See matching mole's post on "bark cattle" round-up.
Many environmentally related posts appearing at Daily Kos each week don't attract the attention they deserve. To help get more eyeballs, Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) normally appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The most recent Saturday Spotlight can be seen here. More than 22,830 environmentally oriented diaries have been rescued for inclusion in this weekly collection since 2006. Inclusion of a diary in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
The Daily Bucket - seastar epidemic update—by
OceanDiver: "June 9, 2015. Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest. Remember the devastating epidemic that wiped out most seastars along the west coast of North America last year? Called SeaStar Wasting Syndrome (SSWS), the proximate cause was tentatively identified by a team of researchers last fall as a virus, one that has been present in the marine environment for at least 70 years, but which has been killing seastars at an unprecedented rate over the past two years. The spread of infection is exacerbated by warm summer water, but there are probably several factors working together to cause this current extreme event in our rapidly changing marine environment. This epidemic is unusual in that it is geographically widespread, has high mortality, and affects all species of seastars. Research is ongoing and has been greatly assisted by citizen science efforts reporting cases to central clearinghouses, primarily at UC Santa Cruz. I've been making observations at sites around the island where I live in the San Juan archipelago, in the Salish Sea. I am not far from the Washington coast where SSWS was first identified in June 2013. All of my observations have been at rocky intertidal sites like this, usually on foot but sometimes by kayak. There's one purple Ochre Star (Pisaster ochraceus) on the rock in the foreground - I have to be within arm's reach to see them. The most common seastar along the west coast is (was) the Ochre Star.
Healthy
Pisaster vs. a sick one:
These common sense farming solutions may be the future for California—by
Walter Einenkel: "Wired put together a piece on dry farming and its growing profile—the obvious result of the terrible drought being felt out West. The technique known as dry farming stems from a basic philosophy: if you leave the soil free of heavy-duty fertilizers and weedkillers and pesticides, it will become more rich and not need to rely so much on loads of water to provide a yield.
In Templeton, California, Mary Morwood Hart is using dry farming on her Grenache, Mourvedre, and olive trees, carefully cultivating the soil on her 20 acres so it can sustain growth without water. [...] Hart and her husband, who run the farm together, believe dry farming prolongs the vine’s life, and their method isn’t exactly devoid of moisture: The calcareous clay soils in Templeton, she says, hold a lot of water. 'It creates a situation where the tap roots have to dig deep down into the soil to find moisture and it brings about character and a complexity of flavor,' says Hart. 'When you do irrigate a vine, the roots tend to grow very close to the surface, because they’re just waiting there for their drops of water.' One of the drawbacks is that the yields do not come close to matching those of typical California farms. Hart produces 1.3 tons per acre and in general California farms produce something in the ballpark of five tons per acre."
You can find more excerpts from green diaries below the orange spill.
Climate Chaos
Bread and Butter Issues Demystify Official Climate Action Plans—by boatsie: "A new analysis released today at the G7 summit provides a 'bread and butter' overview of how national climate action plans will benefit everyday citizens in terms of better jobs, longer lives and a cleaner atmosphere. The New Climate Institute report, Assessing the missed benefits of countries’ national contributions, explores and contrasts climate commitments from Canada, Japan, Europe, the US and China with an eye towards examining how they fall short of the opportunity to make dramatic changes in the quality of life for future generations. The Climate Action plans of Japan and Canada are singled out for submitting the least ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). The report notes, however, that the proposals cumulatively "move the world closer to a trajectory which would keep global warming well within the danger threshold of 2degC—and even the 1.5degC advocated by many of the world’s most vulnerable nations.' The climate action plans by the five major economies assessed in the new report—Japan, Canada, EU, US and China—will collectively save 115,000 lives a year, put USD41 billion back in the coffers annually, and create 1 million jobs in the renewable energy sector by 2030."
Putin's Gazprom is first to ship oil, during the winter, over the Roof of the World—by
Pakalolo: "The Siberian Times reports the discouraging and depressing news.
History was made earlier this year when 16,000 tonnes of Novy Port oil set off from Yamal on board tankers destined for Europe via the new Northern Sea Route. Since then a number of other ships have made the same journey over the Arctic, with a total of 110,000 tonnes navigating its way north from the Novoportovskoye field in Yamal. So what has never existed before has now made this change in shipping over the forbidding Arctic possible? Nuclear powered ice breakers. They have been successfully been built by ROSATOM, another Russian/ Putin state monopoly. Prior to this development, distributing oil and gas to Europe required pipelines and the need to ship in the Mediterranean and via the Suez canal shaving 3 weeks off the delivery. Of course, this state run nuclear industry itself is also in the news for other reasons,. Russia is fueling its Arctic conquest with uranium fueled ice breakers. Putin has put a strangle hold on uranium supplies by acquiring Uranium One Mines in Kazakhstan, Australia, & the US."
