"Grey Paree"

Right now, people in Paris may be rubbing their eyes as they look at the Eiffel Tower.  But it wouldn’t be because of anything about the Tower.  It’s because of the air.

©Christonphe ENA/AP

It looks as if Paris, and several other French cities, are going through what I experienced growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s.  An inversion layer of air seems to be trapping automobile emissions and creating a familiar brownish haze across the city.

As a quick, short-term measure to get people out of their cars, government officials have made all forms of public transport free over this weekend.  Philippe Martin, the Minister of Ecology, estimates the cost at 3 million euros a day, a cost that he says will be shared by all levels of government and the private sector.

How did the City of Light end up with smog?  Commentators point towards cars generally, diesel-powered cars in particular, and agriculture (although it’s not clear exactly this last factor relates to the air pollution in Paris and the other cities).  Apparently, despite successful bike sharing programs and new tram lines in several cities, too little has been done to reduce the use of cars.  Drivers are considered a powerful political force by both the left and right and policy makers are loath to propose anything that would restrict what they consider is a right to free movement on all roads.

In addition, France is distinct in the incentives it provides to auto makers to encourage producing cars with diesel engines.  These cars now make up sixty percent of private cars in the country.  The fuel may cost less, but they are more polluting than normal gas engines, emitting large quantities of fine particulate matter.

Is this a wake up call for the government?  It wouldn’t appear to be.  Ecology Minister Martin talks about gathering other ministries and auto makers to talk about “the evolution of their production.”  But god forbid there should be any talk of reducing diesel’s fiscal benefits.  “That won’t be the issue,” said Martin.

France proposes incentive for bicycle commuting

Last week, Le Monde reported on a new Plan Vélo announced by the French Minister of Transport, Frédéric Cuvillier.  The plan, in fact, seems quite modest, but it includes an interesting idea.  The government wants to encourage employers to offer a financial incentive to employees who bike to work.

© rmounts

Under the program, Employers who sign up would pay bicycle commuting employees 25 cents (a quarter of a euro) per kilometer travelled.  So, for example, someone whose round-trip commute was 10 km per day would receive 2.50 euros, or 12.50 euros a week and 50 euros a month.

It’s not a lot, but if I were still working and lived in France (mixed emotions there), it would probably get me to ride to work.  I can think of several nice things I could buy with an extra 50 euros a month.  And maybe even a new bike every couple of years.

The incentive to the employers would be a reduction of certain employee-related payments currently made to the government.  The Transport Ministry estimates receipts from these payments would drop by about 110 million euros, an amount representing the public cost of the bicycle commuting proposal.  In addition to the incentive proposal, the Plan Vélo would encourage local governments to take advantage of a “tool box” of measures to facilitate bicycle use in urban areas.

As a measure to do something serious to reduce automobile use and carbon emissions, this Plan Vélo seems terribly limited.  In 2012, the Sarkozy government announced a similar plan with a target of having bicycles account for 10 percent of commuting trips by 2020.  According to the Le Monde article, bicycle commuting currently accounts for just 2 percent of such trips.   The Hollande government doesn't seem to be proposing any targets.   Still, the financial incentive idea is intriguing.  Assuming the government goes ahead and adopts the program, I’ll be interested to see how many employers sign up and what the response is among employees.

Italian jobs in the rivers?

A recent article in an Italian on-line environmental publication, Greenreport.it, provides a reminder of a looming deadline for water quality in lakes and rivers.  An E.U. directive from 2000 sets the deadline for Italy and other member countries for next year.  Those failing to meet the standards face economic sanctions meant to be serious enough to draw governmental attention.  So far, though, the new Renzi government hasn’t seemed to give water issues, or the environment generally, much attention.  The Greenreport article, perhaps as a kind of signal flag aimed at Rome, includes a reminder that environmental cleanup can produce a lot of jobs.  It cites a recent Ambente Italia report estimating that an investment of 27 billion in the water sector over the next ten years could produce something like 45,000 jobs.  I have a feeling that, rather than new investment, we're more likely to see Italy asking Brussels to postpone the deadline -- and sanctions -- for a few years.  And they probably won't be alone in making the request.

Il Fiume Topino near Cannara, Italy.  More of an irrigation canal at this point.  © rmounts

The Cher "Canalized"

La Nouvelle République recently included a curious article about the Cher River and an organization, “Le Syndicat du Cher canalisé.”

Copyright La Nouvelle République

The article describes the organization’s plans for 2014, which are supposed to include renovation of dams on the Cher, regulation of its flow, and balancing recreational use and environmental preservation.  The article’s tone was entirely matter-of-fact; no issues; nothing about the possibility that the Syndicat’s plans for the dams, for example, might raise any questions.

It made me curious about a river described as canalisé and an organization that aims to preserve that condition by restoring dams and yet also claims to be preserving the environment.

