recently notorious lawyer is Administrative Law Judge in Washington DC, Roy L. Pearson who according to ABC News has sued the Korean Mom and Pop proprietors of a dry cleaning store for $54 million because he claims they lost his pants. Originally his claim was for 67$ million but he has reduced it because the pants have migrated from the lawsuit. The store owners told the court that they found the pants but Judge Pearson refused to take them back alleging they were the wrong ones. The Judge is now focusing on the “satisfaction guaranteed” sign in the store window which he says makes his claim justified. Clearly judicial trousers are an extremely emotional issue because at one point in the proceedings, Judge Pearson asked for a break and is reported to have left the courtroom in tears. Apparently however, he has no feeling for the Koreans who are face substantial legal fees incurred in their defense.

The third member of our group of particularly contemptible barristers is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. We leave aside his opinions about the Geneva Convention, torture, and holding prisoners without being charged or informed of the wrong doing for which they are accused.

Incomprehensible was his role in the soap opera like events occurring on March 10 2004 as told by then Deputy Attorney General James Comey. At that time Gonzales was White House counsel and John Ashcroft was Attorney General. The General was in the hospital and critically ill. He had delegated his authority to Comey. The then secret domestic surveillance and wire tapping program was due to expire and Attorney General Ashcroft’s authorization was required for it to continue. Ashcroft together with Justice Department staff had concluded that parts of the program were illegal and previously refused sign off. The night before the program was scheduled to end, Gonzales showed up in Ashcroft’s hospital room at for the purpose of getting the disabled Attorney General to allow the surveillance to continue. Comey having been tipped off, intercepted Gonzales at the bedside and heard the prone and presumably medicated Ashcroft repeat his refusal, and reaffirm that he had delegated his powers to his deputy.

While the nocturnal bedside visit will provide grist for legal ethicists and lawyer’s joke authors for years, the concept that the Counsel for the President of the United States would engage in such conduct is hard to fathom.

The notable thing about all three of these lawyers is they are not garden variety solicitors who represent private clients. Each was involved in the administration of our system of justice – one as an unscrupulous district attorney, one as an administrative law judge who is clearly wacko, and one as the President’s lawyer who behaved like a gumshoe in a potboiler. It is not hard to understand why people can be cynical about our legal system, but joking aside the conduct of these lawyers threatens the rule of law itself.

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6/11/2007 - FOOD MILES

The latest trendy movement for the environmentally conscious is counting “food miles”. The idea is that the farther food travels from the farm to your dinner plate, the more carbon is emitted since the food moves by air, truck, or rail.

These forms of transport are powered by burning fossil fuel. Therefore the consumer, who wishes to reduce his carbon footprint and thereby diminish his contribution to climate change, will buy food produced locally and minimize “food miles” at each meal.

The idea has really caught on in Great Britain where climate change activists advocate putting labels on food packages which specify the number of “food miles” attributable to the contents. We don’t usually think of the British as being passionate, but the internet buzz coming from the UK about “food miles” has all the intensity of the emotion surrounding a championship cricket match. Local farmers love it. A boost for produce, meat, and eggs produced nearby could help keep farms afloat which struggle to compete with imports from Africa, the US and South America. The same could be said here in the northeastern US where reducing “food miles” could be a strong impetus for buying at the farmer’s market rather than the supermarket. In theory this will help our small farms, protect whatever farmland is left, and inhibit sprawl.

Not so fast say English skeptics. They claim “food miles” are just the latest form of national protectionism designed to promote the non-tariff trade barriers which the European Union and the World Trade Organization are pledged to eliminate. British Commonwealth partners also have weighed in. Not surprisingly the New Zealanders and Australians are outraged. Both the wine makers and sheep raisers are unhappy about big “food mile” numbers attributed to their exports. Particularly galling to the wineries down under is the “food mile” movement will make it that much harder to gain market share in the UK from the French. African countries like Kenya, who have been counseled by western aid agencies to produce crops for export and abandon traditional subsistence food, see “food miles” as a scheme to keep their farmers in perpetual poverty.

A more rational approach to linking food to carbon emissions would be to calculate total emissions attributable to the product, rather than just the miles traveled. A banana produced in a hothouse located near London or New York might have almost no “food miles”. But the emissions created from heating the greenhouse necessary to grow it would far exceed the CO2 from transport. I suspect heavy applications of fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation water also play as much of a role in increasing the carbon footprint of foodstuffs as “food miles”.

Nevertheless the “food mile” debate is a useful one. It can help local farms which have a lot to be said for them beyond carbon emissions. It emphasizes that the way we consume does have an impact on the environment, and that we make choices which have an environmental impact every time we buy something.

I have decided that the best way to participate in the “food mile” movement and save the planet is to stop buying food altogether - and live on dandelions. They grow in profusion on my unfertilized lawn. They are yards not miles from the kitchen so there is no transport and not even driving of the gas guzzler to the store. I am sure dandelion greens provide that healthy green roughage necessary for long life and most importantly a copious supply of dandelion wine will numb the craving for fresh pineapple flown in from Hawaii.

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6/04/2007 - BUSH EPIPHANY?

Last week President Bush made a speech in which he said he wants to convene a series of meetings with the 15 nations who are the major emitters of greenhouse gasses that cause climate change. The purpose of the meetings would be to set a long term goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Does this reflect that the President was smitten on the road to the forthcoming G-8 Summit, and like Paul on the road to Damascus, has undergone a conversion? You will recall that throughout his presidency, Bush has raised one roadblock after another to prevent the nation and the world community from making binding commitments to lower discharge of heat trapping gasses into the atmosphere. On taking office he pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Treaty. Until last year he refused to accept the almost universal conclusion of atmospheric scientists that the globe is warming and human activity is in part responsible. While not a party to Kyoto, the United States has sent representatives to the ongoing meetings to work out Kyoto implementation. Observers say the Americans have blocked efforts of the parties to establish emissions targets, caps on emissions, and CO2 trading regimes.

So far Bush’s apparent conversion has not gotten favorable reviews from the professionals who have been working on climate change in Europe and the United States. Instead of seeing it as a breakthrough which puts the United States in common cause with our European allies, European Union Environment Commissioner Starvos Dimas says Bush has just restated the classic US line, i.e. no mandatory reductions, no carbon trading and vaguely expressed objectives. Some say Bush is trying to hijack the next round of Kyoto negotiations by holding a competing conference which will discuss vague goals to be achieved 50 years hence, in contrast to the immediate steps to achieve near term measurable emission limits which are the focus of the Kyoto talks. They point out that “voluntary emissions targets” which Bush wants to achieve are a soft and squishy concept in contrast to the cap and trade regime for carbon dioxide which is currently being formulated by the European Union. Moreover the Europeans and Japanese have already declared their intention to achieve a 50 percent reduction from 1990 CO2 emissions by the year 2050.

To give Bush the benefit of the doubt, this is the first time he has proclaimed that he wants to do something about climate change and as such reflects a policy shift. He wants to include India and China who are not covered by the Kyoto Treaty. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the statement did a least create more opportunities for dialogue.

If the President is serious about joining those in the world community who are working to reduce the amount of carbon being dumped into the atmosphere he will have to do some serious pruning and re-education of the political apparatchiks which he has salted throughout his administration. They have made a career out of denying the existence of climate change and they are everywhere. It was a White House lawyer who rewrote a NASA scientist’s report to remove the conclusion that global warming is a fact. Political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency have refused to develop programs to address CO2 emissions from motor vehicles and it has taken the Supreme Court to tell them that the Clean Air Act imposes a legal obligation to do so. The same day the President made his speech. the Administrator of NASA, Michael Griffin said that he is not convinced that climate change is “a problem we have to wrestle with.” Keep in mind that about half of the federal climate change budget is allocated to NASA.

Bush will lay out his new plan at the forthcoming G-8 Summit. Hopefully his G-8 colleagues will convince him that his new rhetoric, to be believable, needs to be accompanied by serious action. Otherwise his proposed conference becomes little more than a distraction to fill the remaining time he has in office. Meanwhile the United States continues to be by far the greatest emitter of greenhouse gasses on the planet.

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5/28/2007 - MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial Day 2007 is being celebrated in my hometown by ritual which has changed little during the lifetime of the town’s oldest residents. The

Selectmen, little leaguers and cub scouts, aging veterans who have squeezed into their fading uniforms, a color guard, school bands and a fleet of fire trucks lovingly polished for the occasion parade down the main street to the town hall. Speech making and a town picnic punctuate the end of the march. The origins of Memorial Day trace back to the close of the Civil War when druggist Henry Wells of Waterloo, New York campaigned to honor Union Army war dead. By 1868 he had convinced General John S. Logan commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veteran’s organization, to issue an order establishing “Decoration Day”. Eventually the day evolved as a tribute to all American service men and women who died in service to our country. It was not until 1967 that the day, May 30, became a federally designated holiday called “Memorial Day” by legislation which was signed by President Lyndon Johnson.

Having served as a military officer during the Viet Nam conflict I have always seen Memorial Day as an opportunity to reaffirm the principle that Americans who lost their lives in South East Asia deserved honor and respect from all Americans, whether or not they supported the war. Unfortunately during and shortly after Viet Nam, the anti- war sentiment was so intense among some, that hate for the war was translated into revulsion and scorn for Americans in uniform. Becoming a civilian again at that time was a hard and confusing transition for many veterans.

Fortunately our descent into the quagmire of Iraq has not recreated that situation, and respect for our troops is expressed by both those who say support requires staying the course, and those who say the most effective way to support American men and women in the armed services is to bring them home.

This year’s Memorial Day parades and rhetoric, while honoring our soldiers, who have died, reminds us our treatment of the living can be pretty shabby. A meaningful tribute would be to take decent care of those who have come back mangled and broken from the dusty roadsides and cities of Afghanistan and Iraq. That means no more neglect of the wounded at the Walter Reed Hospital. That means swift processing of casualty benefit payments and effective support for victims families. That means effective and lasting treatment for the mental disorders which will afflict scores of Baghdad combat graduates for the rest of their lives.

We should honor the dead by insuring that no more soldiers die in vain. The President says he will not let politicians in Washington micromanage the Generals in the field. He does not acknowledge that the Generals fight to achieve the objectives which he and congress set. The Generals do not set the big strategic goals or the definition of victory – that is what he and the politicians in Washington do. An increasing number of experts are saying the objective of a stable democratic Iraq can not be achieved by military means. If that is the case, the lives of American soldiers are being wasted. A fitting way to honor the dead on this Memorial Day would be to insure that their numbers do not increase. The way to do that is to bring the troops home.

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5/21/2007 - ADVERTISING

It is time to figure out what you really believe because advertising for the 2008 presidential campaign is beginning, and it will add to the ever increasing deluge of exhortations which permeate our environment. In 2005, the total spending on advertising in the United States came to $933 per person – more than 10 times the per capita global average. That is according to the World Watch Institution publication “Vital Signs 2006-2007”. About a fifth of that sum was spent on direct mail which grew 6 percent from the previous year. Apparently when the “Do not call” regulations where put into effect advertisers made up for the lost telemarketing opportunity by increasing their direct mail efforts. The result was that in 2005 56.6 billion dollars were spent mailing us advertising, and we received 41.5 billion pieces of junk mail. Little did we know that when we enthusiastically signed up to be spared from the telemarketers at dinner time, acres of trees would fall. . Global advertising expenditures –or all the amount of money is spent across the entire world on advertising, increased by 2.4 percent in 2005 to reach a record high of five hundred and seventy billion dollars. About half was spent in the United States.

Economists tell us that advertising drives consumer spending which is a vital component of a strong economy. What the numbers do not reflect is the extent to which advertising dollars push sales of products which hurt us, and which create problems which cost society as a whole a lot to remedy. Ads designed to sell junk food and soda to young children come to mind, in light of increased child obesity and type II diabetes.

Limiting advertising content and exposure is one way to keep Madison Avenue from dominating our brains, but methods to do so are not clear. Limiting ads and the amount spent on them can be an infringement on free speech as the Supreme Court has ruled in certain election law cases. The line between puffery which is accepted, and fraud which is not is often hazy.

Public interest groups in the US are turning to the courts to check the add campaigns. A 2 billion dollar lawsuit was brought against Viacom and the Kellogg food company based on alleged deceptive marketing of “foods of poor nutritional quality” to children under eight years old. The European Union threatened to legislate against some advertising and as a result soft drink companies voluntarily agreed to restrictions including not targeting children under 12.

France has been more proactive. The Ad Age publication reports that French food marketers are required to pay a one and a half percent fee to an institution that promotes healthy food choices and to include health messages in food ads. Perhaps this could be categorized as a national defense strategy – protecting French cuisine from escalating Mac attacks. The idea of requiring the advertiser to finance dissemination of information which is an antidote to the advertiser’s message is an interesting one. What about having auto advertising contribute to mass transit advocacy, or pharmaceutical sellers contribute to a fund promoting holistic medicine?

Political advertising is predicted to reach unprecedented levels as the 2008 elections approach. Some presidential hopefuls have already been on the air for weeks. With every form of electronic media permeated with advertising content it is hard to form unbiased conclusions by just saying no. Maybe media abstinence is the only answer.

