Some Monday Morning Good News...
Apr. 2nd, 2007 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brdgt
This is BIG folks and I am honestly surprised:
Court Rebukes Administration in Global Warming Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times, April 2, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.
In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.
Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.
The court's four conservative justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented.
Many scientists believe greenhouse gases, flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, are leading to a warming of the Earth, rising sea levels and other marked ecological changes.
The politics of global warming have changed dramatically since the court agreed last year to hear its first global warming case.
"In many ways, the debate has moved beyond this," said Chris Miller, director of the global warming campaign for Greenpeace, one of the environmental groups that sued the EPA. "All the front-runners in the 2008 presidential campaign, both Democrats and Republicans, even the business community, are much further along on this than the Bush administration is."
Democrats took control of Congress last November. The world's leading climate scientists reported in February that global warming is "very likely" caused by man and is so severe that it will "continue for centuries." Former Vice President Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth -- making the case for quick action on climate change -- won an Oscar. Business leaders are saying they are increasingly open to congressional action to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, of which carbon dioxide is the largest.
Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars.
The court had three questions before it.
--Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
--Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
--Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?
The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a "laundry list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.
The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.
"EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Stevens said. He was joined by his liberal colleagues, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, and the court's swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The lawsuit was filed by 12 states and 13 environmental groups that had grown frustrated by the Bush administration's inaction on global warming.
In his dissent, Roberts focused on the issue of standing, whether a party has the right to file a lawsuit.
The court should simply recognize that redress of the kind of grievances spelled out by the state of Massachusetts is the function of Congress and the chief executive, not the federal courts, Roberts said.
His position "involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem," he said.
The decision also is expected to boost California's prospects for gaining EPA approval of its own program to limit tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. Federal law considers the state a laboratory on environmental issues and gives California the right to seek approval of standards that are stricter than national norms.
The case is Massachusetts v. EPA, 05-1120.
This is totally doable. Now that the weather is nicer our hybrid is finally getting near 50 mpg (in cold weather, the need to run the heater decreases gas mileage):
Seeking a Car That Gets 100 Miles a Gallon
By NICK BUNKLEY, The New York Times, April 2, 2007
The race is on to develop a commercially viable car that can travel 100 miles on a gallon of gasoline.
The same group that awarded $10 million to a team that built the first private spacecraft to leave the earth’s atmosphere is expected to announce today the rules for its automotive competition.
The group, the X Prize Foundation, says that the automotive contest, expected to carry a prize of more than $10 million, could have a significant effect on the automobile industry by speeding up efforts to use alternative fuels and reduce consumption. The average fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States has remained nearly stagnant — around 20 miles a gallon — for decades.
“The industry is stuck, and we think a prize is perfect to disrupt that dynamic,” said Mark Goodstein, executive director of the Automotive X Prize. “Failure is frowned upon in this industry, and that doesn’t make for big advances. It makes for incrementalism.”
Even before it began publicizing a draft of the rules for the competition, the foundation had fielded inquiries from more than 1,000 potential contestants and institutions willing to participate. Many major automakers have also expressed interest in monitoring the contest, including some that are considering competing themselves.
Ideally, Mr. Goodstein said, some of the top teams would see their designs purchased and used in some form by automakers.
A General Motors spokeswoman, Susan Garavaglia, said the company had not determined its level of participation in the contest but would pay close attention to it.
“G.M. is always looking for new innovative technology to improve fuel economy and performance and reduce emissions of our vehicles,” Ms. Garavaglia said. “The key is whether or not it can be provided to the customer in a way that’s affordable to them and in a way that we can make it in a high-volume application.”
Indeed, the organizers want to ensure that vehicles entered in the contest, which will compete in races in 2009 to determine the winner, are commercially viable. Entries must be production-ready, unlike many of the fantastical concept cars that are presented at auto shows. Each team must prepare a business plan for building at least 10,000 of the vehicles at a cost comparable to that of cars available now.
In fact, several cars have been built that could travel more than 100 miles on a gallon, but they were expensive and were used only for demonstration.
“Building a one-off that can go 100 miles per gallon, I think any of the automakers could do that,” said James A. Croce, chief executive of NextEnergy, a nonprofit organization in Detroit that promotes alternative energy. “It’s mass-producing them that’s the problem.”