GOP zombie lies: environmental edition "The Cooling World"—by Eric Nelson: "If you get a chance, please do check out this 1970's Newsweek article by Peter Gwynne (pdf), who has since backed away from it, but like a republican won't admit he was wrong; Merely 'inaccurate.' It really is the "science" Bible that these republicans have locked onto and layered up from there over the years. It's hysterical reading and worth a look: 'the cooling world' (pdf). Just a few excerpts: • large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72 • The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down • two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972 • the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average."
How I helped get Robert Reich to make a video—by RLMiller: "MoveOn has been working with Robert Reich on a series of videos they're calling The Big Picture, focused on elevating a bunch of bold economic ideas that could make the U.S. more just, prosperous, and sustainable. [...] MoveOn is very good about listening to its members, and apparently they did listen to me—and, let's be honest, lots of other folk who know that climate change presents huge economic challenges and opportunities. But don't listen to me. Listen to Robert Reich."
The headline we have been waiting for: G7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuels—by VL Baker: "The leaders of the G7, whose members include the US, Germany, France, the UK, Japan, Canada and Italy are meeting in Bavaria, Germany. Their meeting has heralded a historic result with the leaders pledging to phase out fossil fuels entirely this century. Martin Kaiser, head of international climate politics at Greenpeace had this to add: 'The vision of a 100 per cent renewable energy future is starting to take shape while spelling out the end of coal' The pieces are starting to come together. It's been an incredible effort, which we must continue and we're still not assured that current actions will lead us to where climate scientists say we need to be to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Financial Times. G7 leaders meeting in Bavaria, Germany, said that in line with scientific findings, âdeep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of this century."
IPCC Criticized for Dismissing Denier's Dumb Question—by ClimateDenierRoundup: "There's a new paper in Nature Climate Change about the IPCC's press conference that's causing some confusion. Its central claim seems to be that in order to provide the public with more certainty on climate change, the IPCC spokespeople should have focused on the uncertainty introduced by the 'pause.' If you're confused by that, well, join the club! And Then There's Physics has a basic post about it, capturing the sentiment of the paper's confusion. The paper (and accompanying blog post) seems to be saying that because the IPCC speakers didn't acknowledge that the pause made climate science less certain, and dismissed journalists' questions about it, they undermine their credibility and certainty. Digging into the details, the journalist whose question is in question is a man named David Rose, who you may know as the 'reporter' responsible for a number of terrible climate denial stories in the Daily Mail, a British tabloid. At the IPCC press conference, he asked how long the perceived hiatus in warming would have to continue before they acknowledge the models are wrong. The IPCC spokesperson responded by dismissing it as an 'ill-posed' question, because climate deals with time spans of at least 30 years, not the so-called pause's 15. But during the press conference, the IPCC also talked about it being the hottest decade, so the paper authors conclude that this focus on one kind of short-term trend but not the pause undermined the whole thing. Except the paper authors are somehow missing the obvious fact that the hottest decade was in reference to the latest decade in a multi-decade trend. So it's not a focus on the short term at all (like the pause) but instead just the most recent data point in a trend."
Painting a smiley face on the Apocalypse—by ontheleftcoast: "There are times I yell at my car radio. Yeah, it's stupid, but boy does it feel good. The latest was today listening to a story on my local NPR station KUOW. The Pacific Northwest is having a bumper crop of berries this year. They're coming in earlier (3 weeks) and larger. For some crops which grow for the length of the season this will be a windfall. Record profits. So what got me screaming at the radio? It wasn't what they said but what they didn't say. Not one single word about Why we're having this record season. Climate. Climate change. Global warming. None of them were mentioned. A brief, 'The mild winter we had this year' is as close as they got."
Conservative 'Dark Money ATM' has climate change in its crosshairs—by VL Baker: "The Guardian is reporting that secretive donors gave climate denial groups $125 million over three years. The Guardian reporters dug into tax records to trace the money which was targeting President Obama's climate change plan and have released the names of the groups and the amount they received. The money is about half of what the conservative dark groups gave to right-wing causes showing the significance of stopping climate-change mitigation to conservative groups. The investigation found that two groups tend to be responsible for allocating the funds they are Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund."
