As I write this piece in early August, the joys of summer in the Pacific Northwest are all around. I sit with a flannel shirt and wonder if it will get into the 70s today, even though last week's newspapers rattled on about 100-degree weather and oppressive humidity for most Americans. Climate change and global warming seem very far away.

In the annual State-of-the-Union address a President has a chance to lay out new proposals, and on January 31, 2006, President Bush provided a surprise. For the first time, he clearly indicated that energy supplies, particularly petroleum, are of concern: “America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology … and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.” Perhaps most memorably, he heralded a striking goal: “… to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.”

Recently, I had the opportunity to drive across North America, from Olympia, Washington, to New York City. September—after the heat of the summer is past and before the biting cold of winter has bared its teeth—was a wonderful time to take a trip this year. I particularly remember the vast, open spaces of the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge in north-central Nebraska, where I had an opportunity to clamber up a sand dune and chew the relentless wind that swept over the ocean of grass. With just the faintest imagination, immense bison herds replaced the quietly feeding cattle spotted across the landscape.

Recently I had the privilege of attending a conference, “Chornobyl +20,” in Kyiv, Ukraine.2 This event commemorated the horrendous events of April 26, 1986, when reactor number 4 at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered a catastrophic explosion and fire. The reactor core burned for the next eight days and spread a cloud of radioactive debris across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and virtually all of central and Western Europe. One report estimates that over 40% of Europe is contaminated with cesium-137.3

Every year I eagerly read the Annual Report of the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality and use its information in the courses I teach at Rensselaer at Hartford and in the seminars in which I participate. Because of the data it provides, the Annual Report is a very valuable resource and perhaps deserves much more widespread attention than it presently commands. Unfortunately, in recent years many of its findings have been disappointing. This disappointment is not of the Council's making at all, but is a function of the system that is being evaluated. Perhaps the key issue is that, despite all the command and control programs of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CDEP), Connecticut's environment is just not improving. In fact, some of the critical indicators such as “miles driven per person” and “taking the bus” are indicating worrisome trends; miles driven per person per day are up and mass transit utilization is declining. Based on the facts presented, a question arises as to whether the era of command and control regulation of the “usual culprits” is ending, and whether one of collaboration, reeducation, and refocusing should begin.Author's note: This is an embellished version of recent written testimony presented to the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality. Many points are of universal importance, and its dissemination may have merit, especially if a dialog is fostered.

The following statement appeared on the Web site of the US House of Representatives, Committee on Resources. The committee was repeating comments from an article printed by the Los Angeles Times.

Lynton Keith Caldwell was, to our knowledge, never a member of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP), although he collaborated with a few NAEP members and Environmental Practice editorial board members at times and also appeared in Environmental Practice. His work as an academic and as a consultant to Congress has had profound impacts on the NAEP, however. Indeed, Caldwell's immense input into and co-writing of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in the late 1960s created the conditions that made it necessary to organize the NAEP. When agencies first started to prepare Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), there were no professional associations dedicated to the problem solving that NEPA demanded. The NAEP brought together people struggling to prepare EISs in a scientifically sound and ethical manner.

With the exception of France and Finland, most nations across North America and Europe rejected nuclear power following the nuclear accidents of the 1970s and 1980s. Public fears concerning disposal of radioactive waste only fueled the controversy. By 2000, not a single reactor was under construction or planned in North America or Western Europe. Surprisingly, the strongest advocates of nuclear power have been in Asia (Japan, Korea, and China), India, and Eastern Europe.

China is a heavily polluted country: one-third of its territory has been polluted by acid rain, two-fifths of the main water systems are of poor water quality, 290 major cities don't even reach the lower standards of air quality, and “cancer villages” and SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) first occurred in China. The environmental crisis takes place just as China has developed its economy and increased its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Why, with greater finances and technical means, is the environment more effectively destroyed than effectively protected? The use of all material things is directed by men; the Chinese environmental crisis—like other environmental crises—is the result of human activities and practice. Notwithstanding the somewhat recently introduced Western ideology, the ideology orienting Chinese conduct is still, in large part, Confucianism and the folk culture of the peasants.

The year was 1970. About this time, I had been designated chairman of Earth Day for my high school, although that was still many months away. One of my friends, Keith, was a member of the local John Birch society, which maintained that Earth Day was part of a global communist conspiracy to undermine American civil liberties. I countered that Earth Day was being sponsored by our own powerful Senator Scoop Jackson (D-WA), to which Keith simply replied that Jackson was also part of the grand conspiracy. Neither of us changed each other's minds, but surprisingly, we managed to remain friends.

Conditions in today's environmental site assessment industry dictate the necessity of a new type of licensing program designed to cover environmental professionals originating from a wide variety of academic backgrounds. The subject is not a new one, but there are new developments, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) recently promulgated definition of an environmental professional, making this an opportune time to revisit the issue.

The annual Brownfields conference, organized by the EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) and ICMA (International City/County Management Association), is the most comprehensive forum in the world to address issues of remediation and redevelopment of brownfields properties and allied questions.

On May 4, 2006, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the operating license of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, units 1, 2, and 3. The Tennessee Valley Authority can now operate the plant for 20 more years, as well as increase power by an additional 20% above the originally licensed level. The NRC completed a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) supplement in June 2005, finding that potential impacts would be of small significance, whereas alternatives such as taking no action by shutting down the plant would have moderate to large impacts on local land use and socioeconomics. This article provides the background and context for the recent resurgence of the industry, along with discussion of federal regulations and site-specific environmental issues, using this latest license renewal as an example.

