This month marks the 40th anniversary of EARTH DAY.
In the recent past, we here have been lucky to have a couple series about environmental issues, namely Green Diary Rescue and PDNC's Climate Change News Roundup.
The former has not been posted by its creator in 4 months. Despite numerous pledges to the contrary, I really think that MB is overworked already with the meta police job foisted upon him by kos.
The latter has not been posted since Valentine's Day.
I bring up these series' absence not to shame their writers, but to thank them. They did untold hours of work on this issue in the past. I am deciding that we should follow suit.
What's that?
We already have plenty of "eco series", you say?
Isn't that what DK Greenroots is for? Isn't that the series that always ranks high up on the High Impact Diary list but usually only makes the rec list when written by FishoutofWater?
What about these:
Hike On! by by RLMiller
The week in dirty coal by DWG
Alternative Energy Round-Up by mark louis
Sunday Train by BruceMcF
EcoJustice by various artists
Well, can I have a show of hands? Who here knows all of those series? Anyone? Ah, in the back.
ONE.
Are you raising your hand or scratching your head? Oh, OK.
ONE.
And what about the folks who write all that great eco already? There's UID 210537, whatshername, and that guy, UID 73727. Isn't that enough? What are they, chopped liver?
And haven't we already fixed that whole climate problem, anyway?
In case you have yet to gather it, all of the above "questions" are rhetorical, and if they weren't, the answers would be "NO!"
THE LEDE
The CLIMATE RALLY on The National Mall – April 25th, 2010
The Earth Day CLIMATE RALLY – National Mall – Sunday, April 25, 2010
The 40th anniversary of Earth Day is quickly approaching, but the United States has failed to enact a comprehensive climate bill.
It is time to stop protecting polluters and enact comprehensive climate legislation that will create American jobs, cap carbon emissions and secure our nation’s future. The first Earth Day was a success because 20 million Americans demonstrated their outrage for the state of the environment. Together, we can make Earth Day 2010 a pivotal moment in the environmental movement.
On Sunday, April 25, Earth Day Network will organize a massive climate rally on The National Mall to demand Congress passes strong legislation.The Climate Rally will include speeches from environmental stewards Reverend Jesse Jackson, film director, James Cameron, AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, Olympic gold medalist, Billy Demong, producer, Trudie Styler, author, Margaret Atwood and others.
Click here to RSVP for The Climate Rally.
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TOP STORY
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Obama Bicycle Policy Wins Love From Cyclists, Scorn From Trucking Industry
WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a weekend bicyclist, might consider keeping his head down and his helmet on. A backlash is brewing over his new bicycling policy.
LaHood says the government is going to give bicycling – and walking, too – the same importance as automobiles in transportation planning and the selection of projects for federal money. The former Republican congressman quietly announced the "sea change" in transportation policy last month.
"This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized," he wrote in his government blog.
It should be noted that LaHood is a Republican. The remainder of the article shows the praise from green-friendly groups and the barrel-bottom critiques from a fellow Republican.
At a recent House hearing, Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, suggested jokingly to a Transportation Department official that one explanation for the new policy is that the secretary's thinking has been clouded by drugs.
"Is that a typo?" LaTourette asked. "If it's not a typo, is there still mandatory drug testing at the department?"
OTHER NEWS
Confidential document reveals Obama's hardline US climate talk strategy
by John Vidal
Monday 12 April 2010
A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government's increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks.
Titled Strategic communications objectives and dated 11 March 2010, it outlines the key messages that the Obama administration wants to convey to its critics and to the world media in the run-up to the vital UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico in November.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/...
Chinese Coal Ship Lifted Off Damaged Great Barrier Reef
BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia, April 13, 2010 (ENS) - Salvage experts have successfully refloated the Chinese coal carrier Shen Neng 1 that went aground on the Great Barrier Reef 10 days ago. Oil spilled from the ship's damaged hull into the pristine waters around the grounding site, which is far from the authorized shipping lane. The chief scientist for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says it could take 20 years for the reef to recover.
A few headlines from HuffPo's Green Page:
'No malpractice' by climate unit
There was no scientific malpractice at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, which was at the centre of the "Climategate" affair.
This is according to an independent panel chaired by Lord Oxburgh, which was convened to examine the research published by the unit.
Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags
HORSHOLM, Denmark — The lawyers and engineers who dwell in an elegant enclave here are at peace with the hulking neighbor just over the back fence: a vast energy plant that burns thousands of tons of household garbage and industrial waste, round the clock.
Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.
Coal Firms Fought To Keep Mines Unsafe
Federal safety inspectors cited the Raleigh County operation thousands of times for dangerous law violations, including buildup of explosive methane and coal dust. But Massey avoided closure of the profitable mine by snarling the U.S. bureaucracy with endless legal appeals. Lifesaving enforcement apparently was obstructed.
http://environment.nationalgeographi...
Some impacts from increasing temperatures are already happening.
* Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
* Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
* Spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.
Other effects could happen later this century, if warming continues.
* Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters).
* Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall in Ethiopia, where droughts are already common, could decline by 10 percent over the next 50 years.
* Ecosystems will change—some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won’t be able to move and could become extinct. Wildlife research scientist Martyn Obbard has found that since the mid-1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears have gotten considerably skinnier. Polar bear biologist Ian Stirling has found a similar pattern in Hudson Bay. He fears that if sea ice disappears, the polar bears will as well.
Source for climate information: IPCC, 2007
Nation's Snowmen March Against Global Warming
WASHINGTON, DC—Braving balmy temperatures and sunny skies, millions of scarfless snowmen and snowwomen gathered in cities across the world Tuesday to raise public awareness about the heavy toll global warming is taking on their health and well-being.
According to organizers of marches in Washington, Atlanta, Montreal, Berlin, London, Reykjavik, and Moscow, global warming is the primary cause of the steep reduction in the snowman population throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Demonstrators worldwide called on their governments to take more aggressive steps to reduce the effects of climate change.
Gotta keep you guys on your toes.
http://www.newsweek.com/...
Global warming can sometimes feel like an intangible phenomenon. But if you live in the West, as I do, the evidence piles up in the stark form of dead trees. Since 2000 more than 6.5 million acres have perished in the U.S., turning forests into meadows in almost a dozen states. The culprit: the pine beetle, a fingernail-size bug that's become more voracious as the planet warms. Once a balanced part of forest life, the tree--eating insect now usually survives the winter, starts feeding earlier in the spring, and continues to plunder late into the fall. Entomologists are worried about multiple generations of beetles coexisting each season—a swarm that could wipe out enough trees to ruin land prices, the logging industry, and outdoor tourism.
Newsweek also has a chilling photo essay here:
The world's worst man-made environmental disasters
http://photo.newsweek.com/...
DIARIES
http://www.dailykos.com/...
A Photo Diary: Father's Flowers and Climate Change
by patrickz
Sadly, some native wildflowers are disappearing. Importation of invasive species, destruction of habitat, and climate change threaten our indigenous flora.
I stumbled across a recent study performed in part using data collected by the great conservationist, Henry David Thoreau. The paper investigated one of the reasons why invasive plants are, well, so invasive:
Our results demonstrate that non-native species, and invasive species in particular, have been far better able to respond to recent climate change by adjusting their flowering time. This demonstrates that climate change has likely played, and may continue to play, an important role in facilitating non-native species naturalization and invasion at the community level.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
A glacier causes a tsunami in Peru, few notice
by DWG
Wed Apr 14, 2010 at 10:46:27 AM PDT
The only riddle asks: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? And what about if a massive chunk of a mountain glacier breaks off, crashes into a lake, and causes a 75-foot tsunami that kills 1, injures scores more, and destroys 50 homes and the water treatment plant for a town of 60,000? There was plenty of sound, but few outside the region seemed to notice. That silence is deafening and troubling.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Designing the Future - (Rapid) Buses, Streetcars, and Trains
by Vikingkingq
I'm a huge fan of mass transit, and in the past I've written about why Federal investments in High-Speed Rail need to go hand-in-hand with investments in local and regional mass transit, why understanding the public aesthetics of mass transit is critical to its success, andwhy the development of gas-free automobiles still means that we need to invest in mass transit.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Global Climate Change "Skepticism"
by millwx
My point here is to debunk the myths and outright lies being spewed by the "skeptic" community. I put "skeptic" in parenthesis because most of them aren't true skeptics. Skepticism is an honest questioning of a theory based on some reasonably debatable premise. There is no reasonably debatable premise amongst the skeptics. What they are offering is deliberate obfuscation of the facts. Plain and simple. They are not skeptics. They are liars.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
What will you do on Earth Day? President Obama wants to know ...
by A Siegel
Yet, Earth Day does provide a chance to bring visibility to the challenges we face and the opportunities we have to mitigate those challenges -- and, even, gain from embracing solutions to challenges. President Barack Obama is challenging Americans "to take action to change our nation’s energy and environmental future."
As we continue to tackle our environmental challenges, it’s clear that change won’t come from Washington alone. It will come from Americans across the country who take steps in their own homes and their own communities to make that change happen.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Macca's Meatless Monday...How Kind Of You
by beach babe in fl
In this weekly series we have been discussing the benefits of a vegetarian diet including; better health, global food crisis, frugal living, animal rights, food safety, and the huge contribution of meat production to climate change/global warming.
Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food.22
It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
John Kerry is trying to pass a climate bill and he needs our help
by patrickz
A compromise on perhaps one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation we've seen in decades will be released soon. This is the time for a sustained grassroots effort. We have to try to get the best bill we possibly can.
Without our voices, polluters will have their way:
Kerry is being hit with an array of other competing concerns: Industry wants the federal legislation to pre-empt state climate control efforts and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation, an idea many state officials oppose.
I tried to spend not too much more than one or two hours on this diary to inspire others to try doing their own version in the future.
