In many instances, gloomy environmental stories leave us feeling helpless because the problems encountered seem gargantuan and the solutions require coordinated action across the planet that plunges us into messy arenas like national sovereignty. But, every day, there are actions we can take to make a difference. Last week, Naturegal pointed us toward one of these actions with her Diary, Calls Needed for Wildlife Refuge System Budget.
As many Kossacks may know, the Bush administration has been attempting to downsize the staff of the National Wildlife Refuge System by 25%, leading to the closure of smaller refuges, the elimination of many environmental education programs and recreational services, and the reduction of law enforcement and endangered species restoration at refuges across the country.
Senators Russ Feingold and Olympia Snowe are attempting to persuade the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies to approve a $514 million budget for the Refuge System for Fiscal Year 2009. This funding will help hold off the rest of the downsizing that Bush has planned for the System and help refuges begin to recover from the disastrous policies that have been weakening wildlife refuges over the last seven years.
Please call your senators by March 25 and ask them to sign onto the letter being sent to the Interior and Environment appropriations subcommittee asking for a $514 million budget for Fiscal Year 2009.
March 25 is Tuesday. So make that call on Monday, eh?
In Protect Yukon Flats Wildlife Refuge, Naturegal also told us about a specific place needing protection: "The Bush administration's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of arranging a land swap at pristine Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which will allow Doyon corporation to drill for oil and gas on what is now refuge property. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes the Yukon Flats refuge as a place that "represents undeveloped wilderness, a place where the marks left by the hand of man are rarely seen," yet through this project, the Bush administration is heading down a slippery slope of swapping out protected land whenever a corporation wants to exploit the available resources."
And boran2 wrote about how Federal Land Exchange Just Smells Bad: "The Interior Department is moving quickly on a land swap that would involve giving 100,000 acres of the Yukon Flats Wildlife Refuge to a private company, Doyon, Ltd, for other land of unappraised value. Naturally for Bushco, the refuge land is highly valuable commercially. It appears to be another Buschco gift to industry."
Call your Senator about that one, too.
The DailyKos Environmentalists can be found here.
TRANSPORTATION
New Sweden promoted a New Swedish product in Let Me Introduce: The Volvo Plug-In -:ReCharge:-: "Volvo Car Corporation has joined forces with fellow Swedish automaker Saab Automobile, energy company Vattenfall, battery producer ETC AB, and the Swedish government in a hybrid technology research and development initiative. Plug-in models will be available in a couple of years."
While the issue specifically deals with California, the consequences could affect the nation, as Chelsea Sexton took note in Plug In America Action Gram: Revive CA's ZEV Program: "Now is our chance to save electric cars and revive California's popular Zero Emissions Vehicle Program. We need to take action today! In only two weeks the California Air Resources Board will vote on a proposal that would allow automakers to delay meaningful EV production for years. Proposed revisions will profoundly weaken the program again instead of propelling our country toward a pollution-free and petroleum-free future."
gatordem explained the ins and outs of a Rail Road Job in Tallahassee - Forces of Ego Fight Commuter Rail: "The battle is over whether or not Orlando and Central Florida will finally get a commuter rail project after a 10 year effort. On one side, you have the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), the federal government and local officials in four central Florida counties and the City of Orlando, who have been working together in a model of intergovernmental cooperation. On the other side you have the forces of evil and ego."
SallyCat trumpeted here family’s sensible new commuting option in Mama's got a new set of wheels!: "My commute to work is 2 1/2 miles. Mr. Cat has a 2 mile commute. I've looked at bicycles but the last bit of the ride is a very, very steep hill. Now I have been driving a 1998 Saturn that gets pretty good gas mileage...26 city and 28 or so highway. Yet, I felt I could do more to save gas and be more efficient in my mini-commute. Well, Mr. Cat and I did the math on mileage, gas costs, and other costs of ownership. Mr. Cat did some preliminary checking, he did the online reviews analysis, and we just took delivery of: His and Hers Scooters!"
