This saguaro, standing like a sentinel in silhouette, is among the "iconic, charismatic mega flora" that could be endangered by climate change, says a scientific panel's recent report.

Friday marked the third annual national Endangered Species Day, a day set aside to recognize our nation’s efforts to safeguard our rarest fish, wildlife and plants.

But this year, one fact is clear: Global warming is changing everything we know about protecting wildlife and natural resources.

Luckily, thanks to U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva and other members of Congress, we also have an opportunity to finally tackle global warming and ensure that our wildlife heritage is protected for future generations of Americans.

In our warming world, habitats around the globe are shrinking and being destroyed while plants and wildlife are forced to adapt, migrate – or perish.

While the iconic polar bear gets most of the press, few species are immune, and many are in peril – including Arizona’s trademark saguaro cactus.

A recent report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program warns that due to the warming climate “. . . the probability of loss of iconic, charismatic mega flora such as saguaro cacti and Joshua trees will greatly increase.”

The world-class scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change have summed up the challenge in stark figures:

Without strong, rapid action to address global warming, 20 to 30 percent of the world’s plant and animal species will be at increased risk of extinction.

Stopping extinction is more than the right thing to do – it’s the smart thing to do. By safeguarding wildlife and natural resources, we keep our communities healthy and sustainable.

We all depend on diverse eco-systems for many life-sustaining services. These “ecosystem services” help produce and maintain clean water and air, and supply a variety of foods and medicines.

In arid Arizona, for example, our water flows in part from the healthy forest ecosystems along the Mogollon Rim and in the White Mountains.

Birds and insects pollinate our crops at no cost – just imagine what it would cost to do this by hand!

Wildlife activity are not only essential for our well-being, but also are an enormous boon to our economy.

According to the newest National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife Associated Recreation, 87.5 million Americans spent more than $122 billion in 2006 on wildlife-related recreation.

This spending supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. In Arizona, for example, it is estimated that hunting and fishing contribute $1.3 billion to the state’s economy each year.

We rely upon nature, and nature relies upon us. But we need to act fast to make sure that we don’t lose our wildlife and the natural resources we all depend upon.

By taking steps to curb our nation’s carbon pollution, we begin the transition to a sustainable green economy by lifting the burden off taxpayers and placing it squarely upon the polluting industries responsible for causing global warming.

But there is more to be done. Comprehensive climate and energy legislation must also include funding and strategies specifically aimed at safeguarding our wildlife and natural resources.

Grijalva has recently introduced a bill, the Climate Change Safeguards for Natural Resources Conservation Act of 2009 (HR 2192), that will help bolster the resilience of natural ecosystems in the face of global warming.

The legislation would create strong, coordinated national and state plans to put the best possible tools and strategies in the hands of state, federal and tribal land managers.

The bill would also boost scientific capacity to ensure that management decisions are informed by the best available science and monitoring.

Of course, it’s vital that Grijalva’s bill be backed with enough funding to do the job right.

Congress should dedicate 5 percent of the total revenues generated by a federal climate program to safeguard wildlife and ecosystems in a warming world.

It’s a small investment to ensure that the world we leave our children is as close as possible to the one that we have been fortunate enough to inherit.

The phrase “extinction is forever” is a potent reminder of what we have to lose and what must be done.

We all rely on nature for survival, so we must strengthen our efforts to address the negative impacts of global warming.

When we reduce pollution that contributes to global warming and invest in ways to safeguard nature and wildlife, we are not only helping nature, we are helping ourselves.

Scotty Johnson, a native Arizonan and Tucson resident, is the senior outreach representative for Defenders of Wildlife – a national conservation organization. For more information about the effects of climate change on wildlife and natural resources, see the Defenders’ new report “Beyond Cutting Emissions” at www.defenders.org.

Scotty Johnson

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ON THE WEB

Climate Change Safeguards for Natural Resources Conservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 2192): tinyurl.com/qv3wum

Sunflower Electric Cooperative's coal-fired power plant churns out electricity in Holcomb, Kan. Coal-fired electricity is one of the country's primary contributors to greenhouse gases. But more than half the country's electricity is produced from coal.