But if the Automotive X Prize works as intended, that problem could be resolved much faster than the industry might on its own.
“This is not a question of curing cancer,” Mr. Goodstein said. “The technologies to build superefficient vehicles exist. It’s just a matter of convincing manufacturers to build them.”
I just love my cloth bags and I even have cloth produce bags (that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kazoogrrl made me!). They fit the same amount as plastic or paper and are so much stronger, so you can actually bring all the bags up in one or two trips.
The Basics: Taking Aim at All Those Plastic Bags
By CHRIS CONWAY, The New York Times, April 1, 2007
Paper or plastic?
San Francisco last week offered an answer to the question. Paper is fine. But plastic isn’t — unless it’s biodegradable.
By a 10-1 Board of Supervisors’ vote, San Francisco became the first major American city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers.
The paper-or-plastic question has long been a vexing one. Paper bags, of course, are biodegradable and recyclable, and are made from trees, a renewable resource. But the production of paper bags generates significantly more air and water pollution; manufacturing and recycling them requires more energy than their plastic cousins do, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Paper bags also take up comparatively more space in landfills, where they are slow to degrade, like most everything in a landfill. A study for the American Forest and Paper Association estimated that about seven billion paper bags were used in the United States in 2003.
On the other hand, plastic bags made of polyethylene, which dominate the market, are non-biodegradable and are made from crude oil and natural gas, both nonrenewable resources. They can be recycled, but are mostly discarded.
The E.P.A. estimated that only 5.2 percent of the plastic bags and sacks in the municipal waste stream in 2005 were recycled, compared with 21 percent of paper bags and sacks. And there are also horror stories about animals swallowing them and starving to death.
Plastic bags have virtually taken over the grocery market since they were first put at check-out stands in 1977. Ninety percent of all grocery bags are now plastic, according to the Progressive Bag Alliance, an industry group of plastic bag manufacturers. Estimates of the number of plastic bags used around the world each year vary wildly — from 100 billion to as many as one trillion.
Whatever the number, it’s a lot. And that has made for a lot of plastic bag litter — which, the E.P.A. says, can take 1,000 years to decompose.
One reason for the abundance of plastic bags is economic. A standard plastic grocery bag costs about a penny to produce, according to the plastics industry, compared with 4 cents to 5 cents for a paper bag. Compostable plastic bags would cost from 8 cents to a dime, the industry says, although supporters of the San Francisco action say the cost would drop as more local governments require them.
Several states have addressed the issue in other ways. California now requires large supermarkets to set up a system for customers to recycle plastic bags. Rhode Island has teamed up with grocers to collect plastic bags for recycling.
Because of a tax, Ireland has cut the use of plastic bags by 90 percent, according to the Irish government. Taking matters further, several countries, among them Bangladesh and Bhutan, have banned them.
Ikea, the Swedish home furnishings and accessories chain, has just begun charging customers 5 cents per plastic bag in the United States, which it donates to American Forests, a conservation group. On average, its United States stores have gone through about 70 million a year. In Britain, Ikea says, it has seen a 95 percent drop in plastic bag use since it began charging for them there last spring.
Yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags.
“The paper versus plastics question takes us off the issue, which is consumption,” says Vincent Cobb, who offers reusable bags and containers on the Internet. He admits to using plastic bags, which he calls a “fantastic product,” but not as many as in the past.
“Getting into the habit of bringing your own shopping bag,” he says, “can slash this problem across the board.”
And it's so nice to see religious groups promoting environmental issues:
U.S. Churches Go ‘Green’ for Palm Sunday
By MARC LACEY, The New York Times, April 1, 2007
SIERRA MORENA, Mexico, March 29 — Clutching a tiny knife in his big calloused hands, Laizon Corzo wound his way through the thick foliage in one of southern Mexico’s forested areas in search of living treasures.
When he found them — big, leafy palm fronds — he did not cut right away. Instead, he inspected the leaves, back and front, for stains and other imperfections. “This one, no,” he said, pushing aside one and grabbing another. “This one — see how perfect it is?”
Mr. Corzo is one of the indigenous farmers who puts palms in the hands of North American churchgoers on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. He is also on the cutting edge of a new movement to harvest what are being called “eco-palms.”
