The Last Equinoxe Screed You Will Ever Need

Greetings, friends,
September is always a favorite time of year, and not just because I'm beginning year 44 on Earth (and remember, a birthday is not an anticipation, but a victory over the past.)  The weather always crackles here in LA in September...summer literally broke in one night a few weeks ago, when ocean fog covered the city, and ever since the days have been warm and dry, but the sultry nights are over.  I have to admit, global warming or not, the weather is fairly normal this year.  Today is the equinoxe, and the world is in balance:  the axis perpendicular to the sun, directly over the equator.  With every hour we in the Northern Hemisphere tilt back into winter, while down under it's time for spring.  Nice.

I took a walk in the fall weather, crisp and sharply blue, down to the hardware store yesterday.  That sounds awfully butch, but that's what tickles my fancy.  I was replacing a bad switch rather than throw my favorite desk lamp in the trash.  Fall is all about the day-to-day, today the Santa Anas blowing, tomorrow the city cool under a gray blanket.  I'm writing, baby-stepping into the future and spending good quality time right here in front of the machine.  From a novel to poetry, from the huge folder of unprocessed photographs to the stream of incoming messages on Facebook and in my inbox, there is never enough time to pick through it all.  Some of it is doubtless going to end up at the bottom...one wonder, when we begin to die off, what will happen to the millions of accumulating spam messages and unread RSS feeds...will they slowly harden into some kind of sedimentary electronic mineral?  That's one for the kids to discover the hard way, eh.

Hey, just for readers of the SCREED...if you're looking for a new e-mail/web host (not ISP), I can heartily recommend DreamHost.  They include huge amounts of bandwidth and memory, and it's as cheap as $6 a month if you sign up for 10 years, and they're doing a promotion where I can give you a free domain registration:
http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?315462/signup|joelrane

To relax I've been spending about an hour each night taking a ride on my Flight Simulator.  I bought it for my father to kill time a few years ago, but the intensive flipping of switches and popping windows is more suited to my temperament.  For those who've never seen it, Microsoft's flight simulator is not really a game, but a huge, computer choking program that allows you to pick a plane and fly it, cockpit instruments and all.  I've been surprised by how little flying involves any looking out the window...just lining up the runway on landing and takeoff.  The rest is spend reading instruments and GPS devices until the plane is cruising on autopilot, and then enjoying the real-time ride.  I've enjoyed visiting some exotic places, like flying around the peak of Mount Everest, or dropping by to see the only underground club in Una's hometown of Locarno, Switzerland; I've finally seen the Greek Islands from the air, the lines of Nazca and Lake Titicaca, the Straits of Magellan (which have terrible weather, just like we were taught), New Zealand, even more awesome than "Lord of the Rings" made you wonder, and the North African desert of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, which at night is the blackest of blacks.  It's more relaxing than you'd imagine.

The world is a pretty place...really.  I watched this video again the other day and was haunted by a what a simultaneously beautiful vision of the end of the world it is:
Ween - Transdermal Celebration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU91POX33aE

Yeah, that's the same Ween who gave us "Piss Up a Rope", "Homo Rainbow", "Push the Li'l Daisies" and the inimitable "Mister Richard Smoker".  Awesome.

I took a break from the weird old movies on White Springs to catch up with my Vice:
Penny Rimbaud of Crass
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1364183270

In the next screed I'm going to give you my tour of Hulu.  But my favorite (and the least time-wasting) is still good ol' YouTube.  Via the Tube I can travel in time...I can revisit the long summers before I "grew up":
UB40 - One In Ten 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCGcljqOSW0
Split Enz - Dirty Creature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-k3QDTWrSg
Go-Go's - Surfing and spying (Live in Berlin 1982)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wViVHVaLa4I

Or the hazy X nightmare I had when I moved back from Berkeley:
Robin S - Show me love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcAXJkKYBtA
Snap! - Rhythm is a dancer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9c5otT-RUA
Haddaway - What is Love?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCXZczTQXo

And now I'm even starting to get nostalgic about my "eclectic" period of the late 1990s and early 00s:
OutKast - Hey Ya!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvIw5ZqC1ms
Caleb Meyer - Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nugXkgd_-84
Tahiti 80 - Big Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9Fm7GbxIGY

I also (sometimes) like to see the other survivors...here's Clare Grogan, the singer of Altered Images who taught me how to dance in 1980, still squeaky cute and telling me "Happy Birthday" just a week ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7SYRzhn44

All right, enough self-indulgence.

