ET's Old Phone
You can't walk down the street anymore without seeing folks chatting on their cell phones. Wireless phones are everywhere and have dramatically altered our public spaces, filling them with unprecedented levels of noise, as one columnist has remarked.
They're also filling something else: our desk drawers and landfills. An estimated 500 million unused models are floating around, with about 130 million more added every year. This is disturbing news considering that cell phones contain lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic that end up in the water supply when we dispose of phones improperly.
Luckily, there are a bunch of options available for those of us who want to see our old phones reused or recycled. The most comprehensive programs are national or international in scope, including an effort called CollectiveGood. With CollectiveGood, you can safely recycle your old cell phone-any make or model-and help support one of a long list of nonprofits at the same time.
Scarce Salmon Stump Scientists
In all the Northwest's big dailies today: the annual run of big spring Chinook are nowhere to be found on the Columbia River. Normally, by this time of year, roughly 3,100 King salmon have made their way past Bonneville Dam on the Lower Columbia--the vanguard of a run that can easily number a quarter million.
But this year so far, only 200 have arrived. It's the worst early showing since the Bonneville Dam was constructed in 1938. (The last time it was close was 1952 when only 478 had arrived by now.) Scientists are unanimous about only one thing: they don't know what's wrong.
Cash Cows
While sales of regular old conventional milk have been flat in recent years, sales of organic milk are soaring, according to the Dallas News. According to one estimate, organic milk sales now make up 8.2 percent of total milk sales, which represents a huge increase since 2000 (when it was anywhere from 1 to 4 percent of sales).
Markets around the nation are having a hard time keeping it in stock. Seattle food cooperative PCC confirmed that demand for organic milk is outstripping supplies, and has attributed at least part of the product's popularity to concerns over bovine growth hormones and antibiotics. I'm sure milk's association with purity-the drink for children-has helped make organic milk a leader. Customers who don't buy anything else organic, says PCC, will reach for organic milk.
Canada's Kyoto "Plan"
Ottawa officially unveiled its plan for complying with the Kyoto Protocol yesterday. The Globe and Mail and Vancouver Sun (subscription required) have good coverage. Unfortunately, the news was mostly drowned out by a continuing scandal that may trigger a new federal election.
The upstaging of the announcement is disappointing, because the Kyoto "plan" deserves an intense public debate--something it's unlikely to get during the hockey brawl of a Canadian federal election.
I put the word plan in quotes because Ottawa's proposal is terribly short on specifics. It largely consists of more than $1 billion a year in federal funding to invest in greenhouse gas reduction projects. That's enough money to get something done--an excellent start and a miraculous achievement when compared with US intransigence. But it's also almost surely doomed to be inadequate, because it doesn't do much to make prices tell the truth. And it's lame compared with what's going on in Europe.
Integral Economics' Donna Morton and I have written a column arguing for feebates as the turbocharger that can deliver on Canada's Kyoto promise. I'll link to it once it's published.
Clean Car Dominoes III
The Washington State Senate has approved the clean-car bill!
And, in a fascinating twist, the senators conditioned implementation of the bill on Oregon's doing the same. That's a disappointing wrinkle in Washington's campaign for clean cars, but also an exciting precedent for Cascadian unity. It also ups the pressure on Salem--to which, all eyes turn.
The Seattle Times reports.
UPDATE: Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski announced yesterday that he would not back Oregon's clean-car bill. Instead, he's appointing another advisory group to consider the matter, according to the Oregonian.