Slightly more expensive than the average palm, eco-palms are the rage in churches across the United States because of the social and environmental benefits they represent. They are collected in a way that helps preserve the forest, and more of the sale price ends up in the pockets of the people who cut them.
“We want to be a green congregation,” said the Rev. David C. Parsons, pastor of St. John-St. Matthew-Emanuel Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, which purchased eco-palms for the second straight year. “We are conscious of our footprint on the earth. There is a biblical mandate to do that.”
Now operating in a handful of palm-producing areas in southern Mexico and northern Guatemala, the eco-palm project is similar to programs for certified coffee, chocolate or diamonds. But the consumers in this case are churches, and many say that the religious significance of the plant compels them to buy the most wholesome palm possible.
“Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem was accented by the jubilant waving of palm branches,” Lutheran World Relief, one of the groups endorsing the project, says on its Web site. “Unfortunately, for the communities where these palms are harvested, palm fronds do not always represent the same jubilation they do for us.”
Mr. Corzo, 37, a father of three who has been harvesting palm leaves since he was 5 or 6, used to be paid by how many he delivered, no matter the quality. He would hack away at any old palm and allow the middle man to worry about quality.
No more. Under the eco-palm program, Mr. Corzo is paid only for the quality fronds that he delivers — but at a much higher return, so his trifling pay has nearly doubled. The palms are now bundled in his village by women who had no jobs before.
The percentage of palms that must be discarded has plummeted from roughly half to a tenth. And the forest that Mr. Corzo uses to make a living is slowly becoming greener, environmentalists say.
The program began in 2005 with 20 American churches that bought about 5,000 palms. It grew last year, with 281 congregations placing orders for 80,000 palms. On this Palm Sunday, 1,436 churches will distribute 364,000 eco-palm stems.
That still represents just about 1 percent of the palms that are purchased for Palm Sunday, the day when the most palms are used; American churches use 25 million to 35 million palms, say officials involved in the project.
Lutheran churches are the biggest buyers, followed by Presbyterians. Smaller numbers of Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Church of Christ and Mennonite congregations also ordered eco-palms this year.
The palms harvested in southern Mexico have shorter leaves than the ones many churches have used, resulting in some consternation in the pews. “Parishioners can’t fold these leaves into crosses, and that’s been a tradition,” Pastor Parsons said. “It’s something parents have passed on to their children, and it’s an adjustment to have these new palms.”
The project grew out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has come under far more criticism than praise for its effect on the environment. One of the pact’s side agreements set up the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation to promote environmentally friendly trade policies. As it sifted through the products that are sent from Mexico to the north, the commission discovered palms.
Dean A. Current, a professor of natural resources management at the University of Minnesota, was called in to study the economics of the palm industry. He discovered that about 10 percent of the palms sent to the United States were bought by churches. The rest go to florists, who often use them in arrangements for weddings and funerals.
In surveying churches, Mr. Current found that most were willing to pay up to double the going price to be sure their palms were responsibly harvested. A big church might spend as much as $1,500 on palms for Palm Sunday.
Sometimes, they are burned for the next year’s Ash Wednesday, although that practice is being cast aside by some congregations because of concerns that it pollutes the air.
“Churches want to help,” Mr. Current said. “Before this, they really didn’t know where their palms came from.”
Now many of them do. Mr. Current has brought small groups of church leaders here to Sierra Morena, a village of about 50 families in the southern highlands of Chiapas State, to see for themselves.
Environmental groups in Mexico and Guatemala have trained palm cutters to cut good fronds while allowing the palm plants to survive. That keeps the income flowing and maintains the habitats of birds and other species.
Those who harvest the palms are also coffee and corn farmers. Palms help make ends meet.
But exactly what they are used for up north is not always clear.
“I know it’s used for decoration,” said Moses Macal Maroukin, 69, a veteran palm chopper, who seemed somewhat mystified. He said he had no palm fronds in his home.
But then he revealed what the people here had long believed to be the real use of the exported palms. The juices in the stems and leaves are extracted, he explained in a conspiratorial whisper, and then turned into a special mixture that is used to stain greenbacks green.
“This is how you color your dollars,” he said, waving a palm.
Court Rebukes Administration in Global Warming Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times, April 2, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.
In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.
Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.