I know I like to talk a lot of environmental crap, but where's the practical advice?  Well, we might all be living in caves soon (or underwater!), but maybe there are a few baby steps possible before our grandchildren are engaged in combat over food.  Most of you know the obvious ones, like getting rid of all your incandescent bulbs (I did this, brag, in 1994 and still pay less than $50 a month for electricity.)  If you drive an SUV, why are you reading this and why do I know you?  I hope I don't cut you off by mistake on the freeway.

Here's a good one:  If you hate bugs, never buy another can of RAID or BLACK FLAG (not the PUNK group) again...rather than insecticide, your local hardware store should have something called Safer.  For outdoor fruit and plants, they make sulfur or copper soaps that kill fungus and other disease organisms, while leaving beneficial insects alive.  More important, for indoor bugs they sell parmesan-cheese shakers and 4 lb. bags of diatomaceous earth.  Completely non-toxic and natural, it is the shells of tiny dead diatoms; they annoy termites, ants and spiders, and will kill roaches, silverfish, centipedes and many other pests by scratching the waxy skin off their legs and nasty little bodies.  Unfortunately most hardware store employees are not smart enough to know what you mean when you ask for "diatomaceous earth", and think you mean the industrial grade (for pool filters, where it kills watery pests and also absorbs excess chlorine).  Ask for "Safer", the indoor grade for bugs.  There is also an edible grade, but I'll leave that to the Lightwoods.

Stop using insecticides!
Buzzzzzzzz Kill
The loss of billions of bees raises questions about our pesticide controls.
It's likely that most people have never heard of Gaucho. And no, it's not a South American cowboy. I'm talking about a pesticide.  There is increasing reason to believe that Gaucho and other members of a family of highly toxic chemicals - neonicotinoids - may be responsible for the deaths of billions of honeybees worldwide.
Click here to read more on our site

Also avoid eating other people's insecticide when you buy your fruit:
12 Foods You Should Always Buy Organic
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART02985/12-Foods-You-Should-Always-Buy-Organic.html

I've also learned a nearly foolproof way to unplug a drain without DRANO or LIQUID PLUMR:  put a few tablespoons of baking soda down the offending pipe and add a half-cup of vinegar.  Enjoy the fizzing for 15 minutes, and then pour a big pot of boiling water down the drain.  A really tough clog might take two or three tries, and if you have those plastic PVC pipes under your sink, you need to put cool water down a minute after the boiling...but this is better (and much cheaper) than chemicals.  Then keep your pipes nice and clean with a enzyme like Bio-Kleen...great for septic tanks too.  You might also want to stop cutting your hair over the sink!  Like junk mail, hair is good for the compost pile.

Here's a tip I discovered just the other day and put into immediate use:

Foiled Again

Yes, Virginia, boxes of aluminum foil do have locking tabs.

Yet another eco-tip...before you dispose of batteries, stereos, computer monitors etc. in the trash, have a party and smash them up (always fun) and then look up your zip code at this site to find an appropriate recycler:

myGreenElectronics

This website features a ZIP code look-up for electronics recycling facilities and listings of electronics (such as computers, home theater, and televisions) that are energy efficient, made of recycled materials, or have other green properties. Includes reuse and recycling tips related to electronics. From the Consumer Electronics Association, a trade organization promoting consumer technology.

Regardless of recycling and the sparkly rainbows over Barack Obama, I have no doubt now that whatever shit is coming down is coming down soon...and no, this is not my admission that the Christians were finally right about the Second Coming.  I mean soon...not for the little kids to suffer through, or Malin, or even me; even my parents will probably be unlucky enough to see our fucking-up of planet Earth bear some fruit.  Hey, screw it, drill baby drill, right?  Fuck the planet.  No ice at the North Pole just means more room to go sailing in Sir Richard Branson's solar-powered yacht.

I was reading about Atlantis sinking under the ocean...I personally thought Atlantis might have been the ancient civilization that flourished in the Amazon (before it sank...not under water but under a cloud forest.)  Or maybe the civilization that lived around the Euxine Lake, until it filled up...first from melting glaciers, and then violently by the overflowing Mediterranean, creating the Black Sea.  Or maybe Crete...if Plato just added an extra zero to his dates.  In any case, I always associated the Black Sea with the "Flood "...the calamitous filling of this basin must have been one of the great disasters of the Stone Age, with thousands of people displaced from the heart of Asia in every direction in less than a year.  Then I saw this map:
Coastline at Last Glacial Maximum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Last_glacial_vegetation_map.png

