When news broke that E. coli infections had been linked to raw spinach, some of it coming from certified organic farms, apologists for the conventional food system pounced. Organic vegetable operations can use cattle manure as a natural source of fertility, and E. coli is often present in raw bovine waste. For some commentators, that was enough evidence to indict all organic farms. What was lost in the hysteria were two points: 1) Certified organic farmers are prohibited from using raw manure for at least 90 days before harvesting crops grown for human consumption; and 2) it was soon determined farms were not the source of the outbreak, but that it had happened further up the supply chain. Even so, one Twin Cities radio talk show host used the incident to ask in a highly agitated radio talk show host tone if organic food was actually more dangerous to human health than products produced with pesticides. A better question is this: why does the beef and dairy industry continue to push a production system that is serving as an incubator for highly dangerous bacteria? (more…)

Today’s topics: Elections, Energy, Ethanol, Food, Great Lakes, Transporation, Water, and Wildlife.
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For its fourth meeting, the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources moved out of the hallowed halls of the State Office Building and headed northward to the Chomonix Golf Course, located at the Rice Creek Chain of Lakes Regional Park Reserve in Lino Lakes. (more…)

You’d have to be living under a media rock to not know that the GOP convention is coming to the Twin Cities in 2008. It’s been 24 hours, and the Twin Cities is all atwitter about the 20,000 or so Republicans visiting our grand state…and during the State Fair! We’re talking international exposure for our hotdish on a stick, people.

Now, the GOP convention will be held at St. Paul’s Xcel Center. And the State Fair is only a few miles from Xcel. Both events will bring an absurd number of people to the Cities. One of our members called yesterday and asked, “So…has anyone given any thought as to how we’re moving people around?”

As the Star Tribune attests, Metro Transit’s Brian Lamb is thinking about it. During the State Fair, he brings in 70-odd extra buses. Preliminary estimates show that we’ll need something like 250 to 300 extra buses for this convention. “Borrowing buses from other cities, such as Rochester, may be a possibility, said Lamb, as would slowing the number of buses Metro Transit normally retires in a given year. “That will build up our reserve fleet,” he said.

Also, I live in downtown St. Paul. Most of the streets are charmingly narrow. And the Xcel Center is located on a very busy intersection…which will most likely be closed for security. Lamb’s on top of the gridlock possibilities, though. The key, says Lamb, will be “scheduling these things in a precise enough way to avoid those kinds of gridlock situations.”

Great. I’m glad someone’s on top of this. And I must say…actually, I’ll whisper it. Methinks this the GOP Convention/State Fair combo will have people calling out, “Transit! Please!”

Oh, and the bicycles. Just think of the bicycles. No matter how good the transit is, the roads will still be packed. But the Midtown Greenway…that will be our secret weapon. Take to the paths, people. You’ll enjoy the beautiful late-summer weather, get to your destination before everyone else, and have difficulty wiping a smug grin off your face.

We’ll see how it shakes out.

Today’s topics: Development, Great Outdoors, Recycling, Sustainability, Transportation, and Water-Going Creatures.
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“Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know.” Read the article.
According to Jim Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the idea that we have a long time to figure out solutions to the global warming problem is completely wrong. In fact, we have a narrow window of time to reverse course, because we are on the threshold of what scientists fear most–runaway global warming, where the warming drives changes that drive more warming. Hansen’s team concluced that even one more decade of global warming pollution that’s business as usual will probably make it too late to prevent northern ecosystems from changing in dramatic ways that trigger runaway warming (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).

Hansen and colleagues have analyzed global temperature records and found that surface temperatures have been increasing by an average of 0.2 °C every decade for the past 30 years. Warming is greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America. Here, the melting of ice and snow is exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight and increase warming, creating a positive feedback.

Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years and is within 1 °C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen’s team.

Today’s topics: Development, Energy, Ethanol, Forests, Invasive Species, Member News, Off-Highway Vehicles, Transporation, and Water.
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Yesterday, the prestigious scientific journal Nature published a story saying that the Bush Administration has blocked release of a scientific report linking hurricane severity and frequency with global warming, according to an Associated Press story. It is not the normal beat of a scientific journal to be playing government watchdog, so one can surmise that the frustration of the scientific community with the Administration is quite high over its repeated efforts to block, usurp, manipulate, or ignore good science.

The issue of protecting scientific integrity from abuse by government has been raised by many preeminent scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists. On February 18, 2004, 62 preeminent scientists including Nobel laureates, National Medal of Science recipients, former senior advisers to administrations of both parties, numerous members of the National Academy of Sciences, and other well-known researchers released a statement titled, “Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making.” In this statement, the scientists charged the Bush administration with widespread and unprecedented “manipulation of the process through which science enters into its decisions.”

With its new law to fight global warming to be signed today by Governor Schwarzenegger, California bypasses federal inaction and calls upon other states to join the world in fighting global warming pollution.

The nuclear power industry’s effort to revive its lackluster image may be paying off. Of course, this new poll (”Nearly 7 of 10 Americans Favor Nuclear Energy, Support Building New Reactors at Existing Sites“–site requires free registration) may require the proverbial grain of salt, because it was commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s unabashed cheerleader. It shows an increasing number of Americans ready to live with the uncertainties of nuclear energy. Some stalwart environmentalists, notably Stewart Brand, James Lovelock, and Gustav Speth have set aside decades-old opposition to new nuclear power on the grounds that we need large amounts of nuclear energy to fight global warming. Other analysts, notably Amory Lovins, have shown that if reduced CO2 emissions were the top goal, new nuclear power would be one of the last choices, based on cost.

Closer to home at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, oral arguments were heard yesterday about whether to authorize new nuclear waste storage outside the Monticello reactor, north of the Twin Cities. The Commission will deliberate on Thursday and presumably reach a decision. The administrative law judge who heard the evidence recommended that the Commission approve the “certificate of need” allowing the waste storage in dry casks outside the Monticello reactor, on a concrete pad, using similar technology as is used at the Prairie Island reactor. The Department of Commerce enthusiastically supported Xcel’s petition, and even offered that maybe the Commission should grant even more nuclear waste casks than Xcel was asking for.

Fresh Energy and Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy intervened against the petition, arguing that Xcel was only asking for permission to temporarily store the waste, but since there is no reasonably foreseeable prospect for it leaving Minnesota, the Commission should deny the application and require Xcel to petition for permanent storage. The North American Water Office also intervened and raised numerous issues of risk, cost, public health, accidents, malice, aging reactor parts, and the need to end production of nuclear waste so “we can get our arms around the problem” of how to “bequeath nuclear waste to the future, essentially forever.”

Today’s topics: Energy, Global Warming, Transportation, Water, and Wildlife.
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