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5/14/2007 - GREEN DIGGING

“...we are calling on U.S. policy makers to establish a mandatory emissions reduction program to address climate change – specifically, a federal approach that’s well integrated into a harmonized global system of greenhouse gas emissions reduction initiatives and avoids local or regional development of separate paths. We support emissions standards based on thorough, peer- reviewed science that allow industry and public input…..We join the members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership in urging the U.S. Congress to specify a target zone aimed at reducing emissions 60 to 80 percent by 2050.”

One would expect such a statement to come a member of the host of environmental organizations which seek to protect the planet from the climate change which our consumption of fossil fuels is bringing about. It cites the need for mandatory emissions reductions, federal action and federal targets for emission reduction - all “no nos” for many of America’s major corporate citizens who, just over a decade ago were still part of a coalition which was intent on debunking the idea that climate change is taking place, and that human activity is in part responsible.

The paragraph quoted above comes not from a Green Group, but from the “2006 Sustainability Report” – a part of the annual report of Caterpillar Inc. Practically every child who has dug holes in a sand box recognizes Caterpillar tractor, and has probably had a hand held toy model of a yellow bulldozer fashioned after a Caterpillar product. As a corporate enterprise Caterpillar is huge with over 94,000 employees and 182 dealers located on every continent who manufacture and distribute engines and big machines, most of which dig rock and dirt. Much of the world’s coal supply is touched by a Caterpillar machine before it is burned and Caterpillar diesel engines are running everywhere from oil fields to trucks on construction sites to ships to ships at sea.

One could say that carbon dioxide emissions are one of the biggest byproducts of the Caterpillar enterprise. Therefore it is significant that it is making greenhouse gas reduction part of its corporate culture. It remains curious that major players in the corporate community are pushing for mandatory emissions reductions while our Federal Government and the Congress won’t touch the idea.

When mandatory reductions do reach the federal agenda for action, I suspect there will the considerable conflict between the environmental community which will demand more and the corporate community which will demand less. Nevertheless the fact that action on greenhouse gas emissions is being called for by big industrial players is a hopeful sign that as a society we are digging our head out of the sand- aided in part big yellow earth movers.

5/7/2007 - HOT GAS

Programs to curb greenhouse gasses to combat climate change have generated new investment and trading schemes, financial instruments, and fraud. It is proposed that the best way to deal with carbon emissions from existing sources like power plants is “cap and trade”. Under “cap and trade” an electrical generating facility is assigned carbon credits by government, reflecting the number of tons of CO2 that it may discharge. The total number of credits is capped. Credits can be bought and sold. So if an electric company replaces an old polluting power plant with a modern one that causes less pollution it has credits left over reflecting the difference between the CO2 it discharged before and after its modernization. It can then sell those credits to someone else. As a result there is money to be made by installing pollution control equipment or burning cleaner fuel. Since CO2 discharge and the total number of credits have been capped, the only way to build a new plant is to buy credits from a source that is not using them. If the government invalidates a certain number of credits at each transaction, say five percent, theoretically carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced over time. Credits can also be generated by doing things like planting trees that capture CO2 now in the atmosphere.

A growing number of companies have undertaken programs to become “carbon neutral” meaning they will buy carbon credits to offset emissions they cause from everything they do from heating their buildings to airplane travel.

If a company shuts cleans up its smokestack or shuts down entirely, it keeps its CO2 credits which can be traded through a commodity exchange it the same way wheat or oil futures or pork bellies are bought and sold. Businesses in European countries which have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol can meet their emission reduction targets by purchasing credits instead of curtailing discharges from a factory. In theory any emission source could be required to have a credit to operate. So a new car buyer would need to acquire CO2 credits for the vehicle’s emissions before it was put on the road, unless of course the machine was electric or carbon emission free.

In the US the North Eastern States are organizing a greenhouse gas trading program for electric utilities. There is an active European carbon trading market now which has been driven by Kyoto and corporate programs to become “carbon neutral”. Wall Streeters are eyeing the developing carbon market as the hot new field for speculators and investors. This emerging field of commerce is now in a Wild West phase.

The investigative reporters for the Financial Times examined the new markets for greenhouse gasses and concluded, in findings published on April 27th, that the markets are permeated with fraud. The Financial Times reports that credits are being bought that do not result in any reduction in emissions; that companies are making money for doing almost nothing selling credits they have already gotten the benefits of; brokers are getting paid for services that have no value; a shortage of verification means there is frequently no way of knowing whether a carbon credit actually represents a carbon offset; and some purchasers of European Carbon credits find they paid for worthless credits because no carbon offsets existed.

A worldwide carbon market is evolving which ultimately will be a very important element in the strategy for planetary survival. But at the moment if your pension fund or university endowment has taken a flyer in a carbon market as an alternative investment, you might want to suggest it do some careful research. In the worst case the investment could be traded for that structure in Brooklyn which spans the East River and is perpetually for sale.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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4/30/2007 - FRETTING ABOUT CHOCOLATE

As a news junkie I find there are an incredible number of things to fret about, and the number increases faster than Bush can say “we are winning in Iraq”. There is the illegal wire tapping by Homeland security apparatchiks; the bumbling incompetence of our Attorney General who fires employees but doesn’t know why; our Senior Army leaders who seem to have lost their compass as illustrated by Abu Grebe and the exploitation of GIs through fraudulent and hyped up press releases; the loss of respect for America across the globe; continued White House opposition to stem cell research and measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions – the list is so long it would take up the entire time allocated for this broadcast to go through it.

If one is inclined to fret about an uncertain and precarious future, there is a gripping issue which should supersede concerns about war and peace, famine, AIDS, civil liberties, and human rights on the fretter’s priority list. This is a big one and everyone who hears this broadcast has the opportunity both to fret and to take action which might forestall the collapse of America’s gastronomic integrity. The issue is the future of chocolate.

It seems that the Food and Drug Administration has a standard which defines chocolate – and a product must contain the ingredients prescribed in that standard of identity in order to be called “chocolate” in the market place. (We do not diverge here to consider whether the FDA’s interest in chocolate is related to speculation that chocolate can be addictive like a narcotic or is an aphrodisiac like a drug.) The fact is that more than sixty years ago the FDA promulgated a chocolate standard. The current standard, proclaimed as the gold standard of chocolate by American chololatiers, requires that chocolate contain 25.27 percent cocoa butter. Recently some big candy manufacturers and the Grocery Manufacturers Association petitioned the FDA to change the chocolate standard to allow complete substitution of vegetable oil for cocoa butter. Vegetable oil costs one third the price of cocoa butter. The FDA posted the petition for comment. High end chocolate makers have initiated a vigorous campaign to inundate the FDA with objections. Several hundred have been recorded so far and the FDA has extended the comment period so you still have a chance to be heard. Chocolate purists have established a web site called “DontMessWithOurChocolate.com” and bloggers from all over are checking in.

This is a big one and anyone who takes her sweet tooth seriously should be fretting profusely about this threat to the very essence and integrity of her favorite bon-bon. Not only is the contents of the chocolate confectionary at stake, but changing the ingredients of chocolate threatens the whole integrity of the English language. Today there is a product called PayDay Chocolatey Avalanche. It is a candy bar made of some kind of caramel goo, peanuts, and unapproved chocolate flavor. Hence the word Chocolatey on its label. If the vegetable oil amendment goes through, the word “Chocolate” instead of “Chocolatey” could be used in the product name. Horrors! William Safire where are you?

And so fellow fretters and fussbudgets take a break from fretting about the end of our democracy and American global hegemony, and worry about a real crisis - the prospect of chocolate made with cheap vegetable oil instead of expensive cocoa butter. Epicurean satisfaction and the gastrointestinal integrity of the entire nation are at stake.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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4/23/2007 - EARTH DAY

I remember the first Earth Day in 1970. Inspired by Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin it was a national celebration of the earth and call to action. As Earth Day has evolved its observance has spread across the world. April 22 is alleged to be the largest secular holiday on the globe, celebrated by more than half a billion people. The Earth day Network found at www.earthday.org connects activists in 174 countries and 15000 organizations. It catalogues earth day activities from a student demonstration in Kabul Afghanistan, to tree planting in the Kulyab and Rasht Valley in Tajikistan, to a 3 day citizen’s lobbying campaign in Washington DC in support of legislation to curb greenhouse gasses. It archives materials for teachers on its website including video segments from this commentator about tips about how you can help save the planet.

As the concept of Earth Day has spread, environmental advocacy has assumed broader dimension. No longer a purely white middle class interest, ethnic groups such as the National Latino Congresso are creating environmental platforms. In the early days environmental advocacy focused on clean air and water, protection of public lands and forests, wildlife and fish. While Rachael Carson’s book “Silent Spring” had been published in 1962, understanding and concern about the pervasiveness of poisonous chemicals and their effects was limited.

Since that first Earth Day we have been redefining environmentalism and countless organizations have been formed focusing on issues not contemplated thirty seven years ago. Now climate change is the big one. But green house gas emissions are but one of a plethora of threats to planetary and human health. We now recognize that chlorinated hydrocarbons such as PCBs and neurotoxins like mercury which spread through the atmosphere are accumulating in every living organism on the planet. The understanding of endocrine disrupters which wreak havoc with the developing fetus and growing children is still evolving.

We became aware of prevalence of toxic waste in the ground through the Love Canal which received national attention seven years after the first Earth Day.

Urban designers and architects now think about building green – a concept which has matured in the last 15 years. Reducing our environmental impact by conserving energy – whether by hybrid autos or compact fluorescent lights is being promoted both by environmentalists and corporations.

The relationship between reproductive health and choice, population growth and the environment is the focus of national programs in many parts of the world, with the exception of the United States.

Environmentalism assumed a whole new dimension when the concept of sustainability informed our thinking.

The continuing discovery of a seemingly endless group of man made environmental insults illustrates that in spite of all our technology and science unimagined threats to human and planetary health continue to emerge. It is appropriate to celebrate the environmental successes we have achieved in the last 37 years, and there have been a lot of them. It remains to be seen whether environmental problems are being addressed more rapidly than new ones are emerging. But the old simple ones persist. On Earth Day I pick up trash on the roadside by our farm. Since chucking cans and fast food wrappers out of car windows seem to be instincts programmed into the DNA of too many of us, there will be plenty to do on every Earth Day as long as fast food comes in wrappers and beer comes in cans.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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4/16/2007 - CO2 PRODUCT LABELS

At about 1370 locations around the country people gathered on April 14th to urge congress to take action to combat global warming. They were participating in the “Step it up 2007” campaign. The effort was organized by author Bill McKibben and some of his students at Middlebury College where he is a visiting professor. McKibben has been educating us through his books about human impact on the natural world and climate change for a couple of decades. Now he seeks to have the growing number of people who take global warming seriously crystallize into a huge movement which generates the political momentum necessary to make the Congress take action.

We may be reaching a tipping point where support for serious responses to carbon emissions can result. Al Gore’s movie has attracted millions of viewers and won an Oscar. Within the last year the IPPC, a UN sponsored international group of over 120 scientists and climatologists reported that that there can be no further doubt about the occurrence of climate change and that human activity is a cause. It also projected dire consequences, such as draught, famine and flooding, which will result as it gets warmer and sea level rises. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency can no longer refuse to deal with greenhouse gas emissions from automobile tailpipes. The North Eastern States have formed an alliance to limit carbon emissions from power plants on a region wide basis. Newt Gingrich former House Speaker, a Republican, and former Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator John Kerry recently held a nationally televised debate- not about whether climate change is real, but about how to control it. Planning is underway in both the United States and Europe to set up Exchanges where carbon credits can be bought and sold just as is done with sulfur dioxide emissions today .Major corporate players such as General Electric have identified clean technology as a profitable growth area and are investing heavily in research to develop new green technology. And at least one major retailer – Home Depot – as taken on the cause of urging consumers to replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents which burn significantly less electricity. While still a major impediment to adoption of a coordinated approach to reduce carbon emissions lame duck President George W. Bush and his government are fast becoming irrelevant.

The change in attitude and conduct urged by the “Step it up” campaign which organized last week’s demonstrations could come about more rapidly if consumers had the information necessary to lower their own carbon foot print .Why not develop a uniform standard for reporting the amount of carbon dioxide released by a specific product or energy source? In addition to octane ratings gas pump signs could list the amount of CO2 emission emitted per gallon consumed. Like energy efficiency ratings, a carbon index could be posted on home furnaces and appliances so buyers could buy cool green.

Since emissions caused by generating electricity from coal or hydro or natural gas vary widely the rating system would have to show alternatives based on varying energy sources. That way consumers could compare products based on the extent that they cause greenhouse gas releases and make informed choices when given the opportunity to purchase electricity from a varying mix of renewable sources. Such information, readily available, would enable everyone to figure out the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to their own conduct. This would make it easier for individuals to go on a CO2 diet which should be a goal for all of us. Most of us would do more to keep the planet healthy if tools were readily available and the cost was reasonable. Label information about carbon emissions attributable to energy or products could make consumer choice an important force to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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4/9/2007 - CLIMATE AND THE COURT

In its most important environmental decision in a decade the Supreme Court in its decision in the case of Massachusetts v. the Environmental Protection Agency has shredded the Bush administration’s rationale for refusing to act on climate change.