The last glacial maximum was about 20000 years ago, or 12000 years before the Euxine Lake was flooded.  You can see the lake is much smaller than the Black Sea, but you also might notice several other huge pieces of real estate above sea level (which was 100 to 120 meters, or almost 350 feet lower than today.)  The loss of these great tracts of land must be imprinted in our consciousness somewhere.  Four huge areas slowly sank under the water, and all within the memory of our ancestors:  the Persian Gulf; Doggerland, which composed most of the North and Baltic Seas, Sundaland, now broken into the many islands of Indonesia, and Carpentaria , a wide plain between New Guinea and Australia.  All of these areas must have been lush and so attractive to humans.  It is hard to comprehend what the loss of so much good land must have meant to them...well, we'll find out, won't we, when New York City and Vancouver and Tokyo and Mumbai and Amsterdam and all the great coastal cities of the world are under water?

You think I'm kidding, but I think I feel a SCREED coming on...
Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-scientists-warn-that-there-may-be-no-ice-at-north-pole-this-summer-855406.html
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
No Ice at the North Pole
Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change.
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
Click here to read more on our site

And the more ice that goes, the more polar bears that tumble in and drown, the faster we sink:
Digging Up the Dirt on Arctic Carbon
You never know what you'll find until you dig a little deeper. Scientists taking the measure of how much carbon the Arctic locks up beneath its tundra have done just that.
Click here to read more on our site
Degrading Arctic Ice May Release Climate Threat
Methane would warm the planet.
Click here to read more on our site

In centuries to come, young punks with a black sense of humor will enjoy the current debate over who gets a piece of this new open water:
** Arctic Map shows dispute hotspots **
Scientists say they have drawn up the first detailed map showing Arctic areas that could become the centre of border disputes.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/staging_site/in_depth/the_green_room/7543837.stm >

Warm up the battleships and load the guns:
Seven-Square-Mile Ice Sheet Breaks Loose in Canada
Edmonton, Alberta - A chunk of ice spreading across seven square miles has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists said Tuesday.  Derek Mueller, a research at Trent University, was careful not to blame global warming, but said it the event was consistent with the theory that the current Arctic climate isn't rebuilding ice sheets.  "We're in a different climate now," he said. "It's not conducive to regrowing them.
Click here to read more on our site

And enjoy the planet we've got:
Report Says Severe Weather to Increase as Earth Warms
As humans emit more greenhouse gases, North America is likely to experience more droughts and excessive heat even as intense downpours and hurricanes increase, according to a report issued today by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
Click here to read more on our site
Summers Hotter as Climate Changes
Climate change will have a "substantial" impact on human health in the coming decades, making wildfires and hurricanes more likely, cooking up more smog, and making summer heat waves longer, hotter and deadlier, according to a new report today from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Click here to read more on our site
Wetlands Could Unleash "Carbon Bomb"
Washington - The world's wetlands, threatened by development, dehydration and climate change, could release a planet-warming "carbon bomb" if they are destroyed, ecological scientists said on Sunday.  Wetlands contain 771 billion tons of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth and about the same amount of carbon as is now in the atmosphere, the scientists said before an international conference linking wetlands and global warming.
Click here to read more on our site

And don't be too certain everyone will notice as the world slowly sinks...you don't see Galveston, one of the oldest and nicest cities in Texas, on the radar screen, and yet it was devastated as badly as New Orleans by the recent hurricane:
Life After Ike: A Test of Endurance
Galveston, Texas - Tommy LeCroy, proprietor of Bistro LeCroy, supervises the grilling of steaks and sausages, washed down with fine wine, on the deck of a loft overlooking a street buried in mud. This is the historic restaurant and retail district known as the Strand. The neighborhood is deserted. LeCroy is tending the last feeble embers of the good life.
Click here to read more on our site

My own state is doomed to dry out and my favorite deserts will spread:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002502
===================================================
Climate Change and the Future of California's Endemic Flora
The flora of California, a global biodiversity hotspot, includes 2387 endemic plant taxa. With anticipated climate change, we project that up to 66% will experience >80% reductions in range size within a century. These results are comparable with other studies of fewer species or just samples of a region's endemics. Projected reductions depend on the magnitude of future emissions and on the ability of species to disperse from their current locations. California's varied terrain could cause species to move in very different directions, breaking up present-day floras. However, our projections also identify regions where species undergoing severe range reductions may persist. Protecting these potential future refugia and facilitating species dispersal will be essential to maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change.

