Red, Green, and Blue

One of the biggest stories in the UK at present is the relationship between democracy and the police – or as it has been expressed several times by Nick Hardwick, chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission - the police needed to remember that they were “servants, not masters” of the public. Read the rest of this entry »

Out with the old and in with the new!  Following Obama’s inauguration, change is already underway.  From halting tribunals at Guantanamo Bay to accelerating the drawdown of troops in Iraq, Obama is wasting no time as the United States’ 44th president.

The “new era of responsibility” expressed in Obama’s Inaugural Speech extends to the past, particularly criticizing George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina on the new White House website.

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration’s “unconscionable ineptitude” in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

President Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

Read the rest of this entry »

The British Government’s plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport have come under attack from a surprising source. Doubts have been expressed by Tim Jeans who is Managing Director of Monarch Airlines.
Mr Jeans says the expansion would have a ‘detrimental impact’ on the lives of millions of Londoners but, more seriously, ‘prevent the aviation industry from being taken seriously over environmental issues’. He also felt that the Government’s suggestion that new technology would lead to reduced emissions was overly optimistic. Read the rest of this entry »

Between 2006 and 2007, the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas screened tap water from 19 US water utilities for 51 different compounds. The 11 most frequently detected compounds are highlighted in the cartoon and described below.

1.used to treat cardiovascular disease, 2.an herbicide banned in the European Union (still used in the US) has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behaviour, 3.a mood-stabilising drug used to treat bipolar disorder, 4.an oestrogen hormone blamed for causing gender-bending changes in fish, 5.an anti-cholesterol drug, 6.a tranquiliser used in psychiatric treatment, 7.a painkiller and anti-inflammatory linked to increases in asthma incidence, 8.an anticonvulsant used to treat epilepsy, 9.an antibiotic used against the “Strep” bacteria, 10.a reducing agent used in molecular biology, 11.an antibiotic

Christian Daughton of the EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory says that neither this nor other recent water assessments give cause for health concern. “But several point to the potential for risk - especially for the fetus and those with severely compromised health.”

More on water

Top 11 compounds in US drinking water
Drink Your Pee!: The Future of Water Filtration
Top Colleges Working Together to Solve Nation’s Water Woes

There will be many firsts during the course of Tuesday’s Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama, but mentioning the environment in the inaugural address will not be one of them: though pretty darn close.

[Update: While President Obama did not use the actual word "environment", he spoke both directly and indirectly about the environment more so than any of his predecessors. See those references.]

Past presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman and Calvin Coolidge have referred to the development and wise use of our “natural resources.”  The language in these earlier environmental references was infused with the themes of conservation and preservation as opposed to pollution and ecological balance.

Conspicuously absent throughout the history of inaugural addresses have been allusions to the major energy and environmental issues of the time. In fact, only two presidents in this country’s history have even mentioned the word “environment” in this context; and they each used both of their opportunities. Read the rest of this entry »

I was overjoyed the other day to hear that Greenpeace, with the help of some moneyed celebrities, had purchased a field earmarked to go under the third runway at Heathrow, Britain’s biggest airport, on the Western edge of London.

Needless to say, I find it unlikely that in a recession and with tight CO2 emissions goals to meet we can justify expanding Heathrow. Read the rest of this entry »

Long-distance passenger train travel has languished in the United States ever since the automobile and airplane took their places as the preferred modes of transportation. But several factors have come together in the last few years to make travel by rail more attractive.

First off, with the astronomical rise in the price of oil we saw over the course of 2009, many turned to train travel as a cheaper alternative than either flying or driving. Second, with the new restrictions and fees airlines have put on luggage, traveling with anything more than one bag has become a real headache on planes. Lastly, many people are turning to train travel as a low-carbon option of traveling long distances.

Although Amtrak may be the greener choice of the three, some questions still remain about the company’s overall environmental policies; and this is exactly what The Good Human argued today in an epilogue to a round-trip cross-country trip aboard Amtrak. Read the rest of this entry »

Car-sharing (car-pooling if you’re in the USA) is one thing, and car rental is another, but they come together in a weird way in the variety of schemes appearing in the UK that allow people to rent a car, cost-effectively, in Brighton, Cambridge, London, Maidstone (don’t worry if you’ve never heard of Maidstone, it’s a strange place), Oxford and Southampton.

It’s called car-sharing, not because you get in a car with somebody else, which can be problematic for all kinds of reasons, not least for solo-travelling women, but because, after you’ve paid your annual fee (around £50 or $100) you get to ‘borrow’ a car from the company for around £4 or $8 per hour. The UK’s leading car-sharing company is Streetcar, founded in 2004, and they have more than 1000 cars in a variety of locations, and sizes. Read the rest of this entry »

Wildlife smuggling is a profitable trade. Given that the U.S. does not punish the crime harshly, you might consider doing it as a job in these tough times.

Yesterday MSNBC and CNN picked up a story about the discovery of illegal wildlife trafficking activity on a boat traveling from Peru to Chile. The topic seems to be of great interest to Americans if mainstream media sources choose to run these kinds of stories.

Estimates vary, but the general consensus is that internationally, the illegal wildlife trade ranks at least second or third in its volume and profitability, only behind the trade of drugs and guns. It’s thought to be a billion dollar industry annually in the U.S. alone. The World Wildlife Federation says its “the second-biggest threat to species after habitat destruction.”

So why is the crime punished in the United States in such a puny way? Read the rest of this entry »