The pending decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to designate greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, as a threat to human health and welfare probably marks a point of no return.

One way or another, the United States is going to regulate greenhouse gases.

To the extent human-caused global warming is a real problem, this can be a step forward. It will, however, expose the lie that a transition to a less carbon-intensive economy will be painless or even enriching.

Despite proclamations about the limited nature of its finding, EPA can hardly designate greenhouse gases as a threat under the Clean Air Act without regulating them under the act.

Nor can the agency, as a practical and legal matter, limit its regulation to automobile emissions.

The regulatory structure of the Clean Air Act is technology focused. EPA sets air quality standards. Areas that don’t meet them have to come up with plans that include all reasonable measures that could be taken to come into compliance.

Businesses that emit regulated pollutants have to obtain operating permits and get agency approval of the control technologies they will use.

There are several problems with using this approach to regulate greenhouse gases. In the first place, the problem they cause is global, not local. So, how does the agency set a local standard?

Second, they vastly exceed in volume any other pollutant the agency regulates. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that more than a million businesses would be subject to technology-focused regulation if greenhouse gases are regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The act’s regulatory structure would be simply overwhelmed.

Clearly the Obama administration wants to use the EPA’s finding to prod Congress into enacting a cap-and-trade program as an alternative to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Under cap-and-trade, the government would set a limit on the total quantity of greenhouse gases that could be emitted. Pollution rights could then be traded.

President Obama has proposed that all pollution rights be sold at auction and the proceeds used to pay for making his payroll tax credit permanent and subsidizing alternative energy sources.

Now that it’s for real, however, Congress has discovered an inconvenient reality. If a price is put on carbon, someone has to pay it.

Coal-fired electricity is one of the country’s primary contributors to greenhouse gases. But more than half the country’s electricity is produced from coal.

The prospects of significantly higher electricity bills for average consumers and significantly higher operating costs for energy-intensive manufacturers have spooked even some Democratic members of Congress.

So, they are proposing that some of the pollution rights be given away for free, and proceeds from selling them be used to subsidize utility rates.

This, however, defeats the purpose of the exercise. If carbon doesn’t have a price that hurts, less of it won’t be emitted.

Simply put, if greenhouse gases are to be reduced, those who produce them have to be disadvantaged and those who don’t advantaged. This, however, will mean wrenching changes, within and between industrial sectors, and within and between geographic regions.

Green jobs won’t make the pain go away or be all better.

I am not a global warming denier. I favor a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

A carbon tax eliminates the uncertainty and avoids the bureaucratic and equity problems inherent in the issue of distributing pollution rights under a cap-and-trade regimen. I would use the tax proceeds to reduce payroll and income taxes, so there is no net drain on the private sector economy.

The benefits, however, wouldn’t be distributed commensurate with the costs. They can’t be, if greenhouse gases are truly to be reduced.

If carbon is to be reduced by putting a price on it, someone has to pay the price and not be reimbursed for it.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Macho B: a symbol and proof of Arizona's unique biodiversity.

The death of the jaguar Macho B has left an enormous void in Arizona’s wild lands, but another jaguar may be moving in to fill that void.

Large cats cover large areas, and when one departs, another often takes up residence.

There also may be wild jaguars elsewhere in Arizona we’ve not yet seen. So we must not have a repeat of the recent tragedy. We must be ready for Macho C or Hembra A. We must do better.

Macho B was the name scientists used to identify the jaguar first photographed roaming southern Arizona’s sky islands in 1996. He was so named because he was the second male jaguar photographed and identified by researchers.

And Macho B became a symbol and proof of Arizona’s unique biodiversity. He represented hope for conservation of jaguars in the U.S. and put focus on the need to preserve wildlife core habitats and connecting corridors in the region.

Over the years, dozens of remote-camera photographs of Macho B helped researchers learn about his territory, ecological interactions, survival skills and communication in the wild.

Trapped by the Arizona Game & Fish Department in February, he was fitted with a radio collar and released. Twelve days later, data from the collar showed he was not moving as he should. Macho B was recaptured, found to be in medical distress, and euthanized.

The loss of this jaguar is a tragedy – one that must not be repeated.