The same is happening to other Mediterranean climates:
Global Warming Africanizing Spain
Fortuna, Spain - Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses - 54 of them, all built in the last decade and most in the last three years - give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.
Click here to read more on our site

But NO NO NO...we've got to have our fucking $2 gas back...
Suburbs Feeling the Pinch as Fuel Prices Soar
Ever since the rise of the automobile in the 1950s, the American Dream has featured a home in the suburbs and two cars in the garage.  Now the iconic white picket fence comes with a hefty price tag in the form of the cost of the gasoline needed to drive to work and to the supermarket, and the suburban idyll is under review.
Click here to read more on our site
US Green Groups Warn of Oil Sands "Poison"
Ottawa - Environmental activists are warning U.S. lawmakers and consumers that the Canadian oilsands sector is an environmental disaster that is poisoning U.S refineries.  "The environmental costs of tarsand development are staggering," says a report released Wednesday by the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based group, in the latest salvo in a pitched public relations battle over Western Canada's resource riches.
Click here to read more on our site

FUCK THE WORLD!  GIVE ME MY $2 GAS!!
Bush Lifts Presidential Ban on Offshore Oil Drilling
George Bush has today lifted a presidential ban on oil drilling off American coastlines that was first signed by his father - a symbolic move aimed at pressuring Congress into lifting its own similar ban.  Skyrocketing gas prices in the US have set off feverish political debates over offshore drilling, which was banned by Congress in 1982 and by former president George HW Bush in 1990.
Click here to read more on our site
McCain Bets on Offshore Drilling
GOP hopeful has traded any chance of carrying California for a shot at the heartland.
On a January afternoon in 1969, Paradise was violated and the modern environmental movement was born.  Six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., a "blowout" erupted below a Union Oil Co. platform, spewing crude oil from drilling-induced cracks in the Santa Barbara Channel floor.
Click here to read more on our site

And I do mean fuck the world...
 
Tawdry tale of oil drillers and `MMS Chicks'
By CARL HIAASEN
People always say the Bush administration is in bed with the oil companies, but it turns out to be literally true.  According to the Interior Department, some government officials in charge of collecting oil and gas royalties smoked pot, snorted cocaine and had sex with employees of big energy firms.  Meanwhile, the rest of us were getting screwed at the gas pump.
Read More...

We should listen to voices that tell us to get off the petroleum tit...
Al Gore Lays Down Green Challenge to America
Transcript of speech and video below.
Former Vice President Al Gore, seeking to shake up an energy debate that is focused mostly on drilling, challenged the United States to shift its entire electricity sector to carbon-free wind, solar and geothermal power within 10 years, and use that power to fuel a new fleet of electric vehicles.
Click here to read more on our site
Gore Says US Must Abandon Fossil Fuels by 2018
Washington - Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of electric power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.  "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. "The future of human civilization is at stake."
Click here to read more on our site

I'm not even sure I agree with this "reasonable" proposal...
Yes to Offshore Oil - but Just Not Now
Save that oil for future generations. Saudi Arabia just took a similar step.
Relief at the pump soon? Hardly. In their pre-election call to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling, President Bush and John McCain are pulling a fast one on frantic car owners. This new ocean crude is years from flowing to the corner gas station. And for sensible reasons it should be.
Click here to read more on our site

But all those Democrats you elected also want $2 gas back:
Oil Drilling Bill Passes in House
After months of debate about expanding offshore oil and gas drilling, the House passed legislation Tuesday that could open up large areas off U.S. coastlines to energy production.  The bill (HR 6899) passed 236-189 despite the objections of Republicans who said it would do little to boost offshore oil and gas production. President Bush threatened a veto.
Click here to read more on our site

I suspect, when we're fighting people at the supermarket for loaves of bread, gas won't be remembered that fondly.
Food, Fuel and Water Crises Converging
Stockholm - A spectre is haunting the cities and villages of most developing nations, warns a senior official of a World Bank-affiliated organisation.  "It's the spectre of a food, fuel and water crisis," says Lars Thunell, executive vice president of the Washington-based International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank group.
Click here to read more on our site

At least our government has a sense of humor about the end of the world...even better than Ween's:
US Environmental Agency Lowers Value of a Human Life
It sounds like a spot of gallows humour, but the numbers are no joke: the US environmental protection agency (EPA) has lowered the value of a human life by nearly $1m under George Bush's administration.  The EPA's estimate of the "value of a statistical life" was $6.9m as of this May - down from $7.8m five years ago - according to an Associated Press study released today.  Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.
Click here to read more on our site