FOOD, AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE
After a long hiatus farmerchuck returned with a Diary on Farm$: "Rome" Burned...We Fiddled...A CFD: "The price/availability of wheat (and most other food ingredients)is an impending crisis, a bare 10% of which has thus far been revealed to the American people through the wonder of the ‘free’ marketplace. The government and the corporations are already responding to the crisis that people are barely aware of by making the portions smaller, and advocating ‘meatloaf rather than steak’ ... for those of us who have already gone to offal cuts, the suggestion is probably to chew on old shoes. Vegetarians who are now rejoicing, take a look at your commodities, the rises are substantially steeper, and you are going to be in the same hole with the rest of us. The average age of farmers in the US is now in excess of 57 years. how much in excess we won't know until the 2007 ag census figures are released. This represents a large part of the knowledge base that will be necessary if local food production is to be transited to...and also gives some idea how conservative this group is likely to be (most have survived all this time on a wage that most of you seem to associate with unskilled labor).
Eddie C explored the potential of The New York Times’s coverage in Outstanding in the Field: Turning Green at the Table: "But there is much more to the story than Carhartts becoming a practical fashion statement. It is the story of a growth in food awareness and a trend toward locally produced organic farming where educated young Americans are leaving the city to take a chance at farming. According to Severine von Tscharner Fleming who is making a documentary called ‘The Greenhorns,’ ‘Young farmers are an emerging social movement.’
In Goin' Green on St. Patrick's Day, alicescheshirecat took on the same young farmers’ subject: "...Sarah Love, an Oklahoma University political science graduate and sometimes young Clay Pope a former DC staffer turn(ed) conservation lobbyist ... have formed an organization that helps farmers become more environmentally friendly and companies to offset their carbon emissions. Pope says he doesn't know about New York farmers but in Oklahoma the coolness of farming just brings the same stream of folks. ‘But stuff like that usually starts on the coasts and works its way inward.’ ‘Boutique farms in Oklahoma would go a whole lot further if you legalize marijuana, though,’ Love laughs. ‘I see a lot of kids getting involved then!’ Kidding aside, they hope to increase the interest and financial availability to small farmers and new farmers by providing financial incentives to those who run environmentally friendly operations. Their plan is three fold: Switch to no till farming methods; pasture land management; buffer zone repairs.
Frankenoid welcomed spring in today’sSaturday Morning (Home And) Garden Blogging Vol. 4.5: "This year I'm seeing some really weird patterns in the plant life. Usually by mid-March, I have johnny jump ups blooming everywhere in the front yard — they generally start blooming in mid-February. This year there are lots of small seedlings, but no blooms yet — at least none in the front yard. The first johnny jump up to bloom is in the back yard. The first daffodil has bloomed — but it is a King Alfred, not one of the dwarf narcissus, which usually bloom with the rock garden iris. I see the shoots of the dwarves, but no buds. Maybe I'm right and the narcissus flies have infested them. Gonna have to mark all the narcissus that don't bloom so I can dig them up and destroy them. While I've had some luck with decreasing my narcissus fly losses with the application of nematodes, and the judicious application of chemical insecticides (yes, I've even resorted to that), the timing of the application is very touchy (has to be when the larva have first hatched and are digging their way down into the bulb — otherwise you miss them), I still have to dig the infested bulbs and smash the nasty little grubs inside to fucking paste."
Asinus Asinum Fricat wrote a special Food News Roundup, Saint Patrick's Day Edition: "One of my daily stops is the ever excellent http://www.sustainablefoodnews.com/... a division of Triton News Corp., a Maine-based independent media and publishing company developing online news products for businesses involved in the sustainable extraction, production and sale of the earth's natural resources. Also high on my daily list is http://www.planorganic.com/... which is filled with brilliant writings on organic farming and related issues. How can we not love a site that has this for its logo: Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents: It was loaned to you by your children. The First Green Directory to neutralize all its carbon emissions is to be found here, http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/ well worth visiting as it is a trove of useful links, over 8,000! This site is for the dedicated mushroom aficionado! Very interesting site if you're about to go mushrooming in the forest: http://www.mushroomthejournal.com/... For the serious chef, the one who has to have the latest gizmo in her/his kitchen, simply go there: http://www.chefdepot.net/... you won't be disappointed. Do you want to start your own vegetable garden? There are a number of sites that deal with this, some are a little hard to follow but this one here is a gem: http://www.gardenguides.com/...