Massachusetts and a group of environmental organizations and businesses challenged EPA’s refusal to regulate vehicle tail pipe emissions which contribute to global warming. They argued that the Clean Air Act requires the EPA Administrator to “by regulation prescribe…standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class…of new motor vehicles…which in the [EPA Administrator’s] judgment cause[s] or contribute[s] to air pollution…reasonably…anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” In issue was whether carbon dioxide in auto exhaust is an “air pollutant” and whether EPA’s judgment not to act is justified.

The Court noted the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that climate change is taking place, held that greenhouse gasses are air pollutants within the meaning of the Clean Air Act. Citing predicted sea level rise, flooding and storm surge, the Court held Massachusetts’ claim of injury was justified. It then rejected EPA’s arguments that the connection between tail pipe emissions and climate change were tenuous; and that their impact was insignificant so regulation would be meaningless. It said the fact that reductions in the United States might well be offset by increases in other parts of the world could not justify EPA’s failure to act. The Court also dismissed EPA’s contention that it could not limit CO2 auto emissions because to do so would require setting fuel efficiency requirements and that task had been assigned by the Congress to the Department of Transportation.

EPA based its failure to take action on language in the Act that says its authority is based on making a “judgment” about whether a pollutant endangers public health and welfare. The Court said this did not give the Agency roving authority to ignore the law. It also said the “judgment” has to be based within the context of the law, rather than on policy positions of the Administration. The Court removed whatever wiggle room the EPA thought it had when it wrote “Under the clear terms to the Clean Air Act, the EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gasses do not contribute to climate change or it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do.” In concluding the majority opinion Justice Stevens held the “EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change. Its action was therefore ‘arbitrary, capricious…or otherwise not in accordance with law’.”

The decision of the Supreme Court was rendered by a 5 to 4 majority. Chief Justice Roberts writing for the minority argued the matter should not have been before the Court at all.

The Court’s decision has changed the landscape of the climate change debate particularly with respect to motor vehicles. Congress could amend the Clean Air Act and remove EPA’s authority and responsibilities with respect to tail pipe emissions although that is unlikely. The Court dismissed the contention that doing nothing is justified on the ground that dealing with only a small portion of greenhouse gas emissions will not solve the entire climate change problem. It emphasized that EPA is compelled to base its regulatory judgment on science rather than priorities which stem from a philosophical or political agenda.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles or any other source are unlikely to be put in place any time soon. When the Senate adjourned for its Easter recess, the President made an interim appointment of a candidate for the office of Regulatory Affairs of the White House Office of Management and Budget who the Senate had rejected. That office passes on regulations proposed by all federal agencies. The appointee is Susan Dudley, a conservative academic who is skeptical about regulation and favors free market solutions. She reportedly has written that it is more cost effective for people sensitive to pollution to stay indoors, than to reduce pollution through government regulation of polluters.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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4/2/2007 - TAX OR TRADE

Two schools of thought have emerged about the best strategy for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and thus curbing global warming. Unlike most climate change debates, which put the environmental community on one side and industry on the other, representatives from both camps can be found on both sides of this controversy. One group advocates imposing a tax on carbon emissions. The idea is that anybody putting carbon into the atmosphere would have to pay a per ton tax on the amount of carbon discharged. Reportedly Democratic Congressman Pete Stark from California will be introducing a bill this month levying a a $25 per ton tax on carbon released for five years. In theory this would incentivise the development of carbon reduction strategies and would apply across the board. No one industry would be singled out. Stark estimates that such a carbon tax would raise the retail cost of gasoline by about 10 cents per gallon. To allay political opposition which arises inevitably at any suggestion of a tax increase, the money would be used to reduce other existing taxes. Supporters of a carbon tax are wide spread and include Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club and William Pizer a former Senior Economist for the Council of Economic Advisors under President George W. Bush.

The other group says “cap and trade” is a better strategy to insure that we don’t keep dumping CO2 into the air around us until we perish. Under “cap and trade” the government would impose a limit or “cap” on the emissions that a particular power plant, or company could discharge. Suppose your local utility discharges 1000 tons of CO2 per year. That number would become the “cap” meaning emissions in excess would be forbidden. Over time the “cap” would be reduced If the plant installed more efficient boilers or pollution control devices and thus reduced its emissions by say 50 tons, it could use those credits either to expand its own facility or it could sell them to someone else. Without credits no new source would be permitted. States in the North East have agreed to put impose a “cap and trade” program on electric generators, the sector of the economy which is the greatest source of greenhouse gasses. It is called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or REGGI. Implementation is still in the discussion stage.

Supporters of “cap and trade” argue that unlike the carbon tax it guarantees that emissions will decrease over time in contrast to a tax system which allows the polluter to keep right on polluting as long as the tax is paid. Fred Krupp, President of Environmental Defense, a national environmental organization, and a number of utility CEOs are vociferous “cap and trade” supporters. Critics say it would stifle growth; is too complicated to implement; and can only be applied to big industries leaving many sources unregulated.

The fact that a debate about carbon tax versus “cap and trade” is taking place in congress, industry, environmental groups and academia is encouraging. Until very recently serious discussions were being derailed by head in the sand skeptics who claim global warming is a hoax. The development of REGGI will give some indication of whether “cap and trade” is workable.

The trade off between modifying behavior or burning fossil fuel involves personal choices that are not addressed by the tax vs cap debate if money is not a concern. Take the case of movie actor John Travolta. It seems that he is a passionate pilot and personally owns 5 jets which he parks on his private runway on his Florida estate. Flying 30,000 miles last year he created 800 tons of carbon emissions - but he is serious about climate change nevertheless. He speaks frequently about global warming in his public appearances. If Travolta capped his speaking engagements and traded in a few of his jets would the glaciers in Antarctica melt less slowly and the threat to health of the penguins be diminished? Clearly further research is needed.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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3/26/2007 - COSMICS

Politics inspires the grubby. Take the smear attack adds that supporters of Clinton and Obama have been running against the two front running Democratic candidates on the internet. A campaign consultant interviewed on NPR recently opined that attack adds to be effective need to be mean, and that we can expect a bumper crop in the coming year because they are so effective. Is there anyway out of this muck?

In his essay “The Cosmic Perspective” published in Natural History magazine, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson argues that when we embrace cosmic realities we achieve a more enlightened view of human life. The relationship between cosmic reality and the twisted perspective that produces internet attack ads may seem remote but Tyson theorizes that all our action would be informed by more humility if we had better understanding of the cosmos and our role in it. Consider there are more bacteria in one inch of the human colon than all the people that have ever lived, and there are more stars in the universe than the number of seconds that have elapsed since the earth was formed. From that perspective the human enterprise is relatively insignificant. Instead of being detached and separate as we see ourselves, Tyson sees us as part of the cosmos. We are made of the same chemicals which abound throughout the universe, - hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. We drink the same drops of water and breathe the same molecules of air that our ancestors did. Nature has recycled it. We are not as unique as we think we are. The variation between our genetic mix and that of chimpanzees is minimal. Tyson sees a vast universe that is understood to be larger with every scientific discovery. By embracing a cosmic perspective we are able see beyond self centered impulses of greed and avarice. He sums it up this way and I quote:

During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendents the opportunity to explore – in part because it’s fun to do. But there’s a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their “low contracted prejudices.” And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment – until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace cosmic perspective.”

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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3/19/2007 - WEEKEND HEART ATTACKS

New medical research reflects that people who have heart attacks on weekends are more likely to die from the affliction than those who are struck on weekdays. The reason is that many hospitals have fewer specialized staff on duty. As a result weekend patients wait longer for treatment after they reach the emergency room. The statistics show that the sooner the treatment, the less likelihood there is that a heart attack will be fatal. Thus when a hospital is not fully staffed, a patient will wait longer and likelihood of death increases.

These findings provide unlimited fodder for political conspiracy theorists and will no doubt generate docudrama block buster films. Could this medical situation reflect a plot by Karl Rove to under fund Medicare reimbursement for hospital emergency treatment? As news about doings in the White House and its policies gets out on weekends, liberal Democrats have apoplexy, and are subject to heart attacks. What better way to cut down the Democratic vote in the 2008 presidential election than getting rid of fretting liberals. To insure victory in 08 Democrats must resolve to refrain from thoughts on Saturdays and Sundays that are likely to bring on cardiac arrest. They must not think about:

The latest attempt by the White House to subvert our system of Justice by purging US attorneys who resist bringing indictments to further White House political objectives;

The loophole in the Patriot Act which enables the appointment of US attorneys without Senate confirmation, thereby eliminating a safeguard against complete politicization of federal law enforcement; or

A Court of Appeals decision last week which ignores established Supreme Court precedent and invalidates gun control laws in the District of Columbia.

Other hazardous thoughts include mental images of American soldiers in Iraq crouched in Baghdad alleyways taking fire from Iraqis who are intent on killing each other. American lives are being wasted and any public figure that has the courage to say so is tromped on for not “supporting the troops”.

Definitely out of mind should be reflections about the erosion of our traditions of the rule of law which have been violated by prisoner abuse, illegal wire tapping, torture and redefining the Geneva convention - a stupid gambit for which Americans taken prisoner in the future will pay dearly;

FBI collection of data about individuals in clear violation of law, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Carl Rove and Harriet Meyers also have to be on the Saturday “no think” list. On weekends Liberals and Progressives can avoid having fatal stressful thoughts about how the world is going to pot by foregoing newspapers, radio and TV. Instead they could relish those things the President and his claque have not screwed up yet. I am thinking about the cold, sun, snow, rain, and warmth, all of which seem to happen at once in March and corn snow which is the desert of the ski season. The sounds of water tumbling off the hillsides as the ice melts and the squawk of the Canada geese on the pond as they vie for nesting spots is therapeutic. Anticipation of the peepers’ song and the beginning of trout season less than a month away will also relieve anxiety. Savoring the beauty and mystery of the coming spring should be a strategy for avoiding cardiac arrest on Saturday and Sunday. Mr. Rove might counter by eliminating spring altogether, but even under this Administration’s global warming strategy spring should survive at least through 2008.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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3/12/2007 - WHERE IS THE JUICE?

In over 10 years of broadcasting about the environment, I have found reports about people who live off the grid consistently evoke strong listener response. The stories cover folk who have designed their houses and their life styles so they can live comfortably without electricity supplied on wires by a utility company. Some do it with photovoltaic cells on the roof, some have windmills, and some have generators hooked up to waterwheels in the creek. All have arrays of batteries to supply juice when the generator is shut down. There is something about not being tied to the electric or gas company by an umbilical cord, and not having to pay the monthly bill, which has broad appeal. Unfortunately the cost and technological challenge of grid independence through home electricity production means few of us will ever have it. That being said, it does not mean that building big power plants is necessarily the optimal way to meet the country’s increasing demand for electricity. With the likelihood that mandatory limits on carbon emissions will be imposed, and the increasing sophistication of the deregulated wholesale electric markets, two schools of thought have emerged about our electrical future.

One camp argues that the big plants are the most efficient, the most cost effective and able to support environmental control technologies likely to be imposed in the future. As described in a recent special section of the New York Times, there are substantial economies of scale even in super sized wind and solar plants.

The other camp sees distributed generation as our best hope. They envision electrical generators coupled with heating systems, or small units operating independently, to serve a factory or shopping center or neighborhood. The need for new transmission lines would be reduced. With many disbursed sources of electrical supply, it would be much more difficult for terrorists to create a massive blackout. Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, the foremost thinker about soft energy path alternatives, envisions the ultimate distributed generation scenario when hydrogen powered fuel cell aautmobiles are common. Since the fuel in the car can perk along generating electricity continuously, you could drive to work and plug your car into a parking meter which would send the juice into the grid and credit your account. At day’s end you disconnect, and the fuel cell provides the energy to drive home.

Unless more comprehensive energy policy covering both generation and use of energy is adopted, optimal choices about electrical generation will be hard to make. Currently policy at both the federal and state level is still pretty rudimentary and much needs to be done.

Part of the challenge is to increase public awareness and concern. We need to improve the insulation in most of our homes and buildings. While green architecture is getting a lot of buzz, homebuilders report it is not selling. Green design features and environmentally friendly materials increase the sticker cost of a new home from 2 to 15 percent. A recent survey of the industry finds that most buyers are unwilling to pay the price, despite long term savings in heating and cooling costs.

Conservation and switching to more efficient technology, from light bulbs to autos has been slow in coming. Instead of being doctrinaire about centralized or distributed generation, policy should encourage both. The choice should be based on providing the cleanest most inexpensive energy at any particular site. Inexpensive means least cost after all factors are considered including air quality and health, fuel, transmission, plant construction, and reliability. We need real time electric metering at the wholesale and retail level.

A carbon cap and trade program should be national. The north eastern states have agreed to control carbon emissions, but if the effect is simply to cause generators in the Ohio valley to create more pollution by shipping more power through the grid to the East, little is gained.

Once the carrots and sticks are in place to deal with all these issues, the last step is to design and market smokeless candles for those who are off the grid and have foresworn the use of electricity all together.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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3/5/2007 - ABSURDITY

Sometimes it is the absurd which keeps us laughing and best able to find amusement in the face of catastrophe. Consider the following. On February 27 share prices on the New York and American Stock Exchanges went into free fall. At one point the Dow Jones was down over 500 points. By the time the market closed the Standard and Poor's 500 had lost $452 billion in market value, and other American stocks were down $180 billion. That adds up to 632 billion dollars. Poof! Gone! Analysts are still trying to figure out all the causes, but at 8 pm Eastern Time on the day before, the market in Shanghai started going south. By 2 am eastern time on the 27th it had dropped 8.8 percent. Through out the day markets in Japan, Hong Kong and Europe started racking up losses, but not to the extent of the American sell off which occurred after the foreign markets closed.

