tagged w/ Environmental Awareness
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Starting today, you can watch the official Don't mess with Texas interns as they travel across the state spreading the word not to litter.
The interns were selected in an online competition of over 15,000 votes and they will star this summer in a series of web-based reality episodes, or "webisodes". Check them out as they reach out to Texas' worst litterers, young people ages 16-24 in an effort to keep Texas beautiful.
Don't mess with Texas is a litter prevention program owned by the Texas Department of Transportation. Ever since 1986 when it was created, the world famous slogan has helped to remove hundreds of millions of pieces of litter from Texas roadways.
Many people believe the slogan is about being a macho Texan, but it is actually an environmental message about keeping your community and state clean and free of litter.
Join the Don't mess with Texas inters on their adventures this summer!Starting today, you can watch the official Don't mess with Texas interns as they... more
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Stephen Colbert took on the Supreme Court case that outraged environmentalists everywhere--you know, the one that ruled that toxic waste from a gold mine could be dumped in a lake, subsequently eradicating all life within. Colbert's take will most likely make you even more angry, but at least it's funny as hell.
That bit about filling the 51 ft deep lake with 50 ft of toxic material is especially maddening/hilarious. So what to take away from the sketch, besides outrage? The NRDC, which also posted a take on the clip, has this to offer:
Unless the Obama administration fixes the fraudulant 'fill rule' imposed by the Bush administration back in 2002, we might as well start calling the nation's premier environmental protection law the Clean Watered Down Act.
And hopefully fixes it before 4.5 million tons of toxic 'fill' are dumped into a pristine mountain lake.Stephen Colbert took on the Supreme Court case that outraged environmentalists... more
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(Valparaiso, Indiana) - Rev. Dr. George Cairns of Chesterton, Indiana delivers a Sunday homily about “the major evils of today – genocide and ecocide” entitled “Repent or the Time is Near” on May 31, 2009 at the Union Community Church in Valparaiso, Indiana.
In this two part homily video series, Rev. Cairns discusses the “Cosmic Christ” and a related story in “The Lutheran” magazine by Elaine Siemsen, the United Nations definition of genocide, the loss of language and other heritages in Indigenous peoples like the American Indian, Ecocide, the acclaimed ABC News Special “Earth 2100” and how many experts believes the Earth and its inhabitants are facing the “the Sixth Great Extinction” of the world.
Cairns talks about the results of the American Museum of Natural History national survey on Ecocide that “reveals a biodiversity crisis” and is entitled “Scientific Experts Believe we are in the Midst of Fastest Mass Extinction in Earth's History: Crisis Poses Major Threat to Human Survival; Public Unaware of Danger”
With the statute of limitations up, Rev. Cairns confesses his childhood antics to prevent a highway construction project from ruining the woods in which he played - now an interstate freeway has “vaporized” those woods that meant so much to him while growing up.
The other homilies on Celtic Christianity take a look at several topics including the European roots of the Celts (primarily Scotland and Ireland) and how Earth-based cultures can impact the future of civilization including actively protecting the environment, respecting fellow humans, different cultures and nature.
Cairns works closely with Rev. Gregory Jones on several social fronts.
Rev. Jones is the pastor of the Union Community Church and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University.
Founded in 2007, The non-profit Turtle Island Project is known for its ongoing work with Native American issues and the other wing involves other Earth-based religions like the Celts. Dr. Cairns is the co-founder of the nonprofit Turtle Island Project.
Rev. Cairns continues to work closely with the foremost Celtic group in the world, the Iona Community in Scotland.
Celtic Christianity Today
http://www.celticchristianitytoday.org
youtube & bliptv:
http://celticchristianity.blip.tv
www.youtube.com/celticchristianity
Rev. George Cairns, Spirit Cafe blog, United Church of Christ
http://i.ucc.org/FeedYourSpirit/SpiritCafe/CafeBlog/tabid/83/Default.aspx
Iona Community, Scotland
www.iona.org.uk
www.isle-of-iona.com
www.iona-nwf.org/links.htm
Union Community Church, Valparaiso, IN
http://unioncommunitychurchucc.blogspot.com
Rev. Gregory Jones, Theology Department at Valparaiso University
www.valpo.edu/theology/faculty/gregoryjones.php
http://faculty.valpo.edu/gjones
The Lutheran Magazine: Who is the Cosmic Christ? By Elaine Siemsen
http://www.thelutheran.org/article/article_buy.cfm?article_id=2696
United Nations: genocide
www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.htm
www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm
www.hawaii-nation.org/genocide.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
Native American Genocide – then and now:
www.unitednativeamerica.com/aiholocaust.html
www.nemasys.com/ghostwolf/Native/genocide.shtml
www.exiledmothers.com/babies_taken_for_adoption/native_american_babies.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death
www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/01/a-native-american-language-goe.html
Ecocide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecocide
American Museum of Natural History survey on Ecocide:
http://www.well.com/~davidu/amnh.html
http://www.well.com/~davidu/extinction.html
http://www.well.com/
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/is-mass-species.html
ABC News Special “Earth 2100”
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Earth2100
The Sixth Great Extinction:
http://rewilding.org/thesixthgreatextinction.htm
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/issues/biodiversity/sixth.asp
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/sixthextinction.html(Valparaiso, Indiana) - Rev. Dr. George Cairns of Chesterton, Indiana delivers a... more
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(Valparaiso, Indiana) - Rev. Dr. George Cairns of Chesterton, Indiana delivers Sunday homily entitled “The Cost and Joy of Discipleship” on May 3, 2009 at the Union Community Church in Valparaiso, Indiana.