The Sky Island Alliance calls on state and federal agencies, other environmental conservation groups, and our fellow scientists and citizens to work together to preserve jaguars and to avoid a repeat of the Macho B tragedy.

Specifically, we call for:

• Withdrawal of the non-binding Jaguar Conservation Assessment document drafted by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Recently, the U.S. District Court ruled that jaguars deserve the full protection of the Endangered Species Act. A real Recovery Plan makes the assessment document irrelevant and insufficient.

• Prompt creation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of a true and effective recovery plan for jaguars and a jaguar recovery team that includes full and meaningful participation of conservation organizations and scientists.

• Dissolution of the Arizona-New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team, which for the past decade has failed to include all stakeholders (non-agency scientists, conservation groups, landowners), has failed to make progress on many of its goals, and has failed to improve conservation of jaguars.

• Accelerated preservation of jaguar habitat. Macho B has shown us what good habitat looks like, and scientists have modeled where good habitat likely exists; the time is now to preserve that habitat.

On private lands, working with individual landowners is essential. On public lands, appropriate management practices and special designations such as wilderness must be put in place.

The best recovery process will not matter if habitat loss and fragmentation continues. No habitat means no jaguars.

• Preserve habitat in Mexico and landscape connectivity across the international border. Macho B likely came from a known breeding population of jaguars in northern Sonora; the connections to the population in the south are critical for long-term survival of the species in the United States.

• Increase what we know about jaguars, habitat and conservation; increase access to information; and do this in the safest, smartest ways possible.

We need increased funding, support, and use of noninvasive research techniques (such as remote cameras) across the region. We need to be looking more, in more places, with more comprehensive, cohesive and collaborative research.

The life of Macho B symbolized the rich biodiversity and glorious beauty of our region.

Macho B gave us hope: Magnificent wild creatures still roam. We can coexist. The world remains whole and sacred.

His death was tragic and has touched many. We must not lose that hope; we must not let that death be in vain. We must do better, and we must do it now.

Sergio Avila has worked on wildlife research and conservation in northwest Mexico and the U.S. Southwest for more than 12 years; he is coordinator of the Northern Mexico Conservation Program at Sky Island Alliance.

SERGIO AVILA

Macho B, killed after he was captured and collared by the Arizona Game & Fish Department in February in southern Arizona, was the last wild jaguar known to inhabit the United States.

In all of the sound and fury surrounding the death of Macho B, the last known U.S. jaguar, some larger truths have emerged that invite reflection on Earth Day 2009.

Multiple investigations now under way should address at least some of the many questions and inconsistencies that have arisen in the wake of the tragic death of this wildest of cats.

But whatever we may learn of the mistakes that were made in the handling of Macho B’s capture and the conservation of jaguars in Arizona, we may have already learned something larger about ourselves as human beings and our relationship to what is left of the wild in our world.

Macho B touched many hearts, and more than a few nerves, in a way that few individual wild animals ever do. In his death, he has become more than a solitary cat that prowled the tangled canyons and high crags of our beloved Sky Islands. He is now a symbol of a wild Earth that is fading before our eyes.

It is a place to which we are still fundamentally and inescapably connected, notwithstanding our busy, technological lives. And his was a life with which we somehow feel a kinship, despite how little we know of it.

Moreover, it would seem that we humans still harbor a deep need to feel this connection, and that it is profoundly unsettling when life itself is so obviously diminishing around us.

This is an amazing and hopeful phenomenon, considering how disconnected most of us are from the wild Earth in our daily lives. Macho B was photographed 80 times by remote sensor cameras in southern Arizona over the last 13 years, but only seen by a few people.

Other species in our region may be slightly less rare, but no less mysterious. The Tucson shovel-nosed snake hides its beautiful colors beneath the desert floor, figuratively swimming through the sand in search of spiders and scorpions for its next meal. It emerges infrequently and is rarely seen, though it has felt the effects of our ever-expanding footprint on its home.

The cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, despite becoming a media star at the center of a controversy that wrongly pitted schoolchildren against their natural surroundings, was a secretive bird that few ever had the pleasure to see in its native habitat. Now it has virtually disappeared from the Northwest Side of Tucson, crowded out by our exploding population.