All the factors that caused the Tsunami wave to hit Wall Street are not clear but apparently one factor which brought panic to the Chinese market was a warning, issued by the Chinese Government, to banks which were making improper loans to finance stock speculation. In short, the prospect that government regulators in Shanghai would take curb illegal activity in the Shanghai stock market was enough to cause precipitous declines to cascade through equity markets around the world.

The incident affords a bemusing perspective on our own stock market. Think of the whole global equity system as a pyramid with the US at the base. Smaller markets fill in the space as one approaches the top, and at the peak of the pyramid is Shanghai. Now turn the pyramid upside down and you have the inverted pyramid resting on the Shanghhai stock exchange which is poorly regulated and corrupt. When Chinese authorities threaten to make Shanghhai follow the law, it crumples. The pyramid teeters and bricks worth billions of dollars start falling off. The analogy is simplistic, probably wrong and supported by no documentation other than the history of Feb 27, but unless you were personally burned by the market shock, think of the fun it provides. I look forward to telling my friends that manage mutual funds that they should forget about price earnings ratios and focus on whether the corrupt Chinese market stays corrupt. Or how about asking the multi-million dollar bonused stock trader how he feels knowing that he owes his current and future affluence to a bunch of Chinese crooks?

The New York Times reports that some analysts say our Securities and Exchange Commission, having found its footing after stumbling over Enron a couple of years ago, has now shifted its emphasis from protecting consumers to helping business. Maybe it could fill both functions by establishing an office in Shanghai to lobby Chinese authorities to stop them from attempting to make the Shanghai stock honest.

The take away from all this silly speculation about the inverse upside down pyramid with Shanghai at the tip is that we are more interconnected with the rest of the world than we imagine. As global citizens we need to be able to speak other languages than our own. We need to know more about how the rest of the world thinks and works. While Chinese law and business practice is getting more attention in our professional schools, perhaps courses in Chinese Gangsta Rap should be added to their curricula.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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2/26/2007 - SOLAR WRAP

The British Newspaper Telegraph reports that a Swiss Company called Flisom claims to have developed a product which will enable the generation of solar power at a cost no greater than that of fossil fuel. It is a dark polymer foil as thin as a sheet of paper which could be stuck on the sides of buildings. The idea is that a wrapped building would generate its own electricity from the sun. The foil is 200 times lighter than current glass based solar panels and allegedly can be produced in cheap rolls like packaging. Like wrapping paper, its producers say it can be manufactured in a variety of colors. It is supposed to be on the market in 2009.

It is too early to tell whether solar wrap is for real, and whether it will be able to make electricity at a cost no greater than fossil fuel. But the fact that it shows promise is a cause for optimism. A big technological breakthrough in solar power would do a lot to help us disengage from the clutches of our not so friendly allies who sell us oil. While it is naïve to believe that new technology might completely change our energy situation, it has happened before. There was a time when the primary source of artificial light was whale oil which was burned in lamps. About the time whales where being hunted to extinction, John D. Rockefeller started putting his oil empire together, His primary product in the early days was kerosene which, in the course of a decade, supplanted whale oil as the primary light source on every continent. The use of petroleum for heating and running machinery came later. Inadvertently Rockefeller probably saved more whales than Greenpeace ever did.

One has to be skeptical that faith in technology yet to be developed can provide a substitute for oil and gas in the electrical generating market. But the possibility that we will be able to displace fossil fuel power with solar power is no longer a remote illusion. New technology could change all the assumptions which underlie our current efforts to create an energy policy.

I like to speculate about uses of colored solar wrap that go far beyond wrapping buildings, Why not make it into suits and dresses? A lady in a solar dress could sit on the sunny side of the parlor at a tea party, plug into a wall outlet, and power the whole house. Think of green yellow and blue solar wrapped automobiles – buzzing along on California freeways until an afternoon flash thunderstorm shuts them all down and the resulting traffic jam can not be cleared up until sunrise the next morning.

Joking aside, our collective will to limit our use of energy has been found wanting to date – we must do everything we can to develop the technology which can produce energy without OPEC.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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2/18/2007 - BANKERS SUMMER CAMP

Al Gore and climate scientists are increasing our awareness about climate change. Extremely hot summers, hurricanes and tornados of late, whether or not specifically attributable to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, are also causing us to think about doing something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But without a comprehensive carbon strategy including every element of our economy and society, progress will be elusive. Each one of us can limit the CO2 we are responsible for as a result of what we drive, how we insulate and light our homes and what we buy. Governments, profit and non profit institutions can do the same. But according to a report to investors from Citigroup's investment research division, about 32% of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions come from utilities which provide the electricity enabling most of what we do, from running computers, to communicating, to traveling, to manufacturing.

Electric power plants last for a half century or more, so what is being built today will define carbon emissions for the lifetime of most of the people listening to this broadcast. This makes the investment bankers who provide the financing for new plants important players in determining the future of the world. A frightening thought perhaps, since the tools they use to fund or not fund power projects are computations about rate of return, not projections of global ecological sustainability. The concentration of power in a limited number of financial institutions which provide capital is substantial. For example it is reported that Citigroup was the largest arranger of corporate financing for the power, oil and natural gas industries last year. Specifically it controlled 10% of the $272 billion power-lending market and almost 9% of the $310 billion oil and natural-gas lending market.

What this means is that the positions the big financial institutions take on funding projects and on policies such as mandatory cap and trade and emission control technology have global consequences. At the moment it is reported by the Wall Street Journal that Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are arranging financing for a 10 billion dollar project proposed by Texas Utilities to build 11 coal fired standard-technology power plants in Texas. Environmental groups are urging banks who might join the effort to refrain, pointing out that the standard technology is obsolete and will be expensive to retrofit if not grandfathered by anticipated carbon control regulations. Cleaner technology is available.

We don't envision investment bankers will swap their vested pinstripes for Kermit the Frog suits, but their decisions about power plant financing will have a huge impact on whether greenhouse gas limitations can be achieved, or will remain an illusion. A nationwide cap on carbon emissions which is being advocated by at least one Citigroup competitor would make financing dirtier plants less attractive. Investors in the banks themselves should insist that financing decisions be passed through green carbon dioxide screens, and finally a summer at ecology camp should be a prerequisite for every loan officer and deal maker in the power lending market.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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2/12/2007 - End of Nature

The thesis of Bill McKibben's book "The End of Nature", as best as I remember, is that humankind has done so much to the planet that nothing in the world is still in its natural state - that is unchanged by human activity. An unsettling idea when you think about it. Environmentalists' and naturalists' predisposition is to believe that what we do tends to degrade the beauty of nature and the natural systems surrounding us. The landscape is better without litter; great trees in the forest inspire the soul; a waste land of stumps after a clear cut does not. The undisturbed prairie produces a multiplicity of wild flowers of many colors that are gone in a cornfield. The silver flash of a salmon running in a wild river or the rushing sound of water tumbling over rocks in a New England stream is gone when the waterway is dammed.

The human impact on our planet may have been extensive when McGibben wrote is book in 1989, but world population at that time was just over 5 billion. Today the human enterprise has grown by an additional one and three quarter billion souls. More of us are making, burning, throwing away, and modifying more of nature than ever before and we are doing it faster. We have also gotten more efficient at changing natural systems on a global scale - human induced climate change is a case in point. Today we ponder how to exercise our unique ability to make choices about how we live, so the natural life support systems on which we depend are maintained. How do we insure the restorative powers of nature which heal the wounds we inflict on flora, fauna, and the landscape are not casualties of human endeavor?

We need to recognize that we are part of nature, not some external force superimposed on the globe with god given powers of dominion. We are as much part of the web of life as the frog or the mosquito or the migrating robin. What we have that is unique, is the ability to change the size and speed of our cog in the planetary machine that makes up the earth.

As a result we ask whether a project, or a product, or a chemical or a drug will have or is having unintended harmful effects. The question is "will it do harm". The inability to figure out whether it will do harm, together with the market forces that reward the entrepreneur who gets there first with the new thing has hurt us and the planet. Drugs that have to be recalled because of unanticipated side effects, and development which removes the natural barriers to flooding and hurricanes are cases in point.

This has led to the development of the Precautionary Principal - a way of thinking which some policy makers say should be applied to everything we do. The question becomes "is it safe?" instead of "will it do harm?" The Precautionary Principal says we should not go ahead with a new technology or persist with an old one unless we are convinced it is safe. The burden of proof is on the developer not society to provide the answer.

Included in the United Nations Declaration on the Environment in 1982 the Precautionary Principle has been adopted by numerous European jurisdictions. By and large the United States has stayed away from it, fearing that stringent requirements on entrepreneurs and developers to show a product or project is safe at the beginning will inhibit innovation and growth.. It is time for us to look at the Precautionary Principle again. A myriad of procedures and chemicals are analyzed by US regulators every year. For example federal authorities are considering an application to allow irradiation of spinach as a means of combating e-coli. The pharmaceutical industry seeks approval to market scores of new drugs every year. Bill Mckibben is right that all of nature has been and is being constantly rescrambled by everything we do. That being the case, we need to insure before rather than after we act that we are not harming the planet and ourselves. It will not be without pain. If the Ford Motor Company had applied the Precautionary Principle before it manufactured my rusting gas guzzling pickup truck, I suspect I might be riding a horse.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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2/05/2007 - OUTRAGE

If exercise makes the body stronger and keeps our physical systems fit, I assume that OUTRAGE sharpens the emotions, and keeps the mental and physiological systems which it stimulates in working order. That is why the saga of climate change may serve to enhance our mental health – that is up until rising sea level caused by global warming washes us all under water. Consider the reactions to scientific research on the subject of climate change which give the word “outrageous” new meaning.

The refusal of our President and his entourage to acknowledge the existence of global warming until last month has been a continuing outrage. That produced more outrageous acts than can be fully recounted here. The more notorious included the efforts to muzzle NASA scientist James Hansen and stifle his writing and speaking about his research which led him to conclude the earth is getting hotter, and humans in large part are responsible. Then there was the non scientist in the White House who rewrote the scientific conclusions in a NASA report. His handwritten edits which transform the NASA scientific conclusions about climate change into mere speculative hypotheses are shown in Al Gore’s movie and were reproduced in the New York Times. Also there is Senator Jim Inhofe former Chairman and now Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who continues to scoff at the idea that climate change exists or is related to human activity. He says the whole issue has been dreamed up by environmental groups as a means to raise money.

But all that outrageous stuff is nothing compared to the latest. Consider the following: Last Thursday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, known as the IPCC, released its latest report which concludes with more than 90 percent certainty that human activity has been the main driver of warming since 1950. It also says that during the 21st century, surface air temperature will rise between 1.8 and 4 degrees Celsius. The conclusions in the Report reflect the work of several hundred scientists from all over the world who participate in the deliberations of the IPCC.

Now here is the outrageous part. The Manchester Guardian, a respected British newspaper reports that the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank which receives substantial funding from Exxon Mobil and consults frequently for the Bush Administration, has written scientists in the US, Great Britain and elsewhere offering to pay up to ten thousand dollars for articles that undermine the IPCC report or “explore the limitations of climate model inputs”. In layman’s terms the Institute will pay someone who can be called a scientist $10,000 to trash the IPCC’s conclusions.

It is expected and proper that scientific research be analyzed and peer reviewed by academes, but what the American Enterprise Institute is up to sounds more like propaganda warfare than scientific analysis. Note they did not offer to pay independent experts who conclude the IPCC study is sound.

If I am wrong about my theory that outrage sharpens the mind and senses, and instead causes apoplexy, the climate change debunkers may be on to something. Apoplexy is the sudden inability to feel and move caused by rupture of an artery in the brain. If people who take climate science seriously get apoplexy, they will not be able to take the action necessary to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit our use of fossil fuel. Exxon Mobil which made more profit last quarter than any corporation in history by selling fossil fuel will score again.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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1/29/2007 - POLAR BEARS ON RAFTS

In his State of the Union speech President Bush uttered for the first time in such orations the words "global climate change". The words came at the end of the section of his speech devoted to energy. There he outlined a series of strategies to reduce the need for imported oil which included; increased renewable fuels, (specifically ethanol); tougher mileage standards for cars and trucks; and doubling the amount of oil in the strategic petroleum reserve. He concluded by saying "these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us confront the serious challenge of global climate change."

Absent was any reference to specific actions that will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Strategies under discussion outside the federal government to curb carbon emissions are abundant. They include, for example, reduction of CO2 from power plants which are responsible for 40 percent of our emissions; mandatory emissions caps on industries, mandatory reductions of emissions from motor vehicles, and carbon credit trading schemes. So while acknowledging that the challenge of climate change exists represents a step ahead for the President, proposing that we actually do something is not yet part of his commitment.

