Journalists are taught to always provide a balanced story. It’s not our job to tell you how to think, but to provide information that you can use to decide for yourself.

With that in mind, I tend to give dissenting opinions equal footing when writing about the need for climate change, wildlife conservation, etc. But an article due June 2 in Environmental Politics, "The organization of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental skepticism," has led me to rethink the concept of “balance.”

The article’s key finding is really pretty startling: More than 92% of 141 books published in the U.S. between 1972 and 2005 that were deemed “environmentally skeptical” – those that deny the authenticity of environmental problems – are linked to conservative think tanks.

What are conservative think tanks (or CTTs, as the article refers to them), and why is their relationship to environmental skepticism alarming? The article explains: CTTs are nonprofit research groups that study conservative ideals such as free enterprise and national defense (the good ol’ military-industrial complex). The problem with CTTs having sway in environmental policy is that they generally are made up of economists and political scientists, not natural scientists.

Just look at two of the best known CTTs: The Heritage Foundation and The American Enterprise Institute. Of the 11 people these two CTTs identify as their environmental scholars, just two have natural science backgrounds. As the article states, CTTs’ concerns stem primarily from interest groups. The concerns of the scientific community, on the other hand, stem primarily from the search for truth.

As the article’s lead author, Peter J. Jacques from the University of Central Florida, explained to me, the question a person should ask when deciding what information to believe is, “Who is the source responsible to?” In the case of global warming, there are essentially two sources: scientists, who are responsible to what are known as the “good faith witnesses” of fellow professors, scientists, and governmental agencies and are subject to vigorous peer-review, and conservative think tanks, which are insulated and devoid of peer review and are responsible to … themselves.

So you’ve got a veritable syndicate with neither the expertise nor the inclination to hold true dialogue on environmental issues flooding us with papers, books, editorials, interviews and everything else, muddying the facts.

Another of the article’s authors – Riley E. Dunlap, Regents Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University (and known by some as the world's leading authority on environmental attitudes) – explained it to me in numbers. According to Dunlap, there are no more than 20 publishing, public-view environmental skeptics in the U.S., while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the pre-eminent organization studying climate change) conducts a thousand or more peer reviews on a single study. So, OK, now we know what is going on. Now the question is, “why?”

The article asserts this counter-movement began because environmentalism suggests that industrial practices of modern societies are not sustainable, since they lead to loss of biodiversity and climate change. In other words, we can’t keep going as we have been. Conservatives see this belief as an attack against our way of life, see environmentalism as a threat to American progress.

And so they combat it. And they give me article upon article of dissenting opinion to consider. So I reference these papers as often as I reference the peer-reviewed stuff, and suddenly in the name of balance I’ve ironically tipped the scales.

Both Jacques and Dunlap agreed that it’s important to acknowledge the full realm of propositions, but stressed that minority dissenting opinions need to be defined as such and not given equal time as views that are backed by mainstream science.

Gregg Easterbrook, identified in the article as the only “liberal” (he’s a visiting fellow with liberal think tank Brookings Institution) to have written one of the 141 environmentally skeptical books studied, responded to my request for comment with this: “People ought to be skeptical of all extreme claims, whether from the left or right. Specifically as regards enviornmental politics, it is way too ideological -- liberals refuse to admit that most trends are positive, conservatives refuse to admit that most regulations worked. Meanwhile there's no middle ground in environmental politics because no one will fund one.”

But there is a middle ground in environmental politics.

If I’m doing my job, it’s right here.

Labels: CTTs, Easterbrook, Heritage Foundation, IPCC, organization of denial, Peter J. Jacques, Riley E. Dunlap, skeptical, think tanks

UPDATE (May 28): Senate debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is tentatively scheduled to begin June 2.

The government, having realized something must be done about the environmental crisis (frighteningly belatedly, if you believe this NRDC report that states global warming will cost the U.S. $3.8 trillion annually by 2100), is bandying about several solutions. Perhaps chief among them is the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.

The legislation, sponsored by Independent Sen. Lieberman of Conn. and Republican Sen. Warner of Va., would create a cap-and-trade system for emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (within this system, the “cap” refers to a limit on overall pollution, as well as to what individual companies can emit; the “trade” refers to the ability of a company to sell whatever room it may have under its individual limit to a company that plans to exceed its individual limit).

If the act becomes law, emissions would be reduced 71% by 2050, so on the surface it seems like a great idea. But we should consider all the details – how much it will cost, whether the environment will suffer in other ways as a result of the law’s mandates – before we conclude this is where we should head. These folks say let’s not go there, while these guys are all for it.

The Senate will take up the bill sometime in the next few weeks. It (or one like it, should Lieberman-Warner fail) could have THE biggest impact on how our country deals with the climate crisis.

So here is your GAG Order (Green Among Gray order, get it?): Go learn as much as you can about this act; regardless of whether it’s this bill or another that makes its way to the president, one of the best things we can do for the environment is simply to stay informed. (And don’t forget to vote in our poll below).

