republican and green could go hand in hand…?

Slate magazine published a very interesting article about a “green” movement in the Republican party: Green Old Party.

If the Republican Party wants to recover from the Great Drubbing of 2008, it shouldn’t waste too much time worrying about how to turn blue states red. It should be thinking about how to turn itself green. There are signs the party knows this. Karl Rove suggests in this week’s Newsweek that in order to win over young people, Republicans need a “market-oriented ‘green’ agenda that’s true to our principles.”

The article goes onto outline six steps the GOP could take to promote green action and get more voters. For example:

Save money—and the planet. This one is easy. Fiscal responsibility is a time-honored GOP ideal (emphasis on ideal, as opposed to reality). And there are ancillary benefits: National-security hawks want to ease our dependence on foreign oil from Saudi Arabia. Less demand for oil will also make the price of gasoline fall, cheering commuters. Environmentalists know that less consumption means less emission. John McCain was the first Republican presidential candidate to tie these threads together, arguing that when it comes to energy consumption, less is more. But the GOP can take it a step further: Encourage Americans to consume energy more efficiently—drive fuel-efficient cars, turn off lights, and, yes, inflate their tires. It’s not wimpy liberal hooey; it’s patriotic.

When it comes to the environment, I have the attitude, “whoever has the best policy”. It does tend to be the Democrats that take the most action, and they are in line with some of my other values. That being said, I applaud the Rebubicans for trying. I hope their heart is in the right place; that is just not to get more voters and then forget that it is a critical issue when they get their politicians in office.

a wee bit morbid, but the right way to go

I found this article, and whole heartedly agree with this movement!

Going Green – all the way to the grave, via the Philadelphia Inquirer.

I think the ultimate middle finger to nature is by not giving back our bodies to the Earth. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” no longer exists. It may exist in the sermon before the burial, but in the actual burial… no, not so much. By embalming our bodies and placing them in steel lined caskets, we absolutely guarantee that we do not give to where once we came.

Each year, along with their dearly departed, Americans bury 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid and 30-plus million board feet of timber. We bury enough steel to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete vaults – to keep the ground over graves from sinking, which makes maintenance easier – to pave a highway halfway across the United States.

But, in a remarkable move, many people are going the route I hope to go. A pine box without any chemicals. From the article:

He was planting a tree. And, in a way, nurturing the seed of an idea: a shift in the American way of death – a departure from chemicals, concrete vaults and manicured plots.

Mann, cemetery president and CEO, was ceremoniously opening a 31/2-acre “natural” burial ground at the 1869 Lower Merion cemetery, where 100,000 people are buried, including a Titanic survivor and sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder.

No embalmed bodies will be allowed in this area, which has room for 400. Only untreated wood and biodegradable shrouds can be used.

Earth-Touch

I was directed to an amazing website today, and I wanted to share.

Part of the problem with many videos about nature is that it falsely gives you the sense that there is a lot of activity. But, even in watching your cats for a while, you understand that many animals sit around and sleep the day away. I think in nature, even more so. These are beings that are dealing with survival on a daily basis, something that has been missing in our lives for decades. They are limited with food and water, they are on alert to make sure they are not attacked, and in many cases they live in environments that are hot, making it so they must reserve there energy.

That is why I was happy to see a different kind of video being made and posted. Ones that showed how it is really like to be in nature. Go to Earth-Touch.com. You will get a true sense of what it is like to survive; what amazing skill it takes, and how miraculous it is that evolution occurs. I feel it is something we are very detached from and may be why we are having such a hard time surviving, ourselves.

In one video of maggots feasting on a nyala carcass, I found something profound in the description: A lesson could be learnt here about how interconnected all creatures, including us, are in the natural world, and how perfectly everything works together. This realization reawakened in us the value of our own lives and how precious every moment and every experience is.

how does one say “I told you so” without sounding like a jerk?

and maybe I just don’t care….

Why eating GM food could lower your fertility, via Daily Mail, UK.

In an article published today, something I knew all along was verified: GM food affects us.

Professor Dr Jurgen Zentek, Professor for Veterinary Medicine at the University of Vienna and lead author of the study, said a GM diet effected the fertility of mice.

GM expert at Greenpeace International, Dr Jan van Aken, said: ‘Genetically Engineered food appears to be acting as a birth control agent, potentially leading to infertility.

‘If this is not reason enough to close down the whole biotech industry once and for all, I am not sure what kind of disaster we are waiting for.