Fortunately a lot of people are now tackling the issue. The trend is growing and climate change action is underway from a disparity of sources. In the Senate and the House of Representatives a variety of bills have been submitted which address greenhouse gas emissions and hearings are forthcoming. Executives from 10 of the country's largest companies which include General Electric, Dupont and Alcoa have banded together and produced a report calling for government mandates, free market mechanisms, and technological innovation, to curb climate change. House Speaker Pelosi has formed a special committee to deal with the issue. The State of California has undertaken a huge effort combining increases in fuel efficiency, with conservation measures, upgrading the electric grid, and strategies to modify driving patterns. Over 80 communities including the City of New York have pledged to meet the Kyoto guidelines.

Reversing the steady increase in emissions will not reverse the consequences of the warming trend which is already underway. We need to do more thinking outside of the box to cope with current conditions and that too is happening. A subject which comes up at our dinner table is the fate of polar bears in the arctic, some of whom are drowning as the sea ice they live on is melting. The TV clip of a great bear attempting to hoist herself out of the water and onto an ice sheet which kept breaking under her weight made a lasting impression on my 8 year old grandson. His sketch papers are now filled with drawings of bears on rafts. His thought is we need to build rafts in the thawing Arctic Ocean to enable the bears to survive.

While the environment may be reaching a tipping point beyond which no remedial measures to limit climate change may be effective, we are reaching a tipping point at which there is sufficient concern about the issue so action can result. The obvious economic benefits of efficiency and conservation, combined with the environmental benefits of CO2 emissions reductions, cover such a wide spectrum of interests that change in the way we think and act about energy is happening. At the local level, new Governors in New York and Massachusetts should organize their administrations so the Public Service Commissions which set electric rates, the System Operators which operate the transmission grids and the wholesale electric markets, the Conservation Departments, the Economic Development Agencies, the Energy Planning, and Facilities Siting Boards, the Consumer Protection Agencies, and the Transportation Departments meet periodically to implement a coordinated greenhouse gas emission strategy.

Bringing a unified focus to bear on all parts of state government relating to energy and green house gas should make a difference. The Governors could even retain a friend of mine as special advisor on polar bears.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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1/22/2007 - BUDGET RESTRAINT

Reenergized Democratic Representatives and Senators now vie with one another offering bills and resolutions to thwart the troop escalation in Iraq which the President has now launched. Some call for withdrawal within a specified period of time. Others call for re-deployment which sounds like withdrawal under a different name. Another camp would put conditions or benchmarks in place which the Iraqis would be required to meet. What happens if the conditions are not met is left unclear, but if failure to meet the conditions does not mean US departure, the conditions would appear to have little meaning. The fact is that no matter how strong congressional Democrats believe their mandate to change military activity in Iraq to be; they can not run the war. Article II Section 2 of the Constitution names the President as Commander in Chief. Article I Section 8 says the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, to raise and support Armies, and to provide and maintain a Navy. The constitutional weapon which congress has to limit military adventurism is simply to refuse to appropriate the money to pay for it. Exercising this power can be an act of political suicide. No officeholder can survive constituent criticism based on failure to support, or pay, or equip American soldiers facing hostile fire. By sending the troops out first, and seeking appropriations to feed them later, the Commander in Chief is able to escalate the war at will, knowing that nobody in Congress will leave deployed American soldiers to fend for themselves.

I suggest there is a way Congress can use its power of the purse to check President Bush’s ill conceived escalation strategy without depriving troops on the battlefield. Congress should demand that the President compute the cost of maintaining 135,000 troops in the Iraq for the next year, and appropriate that amount of money. At the same time Congress should make it clear that no appropriations for a larger force will be forthcoming. A year later the same process could be repeated based on a budget for a smaller force, accomplishing a phased withdrawal. Under this scenario the Congress fulfills its duty to provide the amount it determines is needed to support the army but does not impinge on the Commander in Chief. The Commander in Chief must adhere to the budget – a principle which should apply to all government programs.

With no information other than that provided by the press, this commentator has always been puzzled by recent budgets presented by the Bush Administration. They have not included costs of the war. Iraq appropriation requests appear separately as though they are add-ons and not part of the fiscal plan which the budget lays out. Perhaps there is good reason for this. With the cost of the war carried off line, average citizens like ourselves can not figure out how it relates to all the other things we pay for. The impression we get is after the federal budget is worked out, the Pentagon comes in later and gets whatever it says it needs for the Iraq campaign.

In a recent article in the New York Times David Leonhardt estimates that the total cost of the war counting everything, is $200 billion a year. Compare that with the cost of treating heart disease and diabetes in every American – 50 billion: universal preschool education – 35 billion; the annual budget of the National Cancer Institute – 6 billion; 10 billion more for Afghanistan and complete implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations. That alternative expenditure of 200 billion may well do more for national security than placing American GIs in between Shia and Tsunis who are shooting at each other in the neighborhoods of Baghdad.

If the war concludes this year – a scenario nobody anticipates - the cost will have been 1.2 trillion dollars. The time has come for the Congress to put limits on the Iraq disaster and imposing budget discipline is a sound way to do it. Phased subsequent appropriation reductions can set the course for an end to the bad dream of Baghdad.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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1/15/2007 - MARTIN LUTHER KING

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday. In his speech entitled “I Have a Dream” delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963 he noted that one hundred years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination still afflicted Americans of color. His dream was to let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado, from the curvaceous slopes of California, from Stone Mountain of Georgia, from Lookout mountain of Tennessee, from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, - from every mountainside. He helped bring about the end of Jim Crow laws and blacks are no longer required to sit in the back of the bus in Montgomery Alabama. He dramatized for those of us who have not experienced racial prejudice how pervasive it was. Many of our attitudes have changed and the manacles of segregation and chains of discrimination are less obvious now than they were forty four years ago. The Jim Crow laws are gone. It is tempting to think the major goals which King so eloquently described have been achieved so we can turn our attention to other things. But freedom is not like a light bulb which is either on or off. As our society evolves, new encroachments on individual freedoms appear as we seek to enhance our security and economic well being. In Martin Luther King’s time the sophisticated electronics which can destroy the privacy of every one of us did not exist. The terrorism, which causes us to turn away from underlying tenants of freedom such as the right to judicial review of the justification for holding prisoners without charge or trial, had not been directed against the United States. While pollution was rampant, the correlation between pollution, minority populations and poor health had not been sharply drawn and the term “environmental justice” was not in our vocabulary.

King’s legacy requires us to recognize that the protection of freedom requires constant effort. New political and military dangers, new ways of making money, new technologies, new threats to security cause us to forge new manacles of segregation and new chains of discrimination. The prisons at Abu Grebe and Guantanamo remind us that in the name of freedom bad things can happen. Let us celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday by resolving that the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness defined in the Declaration of Independence will be enhanced and not diminished on our watch.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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1/8/2007 - BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

A new year begins and in the continuum of time that means that it was preceded by an ending. The year past has seen a number of endings – some celebrated and some regretted. Ended were the lives of Gerald Ford, Sadam Hussein and James Brown. Ended was the rein of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Ended was the work of the Iraq Study Group which in turn ended President Bush’s constantly repeated assertions that we are winning the war in Iraq. Ended were the careers of a number of prominent elected officials in the Northeast whose greed or blindness devoured their judgment and caused them to leave office in disgrace. I’m thinking of the Controller of the State of New York, the Speaker of the Massachusetts house, the Governors of the States of Connecticut and New Jersey to name but a few. Ended was the tenure of some CEOs of Fortune 500 companies whose mediocre performance prompted their Boards of Directors to can them and then reward them with millions and millions of shareholder dollars. Consider the severance pay of CEOs at; Sovereign Bank - 44 million. Viacom – 85 million, Home Depot – 210 million, and Pfizer – 213 million. Ended with them was any notion that CEO compensation and good corporate performance are related. Ended too were the Republican majorities in both houses of congress.

We look forward now to beginnings. Some are already underway and some are yet to take form. Some beginnings just happen – unrelated to any effort on our part. The beginning of the calendar year, the new phase of the moon, the lengthening of the days just happen. The most important thing about beginnings is the reawakening of hope with which we welcome a new start. We make New Year’s resolutions attempting to realize our hope of becoming better people. We hope the beginnings of efforts to clean up the ethics of our representatives in government will have lasting effect. We hope new leadership in the House and Senate will begin renewed efforts to clean our air and water and protect our atmosphere and public lands. The New Year marks the beginning of new presidential campaigns. Whether that process engenders hope or despair remains to be seen. The mysterious reawakening of hope which comes with the lengthening days even causes some to believe that the Red Sox can win another World Series.

Hope should inspire some endings as well as beginnings. The human enterprise could bring an end to killing and prejudice based on race, religion and national pride. Poverty, disease, hunger, and ignorance are forces which deserve rapid and conclusive endings. Is there enough hope to cause us to end all these things?

Hazel Wolf of Seattle who died a couple of years ago at the age of 101 was an activist who devoted her long life to fighting for the health of the planet and human rights. She had an uncanny ability to organize others to join her in fighting the good fight. She was gracious and funny and showed the persistence of Job. Once after one of the many campaigns to save old growth forest had been scuttled by the timber industry and conservative politicians she was asked how she could continue to be an optimist, given all the bad things that were happening. With a smile and a twinkle in her eye she replied “I have hope, and besides being an optimist is more fun.”

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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12/18/2006 - A MORAL ISSUE

On the sixth anniversary of his concession speech following the year 2000 presidential election, Albert Gore spoke to an overflow crowd in western Massachusetts about climate change. He asserted with passion and eloquence that climate change is no longer a scientific issue, but a moral one- a moral issue which should compel every one of us to take action. Without scientific uncertainty about a) the existence of global warming and b) that humans are - to a significant extent - causing it, reasons for not taking action to save the planet are unacceptable. The uncomfortable fact about global warming is that while government action is an essential ingredient of a campaign to limit greenhouse gas emissions, success depends on action by everyone of us. Laws and regulations can change conditions that favor or discourage the use of fossil fuels, but it is each one of us that determines how and when fuel is burned. To make matters even more nettlesome, the issue is with us all day and every day. Countless times each and every week, we make a conscious choice about whether to turn off the lights and how fast we will drive. If we are honest about it, we have to acknowledge that there is no place to hide, because fossil fuel use permeates everything we do – from setting our thermostats to going on vacation.

In his solo barnstorming campaign to combat global warming, Gore also makes the point that he is going around the lobbyists and special interests that have limited the ability of the congress and elected officials to act. Renouncing another bid for the presidency he says “I kind of fell out of love with the political process.” His objective now is to inspire such a large proportion of the public to change its ways as well as to insist on policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions, that the lobbyists can not thwart the movement. Asserting that the political system is broken he is going behind it. Behavioral and policy change will come about when an informed public makes reasoned choices. He acknowledges how difficult this is in a society battered with misinformation, propaganda and spin. That we are easily and constantly misled, he says, is illustrated by the fact that just before the Iraq war was launched 70% of the American Public believed that Sadam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. He is concerned that our senses are dulled as, on average, we each spend four and a half hours a day watching TV. When questioned about the impact of his advocacy Gore notes that after California Governor Schwarzenegger saw his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” the Governor teamed up with Democrats in his legislature and enacted the most comprehensive legislation to curb CO2 emissions in the country. Gore foresees a lifelong task ahead of him. He talks of taking his campaign to India and China and Brazil when the task is done here.

The thing I take away from spending an evening with Al Gore is that an individual can make a difference, even in confronting the largest problem the planet has ever faced. In a society where less than half of us vote, and cynicism erodes our attitudes, it is a lesson to take to heart as we observe holidays which celebrate the renewal of hope and are timed to coincide with the lengthening of the day.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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12/11/2006 - TRANSFAT

Who says declining public health is inevitable? Given the much publicized increase in obesity and type 2 diabetes, declining sperm count in American males, and prolonged increasing rates of asthma in children it is hard to deny that we are not as healthy as we ought to be. Thus recent action by the New York City Board of Health inspired by Mayor Michael Blumberg, to ban trans fats in City restaurants is a welcome contribution to our collective well being. Trans fats elevate “bad” or LDL cholesterol in the blood, a condition which leads to inflammatory diseases. Doctors treat the condition with cholesterol lowering drugs such as Lipitor. It is reported that last year patients and their insurers spent 12 billion dollars on Lipitor alone. Reducing trans fats in our diet should produce multiple benefits including reduction of cholesterol in our bloodstream; reduction of the quantities of drugs used to lower our cholesterol; and reduction of the incidents of disease caused by high cholesterol.

McDonalds is reported to have a trans fat free substitute for the oil used to cook French fries ready to go. Some restaurateurs however are complaining. They say the special taste which trans fats add to their cuisine can not be replicated with substitutes. They maintain this is another example of “big brother” (i.e. government) interfering with their lives and freedom. They would leave the decision to consume trans fats up to the consumer, rather than the City Government.

The same argument was made when the City banned smoking in public places a few years ago. In the case of smoking, the non smoker’s health is put a risk through the ingestion of second hand smoke. Thus regulation is necessary to protect the bystander even if the smoker is willing to assume the risk of smoking. While there are no second-hand trans fats, the public at large is affected by trans fat consumption. High hospital treatment costs as well as expensive drug rehabilitation fees are passed on to the public through elevated health insurance costs. Everybody wins if the need for treatment is reduced.