You get what you pay for: US and UK most in denial—by ClimateDenierRoundup: "Brietbart and some legitimate media cover a YouGov survey that shows that compared to other countries, the US and UK are hotbeds of denial. In the US, 32% of respondents said climate change isn't a very serious or serious problem at all, with 26% saying the same in the UK. This is a marked difference from other countries, particularly in Asia. For example, only 11% of Australians said the same, and only 4% of Chinese said climate change was not a serious problem. Malaysia and Indonesia are particularly strong, with only 2% and 3% respectively considering climate change not a serious problem. Brietbart claims the high levels of skepticism in the US and UK are because the US and UK need to give money to developing countries to solve climate change, and no one wants to give out their money. But this gives short shrift to the billions of dollars spent by US- and UK-based 'charities' to lobby against climate action and otherwise confuse the public and media about the certainty of the climate-carbon connection."
As climate denier heads explode over the loss of the "hiatus", one simple question shuts them up—by Keith Pickering: "This week the online journal Science Express published a paper by Karl et al. that corrected a few biases in the global temperature record. Most of these corrections were to the sea surface temperature record, data collected by ships and buoys. The upshot was that any evidence for a so-called 'hiatus' or 'pause' in global warming during recent years vanished in the statistical haze. And climate denier heads exploded all over the internet. (Those who have studied the statistics always knew that the apparent slowdown was not statistically significant in the first place. In other words, it was never there to begin with.) During this firestorm, primo denialati Anthony Watts had an email exchange with Dr. Tom Peterson, one of the co-authors of the hated Karl et al. paper. Follow below the fold for the quick coup de grace."
3-pack of Whoppers on the faux-pause paper—by ClimateDenierRoundup: "The deniersphere is predictably up in arms about the NOAA paper that lays rest to the myth that warming has stopped. As promised, Sou at HotWhopper already has a few articles looking at deniers' frantic responses to the study as they look for any way to cling to the myth. First she has a postabout Fred Singer's column at the American Thinker, where he stoops so low as to claim that there's "no evidence whatsoever" for man-made warming during the 20th century. So not just run-of-the-mill denial of trends or record years, but full-fledged denial about the greenhouse effect. Then there's a post looking at a Bob Tisdale piece on WUWT, where Tisdale says that climate scientists are adjusting temperatures like this to cool the past and warm the present. Except this paper, as noted yesterday, does exactly the opposite, warming the past and cooling the present, overall reducing the rate of warming over the entire period of observations. Finally, Sou dives into the sick sad world of WUWT comments to highlight some choicer conspiracy theories, giving you a taste for the best (worst?) of denier thinking. Browsing the categories of conspiratorial thinking, Sou finds theories that claim scientists are willfully manipulating data for fame, fortune, and politics—which must be why you see so many scientists driving Ferraris and attending red carpet events."
Critters & the Great Outdoors
The Daily Bucket: Fort DeSoto FL—by Lenny Flank: "Fort DeSoto Park is a historical area in the south of Pinellas County FL, where a gun fort was built just after the Spanish-American War to defend the entrance to Tampa Bay. The park also serves as a wildlife refuge. Here are some photos from a recent afternoon at Fort DeSoto."
White Ibis looking for a late lunch in eastern Florida.
BBC and Nickelodeon on The Most Important Creatures On Earth—by
xaxnar: " In case you missed it, BBC Earth teamed up with Nickelodeon to put together a short video on the most important creatures on Earth—especially if you like breathing and/or seafood. It's a good reminder that size isn't everything; quantity has its own quality, and these critters are critically important."
What About the Elephants is now ELEPHANTS MATTER—by sherman54: "The ongoing intensity of our campaign to raise awareness of the poaching and illegal sale of Ivory and Rhino horn has only grown stronger and our voices have gotten louder. Where there once were 100 soldiers, there are now 10,000! After banging on the door of State Senator Hoylman (New York 27th District: Manhattan) for over 6 months, I finally sat with him and explained the severity of this crisis and asked for his help staging an Ivory Crush in New York City. He liked the idea and I went to work researching all salient facts about the Ivory Crush in Denver in November 2013. Everything about rock crushers vs. steam rollers, confiscated Ivory with the criminal cases still pending, and many other issues....then I spoke to writers from the Denver Post who had witnessed and written about the event, and from there I pursued the USFWS in Colorado. I cannot even say how helpful and eager they were to help me get this done. From there I was working my way up the web at USFWS in D.C. and again doors opened readily and I was gaining valuable information, including the fact that the Denver Crush had received the Ivory from everywhere in the U.S.....with the exception of New York! Sometimes you just get lucky."