The irony is that these wild, mysterious species now largely depend upon us for their survival.

Sadly, our habits are landing them on the endangered species list and diminishing their numbers to the point of crisis. But the hope that emerges from our reaction to Macho B’s death is that we no only have the tools and capability to protect and recover these species, but also have it in our hearts to care enough to make the effort.

Since the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, more than 99 percent of the species it lists for protection have survived, and some have recovered and flourished to the point of being removed from the list. That makes it one of the most successful environmental laws ever passed.

The original vision of the act is rooted in the wisdom that we humans are utterly dependent on functioning ecosystems and other species for our own survival. Its premise is simple: No species is so small or unimportant that it can be sacrificed without conscience, consequences or an effort to save it.

Unfortunately, one of the final acts of the Bush administration last fall was to seriously weaken the act by declaring new rules that remove some of the most important and effective facets of its legal mandate.

The Bush rules also prevent the act from being employed to address the gravest threat to our world’s biodiversity – catastrophic climate disruption due to a buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

Our world is shrinking, in more ways than one. The best available science has made it clear that our habits not only affect the hidden cats and snakes and birds of our Sonoran Desert home, but also polar bears and seals and penguins struggling to survive in their melting homes thousands of miles away.

New Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should use his authority to rescind the Bush rules before the rapidly approaching May 9 deadline. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service should give the jaguar full protection of the law.

And the rest of us should spend this Earth Day thoughtfully reflecting upon our place in this mysterious world and the responsibility we bear for keeping it healthy and whole.

Randy Serraglio is a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity and has lived in Tucson for almost 20 years.

The tiny cactus ferruginous pygmy ow

The Tucson shovel-nosed snake

This mother polar bear and her cubs were photographed on the shore of Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba, in 2007.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency saluted environmental heroes Thursday, including two Tucsonans whose work well deserves the kudos.

Ann Marie Wolf, executive director of the Sonora Environmental Research Institute Inc., was given an award for reducing pollutants in the Tucson area and improving environmental health for us all.

Tucson City Councilman Rodney Glassman received an award for pushing through ordinances for rainwater harvesting and use of gray water.

At Wolf’s institute, an EPA grant has been used to address environmental health.

Her staff, with community members it trains, has done more than 2,000 home visits and 300 business visits.

They check older homes for lead and refer families to Tucson’s Lead Hazard Control Program, and they develop asthma action plans and help families identify and remove air toxins and other asthma triggers.

The Sonora group has overseen the removal of more than 129,000 pounds of solvents from auto-body shops, and it also visits nail and hair salons and print shops. And it’s now testing our air for beryllium and other metals.

But Wolf is quick to note that these undertakings are a team effort.

“We really have a lot of involvement from the community,” she says, “the University of Arizona Department of Atmospheric Sciences, the Tucson schools, the Amphitheater School District, the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality, the Tucson Fire Department, the state and county Health Departments.

“It’s truly a partnership.”

Glassman, who flew to San Francisco at his own expense for the EPA’s 11th annual Environmental Awards Ceremony, had vowed during his campaign to get water conservation measures enacted. And he did – both with 7-0 votes by the council.

The nation’s first Rainwater Harvesting Ordinance calls for rainwater capturing systems to be part of any new commercial building erected after June 1, 2010.

The Gray Water Ordinance requires that homes built after that date be plumbed for gray water irrigation systems – having a drain for sinks, showers, bathtubs and washing machines separate from drains for all other plumbing, to allow for installation of a gray water system.

An estimated 45 percent of our local water use goes for landscaping. By using gray water and rainwater for irrigation instead, Tucsonans soon will be saving untold quantities of drinking water.

The EPA lauded its award winners for “superb efforts to protect and preserve our air, water and land, and increase awareness of the environmental challenges we all face.”

We salute Wolf and Glassman, too. Thanks to their efforts, Tucsonans will breathe easier and drink better.

Reach Billie Stanton at bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4664.

Rodney Glassman accepts an EPA award at a San Francisco ceremony.

When you talk about a baron, you’re probably thinking of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt or others of that ilk.

You’d be unlikely to apply the label to a group of young people working in a borrowed and cramped Tucson warehouse.

