THE JOURNAL OF THE SCHOOL OF FORESTRY & ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES FALL 2008 environment YALE Chinese Cities Shaping Their Climate By Christina Larson page 12 Global Warming Focus of New Fund By Jon Luoma page 16 Wall Street’s CARBON CONVERSION By Richard Conniff letters To the Editor: These questions will force manufacturers in ufactured goods, the United States has a Since the publication of your excellent China, Indonesia and elsewhere to identify the considerable ability to improve not just the article, “Forest Destruction’s Prime Suspect” scientific name of any species used and the global wood trade but illegal practices in (environment: Yale, Spring 2008), the United country of original harvest, introducing a vital mining, fishing and other resource extraction States has become the first country in the new level of transparency to supply chains. industries as well. This could be the first in world to ban the import and sale of illegally Companies and individuals can be pros- a line of measures that uses U.S. consumer harvested wood. ecuted under the law if the government can power to improve global natural resource In response to pressure from a diverse prove that they knowingly traded in illegal management. coalition of environmental, industrial and wood or were negligent in not knowing The Environmental Investigation Agency labor groups, the Bush administration passed that their supply was illegal. Any shipment led the diverse coalition that supported this a ground-breaking law in May banning com- of wood can be seized if the government can bill’s passage, and we continue to work closely merce in illegally sourced plants and their prove that it was illegally harvested or traded, with forest industry and nongovernmental products, including timber and wood products. regardless of the owner’s knowledge. By organization partners to support its effective The new law amends the Lacey Act, a changing the equation of risks and incen- implementation by the U.S. government. long-standing anti-wildlife-trafficking statute. tives, the United States sends a strong signal Moreover, we hope that the United States’ It criminalizes the import of or commerce in to those actors participating in illegal logging leadership on an environmental issue of illegal wood products and establishes an and trade: we’re on to you. The Lacey Act global importance will pave the way for import declaration requirement due to go into model is unique in supporting the efforts of similar demand-side measures in the effect on December 15, 2008. Compliance developing nations to protect their forests European Union, Japan and other key with the law will require that companies by backing up their own laws and helping consumer markets. ask their suppliers about the source of their to encourage due diligence throughout the ANDREA JOHNSON ’05 raw material, undoing the “no-questions- supply chain. FOREST CAMPAIGNS DIRECTOR, asked” norm in today’s timber trade sector. As the world’s largest consumer of man- ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY Correction In the Spring 2008 issue of environment: Yale, the cover story “Forest Destruction’s Prime Suspect” states on page 8 that rare merbau logs had been transported from Papua New Guinea. It should have said Papua, Indonesia. Testing the Limits of Tiny By Melinda Tuhus Most people buy clothing to fit their bodies, but not too many build houses to fit their bodies—literally. Elizabeth Turnbull ’10 is building her dream house— all 132 square feet of it. And the frame of the sleeping loft measures six feet one inch from the floor, giving her, at almost six feet tall, a tiny bit of head room as she walks to her study space below it. Along with her laptop, Turnbull brought her tiny house with her when she matriculated at F&ES. A 2004 Graduate of Colby College, she packed a lifetime of experiences into the years before starting grad school: leading cross-country bike trips; toiling on the 2004 Kerry presidential campaign in West Virginia, where she grew up; backpacking and doing farm work in New Solar panels illuminate the interior of Elizabeth Tunrbull’s 132-square-foot house and provide power for Turnbull’s laptop. Inside, Turnbull sleeps and studies on a loft. continued on page 37 6 12 19 28 CONTENTS environment:YALE 2 19 29 The Journal of the School of Dean’s Message In Memoriam: A Tribute to Forestry & Environmental Studies Selling the university on a green For Strachan Donnelley, William Burch Fall 2008 • Vol. 7, No. 2 building wasn’t easy, or pretty. Hunting Was Being For 40 years, Bill Burch’s trade- Editor Fully Human mark teaching style was part David DeFusco 6 Strachan Donnelley was a commit- instructional, part inspirational Director of Communications ted conservationist and an ardent and all from the heart. Copy Editor Wall Street’s Anne Sommer Carbon Conversion