gmoke, who often demonstrates how you don’t need a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant or a giant bank account to live green, was all springtime encouragement in his Diary: Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Gardens: "Went over to my community garden plot Sunday to see if the soil was ready to work. I was surprised to see a couple of other gardeners out and cleaning up their plots. Damn, I thought I was starting early. They also cleaned up the common spaces, a very nice thing to do. Today, I went back and cut the dead canes from the raspberry patch. A few people had already turned over the ground on their plots. I planted some tomato, basil, and pea seeds under one of my recycled solar cloches. This simple device allows me to get a jump on the season here in plant zone 6. Next chore is to corral the stampeding mint and plant a full bed of peas and spinach. A couple more solar cloches too."
cactusflinthead offered some Agricultural Ramblings: "I have no love for Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow or any of the other big corporations who have given me and my fellow ag workers the chemical tools to do our job. I sat down to re-examine my opinions about genetically modified crops and they are more muddled than ever. There is no consensus. There is rancor and vandalism. There are laws, lawsuits and science is being shouted down in the debate. There are inconsistencies on both sides and that bothers me. There is a lazy attitude of avoiding thinking hard thoughts and that bothers me even more."
Sick Of It asked Can we help save the world with potager gardens?: "Part of the environmental deterioration we're experiencing is due to reduced species diversity. I often wonder if our love for lawns and ornamental shrubs and trees might be contributing to this. I've spent the past year or two trying to turn my yard into a potager/cottage garden. Something I've noticed is that with all those different plants, when I step outside there's bees and butterflies all over the place. In contrast, my neighbors with the standard yards have very ‘sterile’ yards with little or no butterflies or bees."
Scaredhuman was back with another round on Monsanto and Clinton: animals, pain and diseases: "Monsanto is pushing the USDA to institute NAIS, the National Animal Identification System, which is a global tracking system for every farm animal in the country. http://goexcelglobal.he.net/... How should animal activists feel about this? To look closely at what Monsanto is doing to animals already may help add some clarity. Monsanto makes Posilac, or rBGH, or BST, a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. Last night as we were sleeping, millions of industrialized cows were standing on concrete (which an organic farmer told me their legs can't bear for long), filled with a hormone that forces them to produce milk at such an increased rate it wears them out many years early. It causes mastitis and sometimes death. They are given antibiotics to deal with the illness from using the drug."
ENERGY
RFK Action Front asked Don't you just hate those commercials from the coal industry?: "You know the ones I'm talking about -- the commercials from the Orwellian-named ‘Americans for Balanced Energy Choices’ that tell you 'not to worry, coal is the answer to our energy problems' (while conveniently leaving out the part about how coal is one of the largest toxic polluters on the planet and the leading cause of global warming). The coal industry even went so far as to sponsor the Presidential debates -- and what do you know, CNN suddenly stopped asking any questions about global warming and energy policy. To have one of the biggest toxic polluters in the country sponsoring a Presidential debate just struck me as wrong. So I decided to do something about it. I took the commercial from the coal lobby and remade it -- stripping out their lies and replacing them with facts about the dangers of coal and the benefits of solar, wind, and geothermal power. I think you'll get a laugh out of it (or at least a big smile)."
davidwalters put together another of his on-going efforts to persuade Kossacks that nuclear power is the way to go in More on why we need the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor: "Because the LFTR runs at 1 atmosphere, the massive construction used to build containment in a standard uranium fuel PWR isn't necessary. Everything is smaller and thus much cheaper to build. About the only thing that remains the same is the generator, which can be a standard 5 MW generator up to a massive 1700 MW generator. LFTRs can be scaled up or down depending on the market need. The reactor is much smaller, the materials used can be standard industrial manufactured vessels and pipes. The turbine can be smaller since we will use inert helium or nitrogen instead of steam. It will run at much hotter temperatures and can be used to crack hydrogen from water or fresh water from seawater. Hydrogen, freshwater and electrical power can be produced from the same LFTR."