But they are “eco barons,” according to a new book on the world’s most influential environmentalists.

Although these Tucsonans work with a shoestring budget in a building that they have to vacate for three weeks every year to make way for the annual gem shows, they run what an author calls “America’s most effective private environmental law firm.”

Although they live and work in Tucson, they raised the worldwide alarm for polar bears, warning that the animal could be wiped out. And they have done the same for dozens of other species.

These barons are the founders and employees of the Center for Biological Diversity. And they are among the environmental giants profiled in “Eco Barons,” subtitled “The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.”

The author is Edward Humes, a Tucson Citizen reporter from 1980-85. He left to work for the Orange County Register where he won a Pulitzer Prize and then turned to books. “Eco Barons” is his 10th.

In the book, Humes tells of Doug Tompkins, the founder of North Face and Esprit who surrendered his companies and wealth to buy land in Chile.

He and wife Kris Tompkins, the former CEO of Patagonia, have saved more rain forest than anyone.

And Andy Frank, who invented a plug-in hybrid car and has been wooed and snubbed by the automotive giants.

And Terry Tamminen, a southern California pool cleaner whose acumen led him to become that state’s top environmental official under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and author of the nation’s toughest climate-change law.

But Humes saves some of his most lavish praise for our homegrown Center for Biological Diversity.

The center has 20-year-old roots in the Southwest, starting when Peter Galvin and Kierán Suckling met in 1989 as they were counting and mapping Mexican spotted owls in New Mexico for the U.S. Forest Service.

When they noticed the Forest Service was planning to allow logging in owl territory despite legal restrictions, they told a newspaper where the owls’ nests were. They were fired and became friends.

The two moved in with Dr. Robin Silver, a professional nature photographer and Phoenix emergency room physician who became a financial supporter. Eventually they started the group that has become the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson.

Humes notes that during its 20-year existence, the center has won close to 90 percent of its 500 cases – an unprecedented success rate in environmental law.

The George W. Bush administration didn’t like listing species as endangered. But almost every one of the 87 listed during the Bush years was protected because the Tucson-based center “used the courts to force the issue,” Humes writes.

And that is how the Center for Biological Diversity works: by forcing the government to abide by every letter of environmental law – especially the Endangered Species Act.

While more-mainstream environmental groups try to make progress by seeking compromise, not controversy, the center eschews that approach, Humes said this week in an interview. He cites a precept laid down by Galvin: Because 90 percent of the Earth’s species have been wiped out or are endangered, there can be no compromise on the remaining 10 percent.

Humes said it is the polar bear case that has drawn the most attention to the center because it has the potential to force the government to deal with climate change.

It was the center that forced Bush “to concede, after six years of resolute denial, that there really is such a thing as global warming and that it is killing (among other species) the polar bear,” Humes writes.

And that’s an impressive accomplishment for a bunch of people working in a Tucson warehouse.

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV (Channel 6). He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

Staffers at the Center for Biological Diversity, including co-founder Kierán Suckling (rear), meet at its headquarters in a small midtown warehouse. The space is borrowed from a gem dealer who kicks them out for three weeks each winter during the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase.

Author Edward Humes and his 10-year-old son, Eben, kayak near Catalina Island off the California coast.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

“Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.”

Published by Ecco/HarperCollins, 352 pages, $25.99 hardcover

www.ecobarons.wordpress.com

www.edwardhumes.com

At a climate conference in New York, Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic and the European Union, described environmentalism as a new collectivist religion that doesn’t just want to change the climate, but us as well.igion that doesn’t just want to change the climate, but us as well.

The Environmental Protection Agency has submitted a “finding” to the White House Office of Management and Budget that will force the Obama administration to decide whether to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

If adopted, new laws and regulations likely will follow that have the potential to change our lifestyles and limit our freedoms.

None of these laws and regulations will be preceded by debate, they will be imposed on us by fundamentalist politicians and scientists who have swallowed the Kool-Aid and declared global warming as fact; end of discussion.

On the Discovery Channel recently, Tom Brokaw hosted a special called “Global Warming: The New Challenge.” While promoting the piece, Brokaw declared, “there is a growing consensus that global warming is real and getting worse.”