The Daily Bucket: The Great Bark Cattle Roundup—by matching mole: "Tallahassee, Florida. Almost two weeks ago I noticed an odd cluster of insects on our front rail early in the morning. I was in a hurry to head to work and didn't investigate closely. When I got home Ms Mole and her collaborator/house guest reported seeing and photographing these odd insects which they had been unable to identify even to order. Looking at the photos I realized that they were a species of 'bark louse' (Order Psocoptera, also called book lice). Previously I had found one when black lighting and foresterbob had pointed me in the right direction. What we had was an aggregation of Cerastipsocus venosus, a fairly common psocopteran of eastern North America. They are a very attractive-looking insect with beautifully sculptured wings, even if their heads are bit funny looking. Their habit of occurring in groups containing both adults and nymphs (the wingless banded ones) and moving about as a unit has led to the unlikely and rather whimsical name of 'bark cattle' with 'tree cattle' given as alternative name. Like cattle they are grazers, feeding on lichen, algae, and organic debris."
green trails at waukau creek [Photo Diary]—by blueyedace2:
Moose populations decreasing because of warming climates and longer lasting winter ticks—by
Walter Einenkel: "Winter ticks can kill moose in a pretty agonizing way. Up to 100,000 ticks can be found on a single moose. This can lead to huge areas of scratched off fur that ends with the moose dying of exposure. Winter ticks have always been a hazard to the moose populations of Maine but climate change might mean things are getting worse for the moose populations.
When they fall off the moose in the spring, they die if they fall onto heavy April snowpack, but if the winters are short and the ticks fall on warm, bare ground, the females lay eggs and repeat the cycle. And that is where climate change comes in. As Maine’s winters have gotten warmer and shorter, snowpack melts earlier, and tick populations boom, becoming a much deadlier threat to moose. Scientifically speaking there is clear, initial evidence, that winter ticks are hurting the moose population. Tying this to climate change will take more time, though some feel it is clearly related."
The Daily Bucket: Ghost Crabs Revisited—by matching mole: "A while back I did a bucket on ghost crabs. Here are some more pictures of them, this time on the beach at St Joseph Peninsula State Park. In the evening they seem to like to hang out at the surf line for reasons unknown to me. I took advantage of the great power of my new camera to take photos in the dim light."
Ghost crab in St. Joe State Park, Florida.
Dawn Chorus: Open Thread—by
matching mole: "Below are some pictures from yesterday evening at the neighborhood dock. Eastern Kingbird and Tri-colored Heron. Please post any and all comments and images of at least a vaguely avian nature."
Tricolor Heron
Energy
Coal, Oil, Gas & Nuclear
Massive New Proposed Federal Coal Leases Sound Alarm Bells—by
Mary Anne Hitt: "The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has just made an under-the-radar decision that threatens to set back U.S. progress on clean energy and climate change. President Obama has made some big steps forward on clean energy, including the Clean Power Plan which will reduce carbon pollution from power plants, and stronger fuel efficiency standards for cars, trucks and planes. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are competing dollar-for-dollar with fossil fuels, and advocates have won the retirement of 190 U.S. coal plants since 2010. Last year for the first time in over 40 years, carbon emissions flatlined while the economy grew. We are making progress toward clean energy in the U.S. But a recent move by BLM would take us in exactly the opposite direction. BLM has just released a resource management plan that calls for up to 10 billion tons of coal development and thousands of new fracking and oil and gas wells in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. At a time when the rest of the Obama Administration is taking meaningful steps to address climate disruption, the carbon impact of BLM’s proposal is enormous. To put this in perspective, BLM's plan could add up to 16.9 billion metric tons of carbon pollution to the atmosphere—the equivalent of 19 times the carbon pollution generated by all U.S. passenger cars in a year."
Public Discussion of Fukushima Impact on the West Coast of North America—by
MarineChemist: "The purpose of this diary is to report on a recent public discussion tour to report the latest results of the Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring (InFORM) network to residents of the north coast of British Columbia. This diary continues a series aimed to report the results of scientific research into the impact of the Fukushima disaster on the environment. Between June 1-4, 2015 I traveled from Victoria up to Haida Gwaii, over to Prince Rupert and up the Skeena River to Terrace and gave 8 public talks to communicate the results of the networks monitoring efforts to determine the impact of the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdowns on the health of the northeast Pacific and residents of the North American west coast. I was able to meet three of our citizen scientist volunteers who have been collecting shoreline samples to look for Fukushima derived contamination of coastal seawater. The response to these presentations was overwhelmingly positive and the public asked very useful questions about monitoring thus far. Despite the overall usefulness of the discussions some old misinformation keeps rearing its head. Here I'll show some of the beautiful spots on our coast and begin the process of addressing some more of the misinformation related to Fukushima impacts on the west coast."