The court's four conservative justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented.
Many scientists believe greenhouse gases, flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, are leading to a warming of the Earth, rising sea levels and other marked ecological changes.
The politics of global warming have changed dramatically since the court agreed last year to hear its first global warming case.
"In many ways, the debate has moved beyond this," said Chris Miller, director of the global warming campaign for Greenpeace, one of the environmental groups that sued the EPA. "All the front-runners in the 2008 presidential campaign, both Democrats and Republicans, even the business community, are much further along on this than the Bush administration is."
Democrats took control of Congress last November. The world's leading climate scientists reported in February that global warming is "very likely" caused by man and is so severe that it will "continue for centuries." Former Vice President Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth -- making the case for quick action on climate change -- won an Oscar. Business leaders are saying they are increasingly open to congressional action to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, of which carbon dioxide is the largest.
Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars.
The court had three questions before it.
--Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
--Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
--Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?
The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a "laundry list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.
The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.
"EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Stevens said. He was joined by his liberal colleagues, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, and the court's swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The lawsuit was filed by 12 states and 13 environmental groups that had grown frustrated by the Bush administration's inaction on global warming.
In his dissent, Roberts focused on the issue of standing, whether a party has the right to file a lawsuit.
The court should simply recognize that redress of the kind of grievances spelled out by the state of Massachusetts is the function of Congress and the chief executive, not the federal courts, Roberts said.
His position "involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem," he said.
The decision also is expected to boost California's prospects for gaining EPA approval of its own program to limit tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. Federal law considers the state a laboratory on environmental issues and gives California the right to seek approval of standards that are stricter than national norms.
The case is Massachusetts v. EPA, 05-1120.
This is totally doable. Now that the weather is nicer our hybrid is finally getting near 50 mpg (in cold weather, the need to run the heater decreases gas mileage):
Seeking a Car That Gets 100 Miles a Gallon
By NICK BUNKLEY, The New York Times, April 2, 2007
The race is on to develop a commercially viable car that can travel 100 miles on a gallon of gasoline.
The same group that awarded $10 million to a team that built the first private spacecraft to leave the earth’s atmosphere is expected to announce today the rules for its automotive competition.
The group, the X Prize Foundation, says that the automotive contest, expected to carry a prize of more than $10 million, could have a significant effect on the automobile industry by speeding up efforts to use alternative fuels and reduce consumption. The average fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States has remained nearly stagnant — around 20 miles a gallon — for decades.
“The industry is stuck, and we think a prize is perfect to disrupt that dynamic,” said Mark Goodstein, executive director of the Automotive X Prize. “Failure is frowned upon in this industry, and that doesn’t make for big advances. It makes for incrementalism.”
Even before it began publicizing a draft of the rules for the competition, the foundation had fielded inquiries from more than 1,000 potential contestants and institutions willing to participate. Many major automakers have also expressed interest in monitoring the contest, including some that are considering competing themselves.
Ideally, Mr. Goodstein said, some of the top teams would see their designs purchased and used in some form by automakers.
A General Motors spokeswoman, Susan Garavaglia, said the company had not determined its level of participation in the contest but would pay close attention to it.
“G.M. is always looking for new innovative technology to improve fuel economy and performance and reduce emissions of our vehicles,” Ms. Garavaglia said. “The key is whether or not it can be provided to the customer in a way that’s affordable to them and in a way that we can make it in a high-volume application.”
Indeed, the organizers want to ensure that vehicles entered in the contest, which will compete in races in 2009 to determine the winner, are commercially viable. Entries must be production-ready, unlike many of the fantastical concept cars that are presented at auto shows. Each team must prepare a business plan for building at least 10,000 of the vehicles at a cost comparable to that of cars available now.
In fact, several cars have been built that could travel more than 100 miles on a gallon, but they were expensive and were used only for demonstration.
“Building a one-off that can go 100 miles per gallon, I think any of the automakers could do that,” said James A. Croce, chief executive of NextEnergy, a nonprofit organization in Detroit that promotes alternative energy. “It’s mass-producing them that’s the problem.”
But if the Automotive X Prize works as intended, that problem could be resolved much faster than the industry might on its own.
“This is not a question of curing cancer,” Mr. Goodstein said. “The technologies to build superefficient vehicles exist. It’s just a matter of convincing manufacturers to build them.”