The homilies on Celtic Christianity take a look at several topics including the European roots of the Celts (primarily Scotland and Ireland) and how Earth-based cultures can impact the future of civilization including actively protecting the environment, respecting fellow humans, different cultures and nature.
Cairns is working closely on several social fronts with Rev. Gregory Jones, pastor of the Union Community Church & Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University.
Celtic Christianity Today
http://www.celticchristianitytoday.org
Celtic Christianity Today youtube & bliptv:
http://celticchristianity.blip.tv
http://www.youtube.com/celticchristianity
Rev. George Cairns on Spirit Cafe blog, United Church of Christ
http://i.ucc.org/FeedYourSpirit/SpiritCafe/CafeBlog/tabid/83/Default.aspx
Iona Community, Scotland
http://www.iona.org.uk
http://www.isle-of-iona.com
Iona Community New World Foundation: Iona associates, friends in U.S.
http://www.iona-nwf.org/links.htm
Union Community Church, Valparaiso, IN
http://unioncommunitychurchucc.blogspot.com
Rev. Gregory Jones, Theology Department at Valparaiso University
http://www.valpo.edu/theology/faculty/gregoryjones.php
Turtle Island Project TV (bliptv & youtube)
http://turtleislandtv.blip.tv
http://www.youtube.com/MunisingWhiteHorse
email:
TurtleIslandProject@charter.net
Artwork of Saint Columba, Wikipedia: Saint Columba, Apostle to the Picts
Saint Columba banging on the gate of Bridei, son of Maelchon, King of Fortriu.
Source: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, Scotland's Story
Saint Columba banging on the gate of Bridei, son of Maelchon, King of Fortriu.
Created by illustrator John R. Skelton in 1906.
Copyright expired
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Wikipedia Iona Island (Scotland) topo map
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona
Iona Abbey photo, Wikipedia
Image owned by John Naisbitt & licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/72548
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Old Iona map showing sites of monasteries and abbey from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona
Image from a book or document for which the American copyright has expired and this image is in the public domain in the United States and possibly other countries.
Source: Celtic Scotland, p.100
http://books.google.com/books?id=oJoQAAAAYAAJ
Author: William Forbes Skene in 1887
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August 1983 wide panorama shot of Iona Island from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona
Iona (island), Scotland, view from the Fionnphort-Iona ferry
This image has been released into the public domain by its author, Dr. Torsten Henning, who grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DrTorstenHenning/photogallery
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Coracle boats on Wikipedia: Small coracle in Wales:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coracle
This image is hereby released into the public domain worldwide by its author, LinguisticDemographer at the Wikipedia Project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:LinguisticDemographer
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Author Ian Bradley biography of Saint Columba:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/staff/icb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Bradley
http://www.alibris.com/search/books/isbn/0947988815
http://ionabooks.com/0947988815-Columba.html
http://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Christianity-Making-Chasing-Dreams/dp/0748610472
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Photo of Stained Glass Window of Saint Columba in St Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh Castle from Rampant Scotland Website:
http://www.rampantscotland.com/know/blknow30.htm
Saint Columba & Celtic Spirituality websites:
http://www.columbacommunity.com/files/saint_columba.htm
http://leadershipinministry.com/an_introductory_reading_li.htm
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Contemplative Prayer/Centering Prayer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C(Valparaiso, Indiana) - Rev. Dr. George Cairns of Chesterton, Indiana delivers Sunday... more
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In this video, Jane Poynter tells her story of living two years and 20 minutes in Biosphere 2 -- an experience that provoked her to explore how we might sustain life in the harshest of environments.In this video, Jane Poynter tells her story of living two years and 20 minutes in... more
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As expected business at any cost under the pretence of safety of course. Here again is proof positive that regulations primarily exist to squelch competition.
