January 31, 2008, promises to be a momentous day for moving the United States towards a serious embrace with climate change. Focus the Nation, a non-profit organization, organized “teach-ins” around the country, and a multitude of universities, colleges, churches, and other groups participated.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth major scientific assessment of climate change in the spring of 2007. Each of the IPCC assessment reports, published every seven years or so, has grown progressively more sobering and less uncertain in its projections of climate change and its likely impacts on ecosystems and human societies over the next century.

Current world oil production is approximately 85 million barrels per day (mb/d). The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts global oil production of 104 mb/d by 2020 and 116 mb/d by 2030. Saudi Arabia proudly maintains that it can dramatically increase production at any time to help meet higher demand.

The National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) mourns the loss of our friend and colleague, Jim Roberts, who died November 25, 2007. In this brief tribute, I'd like to record my memories of him and his professional contributions. Several other members of the NAEP also sent me brief statements to include.

To implement the National Environmental Policy Act and efficiently evaluate potential environmental impacts on resurging plans by uranium producers, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is preparing a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS). Not surprisingly, there was extensive public interest during the scoping period—resulting in three extensions of the deadline—which finally ended November 30, 2007.

Books & resources.

Resource and environmental managers are increasingly facing problems characterized by high degrees of ecological and social complexity, uncertainty and indeterminacy, and conflicts over values and interests. Moreover, they are often faced with the need to generate positive change in dynamic social-ecological systems. Comprehensive, rational management approaches have often failed to respond effectively to these types of problems. In response, policy makers and managers are increasingly relying on social learning approaches, i.e., adaptive and participatory approaches that facilitate learning by the individuals and organizations involved in resource and environmental governance. In this article, we examine social learning outcomes from the participation of two community organizations in the environmental assessment (EA) of a proposal to expand the Red River Floodway, a 48-km channel that diverts floodwaters around Winnipeg, Canada. The research design was a qualitative, comparative case study involving a review of documents, semi-structured interviews, and direct observation at meetings, open houses, and public hearings. The study findings demonstrate how EA public involvement processes can provide excellent opportunities for single-loop learning in community organizations. Through their involvement, the organizations in question deepened their knowledge, honed their skills, and made substantive contributions to the assessment process. The findings also suggest that public involvement processes can result in double-loop social learning conducive to sustainability. An important catalyst for the double-loop experience in this case was the provision of intervener funding. The findings also shed light on the organizational structure variables essential to create capacity for social learning in community organizations.

A tiny infestation of an introduced plant (Spartina patens) has resisted extermination for 16 years in Washington State. Mature plants occupied about 654 m2 of ground when control work began in 1991; at present they occupy less than one square meter. The history of the control effort, described here, shows that field workers succeeded at discovering about half of the plants actually present during most years and suggests that a new detection technique—searches by trained dogs—may greatly improve this discovery rate. Spartina patens was probably introduced to Washington during the 1920s. The numbers of plants peaked in 1995, then declined and recovered twice before they began a steep decline after 2005. Ground cover by mature S. patens was drastically reduced by the initial control work, and then expanded twice after 1995 due to growth of undiscovered and neglected patches. The control effort was rendered less effective by two tacit assumptions: (1) the whole extent of the small infestation was known, and (2) the treatments were successfully eliminating the plants. The campaign benefited from the cooperative support of private landowners, the existence of a state Spartina Coordinator's office (focused on other invasive Spartina species as well as S. patens), the persistence and dedication of control workers, the continued attention of this researcher, and recent intensified vigilance prompted by evidence of the plant's resistance to eradication. Indications are that S. patens is now succumbing to this intensified attention.