The only cause for concern is the psychological problem Big Mac addicts may face as they switch cold turkey to French fries not cooked in the old greasy shortening. Special chapters of Mcfries Anonymous, affiliated with the local Alcoholics Anonymous Chapter may be in order. The plethora of recovering trans fat fast food junkies that will crave psychological treatment and buy books will be an economic boon to the city. Consider the titles –“Fatness was Fun but without trans fat I can run” or for the evangelicals “Find Salvation by being a Slimmer Sinner”. Maybe a stimulus to the economy is what Mayor Blumberg really had in mind when the decided to force New Yorker’s to kick the trans fat habit. After all he was an extremely astute business man before he went into politics.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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12/04/2006 - NATIONAL RENEWABLE PORTFOLIO STANDARD

Democratic members of the new congress which will be seated in January, and progressive think tanks are drawing up agendas for the first 100 days of the opening session on Capitol Hill. The effort will be to take bold action changing national policy on a variety of fronts. A brief lull in the “bickering as usual” congressional climate, coupled with the enthusiasm of the new Democratic majorities may provide an opportunity to pass legislation which charts a new course for the nation.

Reorganizing our energy policy is a necessity. While a Democratic congress can not do it alone, it can start by acting in two areas that may not incur a Bush veto. The first is to further a major shift to the use of renewable energy, a process which is already well along at the state level. The second is to increase energy research and its application.

Twenty states have started to limit fossil fuel use by adopting what is known as a “Renewable Portfolio Standard”. They require that electricity providers obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. Specifically this means more solar and wind must be included in the fuel mix of the company that sells the electricity which you buy to run your home or business. Today the standard varies widely from state to state, both in terms of the percentage required and the date it must be achieved. New York now requires 24% of its electric power be produced from renewable energy by 2013. In Connecticut it is 10% by 2010 and in Wisconsin it is 2.2% by 2011. Thirty states have no such requirement at all.

The new Democratic congress should mandate a national minimum renewable portfolio standard for all electric generation – say 25 percent by 2025 – leaving the states free to adopt stricter standards if they choose. This will improve the environment, and eliminate the disparities between states which encourage cheaper dirtier fossil fuel generated electricity to be transmitted into jurisdictions with higher environmental standards.

To reorient our energy policy, Congress needs to put real resources behind a major effort to expand energy research and the introduction of new technology throughout our economy. A research arm in the Department of Energy should be created which focuses on those goals A National Academy of Science report suggests such an effort should be funded at the rate of $300 million the first year and a billion a year for the next 5 years. A huge research effort which develops and disseminates more efficient technology for every aspect of our energy system has got to be a major component of a new energy strategy. The Defense Department has its own research arm. The Department of Energy should be similarly equipped.

A National Portfolio Standard, and more energy research, are just the beginning of a new national energy culture. We have to use energy more efficiently as we manufacture things – make, market and use electricity - house ourselves – communicate - travel and move goods from one place to another. The payoff will be a better climate, a healthier planet, a stimulus for economic growth and less reliance on other nations from which we buy oil.

These initiatives are a start that can be acted on by the new congress in its first 100 days. Then the task is to develop support for a much grander vision covering all aspects of energy generation and use when the oil patch team is retired from the field in 2008.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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11/27/2006 - PUMPKIN PIE

I was thinking about going to see my son in southern California over the Thanksgiving weekend. Recognizing that travel is more complicated than it used to be before 9/11, I thought I should think through the various steps that would be involved in getting there. Determining what clothes to pack is easy for a visit to a culture where "business casual" determines the dress of the day and the temperature seldom goes below 60 degrees. But what to bring to a young corporate executive who is wired with all the electronic gizmos that the berry patch produces and video screens that are as flat as the Pacific horizon? It has to be something personal from home that brings a touch of New England to a land where tangerines and lemons grow in the back yard and frost is unknown. Home made pumpkin pie is the obvious choice. I would put it in a plastic bag with handles on the top and take it on the plane as carry on baggage.

At the airport I would encounter a TSA security agent who would ask to see my ticket and ID prior to putting my stuff through the x-ray machine. She would inform me that liquids and gels in excess of 3 ounces were verboten, and those under 3 ounces had to be separately packaged in a one quart plastic bag.

"What do you have in the shopping bag?"

"A pumpkin pie."

"I am sorry liquids in excess of 3 ounces are not allowed."

"But it is not a liquid - it doesn't pour." I would then take the pie out of the bag and tip it sideways and the filling would stick solid as concrete to the crust and pan. At that point the attendant would run a white gloved finger over the edge of the pie removing a bit of the filling. It would leave an orange smear as she wiped it on the sleeve of her dark blue uniform.

"It smears so it's a gel and you can't take more than 3 ounces with you, so leave the pie here." I would scoop a handful of pie filling out of the crust and put it in my handkerchief. A second 3 ounce handful deposited in my wife's handkerchief would leave me with sticky fingers and still two ounces left in the crust. With no other alternative I would be forced to dump that on the floor next to the podium where the security attendant was stationed.

"There" I would declare. "The crust neither pours nor smears so you have to let that through, and we only have 3 ounces of gel." Passing through the rest of security would be uneventful until my belt buckle set off the walk-through monitor. In performing the pat down with his wand, the next security attendant hits the handkerchief with 3 ounces of pumpkin pie filling in my front left hand pants pocket. The result would be an embarrassing smush in my trousers. Undeterred I would get to the gate where there is a machine that eats your boarding pass horizontally and spits it out vertically on the top. The boarding pass by then would be liberally coated with pumpkin pie from my sticky fingers, so it will get stuck. The turnstile will freeze blocking access to the airplane. As the line of angry travelers backs up behind me it will occur to me that this whole experience could be avoided if I took a 3 ounce pumpkin pie, and the filling was laced with wet cement so it would neither pour nor spread.

Since pouring or spreading are not attributes of fruit cake, I decided it would be more auspicious if I postponed the trip and made it at Christmas.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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11/20/2006 - INCOMPETENCE

The Bush administration has given the concept of incompetence a whole new dimension. We are reminded almost daily of its biggest blunders, the conduct of the war in Iraq and the response to hurricane Katrina. Those capture the headlines and fester like sores sapping our blood and treasure. But there are less dramatic and less complicated instances in which the nation's business is not getting done. Recently one was addressed by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York who issued a consent decree requiring the Department of Energy to set new efficiency standards for about two dozen commercial and residential appliances as required by law.

Since the beginning of the second Reagan administration more than twenty years ago, rules have been on the books requiring appliances to meet specific efficiency standards. The law requires the Department of Energy to set new stricter standards periodically so future generations of air conditioners, furnaces, clothes dryers and similar gadgets use less energy than the old machines they replace. The trouble is the Department of Energy has not done so. As a result the Natural Resources Defense Council a national environmental organization, two low-income consumer groups, the City of New York and 15 States joined in a lawsuit to force the Department of Energy to do what it was supposed to. The litigants pointed out that for one appliance category the new standard was 13 years overdue. The law suit has just concluded with a court order specifying that amended standards covering a host of products from room air conditioners to home furnaces be adopted on a schedule which extends from 2007 to the year 2011.

Using less electricity, gas, and fuel oil to maintain our lifestyle seems like such a no-brainer it is hard to fathom why the Department of Energy has not acted. The wars in the Middle East, public health, dependence on foreign oil, air pollution and global warming are all exacerbated by our consumption of fossil fuel generated electricity which has been increasing at a steady pace for decades. The plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit allege that new standards will save enough energy to power 12 million households and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 103 million metric tons a year.

Industry response to the Department of Energy's lethargy is noteworthy. The Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association and the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute joined with the plaintiffs to get the Department of Energy to set new standards as the law requires. Intervening on the opposite side in defense of DOE's recalcitrance was the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers which has opposed appliance efficiency standards over the years with the same tenacity that the auto manufacturers have opposed fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles. Fortunately at least some industry groups see conservation as a worthwhile strategy. I am sure that market opportunities for selling new model machines that use less fuel and are cheaper to operate influence corporate decision making.

Using energy more efficiently has got to be a major component of a national energy policy. The fact that it takes a court order to require the Department of Energy to set appliance standards as required by law reflects how flawed the Bush Administration's approach to energy policy is. In the meantime, wearing damp clothes and living in the dark for the next several years may be something the energy conscious consumer can do. The Court order requires Final Rules covering efficiency standards for clothes dryers and fluorescent lamp ballasts be published on June 30 2011.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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11/13/2006 - CHOICES

A report issued by former chief economist of the World Bank Nicholas Stern is the most recent major study on climate change. Commissioned by the British Government it foresees an impending economic apocalypse as our planet gets hotter. Shrinkage of the global economy by 20 % as draught and flooding increase is warned. Also just published are the findings of the World Meteorological Organization of the UN that reflect the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere around the earth continues to rise and is now at an all time high. Last year alone CO2, increased by one half of one percent.

British analysts say a 60% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the United Kingdom by the year 2030 is possible but it would involve considerable expense. Costs would include overhauling and insulating every British home, redesign of appliances to make them more energy efficient, and replacing the current inventory of cars, trucks, busses, and planes with cleaner machines burning cleaner fuels. Major changes in the electric generating system would also be required, involving new technology, more photovoltaics, more wind power and use of wasted heat. The total price tag for this overhaul of British infrastructure between now and 2030? The Guardian Newspaper reports that the task could be accomplished by an investment of 76 billion pounds.

It also says that estimates of the cost of renewing and maintaining the British Trident Submarine fleet between now and 2030 is the same. This presents an intriguing choice for the British and by extension for us as well. What provides more security for the nation state over the next 25 years, a 60% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or a submarine fleet armed to launch nuclear missiles? Both options counter threats to national security that are not easy to quantify. Nuclear missiles may deter enemies with similar weapons from attacking. What is the likelihood of that happening and will the deterrent actually be effective? Al Queda assaults on British subways and the World Trade Center in New York have demonstrated that cold war nuclear military machines do not insulate a nuclear power from attack.

On the other side of the equation, the return on investment in greenhouse gas reduction is also hard to calculate. If one country such as Great Britain reduces its emissions by 60 % and others such as China, India and the US do not follow suit, massive expenditure on carbon reduction may have little pay off in terms of planetary health. Estimates of the costs of damage which global warming will inflict vary widely depending on what collection of atmospheric scientists and economists you talk to - so weighing current costs against future benefits of greenhouse gas reduction is speculative at best.

The easy way to resolve the dilemma of choosing between buying arms and reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions is not to pose the question at all. This way one continues to do both - either in a half hearted manner or at the expense of other publicly funded programs like education and health care. The accidental congruence between the cost of the British Trident Submarine program and the cost of an optimal greenhouse gas abatement strategy should evoke serious soul searching when costs, benefits, and certainty of result are ambiguous at best. National security analysts of the nuclear super powers need to weigh the security achieved through curbing climate change against security derived from nuclear upgrading nuclear weapons systems. I suspect that the best they can do if a policy decision is made, is to make a SWAG decision - SWAG meaning a scientific wild ass guess.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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11/06/2006 - MILITARY MIGHT?

A casualty of this campaign season is the ability to have any rational discourse about the effectiveness of our armed forces and our military leadership. Anyone in public life who says anything wittingly or unwittingly that can be construed or misconstrued as an affront to Americans in uniform is excoriated by the right wing gas bags like Rush Limbaugh, and conservative politicians like George W. Bush. Senator Kerry learned this once again when he botched a clumsy joke in a speech to a student audience 10 days ago. Somehow we have to separate respect for the capability and sacrifice of soldiers, sailors and airmen, from analysis of the effectiveness of the Generals and strategists who deploy them. Those of us who returned in uniform from South East Asia in the 60s understand that well. We thought we served bravely following the orders of the time, but were personally excoriated by many in the anti-war movement when we became civilians. It was not fair.

As we cope with the shortcomings of our military efforts in Iraq it is easy to attribute them all to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. While Rumsfeld is the architect in chief of a military policy which has not achieved its objectives, deploying, equipping and managing our forces is the task of generals and admirals. Questions need to be asked about whether they are doing a good job.

Here are a few for starters:

What were the factors that led to the prisoner abuse situation at Abu Grebe in Iraq and where was the top echelon of military command when this was going on?

How could the military leaders in charge of equipping our troops fail to supply sufficient body armor and armored vehicles for the Iraq invasion force?

Recently troops have been redeployed in Iraq to increase the force levels in Baghdad because years after our invasion the city is not secure. Reports indicate that to date, this new effort has not been successful and bombings and killings have increased. Is the objective not achievable by military means? Are the military tactics being employed the most effective? It may not be possible to answer these questions now as the bombs are going off on Iraqi roadsides, but without analysis of our strategy and the effectiveness of our top military leadership, we will repeat current mistakes in the future.

Recent news clips have featured uniformed top brass in the pentagon asserting that we have enough men and women in uniform to accomplish our military objectives. Perhaps they are pressured to do this by the Rumsfeld entourage. But assuming they have integrity and are stating the conclusions reached through the military planning process, are they making any sense? The number of soldiers on their third deployment to Iraq goes up and up. Troops on the ground are having their duty tours extended because replacements are not yet ready to go. If US policy is to “stay the course” and there seems to be no end in sight, are the Generals in charge of recruiting and training manpower on top of the situation? If they think the current situation is untenable are they saying anything or will they wait until they retire to speak out?