More on CODEX is here.
Thanks to Croft Woodruff for alerting us all. This is extremely serious once allowed the flood gates will open for other such products please take action and spread far and wide....
Chris Gupta
Note: Action items are more effective when you also write, print out the petition and send it by snail mail, or telephone your representative directly and don't forget to be persistent! Send follow up letter and/or fax, phone and keep demanding a response on how and what they will actually do to mitigate concerns outlined. CG
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On the need for the ELIANT petition campaign
The ELIANT campaign – a commitment to civil society in Europe
Europe is like a new country whose legal framework is only now being created, as we can experience at the moment in the current ratification procedures for the new EU treaty. In former times the principle prevailed of: Whatever is not prohibited is allowed. Now, however, this paradigm has changed, and instead it runs: Whatever is not allowed is prohibited. This impacts on and threatens the existence of many initiatives whose products and services are informed by their personal and individual concerns.
3 examples can show how necessary it is to act now to preserve freedom of choice in Europe.
EU legislation has led to artificial vitamin supplementation of biodynamic infant foods (Directive 2006/125/EC dated 5.12.2006)
Current EU legislation impedes biodynamic agriculture and food production. In the field of food production it violates a basic democratic principle, which it normally vehemently supports: the consumer’s freedom of choice.
An EU directive (Directive 2006/125/EC) has led to a situation in which producers of baby and infant foods manufactured under the biodynamic guidelines of the Demeter cultivators association, are forced to add vitamins to their products. This “compulsory vitamin supplementation” conflicts with the aims and approach inherent in ecologically produced and processed products. The consumers of organic and biodynamic products expect these to be produced naturally and processed in an eco-friendly way. Above all, they should not contain additives that do not naturally belong to them.
Read the whole article by Dr. Andreas Biesantz at:
www.eliant.eu /Knowledge /Agriculture and food
Trading of anthroposophic medicines is not regulated at EU level (Directive 2001/83/EC)
In summary we can say that currently under European and national law there are, in most cases, no legal framework conditions at all for the most important anthroposophic medicines. Particularly at risk are the specifically anthroposophic remedies such as the so-called “-doron” preparations, and the medicines given in other ways as oral/external applications (e.g. ampoules).
Extract from the article by Peter Zimmermann MD. The whole article can be found at:
www.eliant.eu /Knowledge /Medicines and medicine.
Education is also affected
Christopher Clouder, director of the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (www.ecswe.org) says: The danger is a future consolidation which could detrimentally affect parental right of choice, in the same way that we have seen in the medical and agricultural sectors. To prevent this we need a stronger voice for our concerns in Brussels.
Extract from the Mission Statements of the ELIANT Alliance sponsors
www.eliant.eu /Mission Statements
It is necessary to collect 1 million signatures to legally safeguard these initiatives in Europe
Please support this EU-wide signature campaign and publicise the campaign amongst your personal or professional acquaintances. You can sign this petition by online voting at www.eliant.eu >>Sign now! As expected business at any cost under the pretence of safety of course. Here again is... more
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mae37
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There is a mine Called the Iron Mountain Mine near Redding in Northern California, known as the most polluted place in the world. The EPA was recently awarded $20.7 million in federal stimulus funds to clean up this Superfund site.
Rick Sugarek knows not to splash through the puddles inside “the mouth of the beast.”
The project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency said he once dropped a pen in some running water inside the mine and when he recovered it, it was coated in copper. The water is so acidic that droplets eat holes in blue jeans and dissolve the stitching on boots, much like battery acid.
The Iron Mountain Mine is the source of a toxic stew that has polluted the Sacramento River and its tributaries for more than a century.
The money, combined with $10 million already budgeted for the project, will pay for construction of three pumping stations, piping and the hydraulic dredging of the 170,000 cubic yards of fine toxic metals that to this day coat the bottom of the Spring Creek arm of the reservoir.
“What we’re trying to deal with now is the 50 years of stuff that has accumulated at the bottom of the reservoir since it was built,” said Sugarek, who has been working at the Toxic Superfund site for 20 years. “This is an important management area for California’s water supply, and toxic chemicals are flowing down.”
Mine History
The real damage began when a company called Mountain Copper took over the 4,400-acre mine in the 1890s and began to supply sulfuric acid to refineries in the Bay Area. At the turn of the century, it was the largest copper mine in California, and a small city of laborers lived on the mountain. Twenty cavities the size of office buildings were drilled into the mountain.
