Good News/Bad News July 25, 2002

By Matthew Wheeland, AlterNet. Posted July 25, 2002.

The main good news this week is that Good News is back in style. After last week's dizzying defeat at the hands of Bad News, GN has returned to barely edge BN out for the lead, 9-7.

Good News

As promised, California Gov. Gray Davis signed the groundbreaking auto emissions bill into law. Auto makers have until 2009 to implement lower emissions standards. Call us cynical, but it's an election year for California's governor, and should Davis lose in November, we may see an ICC-like reversal in this decision come next year...
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In more great car news, Honda has announced that it will have a fuel-cell car on the market by the end of this year. Fuel cells use oxygen and hydrogen to power the car, and its only byproduct is water. Sounds like a dream come true, right?
Read More

In profoundly unsurprising conservation news this week, fishing groups and environmental scientists have determined that fish thrive in waters that have been designated no-fishing zones. Not surprisingly, some of these fish stray from the safe zones, and, when caught, are really big. Duh!
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Another species that is thriving because of laws protecting them from being killed are grizzly bears. In the 29 years since the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the grizzly population has swelled from 200 to over 1,100. Imagine that...
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If ever there were a case for IRV: the New Mexico Green Party has told journalists that they were offered bribes from both Democrats and Republicans in hopes of swaying the New Mexico elections this fall.
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After Bush decided that he couldn't find the money to clean up 33 Superfund sites, the EPA dug deep into its pockets and sofa cushions and managed to come up with enough money to clean up a third of them. While hardly exceptional Good News, at least it's a turnaround from two weeks ago.
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In a coup for grassroots organizers, Colorado's Delta County voted to forbid drilling for methane gas in the western slope of the Rockies. An industry spokesman, who publicly admitted that the test wells were unlikely to be commercially viable, expressed his disappointment at the ruling.
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Although densely worded, this report from the World Resources Institute is actually good news. The Washington think tank is urging investors in energy companies to be aware that the companies could face tremendous losses in the near future if they don't embrace sustainability and anti-pollution measures. If you like densely worded, read the original report.

Cheap and well-designed green housing is coming on the market in London. The next generation of urban housing, called Zero Energy Development, is nearing completion in the south side of London. It uses no fossil fuels, produces no net CO2, and will house 80 families. Another development is in the planning stage in South Africa.
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Bad News

Watch your standing water: The West Nile virus has shown up in 26 states this year, spreading from its first appearance in New Jersey in 1999. Although the number of victims has been steadily declining because of widespread larvicide spraying, lobster fishers in Long Island have blamed the destruction of their harvests on the spraying.
Read more about the virus, and how you can prevent its spread.

Some things never change: Even with the ongoing and ever-deepening scandals surrounding the big energy companies, the Bush administration is objecting to legislation that would require 10 percent of the nation's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020.
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Meanwhile, we may all be treading water in 2020: Scientists in Alaska this week discovered that glaciers are melting much more rapidly than was projected by the last study, which was conducted in the early 1970s. The Columbia glacier in Prince William Sound, for example, is shrinking by 23 feet per year.
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For the past 15 years, opponents of widespread antibiotic use have predicted this would happen, and it finally has. A strain of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus has become resistant to even the strongest antibiotics in the medical arsenal. It's only a matter of time until more common bacteria become invincible...
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New Zealand, long a bastion of environmentalism, as well as one of the last countries with GMO-free food production system, is voting on Saturday, July 27, whether or not to keep the system in place.
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There are four kinds of fish that the FDA encourages pregnant women to avoid, owing to concerns about mercury in the animals: shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish (also called golden snapper). However, recent tests on tuna have found high levels of mercury, and shellfish are testing positive for high levels of dioxin and PCBs that float in the shallow waters. Once again, it appears no meat is safe...
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And finally this week, when environmentalists fight each other no one wins: PETA has publicly denounced the WWF, the National Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Defense. PETA is opposed to the three groups' support of an EPA regulation testing potentially toxic compounds on animals.
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Matt Wheeland is an editorial intern at AlterNet

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