Stranded Wind gave us an update of an ongoing project: Free to a good home: 250 greencollar jobs: "We've been working and working on our plan for wind driven ammonia and an associated greenhouse system. We've posted about it here and here. Tonight the plan got a hearing before farmers' coops, local experts in various fields ... and the job creation aspect got totally shot down. This is still a good plan for someone and we're hoping a Kossack or two might be interested ..."
He wondered, meanwhile, why Conservative Republicans Outperform All Democrats On Energy Issues: " We've been pushing this whole Stranded Wind Initiative along for a few months now and we're finally getting traction. We've got a lovely collection of contributors, most of whom were harvested right here on DailyKos, we've got investors looking at our Freedom Fertilizer investment vehicle, again from DailyKos ... And if it weren't for Iowa State Senator Jack Kibbie's interest the Democratic Party is completely oblivious to our existence, while we're getting fantastic support from our very conservative Republican representatives(!) Last week I got a very nice call from a staffer from Steve King's office. Yes, that Steve King, the one from Iowa District 05, perfect score from Focus on the Family, recently reviled here for certain statements made on KICD, and so forth. Representative King gets a perfect score from us also, for having a staffer who actually gives us an occasional call to see how we're doing, and the most recent call will lead to us helping a local manufacturer of small scale wind turbines get rolling."
Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae is not a new idea, as explained in detail by ranger25: "The Office of Fuels Development, a division of the Department of Energy, funded a program from 1978 through 1996 under the National Renewable Energy Laboratory known as the ‘Aquatic Species Program.’ The focus of this program was to investigate high-oil algae that could be grown specifically for the purpose of wide scale biodiesel production1. The research began as a project looking into using quick-growing algae to sequester carbon in CO2 emissions from coal power plants. Noticing that some algae have very high oil content, the project shifted its focus to growing algae for another purpose - producing biodiesel. Some species of algae are ideally suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content (some well over 50% oil), and extremely fast growth rates. From the results of the Aquatic Species Program2, algae farms would let us supply enough biodiesel to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel in the US (as well as its other main use - home heating oil) - but we first have to solve a few of the problems they encountered along the way."
Arclite, on the other hand, had some objections in Zubrin is wrong: Alcohol fuel won't save us: "In his first Dailykos diary, Mr. (Robert) Zubrin made a lot of claims which were not backed up by any cites, making ethanol out to be a panacea. ... Zubrin wants to destroy OPEC. I won't argue against that. Whether it is doable is debatable, but using alcohol as the fuel to reduce oil demand is not just a bad idea, it's suicide. Corn-based ethanol drives the cost of all staple crops up. Converting food into fuel will result in hundreds of millions starving to death while a relatively small rich upper class drives (I doubt you will be among them). Converting corn to ethanol actually produces more greenhouse gases than burning gasoline instead. And corn-based ethanol may actually use more energy than it produces.
NNadir added another installment to his series Profile of a "Dangerous Nuclear Waste," Cesium, Part 5: "More than a year ago, I concluded a series on the chemistry and physics of an element found in so called ‘dangerous nuclear waste,’ cesium. It was a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and I even threw in some science fiction stuff about space travel and the potential cesium-135 as a fuel. The last diary in this series is found here: Profile of a dangerous nuclear waste: Cesium Part 4. In this brief and otherwise useless addendum, I will argue that the best thing to do with the cesium found in used nuclear fuel is to make it more radioactive than it already is."
swungnotes lamented The Obscenity of Electric and Gas Deregulation: "When electricity pricing was de-regulated on July 14, 2005, it destroyed the calm, decent business practice that had been in force since 1935 when FDR wrote, and the Congress passed, the Utility Holding Company Act. ... in response to the price gouging of one Samuel Insull, who had amassed a monopoly in electric production. Insull was indicted and fled the country, but was extradited back. For the next seventy full years, America’s ability to deliver electricity to consumers was the envy of the civilized world. Everyone who pays utility bills knows that his or her average monthly tab for normal home electricity usage before July of 2005, was in the $12-$15 range, absent some bizarre and unusual usage demands. He/she also knows that since then, monthly rates almost never go below $100 – and can approach $300. I personally paid $173.12 recently for a family of 2. In the wintertime. (The same two people who paid $15.06 before July of 2005.) So – regardless of the rhetoric from the de-regulators, (you know, their lying tripe about competition) the proof is in the pudding: $12-15 before their money grab, $173 to $300 after deregulation!"