Fukushima Spurs Robot Development—by
joieau: "From the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE], here is a fascinating look at the complex and dangerous work that has been done by robot operators at Fukushima Daiichi, from an operator who maintained a blog called The Fukushima Robot Diaries, until it was deleted. IEEE's Automation blog writer Erico Guizzo salvaged it and re-published portions...
Before the blog was removed, I used software to make a copy of it. IEEE Spectrum has decided to translate and publish portions of the posts because we consider the information to be in the public interest. The material offers important lessons about the Fukushima disaster - lessons that roboticists and others should heed if we want to be better prepared for tomorrow's calamities. TEPCO has also been criticized for not being transparent, and these posts provide more information for Japanese citizens to decide whether the company and their government are doing a proper job. Interested readers may also enjoy this coverage of the Pomona contest. As for me, I just had to love a robot named "Escher" (pictured [on the left]), though he didn't win the competition, he did pretty well. I'm in my 60s now and have pretty much been waiting all my aware lifetime for my own personal slave robot. Which was to go with my flying car, which we also never got. And while robots and remote control construction/deconstruction equipment at Daiichi have managed to take some useful pictures and move/remove quite a lot of rubble, they have not managed to locate any of the three melted reactor cores or in any way diminished the constant releases of radioactive contamination."
Hey Alaska—by EarTo44: "We all know it's When, not if, there is another big oil spill. The big question I have is, why is it when there is an oil spill, the wealthiest business on planet Erf, has done little to no investment in emergency oil recovery? Nothing really new to speak of. Same clean up plan since 1969. Multi billion dollar companies, with no investment in the clean up dept. Did not see it being used in Santa Barbara last month if there is anything new. If there is bad weather, those floating plastic booms won't really be of much help. Chances are, bad weather will be the cause of an off shore rig accident. Even when some plan or design is in place, the large oil companies find a way to not go 100% in on safety, and you have something like the BP oil spill. If something does go wrong, there are too many players to identify exactly why or who was the cause."
Emissions Control
Three-judge federal panel rules for Obama's Clean Power Plan against fossil-fuel forces—by
Meteor Blades: "The decision announced Tuesday was pretty much expected. Three conservative judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants. The reason, the judges stated, was because the rules are not yet finalized:
'They want us to do something that they candidly acknowledge we have never done before: review the legality of a proposed rule,' Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion. 'But a proposed rule is just a proposal. In justiciable cases, this Court has authority to review the legality of final agency rules. We do not have authority to review proposed agency rules.' 'Do you know of any case when we have stopped rule-making? Why would we do that?' Judge Thomas Griffith asked Elbert Lin, an attorney for West Virginia, during the proceedings in April."
EPA makes first move to limit airplanes' carbon dioxide emissions. It's a long way to the final rule—by Meteor Blades: "The Environmental Protection Agency issued a 194-page endangerment finding Wednesday saying that airplanes' carbon dioxide emissions are a menace to public health. It's the first step in what will be a years long process creating a rule to reduce those emissions, which make up 29 percent of worldwide CO2 emissions from airplanes. Planetwide those emissions count for 0.5 percent of the total from all sources. The EPA stated in a release that the move was 'a preliminary but necessary first step to begin to address greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector, the highest-emitting category of transportation sources that the EPA has not yet addressed.'"
Renewables & Conservation
Of Two Global Warming Debates, One is Over—by Mokurai: "The political debate over the cause is becoming irrelevant. Now that we are well into Grid Parity, renewables cheaper than coal, nothing that politicians can do, and no amount of money spent by fossil carbon interests, will stop utilities from converting. Limiting factors are primarily the rate at which renewables can be built, and the delay while existing long-term contracts for power run out. Similarly, nothing politicians or Denialist fossil carbon interests can do can prevent the advance of battery technology, or any of the other technologies in development or early deployment. They will stand or fall based on considerations of real money. Lots and lots of real money. The hallucinogenic industry money deployed against Global Warming and its remedies in our hallucinatory politics amounts to a few billion dollars. It is attempting to prevent trillions of dollars in investments with returns in the many trillions of dollars. No contest."