I just love my cloth bags and I even have cloth produce bags (that
kazoogrrl made me!). They fit the same amount as plastic or paper and are so much stronger, so you can actually bring all the bags up in one or two trips.The Basics: Taking Aim at All Those Plastic Bags
By CHRIS CONWAY, The New York Times, April 1, 2007
Paper or plastic?
San Francisco last week offered an answer to the question. Paper is fine. But plastic isn’t — unless it’s biodegradable.
By a 10-1 Board of Supervisors’ vote, San Francisco became the first major American city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers.
The paper-or-plastic question has long been a vexing one. Paper bags, of course, are biodegradable and recyclable, and are made from trees, a renewable resource. But the production of paper bags generates significantly more air and water pollution; manufacturing and recycling them requires more energy than their plastic cousins do, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Paper bags also take up comparatively more space in landfills, where they are slow to degrade, like most everything in a landfill. A study for the American Forest and Paper Association estimated that about seven billion paper bags were used in the United States in 2003.
On the other hand, plastic bags made of polyethylene, which dominate the market, are non-biodegradable and are made from crude oil and natural gas, both nonrenewable resources. They can be recycled, but are mostly discarded.
The E.P.A. estimated that only 5.2 percent of the plastic bags and sacks in the municipal waste stream in 2005 were recycled, compared with 21 percent of paper bags and sacks. And there are also horror stories about animals swallowing them and starving to death.
Plastic bags have virtually taken over the grocery market since they were first put at check-out stands in 1977. Ninety percent of all grocery bags are now plastic, according to the Progressive Bag Alliance, an industry group of plastic bag manufacturers. Estimates of the number of plastic bags used around the world each year vary wildly — from 100 billion to as many as one trillion.
Whatever the number, it’s a lot. And that has made for a lot of plastic bag litter — which, the E.P.A. says, can take 1,000 years to decompose.
One reason for the abundance of plastic bags is economic. A standard plastic grocery bag costs about a penny to produce, according to the plastics industry, compared with 4 cents to 5 cents for a paper bag. Compostable plastic bags would cost from 8 cents to a dime, the industry says, although supporters of the San Francisco action say the cost would drop as more local governments require them.
Several states have addressed the issue in other ways. California now requires large supermarkets to set up a system for customers to recycle plastic bags. Rhode Island has teamed up with grocers to collect plastic bags for recycling.
Because of a tax, Ireland has cut the use of plastic bags by 90 percent, according to the Irish government. Taking matters further, several countries, among them Bangladesh and Bhutan, have banned them.
Ikea, the Swedish home furnishings and accessories chain, has just begun charging customers 5 cents per plastic bag in the United States, which it donates to American Forests, a conservation group. On average, its United States stores have gone through about 70 million a year. In Britain, Ikea says, it has seen a 95 percent drop in plastic bag use since it began charging for them there last spring.
Yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags.
“The paper versus plastics question takes us off the issue, which is consumption,” says Vincent Cobb, who offers reusable bags and containers on the Internet. He admits to using plastic bags, which he calls a “fantastic product,” but not as many as in the past.
“Getting into the habit of bringing your own shopping bag,” he says, “can slash this problem across the board.”
And it's so nice to see religious groups promoting environmental issues:
U.S. Churches Go ‘Green’ for Palm Sunday
By MARC LACEY, The New York Times, April 1, 2007
SIERRA MORENA, Mexico, March 29 — Clutching a tiny knife in his big calloused hands, Laizon Corzo wound his way through the thick foliage in one of southern Mexico’s forested areas in search of living treasures.
When he found them — big, leafy palm fronds — he did not cut right away. Instead, he inspected the leaves, back and front, for stains and other imperfections. “This one, no,” he said, pushing aside one and grabbing another. “This one — see how perfect it is?”
Mr. Corzo is one of the indigenous farmers who puts palms in the hands of North American churchgoers on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. He is also on the cutting edge of a new movement to harvest what are being called “eco-palms.”
Slightly more expensive than the average palm, eco-palms are the rage in churches across the United States because of the social and environmental benefits they represent. They are collected in a way that helps preserve the forest, and more of the sale price ends up in the pockets of the people who cut them.