Finn MacCool got a bit heated over a letter to the editor from J. Hegyes decrying a new 280-megawatt solar power plant in Gila Bend, Arizona. Solar beats coal, dude: "I'm hosed off about a letter to the editor in today's Arizona Republic: they'd never print my response because it would be too long and I'm far too tempted to use expletives. So I'll print it here, even though the letter writer is more likely to read RedState than Daily Kos. ... Mr. Hegyes is referring to the Solana power plant that, if it happens, will be online in 2011 and be the biggest honkin' solar power plant darn near anywhere. The plant might not happen at all if the feds don't extend the solar-power tax credit which expires at the end of this year. (AZ Representative Gabrielle Giffords is on the committee to get this back to the floor for a vote and she describes it like ‘raining oil from the sky’ so there's a decent shot at it happening)."
POLLUTION
NNadir weighed in with examination of Maxwell's Demon: Any Idea How Many Transistors Are Made Each Year For Each Person Alive?: "Thus your computer requires polybromobiphenyl flame retardants, which luck would have it, are close cousins of the very toxic PCB's that made it very dangerous to eat fish from the Hudson River for most of the twentieth century. If these flame retardants were not there, the billions of transistors in your computer would ignite. Don't kid yourself. These polybromobiphenyls have some very interesting environmental consequences by the way, once they get out into the general environment, which they always do. They are known to interfere with the sexual development of animals, frogs and men and women alike. They are everywhere. They are in whale breast milk; they are in cow milk; they are in human milk; seal blubber, household dust, drinking water. They are in grass. They are in glaciers. If you think that's bad, you ought to think about the other stuff associated with computers that is found in the environment.
Leftywingnut gave us the skinny on a Toxic oil and gas spill on Roan Plateau: "A series of recent breeches in a natural gas waste pits (where drilling companies store produced water mingled with drilling fluids and various hydrocarbons from oil and gas operation) dumped 1.2 million gallons of drilling "mud" into the headwaters of Parachute Creek in western Colorado. The area affected is adjacent to the Roan Plateau Planning Area, where local governments, members of Colorado's congressional delegation, conservation groups, and tens of thousands of citizens have been fighting to protect for nearly a decade. In 2001 the Bush Administration put drilling the Roan on its top ten priority list, although its plans to quickly open this undeveloped gem of scenic public lands has been stymied by the massive upwelling of public pressure and unwavering support for protecting the Roan."
POLITICOS
Coal and West Virginia were high on the list of environmental Diaries last week as both the Democratic presidential nominees made their positions on mountaintop removal clear. Or, perhaps, not so clear.
faithfull took note of the subject in the Diary: Hillary Clinton on Mountaintop Removal today: "First, I am glad to see any Presidential candidate speaking about mountaintop removal. Her answer could have been much better, for sure, but it also could have been much worse. Secondly, I am disappointed that she is setting up this false dichotomy of ‘economic necessities’ vs ‘environmental damage.’ Mountaintop removal does the same thing to our economy as it does to our mountains. The destruction of one and the destruction of the other go hand in hand."
WattHead wasn’t happy either, as he explained in Hillary Clinton Loves Her Some Coal: "Sure sounds like Hillary has drunk the (sour) kool-aid being peddled by coal-front group ‘Americans for Balanced Energy Choices"’ (or ABEC, which might as well stand for ‘American Blowhards Excited about Coal’). Lets compare what Hillary is stumping and what the coal industry's PR machine has to say: Clinton says: ‘Coal fits in very importantly because obviously, we have a great reserve of coal.’