Environmental Practice 9:251–265 (2007)

Substantial progress has been made towards land management practices that fulfill the basic requirements of a burgeoning human population. One of them is extensive use of nitrogen-containing chemical fertilizers to boost crop production. Though their use is beneficial, overuse of these fertilizers is causing serious environmental problems associated with emission of NH3, N2, and N2O (the last being an important greenhouse gas implicated both in the greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion in the stratosphere) to the atmosphere and contamination of ground and surface water resources via nitrate leaching or runoff. Because these losses have both economic and environmental implications, it is high time to utilize a technique that contains nitrogen losses and enhances nitrogen-use efficiency of agricultural crops. To manage nitrogen losses from agricultural fields, different nitrification inhibitors are currently available, and if used along with NH4-containing fertilizers, they can effectively increase nitrogen-use efficacy and attenuate the emission of greenhouse gases by decelerating the soil nitrification processes resulting from ammonia metabolism.

Environmental Practice 9:266–279 (2007)

The Chemistry and Technology of Magnesia. M. A. Shand. 2006. John Wiley & Sons, New York. 266 pp. $89.95 cloth.

When information about specific materials, chemicals, and chemical technology is desired, those references beyond Lang's Handbook of Chemistry and the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics that are traditionally consulted are the Kirk Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, Mellor's A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and the American Chemical Society's Monograph Series. Therefore, any new text regarding a specific material and its technology is usually compared with these classics: What information is new? Have there been new advances of knowledge? How comprehensive is the discussion of the subject matter?

Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste. A. M. Macfarlane and R. C. Ewing, eds. 2006. Island Press, Washington, DC. 416 pp. $72 cloth, $29 paperback.

What options exist for the safe and reliable disposal of spent high-level radioactive material? From an engineering viewpoint, reprocessing makes the most sense. If such spent material is reprocessed, which is being done in various parts of the world, the volume of waste can be reduced by 80–90%. Many of the radioisotopes can find beneficial uses, and only the remaining long lived, high energy, lower volume residues need to be addressed as wastes. The benefit, of course, is that substantial volume reduction has occurred, which many believe reduces, yet does not totally eliminate, risk. No matter how attractive this volume reduction and the partial beneficial use option definitely are, reprocessing has become a political football in Washington with no practical policy change in sight. As a result only two disposal options remain: (1) store this spent material on site, where it is likely that such long-term storage was not contemplated and facility capacity becomes taxed, or (2) move the spent material to a central repository for long-term storage. Option #2 is the focus of this book, Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste.

Environmental Due Diligence: A Professional Handbook. Kenneth S. Tramm and Ernest C. Crosby. 2006. Infinity Publishing, West Conshohocken, PA. 434 pp. $67.95 paperback.

This book is a concise and comprehensive summary of information needed by professionals conducting evaluations to determine whether a location is contaminated and in need of cleanup. Since the USEPA has recently established clarified expectations in the form of its All Appropriate Inquiry Rule (40 CFR Part 312, pursuant to the 2002 Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act), this book is timely. It is an extremely useful text not just for anyone conducting or seeking to perform this aspect of environmental consulting, but also for those in organizations owning or dealing in real property who use (or should use) the services of environmental professionals. This is because the law places responsibility on many parties for cleaning up contamination, and that responsibility has been interpreted by courts to be strict, joint, and several, and, for the most part, retroactive and perpetual. The only way to manage responsibility for cleanup is to go into commercial property deals with your eyes open—by conducting a thorough pre-purchase evaluation. You either learn that you don't want the property because it will come with a likely cleanup, or you take your chances because one seems unlikely. In the latter case you want to be able to take advantage of the defenses for innocent landowners, or “brownfields” developers, in case you are wrong and it turns out the place is indeed contaminated. These defenses are, with few exceptions, only afforded to those who have conducted such evaluations with “due diligence.”

Global Environmental Governance. J. G. Speth and P. M. Haas. 2006. Island Press, Washington, DC. 180 pp. $40 cloth, $19.95 paperback.

In their 2006 text, Global Environmental Governance, James Gustave Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Peter M. Haas, a professor at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, attempt to deconstruct what they define as the ten major global environmental threats: climate disruption, loss of biodiversity, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, deforestation, desertification, shortages of suitable fresh water, the overall decline of the fish population, toxic pollutants, and nitrification. The authors postulate that two “categories of change of enormous consequence for the natural environment” have occurred as a corollary to global economic expansion. The first is the dramatic increase in the consumption of natural resources, and the second is the “exponential” growth of pollution.

Contributors.