The top ten green stories of 2006

10. A Stern reminder

In October, venerable economist and senior U.K. government adviser Sir Nicholas Stern released a major report on global warming. Its claims were explosive. On the grim side, global warming stands to shave up to 20 percent off the world’s annual GDP by the end of the century. On the bright side, it will only cost 1 percent of the world’s annual GDP to avoid the damage, if we act now.

That’s perhaps history’s largest “if.”

Whether or not Stern’s numbers are ultimately accepted, he smashed once and for all the myth that our choice is between spending money fighting global warming and saving money doing nothing. It turns out doing nothing will cost far more.

9. Takings is leaving

When Oregon voters passed Measure 37 in 2004, supporters of sustainable development despaired. The “regulatory takings” initiative stipulates that Oregon taxpayers must compensate private landowners for any reduction in land value resulting from new rules or regulations. Its passage galvanized the national “property rights” movement, which got initiatives on the ballot in six other states this year, all pushed by deceptive, well-funded campaigns financed primarily by one rich guy.

Five of them failed. And Oregonians have a serious case of buyer’s remorse, lamenting the erosion of some of the nation’s most progressive land-use policies. Voters are wising up to the fact that takings measures tie a community’s hands and leave it subject to landowner extortion. Turns out there’s no “I” in community. Except that one toward the end there.

Grist