Coming up this Saturday is International Day of Climate Action. If you haven’t already considered blogging your thoughts on climate change that day, or of participating in a local action, or both, consider them now. Some 3000 local actions are scheduled. At the very least, with the Copenhagen climate conference coming up soon and climate legislation working its way through the U.S. Congress, educate yourself. More than a little is at stake. If you haven’t followed why IDCA matters, I recommend two recent diaries to get you started.
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse offered some background on the IDCA on Sunday:
Obama Wants YOU NOW
The White House sent a clear message to Bill McKibben: WE need to build the movement to pressure DC so that Obama can take effective climate change action not achievable within the current political forces.
Next Saturday, October 24th, is the International Day of Climate Action, when people around the world will make their voices heard to pressure world leaders to provide real climate change reform. Communities around the U.S. will be taking a variety of actions because ACES and international measures seek 450 ppm as the target goal. Problem is that we are experiencing climate change impacts now because we are at 387 ppm, which is consistent with a study showing the safe target is 350 ppm, not 450 ppm.
350.org has a handy tool to find events planned for your community. DK GreenRoots is also organizing a blogathon for Saturday: Will you join us? Please sign up in the comments so that we can post a climate change diary every 20 minutes at Daily Kos.
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On Monday,
RLMiller had a liveblog with an excellent comment thread:
Chat with Bill McKibben of 350.org.
Three other diaries gave us some good information and schedules about the International Day of Climate Action, aaraujo here, bogmanoc here and WarrenS here.
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The diary rescue now appears on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The rescue begins below and continues in the jump. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it.
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LiberalKentuckian took a thorough look at "One of the most unfortunate Midnight rules" Oil-shale controversy: "Tuesday, the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, said he will be reviewing a "midnight rule" implemented by the Bush Administration, that gave oil-shale leases to oil companies operating in the Rocky Mountain region. It seems that the terms seem way too friendly, and some Environmentalists are calling this just a scratch on the surface of Bush-era ‘Cronyism,’ that gave favorable terms for oil companies that supported the Bush Administration."
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ScottyUrb has posted the Overnight News Digest.
FishOutofWater updated the reports on the 4th Try in 8 Weeks to Cap Timor Sea Spill, U.S. Approves Arctic Offshore Drilling: "Oil companies have pushed for expanded offshore drilling into environmentally sensitive areas in waters off of the Carolinas, Florida, California and Alaska, claiming that modern technology prevents oil leaks and blowouts. Tomorrow PTTEP Australasia, will make a fourth attempt to cap a well that blew out almost 2 months ago in the Timor sea. Modern drilling and blowout prevention technology were used by a skilled Norwegian drilling crew, but an accident happened despite those technologies."
dsnodgrass wrote about a Complaint Against Target Filed with USDA: "Leading organic watchdog the Cornucopia Institute has registered a formal complaint with the USDA against retail behemoth Target for falsely representing Silk brand soymilk as organic in newspaper advertisements. The allegation states the following (pdf): Specifically, Target Corporation advertised Silk soymilk in newspapers with the term ‘organic’ pictured on the carton’s label, when in fact the product’s manufacturer, Dean Foods’ WhiteWave division, has been sourcing this product line with conventional soybeans. The newspaper ads potentially reached millions of consumers in the Midwest, and possibly nationwide, with the false representation. This is not the first time Target has been accused of organic mislabeling."
Jill Richardson revisited Making School Lunches Not Suck: "School lunch is a complex topic, legally, but in its essence, it's very simple. School lunch is one of the only times when the government has very direct control over what Americans eat. And it's not a neutral decision. The food served in schools either helps or harms the health of America's children. Obviously, on a day to day level, the decisions are made by a very diverse group of school districts and individual schools, and people within those schools, but the federal government controls the food in two ways: by setting (or not setting) nutritional standards and by deciding how much to reimburse schools for school lunch. All year I've been talking about the Child Nutrition Reauthorization, the big school lunch bill that will be passed in the next year. But the Institute of Medicine just gave us another opportunity to make changes - and no bills need to be passed in order to make them! The IOM made new recommendations for nutrition standards for school lunch, and now it's up to the USDA to adopt them... or not."
As part of the Adopt-a-Senator for ACES project, wvablue evaluated One Rare Byrd, An Honest Broker for Vested Interests: "Time and time again, Sen. Byrd has delivered for West Virginia. The question of the moment is, what does Byrd think West Virginia needs in the next energy and climate bill? ...Part of Sen. Byrd's legislative style is to play his cards close to the vest. Even on legislation where there is little question how he is likely to vote, Sen. Byrd rarely commits publicly to a position ahead of casting a vote."
