In the minus column, you’ve got a corporate atmosphere rife with safety and security lapses, a microscopic cleanup budget, repeated missed opportunities to meet environmental standards, and total lack of drilling regulation. On the plus side, BP employees got to go paintballing!

1. You got a problem with paper towels? One big reason the means of cleaning up oil spills have barely changed since the Exxon Valdez spill is that the Minerals Management Service’s budget for oil-spill research has been stuck at roughly $6 million a year since 1990. That’s one-tenth of a penny for every dollar MMS has collected in royalties from oil companies for offshore drilling rights over the same period. In real numbers, that’s $129 million spent on research over 20 years while $107 billion was collected. Almost two-thirds of what MMS spends on research goes to maintaining a wave pool in New Jersey where it tests cleanup equipment. The Houston Chronicle has more.

2. What’s $10 billion among friends? In January 2007, the head of MMS, a former energy exploration executive from Wyoming named Rejane “Johnnie” Burton, came under fire from the Interior Department’s inspector general for ignoring or not addressing a leasing error that could have let oil companies avoid paying up to $10 billion in royalties. The auditor general described it as a “jaw-dropping example of bureaucratic bungling.” Burton resigned four months later. See the New York Times story.

3. They aim to please. Noting an annual savings of $340,000 per oil rig, the MMS in 1998 cut in half the number of pressure tests on valves of blowout preventers. An industry executive praised the “flexibility” of MMS regulators. The blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig failed. Follow the AP’s investigation.

For the rest of the list, check out the full-length article at Grist.org.

Editor’s note: Article by Randy Rieland. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

Image: uscgd8

The post 10 Ways MMS Makes FEMA Look Good appeared first on EcoSalon.

John Kerry’s climate bill is an important component of legislating to stop climate change, but it’s falling to pieces due to Senate infighting and lack of sponsorship. It’s especially important to pass the bill now with the real possibility of a Republican majority come next election. The bill’s required carbon cap is desperately needed in slowing the rate of emissions.

The Kerry-Lieberman climate bill is out now, and with it comes a fateful decision for the political left in the U.S.

If the left’s institutions and messaging infrastructure succumb to internal squabbling or simple indifference; if the public is not actively won over and fired up; if President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stick their fingers in the wind to see which way it’s blowing … the bill will fail. The default outcome now is failure. Very few people in Washington, D.C., today believe the bill has a chance of passing.

The odds are long, but the bill could be saved if the left — and I mean the whole left, not just environmentalists — pulled together and fought like hell. What’s needed is concrete political pressure. That means tracking who’s for it and against it; relentlessly pressing for commitments; actively organizing in a few key Republican and centrist Democratic states; pressing establishment pundits and media figures to cover it; calling out those who stand in the way of progress; and never, ever letting Obama and Reid have a moment’s peace until they fulfill their promises.

The left hasn’t shown itself particularly capable of that kind of single-minded campaign. And there’s no guarantee it would succeed even if attempted. Without it, the bill’s failure is all but inevitable.

For a complete examination of the bill’s importance, check out the full-length article at Grist.org.

Editor’s note: Article by David Roberts. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

Image: The Sierra Club

The post Leaning Forward: Why the American Power Act is Worth Fighting For appeared first on EcoSalon.

The teams of relief workers currently working in the Gulf may face a host of oil-related health problems. Studies show that people who have prolonged contact with oil and oil products may experience negative physical and psychological side effects.

Oil spill clean-up brings workers and volunteers into close contact with chemicals that are known to be hazardous to human health. As we deal with the oil spill in the Gulf, it helps to brush up on history.

For the rest of the summary, check out the full-length article at Grist.org.

Editor’s note: Article by Gina Solomon. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

Image: Photo Courtesy of U.S. Army

The post Oil Spills and Human Health: Lessons from History appeared first on EcoSalon.

Grist has an in-depth analysis of not-gay Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s environmental record. It’s pretty good! Of course, with a coalition of five unified conservatives on the bench she will probably face some resistance along the way, but that’s not her fault, is it?

Here’s the dirt on Earth-hating Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan: On more than one occasion she was so consumed by her work that she accidentally left her car running overnight, a longtime “friend” told The New York Times.

But it’s worth looking beyond this personal eco-foul to examine Kagan’s broader record on environmental and climate issues.

It’s immediately clear that Kagan’s no fire-breathing environmental crusader in the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mold. Those looking for such a justice are bound to be disappointed. Kagan hasn’t written or said much at all about climate change or the government’s role in regulating clean air and water or protecting land and species. This fits with a broader critique from the left that she hasn’t left a record on anything that reveals her judicial philosophy.

But if actions mean more than words, Kagan’s nomination could be good news for the environmental movement. Kagan’s signature green accomplishments came during her six years as dean of Harvard Law School, from 2003 to 2009, where she led the creation of an Environmental Law Program and an Environmental Law and Policy Clinic.

To learn more about Kagan’s green record, check out the rest of the article here.

Editor’s note: Article by Jonathan Hiskes. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

Image: Harvard Law Review

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the FDA’s approval of the birth control pill. The pill was first envisioned by family planning crusader Margaret Sanger as a remedy to the debilitating cycle of perpetual pregnancy for married women. Sanger’s own mother died at the age of 50 after 18 pregnancies; at her funeral Sanger famously confronted her father, telling him, “You caused this. Mother is dead from having too many children.”

