Well the advent of serious heat and humidity means that all of us up here in the tailpipe of America (the Northeast generally and New England in particular) must face the seasonal reality of dangerously bad air. During the summer we face “ground level ozone“  which is created when substances like nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds are created by cars, power plants and the burning of gasoline, diesel fuel, coal and other fossil fuels interact with sunlight and heat.   Many states, like Massachusetts, New York and Maine are happy (in addition to the Feds) to give you the gory details – but the bottom line is that ground level ozone harms the lungs of just about everyone but can cause the most trouble, increasing asthma attacks, heart attacks and read more…

There’s a lot of talk about 2012 being the end of the world. And if it’s not 2012, it’s the swine flu. But how will it really end? If the latest scary climate science is any indicator, it looks like humans may be to blame. We know that climate change is happening all around us, but it looks like things are changing a lot quicker than any of us expected. As such, it’s time for a climate change reality-check. Did you know? Temperatures are already on the rise. Since 1970, winter temperatures in the Northeast have increased by an average of 1.3 degrees per decade—changing and damaging marine life, forests, agriculture, recreation and human health. Extreme storms are becoming more frequent. Boston and Atlantic City, for example, can expect a read more…

In a blog post that follows up on a New York Times newspaper story about the groundbreaking McKinsey report on the enormous opportunity for energy efficiency as a resource for tackling global warming there is a nice discussion of the statewide energy efficiency utility in Vermont. A few key points about the McKinsey report: The report shows that a comprehensive approach to making the United States more energy efficient could save consumers $1.2 trillion by 2020. The report finds that this approach could also cut overall energy consumption in the U.S. by 23% in the next decade, eliminating the need for expensive new coal plants and dramatically reducing our carbon emissions by up to 1.1 gigatons. The study cites research suggesting that energy efficiency could create 600,000 to 900,000 sustainable read more…

In the ongoing debate about allowing recreational ATV use on Vermont state wildlife management areas, forests, and parks it seems that hikers and rare, threatened, and endangered forest plants and animals aren’t the only ones who need to worry about getting run over.  The Sunday front-page article titled “State Biologists Worry About Wider ATV Use” written by Burlington Free Press reporter Candace Page details how Agency Secretary Jonathan Wood put the pedal to the metal on his proposal to open state lands to ATVs even as scientists and field experts from his own agency staff raised serious concerns about the negative environmental impact ATVs are already having in Vermont.  Here’s one representative comment from an email written by a Fish and Wildlife Department Ecologist regarding the first proposal to open legal ATV read more…

Environmentalists tend to be the kind of people who hang on to things.  Keenly aware of the impact of constantly buying new things – whether it be cars, appliances or other “hard goods” – the kind of folks who are CLF members (and are likely reading this) tend to avoid buying new things.  This is especially true where buying something new, like a new car, simply means shifting the use of the old item to someone else.  Driving a new efficient hybrid car is not a satisfying experience if you are aware that your older, less efficient car, will end up back on the road. However, if you own an older car and want to move to a newer more efficient model while being sure that your old car will read more…

As my first post to the CLF Blogosphere I want to offer an alternative perspective on fostering environmental conservation and social justice, and I’m just going to say it: economics. Allow me to introduce you to CLF Ventures, Inc., the non-profit consulting affiliate of the Conservation Law Foundation. CLF started Ventures in 1997 to foster creative, client-centered environmental solutions. At that time, CLF recognized that the challenges facing the environment could not be overcome through litigation and advocacy tools alone. This happened relatively early in the game, and was a pretty progressive move for an established environmental advocacy organization with the history and grassroots credibility of CLF. Today, CLF Ventures provides a unique model for advancing environmental change—by implementing projects that have demonstrable environmental gain as well as economic advantage—and read more…

Once upon a time Conservation Law Foundation and our allies in Maine waged a long and ardous battle to prevent the development of Sears Island, the largest undeveloped island in Maine, as a bulk cargo facility.   Many local citizens supported this effort both because of the environmental impact of the project but also because of the fact that such ports rapaciously consume land while generating very little high quality economic activity. The nearby historic port city of Searsport is now experiencing a much more positive kind of shipping boom – the importation of wind turbines to build the new clean energy infrastructure needed to tackle global warming and build a safe and stable economy for Maine, New England and the nation.  A recent New York Times article detail the difficulty read more…

I was disheartened, but not surprised, to read news accounts of a massive fish kill earlier this week on Cape Cod.  Over 1,000 fish turned belly-up in a river that feeds into a bay along the south shore of Cape Cod.  The mystery here is not so much about what caused this devastation, but how quickly the fix will come. And why more people aren’t up in arms about the problem? The culprit is well-known to most who live on the Cape – septic systems leach nitrogen through the sandy soil and into coastal rivers and bays. This, in turn, feeds runaway algae and plant growth that robs fish of oxygen and wreaks havoc on the ecosystem. The nitrogen puts valuable shellfish beds at risk, too. Scientific reports show the read more…

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the “discovery” of Lake Champlain by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain. Of course the Lake’s been there for more than 400 years and de Champlain was certainly not its first human “discoverer.”  Putting aside the anthropological and historical debates, we here at CLF think it’s always a good time to celebrate the many important roles that water bodies such as Lake Champlain–one of the largest freshwater lakes in the country–play in our lives. Alas, there hasn’t been much to celebrate when it comes to water quality in many parts of Lake Champlain that are plagued annually with “blooms” or “scums” of blue-green algae caused by excess phosphorus pollution. This pollution comes from a variety of sources including manure and other agricultural wastes, polluted read more…

According to an April 2008 National Science Foundation press release discussing the findings of a Russian/American scientific collaboration, even the world’s largest freshwater lake–Siberia’s Lake Baikal–is feeling the effects of a changing climate and not in a good way.  Drawing on sixty years worth of data collected under grueling weather conditions (negative 50!) throughout the tumult of 20th century Russia, researchers document long-term warming trends that are changing the lake’s pristine waters and unique habitat. We’re talking about global warming affecting the health of a 25-million year-old lake that contains 20% of the world’s fresh water and 2500 plant and animal species that make their home there but nowhere else. Closer to home, CLF has been making the case that global climate change is aggravating pollution and food web problems in read more…