The mining operation turned to rubble what was originally a 200-foot-thick by 3,000-foot-long underground deposit of pyrite, exposing it to oxygen, water and bacteria that combined to create the poisonous runoff. Water that flowed out of the shaft where the pyrite lay formed bluish blocks of acid salt, which deer sometimes used as salt licks.
The Bureau of Reclamation built an earthen dam in 1963 to block the steady flow of sludge, but it would often overflow during heavy winter rains and the copper and metals would get into the Sacramento River.
The mine was finally abandoned in 1966 and collapsed in on itself shortly after that. The problem, it seemed, only got worse.
By the time the EPA took over management of the area in the 1980s, a ton of acidic water and heavy metals a day were flowing into the river, Sugarek said. The water in the debris dam was blood red from a mixture of iron and copper.
But money cannot completely resolve the problem. Researchers recently found six unique strains of bacteria that live in a bed of pink slime that is part of a little-understood biochemical cycle that devours iron, produces sulfuric acid, and creates a nightmarish broth of copper, zinc and arsenic. That toxic broth will continue pouring out of the mine forever, or until someone figures out a way to neutralize the chemical and biological reactions, scientists say.
“We spent a good deal of time trying to see if we could shut it down, and our conclusion was that we couldn’t,” said Sugarek, adding that the only hope is for some future innovation or new technology. “We know we can continue what we are doing for 100 years. The estimate is that it will take the mountain about 3,000 years to use up all the pyrite.”
Deep inside the mine. There, chemical reactions drive temperatures up to 130 degrees and the water is almost pure sulfuric acid, stalactites and stalagmites of acid salt cover the walls.
“If you go back 1,500 feet, the temperature is 100 degrees, you start to see the acid salts and it smells like sulfur,” Sugarek said. “You don’t want to use an aluminum ladder because it will just dissolve.”
In what could easily be considered one of the worlds worst toxic places, as a society, we must questions ...There is a mine Called the Iron Mountain Mine near Redding in Northern California,... more
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OLD BRIDGE -- Tests on mussels, clams and foraging fish near the Laurence Harbor Sea Wall in Old Bridge, have revealed high levels of lead, the Environmental Protection Agency reported today.
The amount of lead found in ribbed mussels ranged from 3 to 8.6 parts per million. In softshell clams the amount ranged from 3.4 to 17 parts per million and hardshell clams from 1.7 to 3.1 parts per million. In foraging fish or bait fish the amount of lead found ranged from 0.49 to 0.92 parts per million.
Currently, there is no standard for safe levels of lead in these marine animals, said Calliope C. Alexander an environmental scientist for New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.
However, Sharon Kubiak, a program specialist from the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, said there is no safe level of lead in a child's body.
"This is very dangerous," said Peter Defur, a biologist and environmental consultant for Environmental Stewardship Concepts based in Richmond, Va., who works on contaminated sites. "I've never seen such high numbers in the 30 years I've been doing this."
Robert Spiegel, executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association, a nonprofit environmental organization said the numbers are alarming. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. We don't know how far up the food chain this goes."
Extreme exposure to lead can cause neurological damage, kidney disease, cardiovascular problems and reproductive toxicity, according to the EPA Web site.
Two months ago, the EPA reported high levels of lead in three waterfront sites along Raritan Bay in Old Bridge and Sayreville. The EPA fenced off the areas and prohibited fishing.
Officials in Old Bridge and Sayreville have blamed the contamination on National Lead Industries, which had a paint manufacturing facility in Sayreville for decades. Several smelting operations along the Raritan from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s are also cited.
Fishermen, who have been eating fish caught from Raritan Bay for years, expressed their concerns at a meeting at Keyport Borough Hall Thursday, before the new tests results were available.
"I've been fishing in these waters my entire life," said Raymond Swoboda Jr., 40, of Edison. "These are bait that we use to catch fish, and we've been eating those fish."
More than 50 worried fishermen, residents and delegates from Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.) and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) attended the meeting, which was organized by environmental groups NY/NJ Baykeeper and the Bayshore Regional Watershed Council.
Representatives from the EPA, DEP, state Department of Health and Senior Services and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry updated the audience and initiated a question and answer session.
In the earlier tests, the EPA said the western jetty near Cheesequake Creek revealed lead levels of 198,000 parts per million-nearly 500 times the residential limit of 400 parts per million. Average lead levels in the area were 52,399 parts per million. At the Laurence Harbor sea wall area, the range of lead found was as high as 142,000 parts per million. At the half-acre beach area in Sayreville, just north of the Cheesequake Creek jetty, lead was also 142,000 parts per million.