I am not advocating that active duty senior officers debate current policy positions or shortcomings on CNN’s nightly news, but they should not be absolved from accountability either. Congressional oversight is badly needed. But the oversight needs to be conducted with intelligence so it does not become another instrument by which politicians accuse each other of not supporting the troops, and demanding apology to the troops for alleged slights. It should be noted that some of the most vociferous demands for apologies to men and women in uniform, come from politicians like Dick Cheney who has never worn one. Hopefully when the political silly season is over a rational analysis of our senior military leadership can take place.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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10/30/2006 - HALLOWEEN

Halloween 2006. It is tricks for all of us and treats for Exxon-Mobil. The treats have been substantial. The company’s third quarter earnings, reported last week, amounted to 10.2 billion dollars. That is close to the highest quarterly profit of any American company in history, - it comes to 75,000 dollars a minute. The money was made at a time when the price of gas at the pump peaked at over $3.00 per gallon and we were being told that prices went up because of the higher cost of crude oil on the world market. While that may have been the case, there was apparently plenty of cash left over after the oil suppliers were paid. It would be interesting to know how much the tax cuts, generously bestowed on the oil industry by the congress in the last energy bill, contributed to the bonanza.

A nasty trick which took place in recent days was the destruction of countless trees by an early lake effect snow in the Buffalo region and high winds in New England. There was a treat for the thousands who lost electricity as falling limbs severed power lines. They were spared – at least for the time the power was out - from the deluge of political attack adds which have become constant fare on television during this campaign season. The trick however was a costly one.

Tree loss in urban areas is a trend which has gone on for some time. In Washington DC there was a 64 percent decline between 1973 and 1997 according to the American Forests organization which tracks such things. In two dozen other cities they studied with satellite imagery, a reduction in tree cover of 25 percent over the last 30 years was observed.

When a tree comes down the damage extends beyond the aesthetic quality of the neighborhood, Trees properly located next to buildings reduce energy use. The US Forest Service estimates that a single tree 25 feet in height planted to shade a typical Washington DC home can reduce energy used for cooling by 25 percent. Thus tree planting can be a substitute for building more power plants. The benefit goes beyond curbing the need for more electrical generation and associated greenhouse gas emissions. ReLeaf, an environmental organization based in Fairfax County Virginia estimates that through photosynthesis an acre of mature trees will absorb as much carbon dioxide as an automobile spews out driving 26,000 miles.

Planting shade trees in cities and suburbs and towns has got to be a high priority green house gas control strategy. Some communities have adopted it. In Sacremento California the municipal power company gives away trees for planting to homeowners.. Some major cities have increased their tree planting goals. But nationally we should be doing a lot more. The federal urban community forestry program which supports urban planting has shrunk by 25 percent in the last four years. Its budget has declined from $36 to27 million.

There is a trick to planting trees- they need water and some care. But the treat is more aesthetic neighborhoods and a healthier planet. It is a better deal than building power plants and treating the oil companies.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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10/23/2006 - ELECTION OUTCOME

The prospect that the coming election will bring about a major shift in the political alignment of the country dominates the political news. Each new congressional scandal evokes recalculations of the number of seats that are likely to change. The buzz is about change in leadership in the House and Senate - and change in policy over the Iraq war. Since the Environment has not been a significant factor in the campaigns, nobody is saying much about environmental policy after the election. That being said, here are some suggestions for the Democrats if they gain control of the House or Senate.

One assumes that new environmental initiatives with a hostile Bush administration will be almost impossible to get underway. Therefore the first order of business should be to block Bush and Cheney and their entourage from doing any more damage. A Democratic Senate can refuse to confirm appointments of nominees to positions dealing with the environment or natural resources who do not have sound stewardship credentials. A Democratic house can block the legislative giveaways such as the huge tax benefits granted to the oil industry in the last energy legislation. Administration Bills to strip protection from protected areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or waters off Florida and California should be scuttled.

A major effort must be made to restore the integrity of government science. The practice of editing the work of government scientists, so conclusions support ideologically driven policy positions should be thwarted. Whether it be climate change or morning after pills, there is a growing body of evidence that suppressing scientific evidence that conflicts with the White House agenda has been common during the last 6 years. Since the interference is attributed to Presidential political operatives in the executive branch, a Democratic House or Senate will have to exercise its oversight powers, with hearings and more hearings. If the phony science is publicized for what it is, its impact can be nullified.

If Democrats control one or both houses in congress they must use the power they will acquire over the budget to insure that our whole gamut of environmental and resource programs are adequately funded. Shortages in federal match for sewage treatment construction threaten water quality, maintenance backlogs in national parks threaten our most precious resources - the list goes on and on.

Democrats should take Bush up on his pronouncement that he wants to wean the country from foreign oil. If the President is serious, he will get more support for an energy policy based on renewable, conservation and alternative sources from blue state legislators, than he will from many in his own party.

While it will not be possible for Democrats to reverse our environmental policies very much if they gain control of one of the houses of congress, they should be able to slow up some of the forces which are making it worse.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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10/16/2006 - LIMITS

Last week it was estimated that US population reached 300 million. Only a third to a quarter of the size of the population in India and China, but larger than anyplace else. Given our demonstrated capacity to use up whatever resource is readily at hand, this milestone should give cause for reflection about the natural resources which sustain us. What happens as we run out of things? Whether it be fresh water, trees, clean air, soil, fish, wildlife, open space, or petroleum, the human enterprise has a history of exploiting the resource until it appears we may have no more. We consume until we reach or perceive a limit. Then what? - shortages of water or capacity to produce sufficient food have contributed to the decline of civilizations throughout human history. How are the physical limits of the resources which sustain us going to affect our own civilization as more and more of us need to share what is left?

Author Gary Gardner writes in the October issue of World-Watch magazine that running out of things does not necessarily lead to doom and privation. He says:

"Recognizing limits does not mean that that we are doomed to a static, straitjacketed life. While the physical world is limited, our imaginations are not. Imagination was the central genius in the 20th century; it was responsible for a myriad of wonders, from antibiotics to hot food at 30,000 feet. Imagination is even more valuable in a world of limits. Using human creativity to meet human needs within boundaries established by nature- that is a higher standard of genius, and arguably the standard we are challenged to meet in the 21st century."

He cites minimizing the use of virgin materials through recycling and reducing waste as one example of this higher standard of genius being applied. Limits he argues, cause us humans to do our best work. They should not be handcuffs but a framework to build purposeful lives and economies.

That being said, it seems to me that we ought to be smart enough to apply our imagination to overcoming limits earlier rather than later. Civilization is doing OK without the Dodo bird, the passenger pigeon and a host of other species now extinct but we are the poorer for it. We have developed portable water purifiers which enable us to drink from mountain streams in national parks, but drinking pure cold water as it bubbles through the rocks is a special experience which now can not be enjoyed without risk of giardia.

The real question is how bad do things have to get before we apply our creativity and resources to overcome the limits we have created? This is a debate which should be the stuff of national campaigns. Travel in and out of cities at rush hour should not become more difficult before we improve mass transit. We don't need to exacerbate climate change before we adopt a national policy to cope with it. We don't need to eliminate roadless areas in our national forests before we take effective action to save them. Perhaps the first limit we need to overcome is the self imposed limit we have imposed on our own vision. It may be titillating to focus national elections on sex scandals in Washington involving a President or members of Congress, but focusing on the limits which sealed the fate of the Dodo Bird may lead to a better life for 6 billion humans that depend on earth's bounty for survival.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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10/9/2006 - DEBT FOR NATURE

There is so little positive environmental news relating to the United States Government, it is worth taking note when some comes along.

The New York Times reports that the US in league with two conservation groups, Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy, has just entered into a debt for nature swap with Guatemala. The way debt for nature swaps work is that the US agrees to forgive principal and interest for a specific amount of a foreign government's debt. In exchange the foreign government agrees to protect specific lands as nature preserves or parks. In this case the US will contribute $15 million for debt forgiveness and the two environmental groups will contribute $1 million each. Guatemala agrees to invest $24 million over the next 15 years in the protection of four of its conservation reserves which comprise tropical forests and coastal mangrove areas. After interest is added to the contributed funds, $20 million or about one fifth of Guatemala's debt to the United States is cancelled. Guatemala is one to the 10 countries that have entered into debt for nature swaps authorized by the Tropical Forest Conservation Act which became law in 1998.

Critics of the debt for nature deals say they are nothing more than giveaways since there is no means to guarantee that the conservation work will be completed, or that poaching, or logging or mining or clearing will actually be prevented on lands which are designated as protected. In some instances that may be the case, but the gamble is worth taking since promissory notes from third world countries are not exactly gold plated investments. Moreover without this kind of debt relief, some debtor nations are unable either to control the destruction of their forests or to repay their obligations to us. Even if conservation objectives are not realized, foregoing the chance to save tropical forests in order to hold bonds or commercial paper which may become worthless does not seem like a good deal.

Forgiving foreign debt in exchange for tropical forest protection can yield returns that are higher than the face value of the bonds that are retired. In recent years as the frequency and intensity of tropical storms have increased, flooding and mudslides have savaged communities that have denuded their mountainsides. Areas in Central America in particular have been devastated. Protecting forests is a better and perhaps a lower cost alternative than providing disaster relief after villages have been swept away and their inhabitants drowned or buried alive in mud.

Debt for nature swaps are useful tools to protect those natural resources that maintain the health of the planet and protect communities. We should be doing more of them.

With tongue firmly in cheek, I suggest that environmentalists consider the possibility of advocating debt for nature swaps to protect our own resources as our trade balance continues to go negative and our own debt increases. How about a debt for nature swap with the Chinese in which the Chinese forgive some of our debt in exchange for an agreement to maintain the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as a wilderness area in perpetuity? After all we urge them to save the bamboo forests which are habitat for the giant panda. Why shouldn't they be interested in protecting caribou, musk ox, polar and brown bears and nesting areas for countless bird species?

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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9/25/2006 - SPINACH

These are tough times for spinach. As of last week, E-coli contamination in bagged fresh spinach has caused severe illness in 157 raw spinach eaters, and killed one of them. When the cause of the sickness became known, markets all over the country took the spinach out of their produce sections and dispatched it to the garbage haulers. Health food disciples who live on tossed greens have removed raw spinach from their regimen and are experiencing angst and agitation. California farmers who raise thousands of acres of the green leaf in the Central Valley face catastrophic losses, and the truckers who haul it around have lost a substantial source of income.

The 2006 spinach disaster reemphasizes some basic truths. The first is that while toxic chemicals from pesticides and industrial waste in our food and water receive a lot of attention, E. coli can be just as deadly. Since E. coli are harbored in fecal material they can be found anywhere there are animals, birds, and humans. Unlike PCBs or other toxics which can be traced to specific identifiable sources such as a factories or landfills, every organism that digests food and eliminates waste (like us for example) can be a source and disseminator of E. coli. Since E. coli travel in water, they can enter our food chain not only through the liquid we drink, but through food we eat which stems from contaminated water or soil.

Fortunately, protecting human health from E. coli is well understood. Chlorination or boiling water makes it safe to drink, sewage treatment protects water supplies. Using clean water for growing and processing produce. and using well compostedmanure enables production of safe organic vegetables. Generally cooking kills E. coli in food. Perhaps the reason Popeye never got sick eating spinach was because he always ate it from cans. Never the less the Center for Disease control estimates that E. coli 0157:H7 – the kind currently found in the fresh spinach – infects 73,000 people and kills 61 leach year in the United States.

A significant aspect of the current spinach problem is how widespread the problem has become. Twenty three states have identified illness attributable to the E. coli outbreak, yet the source appears to be a small number of growers or processors in California. Our food production and distribution system is efficient, but the efficiency leads to vulnerability. Environmentalists and land conservation groups have stressed the importance of buying locally produced food to save farms and promote health. The combination of E. coli in spinach and increasing concern about the possibility of a terrorist assault on our food supply makes the “buy local” campaigns even more persuasive.

Fortunately there are some natural biological forces which may serve to protect our children during the current spinach crisis. Many of us grew up with a significant aversion to spinach, and found that it is an acquired taste that develops after youth. So for the time being, why don’t parents let children’s natural reluctance to be enthusiastic about spinach flourish? You know the reluctance is real because not a single mother has ever told a recalcitrant child that she can not have any spinach unless she finishes her desert.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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9/18/2006 - MORE WARMING

Last week produced a few glimmers of optimism on the global warming / climate change front, and much cause for continuing despair. On the positive side, California has enacted a program to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by the year 2020. In addition it is planning to close its electricity market to out of state electric generation companies whose power plants do not have the lowest possible emissions. Its 38 million customer base should provide an incentive for the generators to clean up their act. These are dramatic steps since the California economy is reported to be the 12th largest in the world. As California has led the country in setting emission standards for automobiles, its unilateral action to combat the causes of global warming may inspire other states or groups of states to do the same. Given no effective federal policy, California’s action fashioned by Republican Governor Schwarzenegger and a Democratic legislature is another step in the development of regional initiatives to reduce carbon emissions. Other programs already in place include the agreement signed by most of the North Eastern states to control carbon emissions from power plants, and the determination by some cities such as Seattle and New York to achieve of the emission targets specified in the Kyoto Treaty.

