Carrot & Stick: February 2009

CARROTS TO:

The U.S. Department of Energy's Wind for Schools Project, for bringing wind energy to rural schools in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado. The program helps schools partner with nearby universities to install wind turbines and collect data from them, providing students with hands-on lessons in renewable energy. Wind for Schools has been operating for just under two years, but coordinator Ian Baring-Gould says response has been fabulous. Based on the current federal budget, the program is not due to expand, but Baring-Gould hopes that might change if the funding situation changes. For now, Wind for Schools is working to launch an affi liates program open to any state, school, or organization wanting to implement a wind-energy project.

New York state legislators John DeFrancisco and Brian Kavanagh, for sponsoring bills to make punishment more severe for dog fight spectators in the Empire State. Under the new legislation, just being present at a dogfi ght is a violation—subject to a fi ne of up to $500—on the first offense, and a misdemeanor—subject to a fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to one year in jail—on the second. Attending a dog fight is a felony in 24 states, a misdemeanor in 24, and legal in two, Montana and Hawaii. According to the Humane Society of the United States, more than 250,000 dogs are forced into fighting each year.

eBay, for banning ivory sales on its auctioneering Web sites worldwide. The ban, which went into effect in January, was announced just ahead of the release of "Killing with Keystrokes, "a report about the harm Internet trade has caused endangered animals, produced by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The 38—page report cites eBay numerous times—and with good reason, as the company facilitated "almost two-thirds of the online trade in wildlife products worldwide," according to an IFAW press release. Some 73 percent of that commerce was in elephant ivory. Now, IFAW congratulates eBay on its ban, a very important step to protect elephants.

STICKS TO:

Bryant University, Hillsdale College, Brigham Young University, and Howard University, all of which received failing grades on the College Sustainability Report Card published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. The report card, now in its third year, reviews schools' policies in nine categories: administration; climate change and energy; food and recycling; green building; student involvement; transportation; endowment transparency; investment priorities; and shareholder engagement. The study looked at the 300 schools in the United States and Canada with the largest endowments.

The U.S. Supreme Court, for striking down two rulings intended to protect marine mammals from the harmful effects of sonar. Used by the U.S. Navy to detect enemy vessels, sonar injures the creatures, which rely on sound to navigate. Ruling that national security interests outweigh any harm inflicted on the animals, the high court removed two restrictions: The first stipulated that sonar be halted when a marine mammal is within 2,200 yards of a Navy vessel. The second required that the sound be turned down in the presence of "surface ducting," temperature differences in adjacent layers of water that allow sound to travel farther. Siding with the Navy, Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote for the majority, "the determination of where the public interest lies in this case does not strike the Court as a close question." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a dissenting opinion, wrote that the potential harm to the animals "cannot be lightly dismissed."

Fort Irwin, a military training center in California's Mojave desert, for encroaching on prime habitat for the desert tortoise, an endangered species that has survived since the Pleistocene and is the offi cial reptile of California. In preparation for the fort's expansion, some 770 tortoises were moved to existing habitats off base. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, this maneuver was disastrous. "More than 90 relocated and resident tortoises have perished, primarily killed by predators, and more losses are expected," the CBD reports. The relocation was halted when the CBD and Desert Survivors, a nonprofit desert conservation group, sued to stop it.

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