Who's Minding The ... Environment?

The Amazon is being deforested three times faster in 2008 than in 2007. Brazil's Environmental Minister attributes this to Amazon-region mayors ignoring illegal logging to get votes. Greenpeace attributes this to soy farmers and cattle ranchers clearing more land to profit from the rise in food prices. Although satellite imagery showed that 292 square miles were destroyed in August 2008 - compared to 89 square miles in August 2007 - that's not the whole picture. Twenty-six percent of the Amazon can't by seen by satellite because it's covered by clouds - clouds that don't have silver linings.

According to a study done by the International Union for Conservancy of Nature, 1 in 2 mammal species is in decline and 1 in 4 is at risk of extinction. This is because of what man has done to ecosystems worldwide. The IUCN's 2008 Red List of Threatened Species shows 450 mammal species are endangered, 188 are critically endangered and 27 are possibly extinct. The study's authors want governments and conservation groups to use Red List data to identify species and areas for conservation. They want conservation to make us see red.

Ozone should make us see red. Ozone is an atmospheric layer formed at an altitude of approximately 15.5 miles. By filtering sunlight, it protects Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. In 2008 the hole in the ozone over Antarctica was 10.4 million square miles. That's bigger than in 2007, but smaller than in 2006. The size changes because of weather conditions. When gases like chlorine and bromine are present at high altitudes, they destroy ozone. Although these gases came from man-made products phased out 2 decades ago, the damage they still do hasn't been phased out.

Something that's being phased in is a new recycling program in Los Angeles. Two-gallon, kitchen pails are being distributed to houses in an experimental, garbage, pick-up program. Participants are asked to separate household scraps - things like bones, eggshells, meats and vegetables - from regular garbage and to put them into the pails. The pails are to be emptied by the participants into recycling bins for lawn clippings, which are collected by the city. LA hopes this will divert 600 tons of wasted food that goes into landfills every day. This pilot program adds 5,000 LA households to those in cities like San Francisco and Seattle that have been recycling food scraps into compost for years. Green waste shouldn't be wasted.

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