supporter of F&ES. Alumni/ae Liaison to Editor Bankers are now factoring global Special Insert Kathleen Schomaker warming into their investment 22 Honor Roll of Donors Director of Alumni/ae Affairs decisions, which, one venture Government Report Design capitalist says, will reindustrialize Nancy J. Dobos Finds Wildlife Refuges 31 DobosDesign the entire planet. Falling Into Neglect Class Notes Editorial Advisory Board The 548 National Wildlife Refuges Alan Brewster, Jane Coppock, 12 Gordon Geballe, Eugenie don’t have enough resources to 59 Gentry, Stephen Kellert, Thirsty Chinese Cities fulfill their missions. Obituaries Emly McDiarmid, Peter Otis Getting Drier As Dean Skyscrapers Rise James Gustave Speth 26 64 Scientists agree that cities are Memo to President-elect Commentary environment:Yale is published not only affected by their regional Obama: ‘Sustainability’ twice a year (Spring and Fall) by climate, they shape it. Michael Coren ’09 is part of a the Yale School of Forestry & Key to Energy Policy World Bank team that is developing Environmental Studies. Editorial F&ES professors say the next U.S. Indonesia’s strategy to recruit offices are located at 205 Prospect 16 president must lead boldly on tropical forests in the fight Street, New Haven, CT 06511. against climate change. 203-436-4842 Fund to Address Downside alternative energy. email: [email protected] of China’s Boom http://environment.yale.edu An Asia Environment Fund will 28 printed on recycled paper focus on the crisis that is not only Bookshelf with soy-based inks China’s, or Asia’s, but the entire world’s—global warming. Cover art by James Yang Fall 2008 environment:YALE 1 message Dean James Gustave Speth The Fitful Birth 1998, a year before I began as dean, Steve drafted a of Kroon Hall dozen “design principles,” including the following three: • Conservation and Sustainability. A new facility The marvelous and striking Kroon Hall is taking dean’s should emphasize the school’s environmental ideals shape now, and its super-green features are widely and objectives, serving as a model for others. It trumpeted around the university and far beyond. Our should strive for the highest standards of energy estimable builders, Turner Construction, bring employees efficiency, waste processing, environmental health here from all over to see how it’s done. The dreaded and sustainable material use. Pierson-Sage Power Plant (PSPP) that once occupied • Environmental Experience and Connection. A new the site is gone now. Soon, attention will turn to the facility should stress the quality of its natural landscaping of two magnificent courtyards where once surroundings, emphasizing healthy natural process there was asphalt and to the redesign of Sachem’s Wood, and diversity. Landscape design should reflect the and one of Yale’s most magical places will emerge. We school’s work and ideals—e.g., demonstration sites, are scheduled to move into our new home in December. restoration areas, indigenous plantings and aesthet- Meanwhile, on a larger scale, Yale’s president, Richard ically and intellectually inspiring natural areas. Levin, has announced that all of Yale’s new buildings will • Nature and the City. A new facility should be a be LEED-certified, perhaps not green to the climate- model of how healthy natural process can be a neutral Kroon, but still green. And Yale is busily reducing compatible and enriching aspect of the modern its greenhouse gases by 43 percent over 2005 levels by city. Our facility should emphasize the complemen- 2020, just 12 years away. tary relation of the natural and built environments. On a still-larger scale, the green-building movement is not just taking off—it’s flying high. In 2006 there were Thanks to Steve, these goals have guided us ever since. 400 U.S. LEED-certified buildings; in 2007, one year The school that year, 1998, was engaged in a vigorous later, that number had jumped to 1,000, with 6,000 argument with the university over the siting of our new more in the pipeline. building. Some faculty favored an “up-the-hill” location, All in all, an idyllic picture! But the burden of this across from Marsh Hall; others favored the site on Prospect piece is that it was not always thus. What seems in Kroon near the canal, where Yale’s two new undergraduate resi- and around us as an elegant and inevitable progression dential colleges are now slated to go. Votes were taken, was anything but. We are seeing a wondrous thing occur and almost no one favored the site where Kroon now on the Kroon site not because someone said, “Let there rises. It was in many ways a dog of a site. be Kroon,” but because of vision, struggle, determination, The university was adamant, however, and again it great generosity and an amazing amount of hard work fell to Steve to craft, in April 1999, the conditions under by lots of people applying their various talents.