Signs and approximately 4,200 feet of fence have been erected around the areas. But the fencing isn't keeping everyone out, acknowledged Andrew L. Confortini, who is heading the cleanup.
''We've had kids tearing down the fence at night," he said. "Day after day we put it up and they tear it down." Confortini said they are working with police to upgrade a camera system there and to beef-up patrols.
While many fishermen and residents applauded the EPA's efforts, some argued for more. Others said the efforts created an eyesore from their properties, which they fear are dropping in value.
Officials from the EPA acknowledged the cleanup would take several years.
Still, Swoboda was worried. "What does this say to an individual..OLD BRIDGE -- Tests on mussels, clams and foraging fish near the Laurence Harbor Sea... more
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mae37
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This is an important article regarding the disposal of analog television and electronics in general. A lot of times all of us forget that by merely dumping our hardware, we are contributing to the phenomenon known as e-waste. With the death of analog TV sets around the corner, June 12th should be a day that helps promote a better future for our environment. So stop reading about the new iPhone and come check this out.This is an important article regarding the disposal of analog television and... more
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Watch the trailer for Food, Inc here.
If you are alive and you intend to stay that way, then consuming food of some kind or another is something you’ll want to keep doing. Here in America, we’ve got plenty of food and lots of choices, or so we think. And although, all that perceived choice may seem like a good thing, there are some groups that say our grocery store shelves are bursting with grotesque chemical recombinations and genetically altered Franken-foods, rather than with the bounty of a wholesome harvest.
My feelings are mixed as to whether we are doomed by a future of highly processed foodstuffs. I have written previously about biotechnology, which is the subject of my graduate education. Agricultural biotechnologists are responsible for the fact that we can grow pest-resistant or drought-tolerant crops or raise chickens in a matter of weeks rather than months. Chemists have developed fertilizers that help plants grow larger and faster and yield a more abundant harvest. Animal scientists breed cattle that produce leaner meat and cows that produce more milk. Even without advanced science, human beings have manipulated the soil, planted their crops and tended their livestock in ways that strived to increase food production, and hence, improve their chances for survival.
But too much human interference cannot be a good thing. My friend and fellow Examiner, Rhea Kennedy, (the DC Farmer’s Markets Examiner) recently drew my attention to an article on CNN.com, which describes how food scientists are manipulating food aromas. Scientists know that smell influences taste more than the actual taste buds. So the company mentioned in the article, ScentSational Technologies, has developed methods to alter food smells through scent-infused packaging that make foods more appealing, without adding sugar or other flavorings to the food. That sounds intriguing and could help people on restricted diets feel more satisfied with their foods. But the article goes on to describe that smells could be added to the lids of baby food jars so that parents would small “freshness” when the container was opened. This prospect seems scary. The more I think about the potential for this olfactory trickery, the more concerned I become.
Another friend alerted me through Facebook about a movie coming out June 12 called “Food, Inc.” Filmmaker Robert Kenner’s stand on the issues of genetically engineered foods, cloning of livestock, pesticides, and a slate of other issues related to the food industry are made pretty clear within the first few seconds of the film’s trailer. Food, Inc. features interviews with “Fast Food Nation” author Eric Schlosser, organic yogurt entrepreneurs Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm Organic , and several other key figures in the food safety debate. The film aims to expose the “underbelly” of the food industry with the premise that if we knew the truth about how our food was produced, we would not want to eat it.
For example, someone speaking in the trailer states that, “so much of our industrial foods turns out to be rearrangements of corn.” I would not disagree to that, nor am I surprised by that fact. A dramatic musical soundtrack adds to the film's sense of urgency that we had better do something now about the problems in the food industry before we all turn into a society of corn-stuffed zombies (my interpretation, not the filmmakers). Unfortunately, if you take a look around, this may have, in fact, already occurred.
I don’t mean to mock the subject of this film. It is quite a serious issue. I agree that over the last 50 years people (Americans mostly, but the rest of the world is no less guilty) have put a lot of junk into our stomachs that we called “food.” I think every society through the ages has had its version of junk food. But if we can make baby food smell “fresh” when it isn’t necessarily fresh, we have a problem.
There must be a way to balance the benefits of scientific advancement with our need (cont'd)Watch the trailer for Food, Inc here.
If you are alive and you intend to stay that... more
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mae37
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A Virtual Urban Tropical Rain Forest @ Fort Lauderdale Downtown
Produced and Directed by Alexandra RangelA Virtual Urban Tropical Rain Forest @ Fort Lauderdale Downtown
Produced and... more
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"Cow is Held Sacred by Hindus and They Do Not Eat Beef".