The pill was intended to proffer women control over their reproductive destinies. But its secondary impact was just as important: women entered the workforce. Before the pill, less than 20 percent of women with a child under 18 worked outside the home. By the end of the last century, that number skyrocketed to 70 percent. Though many women still find themselves choosing between a career and a family, the pill allowed women to better calibrate these decisions. What followed, of course, was a major upheaval in the way we view men and women and their societal roles. Today, we’re still adjusting to that delicious shakedown.

For all the benefits of the pill, the iconic contraceptive has reaped its fair share of criticism. Like the condom, the pill, which is taken by more than 100 million women worldwide, has come under fire for having an iffy environmental track record. In a recent post on Grist.org, Lisa Hymas rolls her eyes at the media’s love note to the pill on its 50th anniversary.

“We’re still agog over a pill that Margaret Sanger dreamed up in 1912 – one that we have to take every single day, one that messes with our hormones, one that has unpleasant side effects for many women, one that contaminates our water supplies.”

Indeed, the pill is widely credited with diminishing certain fish populations. Estrogen, excreted in the urine of pill users, enters waterways where it is consumed by fish. In one Canadian and U.S. government experiment, male winnows exposed to trace amounts of estrogen became feminized. Their testicular development stopped and they began making eggs instead. Unable to reproduce, the fish population in the experiment died out within two years.

In addition to its impact on wildlife, the pill’s estrogen runoff may adversely affect humans, particularly in developing countries where waste water is more commonly recycled for human consumption.

Hymas’ call for a greener pill, a more accessible pill, and even a pill for men, deserves to be seconded. But let’s not forget that the pill has been a major boon for the environment in one regard. If you think the earth is overpopulated now, imagine what things would look like without the contraceptive. And for that reason, we toast the pill on its 50th anniversary.

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The post How Green Is the Birth Control Pill? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Turns out Big Corn cares more about profit and marketability than environmental sustainability. Say what?

As if being bombarded with oil from below and chemical dispersants from above weren’t enough, the Gulf of Mexico also has to endure marketing rhetoric from a long-time tormentor: the corn industry.

So you might expect the corn shills to maintain a respectful silence as BP’s oil disaster unfolds. Instead, the corn industry is ludicrously presenting itself as the Gulf’s salvation.

Continue reading the full story over on Grist.

Editor’s note: Article by Tom Philpott. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

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The post Corn Industry Brazenly Turns Gulf Disaster Into Marketing Opportunity appeared first on EcoSalon.

Seattle wild-foods café Nettletown might be shoulder to shoulder with a Subway, but their produce comes from the ground, not a vacuum-sealed bag. Put down the hoagie and listen:

From activists to politicians, everybody loves to talk about the promise of green jobs. But in reality, who the heck actually has a green job, and how do you get one? In our new column, “I Have a Green Job,” Grist will be regularly profiling one of the lucky employed who has landed a job in the new green economy, or a green job in the old economy.

The café has an unusual location. In the middle of the city in a strip mall, the eatery calls Subway its next door neighbor. And guess which one my hungover friend wanted to eat at? “It’s a bit pricey,” he sighed, ordering a huckleberry mimosa that cost about the same as a foot-long sub. He wondered why he could get a full meal out of a Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest, while his smaller fried egg sandwich cost a dollar more.

Continue reading the full story over on Grist.

Editor’s note: Article by Darby Minow Smith. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

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The post New Café Owner Forages and Finds a Fresh Take on Sustainability appeared first on EcoSalon.

Remember all those old Sci-Fi movies where any and all problems can be fixed with nuclear weapons? Whether it’s a rogue asteroid to head off, a molten core to restart, a dying sun to reignite, or a race of super-smart apes who have overrun the earth, there’s no problem nukes can’t solve. Sometimes it feels like we’re living in a terrible sci-fi movie – like when BP’s proposed solution to containing its recent massive oil spill is to push the oil to the bottom of the ocean by spraying it with chemical dispersants. That’s the kind of plan that can only come from a madman living inside of a hollowed-out volcano.

In addition to the indignity of oil oozing into its depths at a rate of at least 5,000 barrels per day, the Gulf of Mexico is now enduring a heavy rain of mystery chemicals.

And what precisely are they dumping? That’s where the mystery comes in. “The exact makeup of the dispersants is kept secret under competitive trade laws,” Propublica reports.

Continue reading the full story over on Grist.

Editor’s note: Article by Tom Philpott. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

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The post What Are We Dumping Into the Gulf to ‘Fix’ the Oil Spill? appeared first on EcoSalon.

A bill sponsored by Senators on both sides of the aisle is up for review, but whether it pays more than lip service to pursuing clean energy remains to be seen:

On Monday, Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will launch their bipartisan climate and clean energy jobs bill. I’m quite certain there will be something in it to dissatisfy everyone.

No bill that could pass Congress right now or in the immediate future would be sufficient to put us on the path to stabilizing the world at 2°C. We simply aren’t sufficiently desperate to do what is needed, which is nonstop deployment of a staggering amount of low-carbon energy, including efficiency, for the rest of the century.

Continue reading the full story over on Grist.

Editor’s note: Article by Joseph Romm. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

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The post What to Look for in the Bipartisan Climate and Clean Energy Jobs Bill appeared first on EcoSalon.

For an exhaustive look at optimizing energy use, look no further than self-professed “green geek” Catherine Mohr:

Robotics engineer Catherine Mohr is tired of enviros “long on moral authority and short on data.” She’s got a smart TED talk clip about the greenest options for (a) wiping up a yogurt spill and (b) building a house. The point in each case is that the best option is often not what you’d expect.

Continue reading the full story over at Grist.

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The post TED Talk on Building a Greener House appeared first on EcoSalon.