Fracking
last week's OPEC meeting, the EPA report on fracking and drinking water, et al—by rjsigmund: "two stories dominated the news out of the fracking patch this week: the OPEC semi-annual meeting, their first since Thanksgiving, and the release of a 998-page, $33 million EPA report on fracking and drinking water that was five years in the fudge making ... the OPEC meeting didn't change anything—oil ministers agreed on Friday to hold their quotas at the same level they've been at over the last 6 months - but the lead up to it generated a lot of rehashing of what they've done to the oil markets and what they might do ... the EPA report found plenty of instances of drinking water pollution in their thousand pages, but those didn't make it to the press release or the official comments, leading to a plethora of headlines suggesting fracking is harmless, especially in publications predisposed to that point of view ... as noted, the OPEC meeting concluded Friday with the decision by the group to maintain their maximum production limit at 30 million barrels of oil a day, the same level it has officially been set at for the past year, which amounts to about a third of global oil output."
Keystone XL & Other Fossil Fuel Transportation
Enbridge Enters Another Settlement on Kalamazoo River Crude Oil Pipeline Spill—by LakeSuperior: "This is just a brief heads up to let all know that the federal natural resource trustees and First Nations Tribes in Michigan have adopted a supplementary settlement with Enbridge on the 2010 Spill of Enbridge Line 6B into several miles of the Kalamazoo River. Here is EPA Region V's web site on the Enbridge matter for more general information on the EPA response to the spill. [...] Settlement for natural resources requires comprehensive restoration projects to address resource losses and resource damages [...] The NRD settlement addresses environmental injuries caused by the 2010 rupture of Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline in Michigan that resulted in one of the largest inland oil spills in United States history. Trustees arrived at the NRD settlement in conjunction with a comprehensive settlement between the State of Michigan and Enbridge. The NRD settlement, which is being filed in federal court, provides funding to the Trustees to conduct natural resource restoration, reimburses agencies for assessment and restoration costs, and incorporates additional requirements from the state settlement for Enbridge to conduct restoration and monitoring. More details on the NRD settlement can be found at [this link]."
Candidates, DC, State & Local Eco-Politics
GOP's baby steps on climate change—by Molly Weasley: "A story in Politico reports that a North Carolina Republican businessman, Jay Faison, will spend $175 million of his own money to nudge his party away from the dark side on the issue of climate change. 'The aim is to get the Republican Party to shift its skeptical view of climate change and green energy, topics that usually fall to the bottom of its list of priorities when they don’t generate outright opposition among conservative voters,' the Politico story says. Faison, a conservative Christian with strong GOP credentials, made a fortune when he sold his audio-visual equipment company, SnapAV. He will pour $165 million into a public education campaign through his ClearPath Foundation. ClearPath is a Republican group Faison founded in December that has partnered with government agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as National Geographic, the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Climate Central. ClearPath’s mission is to 'empower people with information to take action that will accelerate a clean energy future and make America stronger and more prosperous.' It pushes clean energy solutions in wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power. You’ll notice the glaring omission on the government partnership list—no EPA. Faison wants answers to come from the market, not regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. Of course, without the EPA—passed in the Republican administration of President Richard Nixon—our air, water, and land would be a lot dirtier than it is. Let’s see a show of hands on who thinks Congress would establish an EPA today."
Wisconsin GOP wants to end all checks, balances and independent facts—by Jake formerly of the LP: "After a couple of reports from the state's Legislative Audit Bureau revealed widespread negligence and the loss of millions of taxpayer dollars at the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), leading to some some serious hits to Governor Scott Walker's administration, a couple of GOP legislators have apparently come up a solution to this problem. Get rid of those troublesome auditors and replace them with a group of people who could be bullied by state legislators. [...] But the 'ban the LAB' bill isn't the only way the Wisconsin GOP is trying to chill the opinions of people who might tell them no. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is slated to have more than half of their Science Services staff reduced, after the state's Joint Finance Committee recently approved of Gov Scott Walker's plans to make the cuts."
Eco-Action & Eco Justice
We Are Unstoppable. Another World Is Possible: Thousands March Against Tar Sands in St. Paul—by joedemocrat: "I was one of the thousands in the Tar Sands Resistance march through downtown St. Paul. Later in the march, one of the march volunteers told me that 5,000 people marched. That 5,000 number was also reported by Think Progress. About 5,000 people attended the march, according to the Sierra Club’s Mark Westlund — making it the largest anti-tar sands march the Midwest has ever seen. This tweet from the Sierra Club describing marchers as 'far back as the eye can see' is very accurate in my opinion. When I tried to look behind me to see how far back it went, I couldn't tell. [...] The atmosphere and enthusiasm gave me optimism we can win this battle for climate justice. I couldn't help but be impacted by thousands of people marching and shouting slogans such as "We Are Unstoppable. Another World Is Possible." I saw parents who marched with their small children. One mother and father who marched with their small child had a sign 'I March For Her Generation.' I met an extremely energetic group who called themselves the 'Raging Grannies.' I ran into people who traveled long distances just to march."