Perturbed Hindus have demanded Parliamentary enquiry into the reported sale of chicken secretly injected with beef and pork in United Kingdom.
Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that it was highly disturbing for the people of faith that this illegal act was allowed to go on for quite some time. He demanded immediate halt to the sale of such misleading products and strong action against those found responsible.
Rajan Zed, who is the president of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that for mercantile greed, some businesses played with the sentiments of the faithful. UK should have better enforcement and efficient check system so that illegal acts like this did not happen in the future.
In a study, United Kingdom Government's Food Standards Agency headquartered in London indicated that proteins from beef or pork were also present in injection powders that claimed to contain only chicken protein. The Agency states that it is carrying out further studies and gathering more information in the partnership with other European Member States.
The London based "The Independent" newspaper says that this fraud was run by firms in three European Union states to fetch a higher price for chicken breasts. "The fraud has been taking place for at least the past two years, and still continues because of inaction by the authorities in three EU states, believed to be Germany, Netherlands and Spain," it wrote in its June four edition. This adulteration was first detected in UK in 2001.
Cow is held sacred by Hindus and they do not eat beef."Cow is Held Sacred by Hindus and They Do Not Eat Beef".
Perturbed Hindus... more
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mae37
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Ocean Rower and Environmentalist, Roz Savage launches second stage of her solo row across the Pacific Ocean. The press launch event took place at the Waikiki Yacht Club, Hawaii. For more information or to follow her voyage and blogs go to www.rozsavage.com.Ocean Rower and Environmentalist, Roz Savage launches second stage of her solo row... more
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INDIANAPOLIS -- With gas prices up another 20 cents Tuesday, an Indianapolis man is happy to not have to worry about it.
Patrick Roth uses a fully electric car to take his daughter to school and run errands, 6News' Jennifer Carmack reported.
The car may look like any ordinary Ford Escort, but a closer look reveals that it's anything but. Roth didn't buy the car that way. He built it himself.
"I have taken out all of the components to the internal combustion engine and replaced it with a big electric motor and a bunch of batteries," Roth said. "Essentially, I've turned it into a 100 percent electric vehicle."
Roth said he got the idea while driving his Lexus hybrid. He thought that since the Lexus can go partially off the battery, he could get a car to run solely on electric power.
"I found myself constantly trying to trick the car to run on the electric motor as much as possible, which got me thinking," Roth said. "Why not just have a second car that's purely electric?"
There are electric cars on the market, but they aren't cheap. After a lot of research, Roth tackled the conversion himself.
"It works great, actually. I've tested it on the highway up to 70 mph," he said.
Roth said he checked with both his insurance company and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and found that his converted Escort is legal.
Instead of hitting a gas pump every week or two, he just pulls the car into the garage at night and plugs in.
"In the equivalent, it works out to what it would cost me if I were paying 75 cents a gallon at the pump," Roth said.
Roth spent about 10 weeks building the car, a project he contends just about anyone can do.
"If I can do it with no mechanical ability and no engineering degree, no electrician's degree, then certainly anyone else can do it with basic skills," he said.
Roth bought the car specifically to convert. The cost of the vehicle and the conversion was about $13,000.
Patrick Roth's Car Conversion
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3155482
video
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/19633781/detail.html#INDIANAPOLIS -- With gas prices up another 20 cents Tuesday, an Indianapolis man is... more
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Suit Urges Water Board Action
A coalition of conservation and fishermen’s groups, including the Redwood Chapter, are challenging the failure by the state and regional water boards to implement clean water laws that protect wild rivers and streams in California’s North Coast region. The coalition has filed a lawsuit to urge the agencies to adopt clean-up plans required by state law that will meet pollution limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "While the Regional Board appears to be making some progress, they have lost 60 staff members since 2001, leaving the agency unable to protect our wild rivers," said Daniel Myers, representing Sierra Club’s Redwood Chapter. "Unfortunately, neither the Regional Board nor the State Board have taken meaningful measures to acquire the staff and resources that are needed for the TMDL program to succeed."
The full text of the press release is here.
http://redwood.sierraclub.org/Committees/Water/NorthCoast%20TMDL%20PR%20FINAL.pdf
Call for CEQ Salmon Director
More than 75 commercial and recreational fishing associations and conservation organizations, including the Sierra Club, have called on President Obama to create a high-level Salmon Director position in the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to restore West Coast salmon populations, protect fishing jobs and rebuild the salmon economy.
Pacific salmon and steelhead are in great peril across much of the West Coast. But with Federal leadership, and with science guiding our way, we can restore salmon to our rivers and ocean, return to work thousands who have lost their jobs in fishing-based industries, and create thousands of new sustainable, family-wage jobs in economically depressed coastal and rural communities.