Actually, there is a growing body of opinion that global warming is a fraud perpetrated by liberal politicians and their scientific acolytes who want more control over our lives.

Whenever politicians declare a crisis, or an emergency, watch out. Chances are this means they want to impose something before the public discovers the truth.

One of the definitions of consensus is “general agreement or concord; harmony.” Any honest assessment of scientific opinion leads to the conclusion that there is significant disagreement on global warming within the scientific community among those with expertise in climatology and related fields.

Yet many politicians want us to believe all of science is on board with man-made global warming and that we must act now to save the planet and ourselves from catastrophe (catastrophe is another word politicians like to use when imposing their agendas).

You know something is up when prominent apostles of global warming, especially former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, refuse to debate or discuss the issue with any scientist who takes a contrary view.

Some religious fundamentalists impose various codes of behavior and dress on their adherents and threaten expulsion (if not death) for those who fail to acquiesce to their dictates.

Is it not fundamentalist science to ignore any evidence that casts doubt on global warming? For a treasure trove of information that debunks the “science” of global warming visit www.globalwarming hoax.com.

For global warming fundamentalists, no amount of contradictory information will dilute their faith.

Science makes mistakes, as did NASA when it published data on global warming trends in an effort to gauge the warmest years in U.S. history. Their temperature statistics were flawed. The year 1998 was not the hottest on record, as NASA originally stated, it was 1934 – the year Wiley Post discovered the jet stream.

In New York last month, more than 600 scientists, economists, legislators and journalists from many nations met for the second International Conference on Climate Change.

Numerous presentations debunked with documentation what they called the pseudoscience and dictatorial intentions promoted by the United Nations, the European Union and the Obama administration. If there was media coverage of the event, I missed it.

The keynote speaker at the gathering was Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic and the European Union. Klaus described environmentalism as a new collectivist religion that doesn’t just want to change the climate, but us as well.

Klaus rejected the executive summary published by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as all politics and environmental activism, “not science.”

The Australian newspaper recently reported on three senior Japanese scientists who separately engaged in climate-change research and “have strongly questioned the validity of the man-made global warming model that underpins the drive by the United Nations and most developed-nation governments to curb greenhouse gas emissions.”

One of the scientists, Kanya Kusano, told the newspaper, “I believe the anthropogenic (man-made) effect for climate change is still only one of the hypotheses to explain the variability of climate.”

Shunichi Akasofu, founding director of the University of Alaska’s International Arctic Research Centre added, “Before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for truth.”

Truth is sometimes inconvenient, as Al Gore likes to say. But that cuts both ways. Truth can also be inconvenient when it shines light on propaganda.

Not to allow for a full-fledged debate on global warming is censorship, a popular practice in totalitarian societies and many fundamentalist religions and cults.

Cal Thomas is an author and broadcast commentator. His e-mail address is calthomas@tribune.com.

The Kohler WaterHaven Custom Shower Tower costs $5,730 and up. It delivers up to 80 gallons per minute through two shower heads, four body sprays and a hand-held shower, creating "a new language for luxury," the manufacturer says.

Yes, I know you may be getting ready for dinner, and I’m sorry, but this is something we need to discuss: an invention we consider one of the hallmarks of a civilized society.

When we go to the bathroom (sorry), all we do is push a lever and a satisfying and powerful whoosh takes it all away.

Then it becomes someone else’s problem – in our case, Pima County’s. It’s gone, and that’s all that matters.

Robert Glennon knows this won’t make him tremendously popular, but he says we need to rethink how we dispose of human waste.

It’s one of many things we need to rethink when it comes to water, says Glennon, a law professor at the University of Arizona and author of a new book, “Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It.”

Although we take it for granted, Glennon points out that he isn’t the first person to point out that the way we handle human waste is wasteful.

More than 100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt asked whether “civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water.”

Looked at that way, it does seem rather silly.

As Glennon notes, we go to great lengths to ensure the water delivered to our homes is absolutely pure and ready to drink. Then we take a bunch of that pure, ready-to-drink water, dump you-know-what in it, and send it away.

“It is a bizarre system,” he said in an interview this week. “We take a resource, treat it to drinking water standards, then use only 10 percent for drinking.”