A Siegel alerted us to CBO, Media: Schedule Remedial Science Classes: "The incisive Natasha Chart of Campaign for America's Future has a must read discussion of the standard economist's failures when considering large scale, complex social and environmental issues like climate change. It's remarkable how often economists ignore physical reality. Whether they're suggesting that economies can act as perpetual motion machines or suggesting that resource availability is meaningless to economic growth, I'm always prompted to think they should make science classes a mandatory part of the economics curriculum. Brad Johnson of the Wonkroom sparked Natasha to return to this subject with his calling out of Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf for his testimony which placed economic implications of 6+ degree warming in the range of just a few percent of the overall GDP."
He also discussed the Chamber of Commerce's About Face: Good News for America: "A number of prominent and long-standing members have recently left the Chamber over our opposition to climate legislation. Numerous others have expressed their dissension, and a number of local Chambers have done so as well. Today, we're finally taking their cue. There is only one sound way to do business: that's to support a strong climate-change bill quickly, so that this December in Copenhagen, President Obama can lead the entire business world in ensuring our long-term prosperity. Today's momentous decision indeed comes after a difficult period - a very long one. Donahue has been pilloried. The Chamber has seen membership drop by over 90% in the past week. (Okay, actual membership didn't fall 90%, they just were forced to admit a massive exaggeration in their numbers.) Major Corporations have withdrawn from the Chamber. Others have issued statements critical of Donahue's leadership. And, the Obama White House has evidently identified the Chamber as a foe."
In a pair of diaries, Kevin Grandia, known at Daily Kos as Desmogblog also looked at the Chamber, telling us Who's Killing US Clean Energy Policy?: "If Obama's clean energy bill fails, it will not be because progressive groups have not done a good job at defending the bill, it will be the multi-billion dollar fossil fuel industry and their ideological front groups that will be to blame. To name a few: The US Chamber of Commerce, Heritage Foundation, National Association of Manufacturers, Freedomworks and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCE). The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is taking on water for advocating a climate change position that even its own members find irresponsible. But this is only the latest episode in the Chamber's 20-year campaign to block legislative solutions that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create new green jobs and, ultimately, lead to energy independence."
His first diary on the subject was Chamber of Commerce: A Long History of Killing Clean Energy Policy.
tazzz also took on the Chamber of Commerce fallout in WATCH: Chamber of Commerce Got PUNK'D on Shift on Climate Change Bill: "The Chamber of Commerce hoax on its shift in position on Climate Change, got the media's attention today. Looks like the Media was taken for a fool once again by a Hoax. But this was good... LOL. A group (yes men) pretending to be the business lobby hosted a fake news conference at the National Press Club announcing a ‘dramatic’ shift in its position on climate change."
As part of her delightful, photo-rich New Deal series, Land of Enchantment took a look at the CCC in Texas State ParksTexas is a huge state, and nearly 30 (or more) of its State Parks benefited from CCC projects. The purpose of this diary is to go into more depth as to all the different work the CCC did. One diary about one National Park just isn't enough to show what millions of young men, at work across the nation, accomplished for the benefit of us all. To show how much of our public landscape - too often taken for granted - still endures from that time three generations ago."
Petroleum prices were on Richard Cranium’s mind in
Toilet Paper, Gas and Gold: "In the past couple of weeks, the price of gasoline has increased dramatically after a short drop. What’s spurring the price rise? The same thing that triggered the global economic collapse in 2008: greed and trading speculation in the price of oil. Speculators say oil is like gold. Wrong. It's more like toilet paper."
Steven D discussed a report by the National Research Council in NRC: Fossil Fuels Bad for AmericaBurning fossil fuels is bad for your health and bad for the economy, too, to the tune of, at a minimum, $120 BILLION per year. Specifically, burning oil and coal has number of hidden costs that may surprise all the fans of drill, baby, drill (or in the case of coal ‘Tear down Old Rocky Top’), who insist that using fossil fuels are safe and that they represent our best choice for supplying America with the energy our nation needs...
rperks wrote three diaries in the past three days, including Beware the 'Hidden' Costs of Dirty Fuels: "Since many of our elected leaders seem to be worried about costs, they should consider this: fossil fuels cost the United States about $120 billion a year, according to a study by the National Academy of Sciences. This cost is measured primarily by thousands of premature deaths from air pollution produced by the burning of these dirty fuels.
The NAS report, "Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use" assessed the costs of various energy sources, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and renewables alternatives like wind and solar. One caveat: The report focused on the impacts of major pollutants -- including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter -- but did not factor climate change impacts into the cost assessment."