The full text of the letter is here.
http://redwood.sierraclub.org/Salmon.state.ltr.to.Obama.pdf
"Preservation" Ranch - We Propose a Better Plan.The ironically named "Preservation" Ranch project is the 20,000 acre vineyard conversion project near Annapolis, Sonoma County. Among other environmental impacts, roughly 1700 acres of forest will be permanently converted to vineyards. The project materials are still being submitted to Sonoma County Permits and Resource Management Department, after which the EIR phase will begin. The Redwood Chapter has been following the progress of this project for several years. This Premier Pacific Vineyards investment in deforestation, funded by CalPERS, is being made to support a non-essential agriculture, the production of luxury, high-end wines. Furthermore, the investment bodes to become an exemplar of how our overlogged forests are treated in the future; it is precedent-setting since it is the largest-scale attempted conversion of forest in No. California. In the present political and financial times, when the public and the world are learning the 'inconvenient truths' about global warming and at the same time the world is threatened with grave financial collapses, we do not think CalPERS should be financing such work. Here is our latest letter to the CalPERS Board, in which we suggest that, rather than deforestation, there are other options for managing and restoring over-logged timberlands, such as those employed by the Nature Conservancy for their Garcia River Forest Climate Action Project.
More about "Preservation" Ranch can be found here .
http://www.redwood.sierraclub.org/sonoma/Forest.htmlSuit Urges Water Board Action
A coalition of conservation and fishermen’s... more
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Kenny Stroud and his son ponder their contaminated water in their Rawl, Mingo County, W.Va. home. Photo by Vivian Stockman.
Since WVDEP’s drop of its long-awaited coal-slurry injection study after the close of business on Thursday, I’ve had time to read the entire report. And this is what I’ve come up with so far:
secretary-randy-huffman-portrait_small.jpgDEP Secretary Randy Huffman says his agency doesn’t have enough information on what water quality was like before companies started pumping this coal waste underground to say for sure if the slurry impacted that water quality.
Here are a few of the quotes:
– …There are insufficient surface and groundwater monitoring sample sites to determine effects from slurry injection on surface and groundwater.
– Most of the assessment sites lacked detailed information on mine pool conditions and adequate monitoring of the quantity and quality of the mine pool associated with the injection activities.
– Due to insufficient groundwater characterization and monitoring by the operators, definitive conclusions could not be drawn on the extent of the effects of slurry injection on the surrounding groundwater regime.
– (And my favorite) Operators did not conclusively demonstrate that, when slurry is injected into abandoned underground mines, it remains contained and the surrounding hydrologic regime is not adversely affected.
Some of this seems like common sense … I mean, if you want to know if this stuff damaged the water, you need to know what the water was like before the slurry got injected underground. And, you need to monitor the water quality all along the way, right?
OK. So why didn’t WVDEP make the operators do that?
The report doesn’t say. But it makes it clear that WVDEP had the authority to do so, if it had wanted to … Take a look at page 15. It’s right there. “The UIC regulations at CSR 47-13-13.7 … allow the WVDEP to impose conditions in permits on a case-by-cases basis to assure compliance with the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act and the State Water Pollution Control Act and rules.”
What kind of conditions? Well, for one thing, the WVDEP could have required monitoring and reporting requirements.
And what’s more, the existing regulations show that WVDEP has this whole thing backwards. The state doesn’t have to prove that slurry injection is damaging water in order to do something. Rather, the regs put the ball in the industry’s court. CSR 38-2-15.5.e.2 provides that discharges into underground mine workers are prohibited “unless the operator demonstrates that such activities will not cause, result in, or contribute to a violation of water quality standards and effluent limitations both on or outside the permit area.”
So, if WVDEP found in this study that it doesn’t have enough information to say if slurry is damaging water supplies, then how in the world could operators have made the showing required under that regulation?
A couple of other interesting things …
First of all, in our print edition this morning, I wrote the WVDEP had not said how long the moratorium on new slurry injection permits would last. Late last night, I got an e-mail message from WVDEP spokesman Tom Auise, saying my story was wrong, and that the DEP news release said it would last for two years. I re-read the news release, and it said no such thing.
This morning, I had another e-mail from Tom, saying that WVDEP had originally posted on its Web site a news release including the two-year limit on the moratorium. But, he said, that information had later been deleted, because agency officials had decided not to go with a two-year moratorium.
Later today, Tom sent me this explanation of the confusion:
“Originally, the idea was for a two-year moratorium but we ultimately decided that was just an arbitrary period of time that didn’t bear any relationship to environmental protection issues.