Neither was Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, as was made clear in the Diary, Tell Hillary Bombed Out Mountaintops Don't Grow Back: "In short, Hillary did not flat out reject or denounce MTR. Rather, Hillary believes that the mythical economic necessity of MTR means that we need to accept environmental trade offs. Hillary also implied that somehow decapitated mountaintops can be recovered. Well, "All the King's horses, And all the King's men, Couldn't put Humpty together again" for the same reason that we can not grab all the soil and rock blasted from the mountaintop and simply glue it back together as if nothing happened. The mountaintops are physically gone. The answer is to stop the bombing of our purple mountains’ majesty."
And prankster too complained that Hillary Sides with Coal Fat Cats. What Will Barack Do? (with poll): "The primary race in West Virginia is heating up and the future of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world is at stake. ... Hillary Clinton went on West Virginia Public Radio this morning and refused to condemn the practice of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia. To make matter worse, Hillary appeared to support building at least 10 new coal fired power plants, casting her lot with the promoters of so-called ‘clean coal.’"
But prankster didn’t limit the complaints to a single candidate.What's A West Virginia Democrat to Do?: "Two out of three West Virginians oppose mountaintop removal coal mining. Yet the two remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination for president can't bother to oppose or embrace mountaintop removal. ... Sen. Clinton wants to recover the mountaintops (with what, Goddess only knows). Sen. Clinton was rightly criticized for her equivocation. After his appearance in Beckley, WV, yesterday, Sen. Obama deserves some criticism of his own."
And longtime John Edwards backer TomP saw the situation in much the same light in his Diary,Clinton, Obama Coal Comments Criticized by Environmental Group: "In a press release I received today, Friends of the Earth Action criticized both leading Democratic presidential candidates for their recent anti-environment, pro-coal comments. Senator Hillary Clinton expressed enthusiasm for coal and failed to condemn mountaintop removal during an interview yesterday on West Virginia Public Radio. Today, Senator Barack Obama delivered a speech in West Virginia advocating so-called ‘clean coal’ as a solution to global warming. Both are wrong."
One politician got some good press on the subject of coal thanks to TheGreenMiles in Kansas Governor Moves to Kill Coal Expansion: "Gov. Sebelius knows we don't have to choose between clean energy and growing the economy. In fact, there's more evidence every day that investing in coal is the risky bet."
A Siegel took on the Senator from Arizona in McFlip McFlop. McCain.
When it comes to Global Warming and the Climate Crisis, John McCain is McFlip in favor of doing something and in favor of "green technology" and McFlop in failing to show up for 100% of the relevant votes in the Senate.
redcreek elaborated on a federal project in Water for Oil: "The governor of Mississippi is a good ole boy Republican, once head of the Republican National Committee, named Haley Barbour. Until I saw a Sierra Club film, I hadn’t realized that Haley Barbour was at Cheney’s infamous ‘Energy Task Force’ meeting. The film, completed only weeks before Katrina, connects the Energy Task Force to Barbour’s attempt to open up the inner Mississippi Gulf Coast at the barrier islands to oil and gas drilling. As reported by the Mississippi Press, initial hearings on another Barbour project that very likely can be traced directly to the Energy Task Force were held just weeks after hurricane Katrina. The part of the state that would be most affected by this project was otherwise engaged, looking for water, gas, food and shelter, and trying to get out from under massive fallen trees. Now the DOE is ready to start work on this outrageous $3.5 billion project. The Richton Salt Dome project intends to pump 50 million gallons of water per day out of the Pascagoula & Leaf Rivers. The Pascagoula River basin is the only undammed water system in the lower 48, and a vital lifeline to migrating birds, as the first stop after their flight across the Gulf of Mexico in the spring and the last stop before they head for Central and South America in the fall. There is food in those big swamps, and lots of clear, clean water."