Pipeline protest draws marchers to St. Paul—by nokomis: "A crowd estimeated to number about 5000 marched through St. Paul to the capitol yesterday to protest pipelines that travel across Minnesota. Speakers at the capitol included Bill McKibben, Sierra Club President Aaron Mair, and Ojibwe 'water walker' Sharon Day. Though an independent tally was unavailable for the Tar Sands Resistance Rally, organizers estimated that 5,000 anti-pipeline and climate change activists took part in the colorful and peaceful march, marked by dozens of national speakers and live music and dance. Police reported no arrests. Activists such as 350.org founder Bill McKibben, Sierra Club President Aaron Mair, and Ojibwe 'water walker' Sharon Day — some of whom led the long-running battle against the controversial giant Keystone pipeline — say they hope to turn Minnesota’s pipeline into the next national organizing symbol against tar sands and climate change. 'The fossil fuel industry has been winning for 200 years, but their winning streak is over,' McKibben said Saturday, calling Minnesota 'ground zero' in the climate fight."
Agriculture, Food & Gardening
Family is producing 6,000 pounds of food on 4,000 square feet of land near downtown LA—by Walter Einenkel: "I usually assuage my farming failure guilt by telling myself I live in an urban environment and I do not have the space with which to properly tend to plants. The Dervaes family is showing how hollow my excuses are: The Dervaes family live on 1/10th of an acre 15 minutes from downtown L.A. In itself that’s not strange. What’s crazy is that they manage to maintain a sustainable and independent urban farm. Complete with animals! In a year they produce around 4,300 pounds of veggies, 900 chicken, 1000 duck eggs, 25 lbs honey, and pounds of seasonal fruit. There are over 400 species of plants. What?! They have everything they need to ‘live off the land.’ From beets to bees. Chickens to chickpeas. What they don't eat they sell to local chefs and others wanting locally grown food. According to the Dervaes they make around $20,000 a year selling their surplus."
Cul-de-sacs are terrible, but...—by SninkyPoo: "Cul-de-sacs are apparently terrible. But what if we could leverage the space for #climatechange victory gardens? Wouldn't it be possible to re-zone (or whatever you'd have to do) to allow on-street parking at the entrance to each cul-de-sac, then dig up the central disc of concrete and plant a garden there? Or put in dovecote? Or a chicken house? Or an apiary? David Suzuki has a nice resource page on how eating local foods can help fight climate change. Fewer transportation emissions are associated with locally grown foods - and even fewer with foods grown right outside the front door. So it stands to reason that if folks clubbed together in local communities to form cul-de-sac garden clubs, we could grow our own climate change 'victory gardens' and eliminate a big chunk of the trucked in vegetables on which we currently rely!"
We Just Don't Know—by Robocop: "For those people who trot out the argument that there have been no studies demonstrating a link between the consumption of GMOs and health risks, I would like to point out why. One of the factors involved in preventing GMO research by independent scientists is the trade group the American Council on Science and Health (ASCH). It’s been around since 1978 and describes itself as “a consumer education consortium concerned with issues related to food, nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, the environment and health.” A fine sounding mission statement until you understand that within those words is couched a much more nefarious agenda. Another factor involved in the suppression of GMO research is that the biotechnology companies themselves tend to suppress information derived from scientific inquiry and then attempt to defame the author. ACSH keeps in business by soliciting funds from corporations on specific issues, such as GMO labeling. They also have attacked anyone who has shown even concern over GMOs, pesticides, tobacco, DDT, asbestos, Agent Orange and fracking."
Transportation & Infrastructure
Which Democrats Just Voted to Cut Amtrak Funding by $251M?—by Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees: "Yesterday, late at night, the House passed its FY 2016 Appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies. The bill cut $251 million from Amtrak's budget and drained funds from capital investment in infrastructure and public housing. Despite the increase in overall funding from FY 2015, the bill makes several severe cuts to critical transportation and infrastructure programs and investments. It cuts Amtrak’s funding by $251 million and includes none of the $825 million requested by the President for Positive Train Control. It provides $1.9 billion in funding for the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant Program, a cut of $198.6 million and $1.32 billion below the President’s request. It also cuts funding for the Federal Aviation Administration’s modernization program by $100 million. The final bill passed narrowly 216 to 210, as 31 Republicans bucked their party leadership to oppose it (most, if not all, of them for the wrong reasons). However, 3 Democrats voted for it: Brad Ashford (NE-02); Henry Cuellar (TX-28); Gwen Graham (FL-02)."