“We want to be a green congregation,” said the Rev. David C. Parsons, pastor of St. John-St. Matthew-Emanuel Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, which purchased eco-palms for the second straight year. “We are conscious of our footprint on the earth. There is a biblical mandate to do that.”
Now operating in a handful of palm-producing areas in southern Mexico and northern Guatemala, the eco-palm project is similar to programs for certified coffee, chocolate or diamonds. But the consumers in this case are churches, and many say that the religious significance of the plant compels them to buy the most wholesome palm possible.
“Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem was accented by the jubilant waving of palm branches,” Lutheran World Relief, one of the groups endorsing the project, says on its Web site. “Unfortunately, for the communities where these palms are harvested, palm fronds do not always represent the same jubilation they do for us.”
Mr. Corzo, 37, a father of three who has been harvesting palm leaves since he was 5 or 6, used to be paid by how many he delivered, no matter the quality. He would hack away at any old palm and allow the middle man to worry about quality.
No more. Under the eco-palm program, Mr. Corzo is paid only for the quality fronds that he delivers — but at a much higher return, so his trifling pay has nearly doubled. The palms are now bundled in his village by women who had no jobs before.
The percentage of palms that must be discarded has plummeted from roughly half to a tenth. And the forest that Mr. Corzo uses to make a living is slowly becoming greener, environmentalists say.
The program began in 2005 with 20 American churches that bought about 5,000 palms. It grew last year, with 281 congregations placing orders for 80,000 palms. On this Palm Sunday, 1,436 churches will distribute 364,000 eco-palm stems.
That still represents just about 1 percent of the palms that are purchased for Palm Sunday, the day when the most palms are used; American churches use 25 million to 35 million palms, say officials involved in the project.
Lutheran churches are the biggest buyers, followed by Presbyterians. Smaller numbers of Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Church of Christ and Mennonite congregations also ordered eco-palms this year.
The palms harvested in southern Mexico have shorter leaves than the ones many churches have used, resulting in some consternation in the pews. “Parishioners can’t fold these leaves into crosses, and that’s been a tradition,” Pastor Parsons said. “It’s something parents have passed on to their children, and it’s an adjustment to have these new palms.”
The project grew out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has come under far more criticism than praise for its effect on the environment. One of the pact’s side agreements set up the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation to promote environmentally friendly trade policies. As it sifted through the products that are sent from Mexico to the north, the commission discovered palms.
Dean A. Current, a professor of natural resources management at the University of Minnesota, was called in to study the economics of the palm industry. He discovered that about 10 percent of the palms sent to the United States were bought by churches. The rest go to florists, who often use them in arrangements for weddings and funerals.
In surveying churches, Mr. Current found that most were willing to pay up to double the going price to be sure their palms were responsibly harvested. A big church might spend as much as $1,500 on palms for Palm Sunday.
Sometimes, they are burned for the next year’s Ash Wednesday, although that practice is being cast aside by some congregations because of concerns that it pollutes the air.
“Churches want to help,” Mr. Current said. “Before this, they really didn’t know where their palms came from.”
Now many of them do. Mr. Current has brought small groups of church leaders here to Sierra Morena, a village of about 50 families in the southern highlands of Chiapas State, to see for themselves.
Environmental groups in Mexico and Guatemala have trained palm cutters to cut good fronds while allowing the palm plants to survive. That keeps the income flowing and maintains the habitats of birds and other species.
Those who harvest the palms are also coffee and corn farmers. Palms help make ends meet.
But exactly what they are used for up north is not always clear.
“I know it’s used for decoration,” said Moses Macal Maroukin, 69, a veteran palm chopper, who seemed somewhat mystified. He said he had no palm fronds in his home.
But then he revealed what the people here had long believed to be the real use of the exported palms. The juices in the stems and leaves are extracted, he explained in a conspiratorial whisper, and then turned into a special mixture that is used to stain greenbacks green.
“This is how you color your dollars,” he said, waving a palm.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 04:03 pm (UTC)I LOVE the GM quotes in the 100-mpg article. they so classically illustrate GMs stance over the last 15 years regarding efficient technologies. they hedged bets on fuel cells for so long and blew any hybrid market they could have built, and now they're just going to closely watch the competition? sheesh. I sort of hate GM. so stodgy!