In his book, Glennon has plenty of examples of profligate water use.

There is the theme park outside Atlanta where in 2007, after a drought hit the South, a 400-foot tubing hill and 13,000-square-foot play area were opened – both covered in man-made snow.

After nonessential water use was banned, the theme park owners claimed snow-making was essential. They later relented and shut down the snow-making – after using 1.2 million gallons of water.

There are lavish magazine articles about opulent bathrooms in Phoenix homes where a designer bragged about catering to clients who demand “car wash” sprays in their showers. There are 10-head showers, each spewing 7.5 gallons per minute. So a 10-minute shower uses 750 gallons of water.

There have been many plans and schemes – some downright wacko – to get more water to where it is needed.

Cloud seeding to make it rain more. Desalinate seawater. Filling ocean-going tankers with water and shipping it where needed. Put 13 million gallons of water in a massive polyfiber bag and use tugboats to tow the bags from Alaska to San Diego. Pipelines crossing the Rockies.

All the ideas are enormously expensive and face huge environmental and political obstacles. It certainly would be far simpler to just save more of the water we have than use it to dispose of human waste and have car wash shower sprays.

We don’t value water because we pay so little for it. Glennon notes that we pay more for cell phone or cable television service – neither of which is essential.

The average American family pays about one-quarter cent per gallon for its water – which works out to about $20 per month.

“But we’re not paying for the cost of the water,” Glennon said. “We’re only paying for the cost of getting it to us.”

So what can and should be done to persuade people to value the water they have?

Tucson already is ahead of most communities, Glennon said, with the use of reclaimed water on golf courses and parks and a rate structure in which the cost of each block of water is higher than the previous one – a system that penalizes high-volume users.

One-third of American communities have declining block rates – the more water you use, the cheaper it gets – which encourages profligate water use, Glennon said.

And unbelievably, an unknown number of communities don’t even have water meters. Customers pay a flat monthly rate regardless of usage.

Residents of Sacramento, Calif., for example, have no water meters and recently voted to keep it that way.

Glennon said, “We have treated water as though it is infinite and valueless, while it is really finite and valuable.”

Photo from Kohler.com

Mark Kimble appears sometimes at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. He may be reached by e-mail at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or by calling 573-4662.

Robert Glennon is Morris Udall professor of law, public policy at UA College of Law.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

“Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It” by Robert Glennon

Published April 8 by Island Press

400 pages, $27.95

President Barack Obama is vowing to make food safer at the same time his administration wants to get more small farms to grow fruits and vegetables. Doing both won’t be easy.

President Barack Obama is vowing to make food safer at the same time his administration wants to get more small farms to grow fruits and vegetables.

Doing both won’t be easy.

In recent years, the federal government and the food industry have taken significant steps to improve the safety of fresh produce. Those steps include stringent inspection standards for farms that supply schools and supermarket chains.

The standards sometimes restrict the use of compost and manure to fertilize crops and restrict how close cattle can be to fields.

But small-scale farmers and organic growers say that to follow those standards, they may have to follow practices that degrade the soil and require more synthetic chemicals.

“A one-size-fits-all approach to food safety can leave family farmers with an inability to sell to stores,” said Liana Hoodes, an organic farming consultant in New York.

Jo Ann Baumgartner of California, who runs the Wild Farm Alliance group that promotes environmentally friendly farming practices, said growers are being forced into what she called “sterile farming.” In California, that has meant cutting down trees and tearing out grassy patches and other forms of wildlife habitat near fields.

The farmers’ gripes stem from voluntary farming standards known as “good agricultural practices” that spell out how farms should grow and pack their produce. The standards include measures to prevent irrigation water from getting contaminated and keep workers from unintentionally contaminating produce.

During the past decade, lawsuit-wary supermarket chains have been increasingly requiring suppliers to get certified by private inspectors who check farms to make sure they are adhering to whatever standards the chains require.

Standards were tightened further in the wake of a nationwide E. coli outbreak in 2006 that was linked to contaminated spinach. Industry officials said growers now face layers of standards as their customers have been imposing new requirements.