He also said we should Tell the Army Corps to Dump Mountaintop Removal Permits: "Now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made it clear that mountaintop removal coal mining poses a severe threat to the environment -- most notably to water quality -- in Appalachia, the fate of this abominable practice appears to rest in the hands of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. You see, coal companies conduct mountaintop removal operations today with the blessing of the Corps, the federal agency responsible for issuing Clean Water Act permits for discharges of ‘fill material’ into the nation's waterways. For too long, the Corps has routinely ‘rubber-stamped’ permits for these projects, which involve the dumping of tons of mining waste into valley streams." And Mountaintop Mining Reclamation: A Big, Flat Lie.
Muskegon Critic was not happy about what happened in his hometown, as he explained in Already "Offshoring" Our Green Manufacturing Revolution: "In 1999 the City of Muskegon, in partnership with Grand Valley State University, conceived of an alternative energy research facility called the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC). The purpose, to incubate green businesses right here in Muskegon. To reinvent ourselves. To be at the forefront of green technology. To create jobs. To pull ourselves from a long economic malaise, which currently has the city at 16% unemployment. In 2003 the new MAREC building opened. ne of MAREC's first successful businesses was WindTronics who developed a wind turbine that produces energy at wind speeds as low as 2 miles per hour, and it's within striking distance of actual affordability for household use....it was ranked among the 10 most brilliant products of 2009 by Popular Mechanics. Pretty friggin' sweet. And when time came to set up where the factory and its 200 jobs would go they picked....Windsor, Canada. Not Muskegon, not Michigan, not even the United States."
He also wrote about the Enviro-Carnage of the St. Lawrence Waterway.
Keith Pickering gave us the skinny on a New fusion device achieving plasmoid pinch: "Eric Lerner's new Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) device, Focus Fusion 1, was test fired for its first "shots" on October 15th, and achieved ‘pinch’ -- a dense plasmoid vortex -- on just its second test shot, significantly ahead of schedule. For a brief instant, over 100 Gigawatts of power was concentrated in a region smaller than the point of a pin."
Turkana let us know about what is being done to commemorate Luke Cole: SF and NYC Public Memorials For Enviro Justice Pioneer: "This Saturday, the Luke W. Cole Professorship in Environmental Law and Directorship of the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic will be established at Stanford Law School. For those of you who knew Luke through birding, I am pleased to tell you that in his final days, he had finally sighted a Madagascar Red Owl, and on what he wrote was one of the greatest days of his life, Gough Island Moorhens and Gough Buntings."
RLMiller took on the The Politics of Yellowstone Snowmobiles: "The snowmobiles of Yellowstone: the single most overhyped, politically charged issue in the entire National Park Service, generating far more migraines than snowmobilers. During the Bush era, ideology trampled all over science like a snowmobile over freshly fallen snow. Elections have consequences. This year the snowmobile battle appears to have quietly resolved itself (notwithstanding pending litigation), leaving three angry Republicans from Wyoming out in the cold."
gmoke talked about Simple Solar 5: Solar Backpack: "This is my solar backpack. It has three solar lighting systems on it which I use for my lights when riding my bicycle at night. I've been using it for four or five years now, hasn't failed me yet, and cost a little over $60 to put together."
LeftCoastBreakdown warned us in the diary Michael Pollan: How much oil are we eating: "Don't watch this video before lunch, you might lose your appetite. At this past weekend's Bioneers Conference, Michael Pollan demonstrated exactly how much black, viscous, smelly, carbon-belching crude oil goes into your fast food hamburger."
boatsie spoke to eco-justice in Koh Tree: I will no longer be silent!: "’We were all very struck by the gravity and scale of the global ecological crisis and the impact it is having on the various communities we are working with on various social justice issues,’ says Dana Ginn Paredes, organizing director of Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice. They also shared ‘a sense of deep alarm at future of humanity.’ Embedding ecological literacy into their programs is now core to their philosophy because, Paredes says, ‘the ecological crisis will continue to impact the most marginalized communities first and worst. Folks with the most power and economic wealth caused the problem, and they are paying the least price.’ ‘We need collective, organized and power building approaches,’ she says. ‘People need to meet their own basic needs which means they can't engage in ecology problems. We don't have time for that anymore. They need a seat at the table.’"
Haole in Hawaii gave us photos of Birds of Bosque del Apache: "I just returned from a brief trip to New Mexico to visit family and a special friend. On Sunday afternoon I made a trip down to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge to do a little photography.
Other diaries included:
beach babe in fl's installment of the weekly series, Macca's Meatless Monday...Too Much Grain.
gmoke on Solar Light Sources.
IndianaDemocrat asking Has The Northern Gulf Stream Shut Down?
Scott on the Spot on A Balanced View of Global Warming.