Abroad the Asia Europe meeting concluded on September 11 with an agreement by 38 nations who are signatories to the Kyoto Treaty to impose new carbon dioxide emissions cuts beyond 2012; to provide financial assistance to developing countries implementing UN plans to combat climate change; and to call on the UN to accelerate negotiations focused on steps to follow the expiration of Kyoto which also occurs in 2012.

Meanwhile scientific evidence that the globe is getting hotter continues to accumulate. NASA reports that the decline in arctic sea ice during the summer of 2005 was greater than at anytime since satellite monitoring began. Sea ice cover is estimated to be diminishing at a rate of 8.5 percent per decade in contrast to 6.5 percent in 2001. While the ice reflects the sun’s radiation, dark ocean water absorbs it so as the ice melts the rate of change accelerates. Just released is a report from scientists who have been studying changes that have occurred in the earth’s temperature for centuries. They conclude that current warming is greater than can be explained by natural variations reflected in historic climatological data.

The outlook gets gloomier yet according to statistics published in the September issue of Sierra Magazine. Annual consumption of coal, a major source of carbon dioxide emissions is projected to increase in the United States from 1.1 billion tons today to 1.5 billion by 2025. In China the increase will be from 1.5 billion to 4 billion tons. We will burn about 25 percent more oil in 2025 than we do now while China’s consumption will double. The case for better emissions controls on everything that burns fossil fuel could not be more compelling.

The numbers suggest that current efforts to reduce green house gas emissions might be compared with trying to roll back the ocean with a teaspoon. But that is not a reason for quitting. The effectiveness of conservation technology and policy is reflected in California numbers. Average electricity use by individual Americans as a whole has increased by about 50 percent since 1971. In California per capita usage has stayed about the same. Why can’t every state replicate the California experience?

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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9/11/2006 - September 11

On this eleventh day of September we remember the moment 5 years ago, when we learned that an airplane had crashed into the world trade center. I heard from a passerby and assumed an accident, recalling the plane that ran into the empire state building in a fog many years ago. Turning on the radio, the report that the second tower had just been hit seemed hard to believe.

How have we fared since 9/11 01? On the plus side of the ledger, there have been no attacks on American soil since that time. One must assume that this in part is due to efforts that have been made to penetrate Alqueda, capture its leadership and disrupt its command and control. Since secret intelligence gathering and clandestine operations are the weapons of the War on Terror which was promptly declared, we will probably not know for decades the dimensions or effectiveness of the effort, or the extent of the threat.

We do know some of the consequences of the War which make up the ledger on the minus side. They are hard to add up since they are still evolving. We experience relatively minor personal inconvenience as we go through security checks in airports or are screened by metal detectors entering government buildings. We invaded Iraq and stumbled into a bloody and costly quagmire with no end in sight. That taught us that 9/11 could be, and still is a rationale for military action against a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 or Alqueda. The initiation of the Iraq campaign taught us in turn that our intelligence apparatus was not good enough to assess Sadam Hussein’s ability to make or deploy weapons of mass destruction.

The conduct of the war in Iraq and the War on Terror generally leads to disturbing conclusions about our civilian and military leadership which did not anticipate the forces or equipment needed, and did not anticipate or have a plan to deal with the insurgency which resulted. Abu Grebe showed us that respect for the rule o

f law and discipline was found wanting in segments of our military command. The rule of law has suffered more broadly. The issues surrounding the prison at Guantanamo illustrate that due process and international treaty obligations have also been casualties. At home the executive branch of our government has seen fit to ignore legal protections of privacy when it began warrant less wire tapping. On the plus side, the Supreme Court has checked some of the more egregious constitutional violations that the anti-terrorist warriors have perpetrated. We can be thankful that our doctrine of separation of powers is working, but a more comprehensive policy covering all aspects of apprehension, interrogation, confinement and trial of terror suspects and prisoners needs to be articulated and understood.

Another consequence of 9/11 or more precisely our reaction to it, has been America’s loss of respect and influence in the world. By snubbing the United Nations and the international community at various junctures, the standing of the United States has been compromised. Could we have done better? Many who have spent careers in the conduct of foreign affairs think so.

On this fifth anniversary of 9/11 we need to acknowledge not only the damage that the terrorists have done to us, but the damage we have done to ourselves in response. As the War on Terror goes on we need to evaluate its effect on all aspects of our country so we can do better in the continuing struggle.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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8/28/2006 - PLUTO

At an international scientific meeting last week, a group of astronomers who decide such things, determined by a divided vote that the planet Pluto is not a planet after all. In accordance with a compromise between the pro and anti planet Pluto groups, Pluto has now been designated a “dwarf planet.” At an earlier meeting the scientists agreed to define a planet as an object which is large enough to be round (opposed to say a comet with a tail) and significant enough to scarf up all the other objects in its celestial neighborhood. Poor Pluto. Over the last decade a bunch of asteroids have been discovered in Pluto’s vicinity. Pluto has not sucked them in and devoured them or enslaved them as moons as astronomers claim self respecting planets should do. And so Pluto’s reward for living in celestial harmony with its newly discovered neighbors is to loose its designation as a full fledged planet and become labeled a “dwarf planet”. It could have been worse. A considerable proportion of the scientists wanted to strip the word “planet” from Pluto’s pedigree entirely. Nevertheless as a result of Pluto’s redefinition the number of planets in our solar system as been reduced from nine to eight.

I can not believe that the scientists have done this to us. We live in a time when all the things we hold dear are disintegrating. Privacy is gone. If you phone your old college roommate who lives in Pakistan to get the formula for that explosive punch you used to make for post football game parties, somebody from NASA is probably listening in. The dollar is no longer almighty. During a recent trip to Europe, a vendor belligerently scorned my greenbacks and told me he would only accept Euros or pound sterling. The rule of law, - characterized by the right to counsel, the right to be charged and face your accuser and trial by an independent tribunal, has been delegated to a trash bin in Guantanamo. The one thing we have had left is the assurance and self respect which stemmed from the knowledge that we live in a first class solar system with nine planets. And now that is gone.

I had always believed that when the intergalactic little green creature emerges from his flying saucer after a journey from outer space, I could dissuade it from pulverizing me or the earth with its ray gun by asserting that he was visiting a unique and beautiful place with 9 whole planets in its astral system. Explaining that we have only eight plus a dwarf just won’t cut it, particularly since I have it on good authority that the intergalactics have no respect for people with diminutive physical characteristics.

And what about Pluto? Could it be that it is actually is evolving, and over time will generate the capacity to eliminate its neighbors? Are the scientists who stripped it of its planetary status denying that planetary evolution does not exist? An investigation into whether any of those astronomers were educated in Kansas when the School Board decided to remove evolution from secondary school curricula is in order. Purging all scientific bodies of members from Kansas may be a prerequisite to restoring credibility of the scientific community in the future.

Perhaps there is a silver lining here. Whether we like it or not, it seems that we must adjust to the fact that we have eliminated a planet. Since the planet is far away, the adjustment will not be too severe. We need to treat this process as a learning opportunity so we are prepared to cope with the next planetary casualty in our solar system. As the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, toxic pollution, and overexploitation of natural resources becomes more intense, earth may be next. It’s time to figure out how to live without her.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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8/21/2006 - ENERGY DEMAND

The numbers being produced by analysts of climate change give no cause for optimism. The International Energy Agency or IEA says that global demand for energy will increase by 1.7 percent a year through 2030. In the state of New York use of electricity has been increasing at that rate for some time, and energy planners assume the rate of growth will continue unabated. The IEA tells us that globally, 85% of this increase will be met by coal fired power plants despite increasing interest in nuclear and renewable energy. What this means is that in the next 25 years, total production from coal plants worldwide will double from 1,100 to 2,200 gigawatts. Leading the new construction boom are the United States and China. Currently 153 new coal fired power plants are on the drawing boards in the US. China increases its capacity by 75 gigawatts every year. That's about 7% of total world electric production. Globally the new plants during their lifetimes will release close to the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere that all of human activity has released since 1750. In the last two and a half centuries carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 280 to 380 parts per million. Obviously the trend is accelerating dramatically.

What to do? Removing the carbon dioxide from coal smoke is one way to have your coal and burn it too. The way it works is that the carbon is captured from the flue gasses when coal is burned. It is then pumped back into the ground. Geological formations such as old oil or gas wells either under land or under sea are storage areas of choice. Eleven carbon capture and storage projects are in various stages of development now in the US, Australia and Europe. Installing carbon sequestration technology is not cheap - Professor Robert Socolow, principal investigator at the Carbon Mitigation Project at Princeton University says it would increase the retail cost of electricity by 20%. Climate scientists maintain that this cost is reasonable compared to the predicted effects of projected coal fired power plant construction on the global environment. History tells us however that raising prices now to avoid higher costs later is not politically attractive, particularly when the future costs are as hard to quantify as the effects of climate change.

Making cleaner electricity should be only one part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to cutting emissions to some previous level - the strategy incorporated in the Kyoto Treaty- why not adopt a goal to meet future energy needs with existing supply? This means that instead of increasing generation 1.7% a year we would increase productivity of existing supply by that amount. This strategy would go beyond the obvious need for conservation.

Attaining a "growth without more electricity goal" will require technology to enable everything that uses electricity to do the same job with less. We need to make everything from hair dryers, to computers to subway trains more efficient. Efficiency standards will have to be designed to make sure the new technology is applied, and those standards should become more stringent at regular intervals.

Inevitably higher electricity prices will encourage efficiency, but a fundamental change in the technology of electricity use should not await impetus from market forces alone. As a start, twice the amount of money spent on clean coal technology should be applied to electric efficiency research and development.

It goes without saying that current conservation initiatives need to be beefed up. If we think of it, every one of us can use less electricity tomorrow than we do today without any sacrifice. Personally I am considering reducing the length of my Commentaries by half, allowing this public radio station to save electricity by shutting down for the rest of my allotted time. It is a win-win strategy. Electricity could be saved and I would have the satisfaction of creating an increasingly rare commodity at no cost and without contributing to climate change. It is called pure silence.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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8/14/2006 - WARNINGS IGNORED

It is reported that on May 22, 2004 an energy consultant named Chuck Hamel wrote the Chairman of the Environment Committee of the Board of Directors of the British Petroleum Company. He said that workers in the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska wanted to see corrosion problems of the pipeline addressed without further delay, and before any of their colleagues were hurt. He offered to put the Chairman in touch with BP employees who could give more details if they were granted "whistleblower" protection from company reprisal. On August 7, 2006, more than two years later British Petroleum -or BP- announced that it was shutting down the Prudhoe Bay field to avoid the possibility that the pipeline would rupture due to rust damage.

In March a leak in the pipe caused a 200,000 gallon oil spill. In the last 3 years there have been 60 spills totaling over 59,000 barrels which were attributed to internal pipeline corrosion. Damages have been calculated at $8.1 million. Shutting down the pipeline last week closed off 8% of US domestic oil production and gasoline prices at the pump jumped faster than you could say "ouch".

There are questions to be answered. Whatever the corporate gurus say, it appears that management of big companies, (in this case BP) can be pretty dumb. How could BP not maintain a pipeline to cope with rust? Rust is a common phenomenon, particularly for those of us who drive aging gas guzzling pickup trucks. Perhaps if the BP executives turned in their luxury cars for 12 year old rust buckets like mine they would be reminded that rust, if unchecked, makes holes in metal.

How could the people at the very top of the corporate hierarchy not respond adequately to a specific warning that the infrastructure, upon which their Alaskan revenue is dependant, was disintegrating? It is reported that they sent lawyers who were more interested in identifying whistleblowers that finding rust holes. On the other hand credit is due for closing the pipe before a spill occur which could be an environmental disaster of massive proportions. Critics claim that despite record profits in recent years, BP under funded its maintenance program. What was the rationale for that decision?

What measure of public accountability should apply to BP? If the company was supplying a non-essential service, its screw ups might cause it to loose market share or induce a competitor to take it on - after all that is the way the free enterprise system works. But in this case the country has become reliant on the oil BP produces. The public can not throw out the BP management or even have a say in corporate salaries and bonuses. But the public pays for BP's mistakes through higher oil prices and their effect on the economy.

Given that public interests which include the Alaskan environment and the national economy are affected by the pipeline, shouldn't its operation and maintenance be subject to a more effective degree of federal oversight? Tighter regulation has been considered at the Department of Transportation and the Congress for some time but no action has been taken.

And finally how does all of this affect Big Oil's relentless campaign to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Does it prove that drilling will not hurt our last arctic wilderness because, in the face of looming disaster apocalypse was avoided? Or does it prove that even with record profits, the biggest oil company in the Alaska game can't be trusted to adequately maintain its facilities.

Clearly some attitude readjustment at BP headquarters is in order. The more I think of it, the more I believe lessons about rust and maintenance could best learned if BP required every corporate executive in the company to drive an aging clunker which is at least 12 years old. As the fenders rust off the metal could be used to patch the pipeline.

Peter A. A. Berle is a lawyer. He served 3 terms in the New York State Assembly where he represented part of Manhattan. He was New York State’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and confronted the environmental problems of PCBs in the Hudson, and toxic contamination from the Love Canal. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society and publisher of Audubon Magazine from 1985-95. He was Director and Host of WAMC’s Environment Show from 1995-2001. He is President of Sky Farm Productions Inc. which produces environmental programming for public Television. He and his wife farm in Western Massachusetts where they raise cattle and sheep.

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