And a Democratic Congressional candidate in Pennsylvania got the thumbs-up from vmo1701 in the Diary PA-05: Mark B. McCracken attends historic groundbreaking of Pennsylvania's FIRST ethanol plant: "Clearfield County Commissioner and 5th District Congressional Candidate Mark B. McCracken was invited by officials of BioEnergy LLC to take part in the official groundbreaking ceremony held on Thursday March 13th for the Bionol Clearfield Biorefinery. Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell was on hand to proclaim Clearfield County as the ‘Alternative Energy Capitol’ of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. During his comments, Governor Rendell gave praise to State Representative Camille George (D-74) for his leadership and determination to bring the project to Clearfield County. Governor Rendell also recognized Clearfield County Commissioners McCracken, McMillen and Sobel along with former commissioner Rex Read for their ‘vision and leadership to help bring this multi-million dollar facility to their county’. Governor Rendell concluded his remarks stating ‘We’re not only going to make this facility one of the energy capitals of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but I hope of America as well.’"
A campaign endorsement caught kudos from fbihop in NM-Sen: Udall, Environmentalists Gather: "Tom Udall is a fine Congressman for the Third Congressional District and will make a fine Senator for all of New Mexico. He is especially impressive on environmental issues to no one's surprise, just look at his family history. For more on that, take a look at the profile of Udall and his cousin Mark in Outside magazine. I wrote about it here. Former Albuquerque mayor and former State Land Commissioner Jim Baca wrote about the gathering of environmentally conscious New Mexicans who gathered in honor of the announcement of Udall's endorsement by the League of Conservation Voters.
SUSTAINABILITY & GREEN BUSINESS
In his second Manufacturing Monday Diary, Johnny Venom raised a challenge – Is Industrial rejuvenation wearing a Green Collar shirt?: "This week I would like to talk about what could be the path towards what I like to call a New Industrial Economy. Unlike our past industrial revolution, a future one will try and learn from its past mistakes and build foundations that will help move America forward. Smokestacks poisoning air until we choke, polluted rivers creating toxic drinking water, and now dilapidating properties containing a shell of an industrial past, we’ve all heard or seen these things. At one time, they were a sign of an age when this country used to have an abundance of union paying jobs and we provided for our own goods. In many communities, in the name of progress, millions had to endure such things mentioned above. Indeed, when one is asked to think about an industrial economy, pollution will come to mind before say recycling. But an even this past week highlighted how the environment many indeed reopen the door for manufacturing in America. There is an opportunity here to rebuild our infrastructure, and being ‘green’ is the key. At a two-day event known as Good Jobs, Green Jobs in Pittsburgh, Bizgreen.com reported that various business and non-profit groups met to discuss opportunities through green technology."
Asinus Asinum Fricat brought us some Water News, sans Obama: "First a few facts: Water in numbers. 1% is the amount of the world's water currently fit for human consumption. 97% is the percentage of Earth's water that is saltwater. 6% is the amount of world's freshwater that will be processed in desalination facilities by 2015, (which is roughly double of the current amount). 2 billion is the number of people the UN estimates will lack sufficient water by 2050. Concerned? We should be. Future wars? You bet they will be about water, the new oil (though this is not news, there have been numerous wars in the past that were fought about water or lack thereof, closer to home, think California Water Wars of the 30s)."
GLOBAL WARMING
WattHead presented Beyond 80% by '50 to a Climate Positive Vision - a New Philosophy and Goal for the Climate Movement: "Two recent studies ‘suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide... The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.’ We in the climate movement should take note of these headlines. Apparently based on a cautious interpretation of the climate science, we've been calling for relatively incremental goals like 2% reductions in emissions per year, targeting 80% reductions by 2050 - one of the "mantras" of our movement since Step it Up. We've been busy (successfully) making that 80x50 goal politically feasible. Now the mainstream media is telling us - climate activists who are supposed to be pushing the cutting edge - that our goals aren't good enough."
Glacier melt hits record rate, UN says was noted in the back pages of the press last week, as noted by Famoso116lex: "The world's glaciers has accelerated to a new record high. Europe,losses have created a worrying sign of climate change, the UN Environment Programme said Sunday. ‘Meltdown in the mountains,’ UNEP said in a statement, mentioning that a retreat of the glaciers should add urgency to UN negotiations. The UN should immediately start working out a new treaty by the end of 2009 to combat global warming. ‘Date from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that thinning more than doubled,’ it said."