“Instead, we went with an indefinite moratorium to give us enough (continued)Kenny Stroud and his son ponder their contaminated water in their Rawl, Mingo County,... more
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Rob Perks
Director, Center for Advocacy Campaigns, Washington, D.C.
Here we go again: Today the federal appeals court (4th Circuit) in Richmond rejected a request by public interest groups to reconsider its decision last month to overturn a lower court ruling that had curtailed mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. With a 4-3 majority ruling against a rehearing, it looks like the Army Corps of Engineers can proceed with its plans to issue permits that will result in coal companies filling more valleys (and burying more headwater streams) with mining waste.
Of the judges who favored a new review of the case, Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson hit the nail on the head by writing in his dissent:
"...West Virginia is witnessing in the Appalachian headwaters the long, sad decline that Virginia and Maryland have seen with the Chesapeake Bay. Once the ecologies of streams and rivers and bays and oceans turn, they cannot easily be reclaimed. Most often than not, the waterway is simply gone for good."
Sad to say, but with the U.S. Court of Appeals continuing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the prospect of stopping mountaintop removal once and for all in the courts appears to be a long shot
Since the legal system seems to provide little or no recourse these days, it's up to our elected officials to finally do the right thing. All the more reason to wonder (and worry over) why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently opted to allow more than three dozen mountaintop removal permits in West Virginia to proceed.
The current situation is more than a bit muddled and I certainly don't presume to know what's going on at the moment. But let's step back and assess where we find ourselves in this fight right now...
First off, there is no doubt that the Obama administration is infinitely better than the Bush administration on this issue -- that's primarily because the previous administration was so horrible. Clearly, the new administration has taken a couple of positive steps forward. Carefully examining the environmental impact of proposed mountaintop removal operations, as EPA has done in some cases, is necessary. It is also heartening that the Interior Department has moved to rescind the Bush administration's weakening changes to the long-standing stream buffer zone rule. But these necessary and appropriate steps fall far short of what is sufficient.
The Obama administration seems to be assuming that some mountaintop removal mining -- perhaps even a lot of it -- is okay. But the people who live in Appalachia know better. Mountaintop removal, the world's worst strip mining, is unacceptable. Period. Objecting to some proposed mining permits, but green-lighting others, does not recognize this basic fact. Nor does reinstating the old, more stringent buffer zone rule without committing to enforce it, as prior administrations had unfortunately done.
To do right by the people of Appalachia, President Obama needs to end mountaintop removal. There are bi-partisan bills in Congress right now -- the Clean Water Protection Act in the House and the Appalachia Restoration Act in the Senate -- that target the practice, and the president can announce his intent to sign legislation that ends mountaintop removal once and for all.
Similarly, the EPA and the Army Corps of Enginneers can immediately take steps to reverse the administrative regulation they adopted in 2002 that gave the Corps the authority to permit the dumping of waste in surface waters, which also would curtail mountaintop removal coal mining.
You'd think that halting the Appalachian Apocalypse would be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the false perception still holds that coal is the economic engine of the region's downtrodden economy. This is a myth perpetuated by the politically powerful coal industry. Consider West Virginia as an example. Jobs from mining account for just 3.3% employment in the Mountain State -- we're talking
cont'dRob Perks
Director, Center for Advocacy Campaigns, Washington, D.C.
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Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists.
It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug comes from a family of viruses found in rodents, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.
"This one is really, really aggressive" he said of the virus.
The outbreak started in September, when a female travel agent who lives on the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, became ill with a fever-like illness that quickly grew much worse.
She was airlifted to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died.
A paramedic in Lusaka who treated her also became sick, was transported to Johannesburg and died. The three others infected were health care workers in Johannesburg.
Investigators believe the virus spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids.
"It's not a kind of virus like the flu that can spread widely," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the research.
The name given to the virus — "Lujo" — stems from Lusaka and Johannesburg, the cities where it was first identified.Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the... more
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This is a brief introduction of my organization, Green New Earth (GNE). GNE is a web-based, green fundraising organization that incorporates a social networking aspect to help people share ideas, opinions, projects they are working on and a forum to have your voice heard. Please visit us at www.greennewearth.com and become involved.This is a brief introduction of my organization, Green New Earth (GNE). GNE is a... more
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A short film for mtv worldwide to help raise awareness of the effects of global warming. A combination of live action and animation. A globe in a classroom was shot on 16mm which was then tracked and populated with cg toy-like clouds, cars, planes, and cities.A short film for mtv worldwide to help raise awareness of the effects of global... more
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