Road projects in Wisconsin are going to come to a stop to service Walker's presidential delusions—by SantaFeMarie: "It is beyond me how Scott Walker could be leading the Republican presidential field. The extreme dissatisfaction of Wisconsinites with his administration will be a gold mine for whomever his opponent is in the general election. Here is a preview of a coming attraction, courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal: Budget compromise would stall most Wisconsin road projects—Delays would immediately slow road projects statewide and eventually hit all the mega projects planned for southeastern Wisconsin highways except the Zoo Interchange under a budget compromise of $500 million in cuts to road spending and borrowing that is being discussed by GOP lawmakers. Republicans in the Legislature are talking of cutting road projects by as much as $1.3 billion over the next two years to lower the transportation borrowing sought by Gov. Scott Walker, with most GOP senators seeking between $350 million and $800 million in cuts to the governor's budget."
Oceans, Water & Drought
Groups challenge Brown for ignoring Big Ag and Big Oil in drought plans—by Dan Bacher: "Governor Jerry Brown is on a speaking tour today in Southern California to tout his controversial drought policies and tunnels plan as protesters rally against his support of expanded fracking throughout the state - and as big growers like Stewart Resnick of Paramount Farms expand their water-thirsty almond growing operations. Brown will attend the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Board Meeting today and will later join Austin Beutner, publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, for a conversation on the state’s drought as part of a new event series sponsored by the Times called 'The California Conversation.' [...] As usual for the Brown administration, one of the least transparent administrations in California history, this meeting is not open to the public, but only to 'credentialed media.' A group of anti-fracking activists will 'birddog' Governor Brown as he greenwashes his drought policies that refused to deal with the biggest water wasters - Big Ag and Big Oil."
Eco-Essays and Eco-Philosophy
The Hazardous Wasteland: East Liverpool, Ohio & The Environmental Disaster That Time Forgot—by Virally Suppressed: "There is a river that runs by East Liverpool, but you do not swim in it. There are crops that grow from the ground in East Liverpool, but you do not eat them. There are brisk winds that blow the cool Ohio valley air through East Liverpool in the summertime, but you do not open your windows to let them in. You do not do these things because today, thanks to the siting of the world’s largest permitted hazardous waste facility in their backyard, East Liverpool is a place of sickness…a place of cancer…a place of death. It was not always like this. 250 years ago, when the Wyandot, Mingo and Shawnee Indians called this place home, the hills of what is now East Liverpool were verdant and bountiful. The Three Sisters of the Iroquois—maize, beans and squash—grew in abundance and old growth forests teeming with beaver, black bear and deer made it so they need never know hunger. To them, the Earth was not merely a repository of riches for the wanton use of humanity, but a living thing—the mother of all that lived and breathed. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Earth is formed specifically for the benefit of man. After he had fashioned us in his own image, God was said to have given us dominion over everything he had created. The fowl, the fish, the fig tree—all were made for our benefit. Such was not the case for American Indian tribes that once lived in the Ohio River Valley. In the Wyandot creation myth, there was no earth in the beginning, only sea, and all the animals called it home. Then, one day, a divine woman fell through a hole in the sky. As she plummeted down, a raft of loons flew towards her and formed a cushion for the Sky Woman to land on and carried her safely to the water."
Was the Industrial Revolution really a "revolution"?—by don mikulecky: "My thesis is simply that evolution has to happen withing the constraints the world gives it. In biological evolution these were explored early on by the authors cited above and others. What is even more fun is the way human social evolution parallels biological evolution in so many important ways. The major constraint, of course, is the human mind itself. We do not understand that much about our minds much as we like to think we do. What is clear is that we learned to make tools and then we developed science and technology. What is also clear is that our understanding of our minds and the social constructs they create has not paralleled the science and technology. In particular our ability to govern ourselves has not even come close. We also have evolved an economic system closely coupled to the science and technology and which is also divorced from any rational basis. The consequences are with us now and I need not belabor them. So the 'Industrial Revolution' is a phase in the greater development of life on the planet especially as it became dominated by the Human species. It is a part of the most general notion of 'evolution' possible. As I have posited about biological evolution, the more general evolution is working within constraints. Were the 'experiment' capable of being run again it would be different yet end up very much the same because of the constraints."