Heard on the ecostreet…and we aren’t in Kansas anymore

I just heard a brief NPR report concerning Barack Obama’s new media campaign to reintroduce himself to the American public. They played an excerpt commenting on his upbringing in Kansas. I found myself reflecting on my childhood in Kentucky…playing by woods and fields, splashing in creeks and streams (while avoiding the feared copperheads), and running [...]

Copenhagen Consensus Report

Over two years, more than 50 economists have worked to find the best solutions to ten of the world’s biggest challenges. During the last week of May, an expert panel of 8 top-economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, sat down to assess the research.
Copenhagen Consensus Link

Foodstuff Transect

 
Click on the image to enlarge.
Since food prices have taken center stage, particularly given the Midwestern floods and the impact on corn and soybeans, I thought it might be good to take a look at a diagram Andres Duany uses in his land planning  – the Foodstuff Transect.
We’ve not thought much in our contemporary planning about ’food spaces’ and [...]

Getting the Water Right

Getting the Water Right
Andy Manale (EPA) and I met after the Katoomba Meetings. During our discussion, we spoke about a number of the critical water supply and water quality issues confronting us….in the very near term. Attached is the announcement of a meeting taking place in Tucson late in July organized by the Soil and Water Conservation Society.
Part of [...]

2008 Global Katoomba Meeting

I just returned this morning from the 2008 Global Katoomba Meeting themed “Developing an Infrastructure Fund for the Planet”….felt a bit like Pat Coady who said to me after the meeting  “I have enough trouble trying to save 10 acres in our local land trust and now they want us to save the planet”.
It was [...]

Bobolinks and Community Markets

A little over two years ago, the University of Rhode Island and EAM began a project to experiment with a community-based market supporting bobolink habitat preservation on farm fields in southern Rhode Island. Our goals were both farmland conservation and economic analysis to determine more precisely willingness-to-pay for farm management practices that improve wildlife habitat.
Initial results [...]

Senate Climate Bill

It appears that the Climate Bill is dead until next year….above is an interesting overview of the economic picture they were proposing. Here’s the short version of the vote:
Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, pushing debate over the world’s biggest environmental concern to next [...]

Carbon Trading Doesn’t Work…WIRED Magazine

A recent issues by WIRED magazine tickled my concerns for carbon markets…and the ‘global generalization’ they represent. The article points out some of the fundamental problems with the Kyoto Protocol…and the huge issues of certification and monitoring.
But where the article gets REALLY interesting is in the last paragraph….”Nationally managed emission-trading schemes could do a better job [...]

The 2007 Farm Bill…well almost…and Ecosystem Services

The Farm Bill has finally been passed, vetoed, and veto-overridden. It’s a law!…or at least all of it except for that little 30 page clerical error.
So what does it say about ecosystem service markets?  Here’s the news from USDA:
The farm bill governs federal farm, food, and conservation policy and is renewed every five years. The [...]

Beavers as Ecosystem Engineers

ecological_impact-beavers
A paper on the ecological impacts of beavers