The U.S. Agriculture Department has acted, too, by imposing production rules for fruits and vegetables the government buys for school lunches.

Farmers worry that food-safety bills being considered in Congress could make matters worse.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., would authorize the government to set agricultural standards for food crops. Farms that don’t sell crops out of state would be exempt.

Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer who represents victims of food poisonings, said safety standards shouldn’t be weaker for small farms. If kids get sick at school from contamination linked to a small farm, parents will ask why the farm didn’t meet the standards required of bigger suppliers, he said.

“We all need to figure out a way, whether you’re a big player or a small player, that you’re treated fairly, that you’re inspected fairly and the product you’re producing, whether big or small, has the least chance of poisoning some kids,” Marler said. “That’s not easy.”

Philip Brasher is a reporter for The Des Moines (Iowa) Register. E-mail: pbrasher@dmreg.com

A ear of corn sits on a stalk as a farmer harvests a field, near Arlington, Iowa. The Obama administration would like to persuade farmers that they can replace their federal crop subsidies with payments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Obama administration would like to persuade farmers that they can replace their federal crop subsidies with payments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

It isn’t an easy sell.

The administration not only needs the budget savings from cutting farm subsidies. It also needs the support of farmers — and their allies in the Senate — to win passage of a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions.

And the only way to get the agriculture sector behind a cap-and-trade bill is to persuade farmers that the benefits they’d get would outweigh the expected higher prices they’d pay for diesel, fertilizer and other oil products.

So far, farm groups aren’t ready to buy the deal.

The administration’s proposal to phase out some farm subsidies is dead in Congress.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tried to sell farmers on the idea that they could make up the money from future carbon payments. But he couldn’t even get the National Farmers Union, normally aligned with Democrats, to go along.

Vilsack, even as he conceded last week that the subsidy cut was in trouble, insisted there “are unlimited opportunities” for farmers to benefit from a cap-and-trade system “so long as agriculture is at the table” when Congress writes the law.

Vilsack is telling farm groups that the carbon payments could be worth an astounding $100 billion a year, a claim based on a report by the 25×25 Steering Committee, a group promoting the development of renewable energy. By comparison, USDA paid farmers $12 billion in subsidies last year, and the nation’s total net farm income was $89 billion.

The problem is that there are major unanswered questions as to how and whether farms could qualify for such payments.

One way farmers could get them is by stopping or reducing their tillage, keeping plant matter in the soil, or by converting cropland to grass.

But many farmers already follow no-till practices and may not qualify for payments. The whole point of the cap-and-trade system is to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions, so why pay farmers for emission reductions they’ve already made?

And what about growers who farm in areas less suitable to no-till practices? How do you get them to support a cap-and-trade plan?

Another key issue is enforcement. Who will make sure farmers are doing what they’re paid to do?

“As we go to the Hill and start posing these questions to congressional staff, they’re always astounded about how many questions need to be answered,” said Jon Doggett, a lobbyist for the National Corn Growers Association.

The nation’s largest farm group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, has been especially skeptical of cap-and-trade legislation. Energy prices are almost certain to “go up far in excess” of whatever payments farmers receive, the group’s president, Bob Stallman, said recently.

“Everything looks sort of negative (for farmers) with regard to climate change legislation, as opposed to any positives,” he said.

A good measure of where farm country is on the issue should come in a few weeks. The House Agriculture Committee plans to hold hearings this spring and survey farm groups, universities and businesses on the issue.

The committee doesn’t have jurisdiction over the legislation. It’s under the purview of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is chaired by liberal California Democrat Henry Waxman.

But the agriculture committee does plan to write a bill of its own to define how agriculture is treated.

That alone is a sign of how much is at stake for the farm lobby. And how tough of a job the administration has on its hands.

Philip Brasher is a reporter for The Des Moines Register. E-mail: pbrasher@dmreg.com

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What is cap-and-trade?

A cap-and-trade program would force industry to reduce its use of fossil fuels by imposing caps on greenhouse gas emissions. Electric utilities, oil refiners and other companies that exceed the caps would have to reduce their emissions or buy credits. Those credits could come from farmers and others who reduce emissions through such measures as storing carbon in the soil or generating alternative energy.