‘Playing genetic roulette with our food crops is like playing Russian roulette with consumers and public health.’

In the article they state something that I think should make everyone open their ears and eyes: Most studies of GM food has been done in the Biotech industry and with mega-corporations like Monsanto. This is the one of the first, allowed, studies from an independent laboratory. I think as we see more labs providing scientifically backed research, we will start to see the truth. Remember, if the truth will effect the bottom line of a corporation, why in the world would they want you to know it?

Also, in the country, labels are not required to state whether the food you eat is GM. Therefore, farmer’s markets, organic, CSA’s, grow your own… those are the best options. Most of all, try not to eat prepackaged food. I know it is difficult but these are your children and your children’s children we are talking about.

EPA v. the World, round 2…. maybe TKO…

Earlier, I mentioned three articles and then promptly forgot to post the third and final article.

The EPA’s Stalin Era, via Salon

I just really do not understand how a group of scientist, that comprise the EPA, allow for the bastardization of scientific policy that is designed to protect our citizenry.

…. illuminates an entirely new manner in which the Bush administration has diluted science and put public health at risk. This year, largely in obeisance to the Pentagon, the nation’s biggest polluter, the White House diminished a little-known but critical process at the Environmental Protection Agency for assessing toxic chemicals that impacts thousands of Americans.

The article investigates possible toxic poisoning of residents outside of an air base and the lack of assistance from the EPA in getting the situation under control. Many site the Bush Administration as controlling what is considered “allowable” science. (edit. note: WTF? Shouldn’t all science be allowed… hypothesis, results, conclusion)

Public health officials say this attempt to derail the scientific evaluation of toxins is one of the most damning legacies of the Bush administration. In late September, the Government Accountability Office issued a scathing critique of the EPA’s new toxic-assessment procedures. It concluded that the secretive procedures compromise scientific credibility and sacrifice the public’s trust in government. Despite such hefty criticism, public officials fear that because the new procedures have been instituted at the EPA so far below the public radar, their harmful impact will survive long after Bush leaves office. It will take a bold and expedient move by Barack Obama or the next Congress to curtail the influence of the Pentagon and other government agencies on the EPA.

The article goes on and I think it is an important read. For example, did you know that the government puts a value on human life, and in the Bush Administration it has dropped $1Million dollars? You can find the article in the link above. I do think the author is correct by saying it will only be fixed by a bold move on the part of President Obama. I will watch with baited breath to see who he puts in charge of this organization.

DOE vs. the World

The second article, not about the EPA, but a government organization dealing with the environment, so included it…

Department of Energy Tells Scientists to Cut and Run, via Huffington Post

I didn’t know this study was in place. And, it seems just as I found out about it, it will disappear.

For more than a decade, the federal government has spent millions of dollars pumping elevated levels of carbon dioxide into small groups of trees to test how forests will respond to global warming in the next 50 years.

Some scientists believe they are on the cusp of receiving key results from the time-consuming experiments.

The U.S. Department of Energy, however, which is funding the project, has told the scientists to chop down the trees, collect the data and move on to new research.

There are mixed reasons for why they want to stop the study. Apparently, they put together a group of people, with unknown backgrounds, and decided that they had enough data. But, why are the scientists in charge of the experiment considered the experts to determine this. In fact, some data is seems extremely relevant and needs to be studied further:

Results so far indicate that elevated levels of carbon dioxide make forests grow more quickly, said Ram Oren, professor of ecology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and principal investigator on the experiments there.

But unless forests are on fertile ground _ hard to come by because of development _ growth will be in leaves, needles, and fine roots, which die off and decompose in a year or two, releasing the carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere, Oren said.

I guess we will see how this develops.

EPA vs. the World

There are three articles that I have found today where the EPA does not look very good.

The first:
EPA to citizens: Frack you, via Salon.

Susan Haire, a former elementary teacher who ranches on a small scale, has lived atop one of the surrounding mesas for nearly a decade. But she says the landscape has been turned against her. When she drives down this stretch of highway, her nose bleeds, her eyes burn, and her head pounds. She’s taken to wearing a respirator, even in the car.

Haire is not alone. Several dozen people in the area blame a rash of health problems on the wells, says Colorado lawyer Lance Astrella. For 15 years, Astrella was a successful attorney for the energy industry. For the past 15 years, he has been defending citizens like those in Garfield County, who blame the wells near their homes for their cancerous tumors, rectal bleeding and chronic headaches. Between January and March of this year, eight people called the Garfield County oil and gas department, complaining about black smoke and strong chemical odors they worry are making them sick.