Steve Bloom took an Early look at 2008 Arctic sea ice levels!: "The life cycle of the pack ice is to rotate around the Arctic Sea one to several times and then to flush out through the strait between Greenland and Iceland. What we're seeing now is most of the ice passing out on the first rotation. The very thin ice ... tends to melt early in the season, so when viewing the plots pay attention mainly to the thicker stuff. This page has an animation showing the mobility of the ice over the last few months in one of the areas that's thinned the most. In December a scientist on an icebreaker there described it as ‘Styrofoam in a bath tub.’"
BruinKid
added to the growing number of complaints about New GW denialists' deceptive lie on global temperatures: "They're at it again. Over at ICECAP, a site that claims to not be made up of global warming deniers, but turns out to host some of the biggest names in the global warming denial field that get serious $$$ from the oil companies, Joseph D'Aleo (a meteorologist, not climate scientist) put up their latest lie."
ClimateLurker was on the case, too, in Global Warming, the Winter Wiggle, and Short-term Climate Variation: "NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center recently announced that this past winter was the coolest since 2001, for the U.S. and the globe. Some people say that recent cooler temperatures mean that global warming has stopped. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: A single season can’t determine a long-term trend any more than a single month can. However, the recent ‘cooler temperatures’ offer a great opportunity to talk about short-term, natural climate variation. The long-term trend is clear – temperatures are going up because of increasing levels of greenhouse gases – but there will always be bumps and wiggles along the way. This past winter is one of those wiggles. What caused it, and how well do scientists understand these sorts of short-term changes?"
Desmogblog explored The Global Warming Costs of the Iraq War: "As if there weren't enough reasons out there for opposing the war in Iraq, a report released today by DC-based Oil Change International quantifies both the greenhouse gas emissions of the Iraq War and the opportunity costs involved in fighting war rather than climate change. The irony of the justification for the Iraq War and jack being done to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions isn't lost on me. On one hand we have a trillion-dollar war trashing the environment (not to mention the lives of hundreds of thousands of families), that is based on falsified and flimsy evidence. And on the other hand we have global warming, which no amount of scientific evidence could convince the White House, and up until the last mid-term election, a Republican-controlled Senate, that we need to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic disruption of the world's climate."
ANIMALS
lineatus wrote the latest installment in the Dawn Chorus Birdblog series, : Kestrels (what's not to like?): "American Kestrels are among the smallest North American birds of prey. They are about 11" long (about the size of a jay) and weigh in right around 100g (4 oz.), with females up to 10% larger than males - a much smaller difference than most raptors. Unlike many raptors, male and female kestrels look very different and can be easily separated as soon as they are past their downy stage. Kestrels can live to be over ten years old in the wild (and longer in captivity), but they have a very high mortality rate in the first year. They don't just need to learn to hunt, they also need to avoid ending up as someone else's meal. Male kestrels are particularly colorful, with slate-blue wing coverts, bright rufous tails and tawny bodies. Females are rufous with black barring on wings, tails and backs, with brown streaks below. Both male and female kestrels have elaborately marked heads - double mustache marks on the cheeks, blue crowns with a rufous patch and a pair of ‘eyespots’ on the back of the head (perhaps to confuse predators hoping to sneak up on them)."
GernBlanzten took note that Sacramento River's Chinook Salmon VANISH: "So what happened to them? No one knows anything. So what happened? As Dave Bitts, a fisherman based in Eureka in Northern California, sees it, the variables are simple. ‘To survive, there are two things a salmon needs,’ he said. ‘To eat. And not to be eaten.’ Fragmentary evidence about salmon mortality in the Sacramento River in recent years, as well as more robust but still inconclusive data about ocean conditions in 2005, indicates that the fall Chinook smolts, or baby fish, of 2005 may have lost out on both counts. But biologists, fishermen and fishery managers all emphasize that no one yet knows anything for sure."