Labels: cap, cap-and-trade, carbon, climate, emissions, environment, lieberman, NRDC, trade

Labels: commute, commuting, green, workplace recycling

Labels: environment, Living Planet Index, nature, species loss, Yangtze river dolphin, Zoological Society of London

There are SO MANY manmade chemicals in our environment. This cannot be disputed. The only dispute lies in whether the negative effects of this chemical presence outweigh the chemicals' societal benefits. The people who make their money off producing industrial chemicals – folks like Chemtura, Monsanto and Dow – will tell you the chemicals are so important to our everyday lives that any possible negative consequences are a necessary evil. I tend to think it's less necessary than evil (any company that starts its "About" page with its sales figures tells me all I need to know [the definition of irony, by the way]).

Labels: chemicals, DDT, eagles, environment, falcons, malaria, PBDEs, silent spring, superfund

Nubanusit. Mereham. Masdar. New planetoids? Roll call for the attacking line of Brazil's national soccer team? The latest sugar substitutes? Nope, nope, and nope. Nubanusit, Mereham, and Masdar are three examples of a growing worldwide phenomenon: the zero-carbon village.
"Village" is applied loosely here; these areas range in scope from Nubanusit's 29-home community to the 50,000-person metropolis that will be Masdar (above). But they are united in ambition – to establish a place where inhabitants leave as light a footprint on their environment as possible. These three examples (along with eco-town progenitor BedZED and others) may just be the prototypes for future urban/suburban development.

Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm, a “condominium cohousing community” in Peterborough, New Hampshire, is made up of 29 Earth-friendly homes, some offices, a “common house,” and a farm across 70 idyllic woodland acres. The homes, registered at the highest level of recognition with the U.S. Green Building Council, use techniques such as fresh-air ventilation and heat recovery. The community shares a central pellet-fueled boiler (No boiler in the basement to worry about? Kind of a liberating concept), and driving is restricted to the neighborhood’s perimeter. Yes, we may shudder at the thought of not being able to roll out of bed and hop into our cars, but think of the benefit of a forced daily walk. Plus, there’s always this. Or the Segway (maybe what inventor Dean Kamen declared seven years ago – with the likes of Steve Jobs echoing his sentiments – will actually come to pass: the Segway will instigate a new type of community development).

Mereham is part of the long-term eco-community plan in England. Well, it is if you ask the government. They want 10 “eco-towns” by 2020, the AP says. It isn’t, however, if you ask the people currently living in the region north of London where planners are hoping to build the 5,000-home development (the natives are not happy about the traffic and infrastructure ramifications on their heretofore undisturbed corner of East Cambridgeshire). The Mereham folks promise self-sufficiency, open-space preservation and wildlife conservation. The anti-Mereham folks tell them to stuff it. The argument raises an issue of ever-increasing relevance: As “going green” proves to be more and more profitable (for developers, for energy providers, etc.), how much can those behind such communities be trusted to keep the priority on the public’s welfare?

Masdar, billed as “the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city,” is Abu Dhabi’s $22 billion emerald city imagining. Much of the cost of the district, set for completion in 2016, will be covered by selling carbon offsets. Masdar is the one place the world will be watching to see just how practical all the grandiose “zero-imprint city” talk is. And “grandiose” is the key word here. Among other things, the city has (or will have) its own university – a collaboration with MIT (nothing but the best, right?) called Masdar Institute of Science and Technology – and an “initiative” headquartered in a “positive energy” building, meaning it generates more energy than it consumes.

And for anybody who may be pooh-poohing the whole sustainable living concept, who clings to the mantra, “oil serves our needs just fine,” I can only hope you’re not missing the irony that lies in the fact that Masdar, the focus of the alternative-energy universe, is being built in one of the world’s most oil-rich nations.

Labels: Abu Dhabi, environment, Masdar, Mereham, Nubanusit, zero-carbon

There are a lot of us out here now doing this environmental proselytizing thing. I’ll admit, there’s a bandwagon-y feel to it all (a lot of us green at being green, so to speak). That’s why when you see someone that’s been at it a long time, you must give respect. And today’s Green Among Gray respect goes to The American Institute of Architects, which has been recognizing sound environmental design and building since 1997 with its AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects list.

The AIA recently named its 2008 honorees, and a few big cities are represented: Seattle, Boston, Kansas City. The buildings are judged on measures that include energy conservation, water use, and bioclimatic design (how well the structure is suited to its surroundings). These buildings make use of such things as rainwater collection (for irrigation) and dual-flush toilets to reduce water consumption; natural ventilation instead of AC; daylighting to reduce electricity draw; recycled materials, such as tires, instead of virgin building materials; and, of course, lots of solar panels.

The AIA/COTE list is simply another illustration of how progressive our society can be, how doable all this STUFF that we hear about but don’t really have a context for is. It’s a big-scale thing, for which the responsibility lies not on “average Joe worker” (you and me) but on our employers, on our corporations, on our conglomerates. And the more us little worker bees see of it, the more likely we are to do our small-scale things to pitch in. And, in turn, the more of us who pitch in with little stuff, the more likely the bigwigs will be to enact the big-scale stuff. It can become a self-sustaining process. A green-energy synergy. Let’s keep it rolling.

Labels: AIA, American, Architects, buildings, green, Institute, synergy