A group of 18 top public health experts wrote EPA and Interior Department officials in 2004, asserting that accelerated oil and gas drilling is taking place without adequate regard for human health. But rather than conduct tests, the EPA appears to be trying to get out of the gas companies’ way. Last June, Steve Johnson, an EPA administrator, said the agency was asking itself, “What can we be doing to identify the pitfalls [that] energy companies are experiencing to obtain permits, rather than being a stumbling block or a hindrance?”

This however is my favorite from the article:
“It’s a Catch-22,” says the remarkably frank Weston Wilson, an environmental engineer with the EPA’s Denver office for the past 32 years. “If the EPA doesn’t study the health impacts, then there’s no proof that there’s anything dangerous happening. It’s irrational and corrupt. We used to investigate mysteries, and now we’re not. It’s sad. It’s kind of like we’re being paid off with our generous salaries. The American public would be shocked if they knew we [at EPA] make six figures and we basically sit around and do nothing.”

Your tax dollars pay for these departments. Yes, we all have hope that President Obama will put better people in a position of power to overturn this nonsense. But, what if they fall victim to the same corporate mentality that have plagued us for the last 20 years? Use your voice to make this stop: stay informed, spread the knowledge, challenge authority.

It is up to us to change this.

we kind of knew this would be the result, right?

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the Navy’s continued sonar testing, despite studies showing harm to whales. The environmental cause was defeated 5-4, with Roberts leading the charge.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts said the Navy needs to train its crews to detect enemy submarines, and it cannot be forced to turn off its sonar when whales are spotted nearby. “The public interest in conducting training exercises with active sonar under realistic conditions plainly outweighs” the concerns voiced by environmentalists, he said for a 5-4 majority.

The 4 justices, who seem to be continuously outvoted….

– John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer — dissented in whole or in part. They agreed with environmentalists that the Navy should be required to complete an environmental impact study before going ahead with its final training exercises.

You can find the whole article in the LA Times, HERE

change is upon us

I really like Al Gore. He wrote an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times. He is a man that when he talks (or writes), I listen (or read).

The piece is his suggestion for how we should embrace a new energy policy under President Obama’s administration. He outlines a five step plan and all of it seems doable and necessary.

Some excerpts:

As Abraham Lincoln said during America’s darkest hour, “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” In our present case, thinking anew requires discarding an outdated and fatally flawed definition of the problem we face.

One of the five ideas:
Fourth, we should embark on a nationwide effort to retrofit buildings with better insulation and energy-efficient windows and lighting. Approximately 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States come from buildings — and stopping that pollution saves money for homeowners and businesses. This initiative should be coupled with the proposal in Congress to help Americans who are burdened by mortgages that exceed the value of their homes.

A conclusion:
Of course, the best way — indeed the only way — to secure a global agreement to safeguard our future is by re-establishing the United States as the country with the moral and political authority to lead the world toward a solution.

I think the whole article is well worth the read and you can find it HERE.

food fight, cont.

About a week ago, I posted about the upcoming documentary “Food Fight”.

I went to a screening at the AFIfest on Saturday and thought the documentary was really, really good.

Because food is something that I am passionate about, I have taken the time to read, research, watch all available material on the subject. There is a lot of information out there and has resulted in one big conclusion for me: changing how you eat is a major step that you can take to reduce climate change.

This movie is different than other movies I have seen because it is not boring. It engages the audience, talks about food in a smart, sexy way, with added humor. Of course, I saw things that were missing. I make it a goal to know as much as possible, and it is hard to incorporate all the information we have into an entertaining two hours or less. However, I was disappointed that while there was discussion about the industrialization of agriculture, there was no mention of the meat industry. I find this a big flaw because when you talk about food, health, climate change… we all know that making better choices about eating less meat or even choosing better meat has a major impact.

That being said, I do not want to take away from the importance of this film. It will attract a bigger audience then any other documentary by the sheer fact that it is fun and energetic, providing information about food that can be retained. I do think people that see this film will make better food choices, and that is the ultimate goal. Baby steps, right?

Side note… the theater trash cans that were full of empty containers of popcorn, soda and candy… irony that bespeaks to the challenge ahead.

All in all, I will stay on top of this and let you know when it will be available to everyone because you MUST SEE THIS FILM!!!!

HERE is the original post.

and here is a video, that wasn’t posted in the original:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IS67USzR7k&feature=related]

« Previous Page — Next Page »