Are young professionals prepared to lead us in solving the environmental challenges of the twenty-first century, such as disaster recovery or global deforestation? Have they learned the basic skills it takes to communicate and work together with different people and cultures? Do they have the inner passion and mindset to be of service to the earth and their community rather than acting in self interest? The nation's universities have responded well in the last decade to become the young professional's preparatory launch pad for lifelong learning. Yet, after they leave school and enter the variety of environmental fields, are their jobs vital?

Political scientist Lynton Keith Caldwell, a principal architect of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) who also is recognized as the “inventor” of the Environmental Impact Statement (or EIS, NEPA's “action forcing” provision), is widely regarded to be one of the twentieth century's most influential scholars in the fields of environmental policy, politics, law, and administration. Indeed, because of his groundbreaking work during the 1960s, he has been credited with founding the new subfield of environmental policy, politics, and administration studies within the wider scope of political science and public administration in the United States. In that period, Robert Bartlett and James Gladden believe that Caldwell “proposed the wholly new field of inquiry now known as environmental policy studies” and that he was “alone in focusing on the distinctive, integrative character of the concept ‘environment’ and its implications for politics, public policy, and public administration.” Harold and Margaret Sprout, the only other political scientists then pursuing a path similar to Caldwell's, share this opinion, writing in 1978, “The long neglect of environmental subjects by academic political scientists [has been] verified … The roster of an interdisciplinary conference, ‘Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth’ (1955), sponsored by the Wenner-Gren and National Science Foundations, included no political scientists. Two years later the conference ‘Future Environments of North America’ sponsored by the Conservation Foundation included only one, Professor Caldwell.”

Books & resources.

Religion and Ecology is a relatively new field of study that has developed over a period of time. Within the last 20 years, it has seen more rapid development and garnered a great deal of interest and attention. In his book Ecology and Religion, David Kinsley describes the convergence of the two areas as (1) philosophical, theoretical, or structural, and (2) moral, ethical, or spiritual. Kinsley uses the term ecological spirituality to further define this area as ethical, moral, or religious tendencies relating to ecological issues. Great strides have been made in acknowledging that this is a credible and important academic and cultural area of study, and it is now being recognized as an academic field. Some academic institutions offer specialized studies through the departments of religion and anthropology, as well as in other academic programs. This article offers an explanation of the various aspects of the emerging field of Religion and Ecology (note that more attention will be paid to Christianity).

Protected areas have been an integral part of contemporary nature protection for about a century and a half. One of the most interesting protected area networks was designed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Here, we present a case study of the history of a particular state nature reserve (or zapovednik) in Kyrgyzstan, using key informant interviews and reviews of current and historical documents. We examine the management of this area from the time of its creation under Soviet rule, through the collapse of the USSR, to the present day. We also make policy recommendations for the future, given the profound changes in the post-Soviet economy and political structure. We conclude that the collapse of the USSR has inflicted numerous changes on the environmental protection sector in Kyrgyzstan, but that the Issyk-Kul Nature Reserve continues to be run according to the Soviet paradigm, with a few minor adjustments. Funding structures and mechanisms for the support of conservation and other environmental issues are of paramount importance in the changing economic climate and democratization throughout the former USSR. Our work can be used as a template for studying protected areas in the region and lays the groundwork for more comparative research that could be carried out in and around Kyrgyzstan's other protected areas and those in other republics of the former USSR.

Tribal restoration planning, based on indigenous ideas and practices, evolved with the self-determination and self-governance initiatives of tribal governments in the United States. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementation was roughly concurrent with the return of management authority over Indian trust lands to tribes in the 1970s and 1980s. Many, but not all, of the 556 federally recognized tribal governments have assumed responsibility for NEPA planning processes. Other planning processes pursued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Indian trust lands and those of the State of Washington for educational trust lands offer significant contrasts; to further delineate these contrasts, the author overlays tribal planning activities with a four-point methodological framework. The tribal restoration planning approach begs the question of how to maintain a dynamic range where human and natural environments are connected in past, present, and future. Tribal resource planning supports ecosystem processes and maintains tribal values at the same time. Today, federal devolution and the effects of previous intervention combine with accelerated processes of decline resulting from global warming and species extinction. The future of Indian trust lands as natural and cultural homelands may depend in large part on the ability of tribes to implement planning strategies that assure continuous restoration. The case of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (hereinafter referred to as “Salish Kootenai”) in Montana offers hope through landscape-level planning strategies applied to restore that cultural and natural landscape.

High resolution aerial photographs have important rangeland applications, such as monitoring vegetation change, developing grazing strategies, determining rangeland health, and assessing remediation treatment effectiveness. Acquisition of high resolution images by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has certain advantages over piloted aircraft missions, including lower cost, improved safety, flexibility in mission planning, and closer proximity to the target. Different levels of remote sensing data can be combined to provide more comprehensive information: 15–30 m resolution imaging from space-borne sensors for determining uniform landscape units; < 1 m satellite or aircraft data to assess the pattern of ecological states in an area of interest; 5 cm UAV images to measure gap and patch sizes as well as percent bare soil and vegetation ground cover; and < 1 cm ground-based boom photography for ground truth or reference data. Two parallel tracks of investigation are necessary: one that emphasizes the utilization of the most technically advanced sensors for research, and a second that emphasizes the minimization of costs and the maximization of simplicity for monitoring purposes. We envision that in the future, resource management agencies, rangeland consultants, and private land managers should be able to use small, lightweight UAVs to satisfy their needs for acquiring improved data at a reasonable cost, and for making appropriate management decisions.