A separate organization, “Les Amis du Cher Canalisé,” offers an interesting history of transporation on the river.  In 1828 the Canal du Berry opened as far as Noyers-sur-Cher providing the first part of a link between Montluçon and Tours.  The second part involved building a series of needle dams and locks to allow barges to connect to the Loire at Tours.  Needle dams, developed in France at the beginning of the 19th century, are a type of low dam made of wooden slats, or needles.  They aren’t intended to be water tight and needles can be added or removed to control the water level behind.  The series of these dams on the Cher was completed in 1841.  “Canalisé,” it turns out, doesn’t mean “channelized,” in the sense of the arrow-straight, cement-lined troughs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers likes to construct.  It means, rather, that, with the needle dams, the river could be used for transport as if it were a canal.  And it appears it was.  The “Amis” cite records reporting that 4,600 barges passed along the canalized portion in 1846.  By the 1920s, this canal, like most others, had lost out to railroads and roadways.  Eventually, in 1955, the national government removed the canal from its list of navigable waterways and responsibility for the canalized portion was handed over to the two departments through which it flows, the Indre-et-Loire and the Loir-et-Cher.  For several years, the departments pretty much ignored the river.  Then, in the 1990s, they became interested in the recreational and tourist potential.  Through an interdepartmental entity, the Syndicat, they started restoring the needle dams to provide water deep enough for boating and canoeing and, eventually, a floating restaurant.

Meanwhile, in 2002, the national government declared the Cher to be a natural habitat for several migratory species of fish, including lampreys, shad, and eels.  Within five years, dams would need to be modernized to allow for their passage.   More or less since then there have been an on-going tensions between the Syndicat and Amis on one side, and environmental organizations on the other.

Recently, SOS Loire Vivante and several other environmental and fishing organizations have written to local authorities objecting to recent repairs to several of the needle dams damaged in flooding in 2013.  They note that the dams have not been modified to provide for migratory species as the law requires.  They propose what they term a compromise under which some of the dams would be maintained, provided they’re modified to accommodate migratory fish, and others would be dismantled.

Multinationals and climate change

Washington DC is suffering through the second deep freeze this month.  Nighttime temperatures are in the single digits and teens.  I have the basement shower on constant drip because the pipes are well-enough insulated and could freeze if the water weren't moving, however slowly, through the pipes.  Even so I know the planet is getting warmer.

The New York Times had encouraging news the other day when it reported that this view is now shared by several large multinational companies like Coca-Cola and Nike.  These, and other businesses, are making adjustments on their own and pushing governments to do more.  And several conservative economists, like Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former advisor to Senator John McCain, are supporting a carbon tax.

It's enough to keep me reading the political news. 

Chemicals in the Elk River

It's a little while now since the spill of toxic chemicals into the Elk River in West Virginia.  For several days, after a storage tank owned by the wonderfully-named Freedom Industries leaked 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, into the river, West Virgina drinking water service was virtually shut down.

Last Sunday, the Washington Post published a useful article with a broader look at regulatory oversight of toxic chemicals.  In fact, Joel Achenbach, the reporter for the piece, leaves the impression that there’s little or none.  He reports that when officials were scrambling to deal with the leak and assess its seriousness, they had next to no information about the chemical contaminating the water supplies.  According to his article, the MCHM safety data sheet that officials were probably looking at anxiously, uses the phrase “no data available” 152 times.

That would seem unacceptable when so much emphasis is placed on the safety of the things we eat and drink.  But a spokesperson for Freedom Industries said the company was, in fact, following stricter European Union standards in the data sheet; under U.S. regulations, she said, they didn’t even need to say that much.

So the Elk River spill points out the need for better information about and regulation of industrial chemicals, right?  Right.  But the most prominent proposed legislation, drafted by the late Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and David Vitter (R-LA), both from states with sizable petro-chemical industries, would, if anything, weaken oversight.  Elk River may have raised the salience of the issue for a while, and prompted an effort towards stricter regulation.  Here’s hoping something comes of it.

Hollande's turn and the environment

-        My two favorite bloggers on French politics have included -- and referenced -- several commentaries on President François Hollande’s press conference last week.  The New York Times summarized his proposals as including tax cuts, spending reductions, and a generally business-friendly tone.  So far he seems to have upset those on the outer edges of the right and the left, created divisions within the UMP, and received encouraging words from some Germans and E.U. officials.  This all suggests his move to the center could turn out to be smart politically.  And, what seems less likely, it could even be good for France’s economy and for hiring.

Still, I doubt this business-friendly turn is going to be good for the environmental issues I tend to follow.  Right off the bat, I’d say that this turn makes it more likely the government will go ahead with construction of the new airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes.  In the name of regional economic development (à la les Trente Glorieuses) and jobs, I expect Hollande and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will clear out the camped-in protesters and move in the bulldozers, probably in the next few weeks.  It’s also hard to see how the government resist local development interests in the department-by-department face-offs over flood plain zoning along the Loire and other rivers.  And how likely is it the government will insist to the always over-burdened farmers that they cut back on fertilizers and pesticides to clean up local drinking water supplies?  We’ll see, but I’m not optimistic.