Seriously, the time for action is not now, it is long past...but there's always hope, eh?
Sixth Species Extinction Can Still Be Avoided
The human species, 6.7 billion individuals strong, has modified its environment to such a degree that it is now hurting the biodiversity of terrestrial and marine species and, ultimately, its own survival. This to the point that an ever-growing number of scientists unhesitatingly talk about a sixth extinction, successor to the five others - all due to important natural modifications of the environment - that have punctuated life on Earth.
Click here to read more on our site

Here's a funny joke...the end of ocean life (and so life as we know it) triggered by facial scrubs...
Moneybox
Scrubbing Out Sea Life
Exfoliating plastic beads feel good unless you live in the ocean.
By Hillary Rosner
A smiling model glides, mermaid-like, through a lush underwater garden. Undulating ribbons of something resembling kelp rise from the sea floor, and tiny enchanting pearl-like beads bubble up though the aquamarine water. Polish your troubles away with Olay Body Wash Plus Spa Exfoliating Ribbons, the subject of this commercial, and you too might feel as if you're floating through a luxurious Atlantis.  The trouble is, the more you exfoliate, the less Edenic underwater realm becomes for the creatures who live there. That's because the exfoliating ingredient in Olay's body wash, and in most similar big-brand products (such as Dove Gentle Exfoliating Foaming Facial Cleanser and Clean & Clear Daily Pore Cleanser), is actually made out of plastic: tiny particles of polyethylene that scrub the dirt from your face and then wash straight down the drain and into watersheds and, eventually, oceans.  It's well-known by now that increasing amounts of plastic are clogging the planet's seas, killing millions of sea creatures every year when they swallow it, choke on it, or get tangled in it and drown.

Ha ha...not so funny.
Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans' Decline
Overfishing, climate change, pollution cited.
Barcelona - Blue patrol boats crisscross the swimming areas of beaches here with their huge nets skimming the water's surface.
Click here to read more on our site

There might be hope...
Ocean Quest: The Race to Save the World's Coral Reefs
Last week, scientists issued their latest, grim assessment of the world's coral reefs. But as Steve Connor reports from Florida, extraordinary new ocean 'reseeding' techniques mean there may still be time to halt - or even reverse - the destruction of mother nature's marine marvels.
Click here to read more on our site
"Major Discovery" From MIT Primed to Unleash Solar Revolution
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system.
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.  Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient.
Click here to read more on our site
Steel Workers, Allies Launch "Green Jobs" Campaign
Pittsburgh - Add "green jobs" to all the other campaigns traversing the country this fall, thanks to the Steel Workers, plus environmental groups.  The campaign, in six states - Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, New York, Missouri, Tennessee, and Minnesota - is based on a Sept. 9 report showing $100 billion invested in green technology has the potential to create 2 million new jobs in the next two years, advocates said.
Click here to read more on our site

Especially in more enlightened states:

West Coast Governors' Agreement on Ocean Health (WCGA)

"On September 18, 2006 the Governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced the West Coast Governors' Agreement on Ocean Health. The Agreement launched a new, proactive regional collaboration to protect and manage the ocean and coastal resources along the entire West Coast." Website features the July 2008 final action plan, information about "four immediate action" topics (offshore oil, nonpoint source pollution, regional research, and federal support), policy documents, and details about meetings.

And on land many creatures are just hanging on...
Alpine 'Boulder Bunny' Imperiled by Global Warming
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/alpine-boulder-bunny-imperiled-by-global-warming.html
State and federal lawsuits filed to protect American pika
Orangutans "On Fast Track to Extinction"
Bangkok - The orangutan could be the first great ape to become extinct if urgent action is not taken to protect the species from human encroachment in South-east Asia, according to a new study.
Click here to read more on our site
Judge Rules Water Projects Imperil Central Valley Salmon and Steelhead
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/judge-rules-water-projects-imperil-central-valley-salmon-and-steelhead.html

Even tiny efforts are faced with ridiculous opposition:
Bush Tries to Raid Salmon Disaster Funds
West Coast representatives and leaders of fishing groups are outraged over an attempt by the White House to yank $70 million in disaster funding from commercial and recreational fishermen in order to pay for the 2010 US Census.
Click here to read more on our site
Coast Guard sued over whale deaths
http://venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jun/19/coast-guard-sued-over-whale-deaths/

Groups oppose Safari Club's attempt to bring back polar bear trophy hunt

Posted By BY DAN JOLING, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/wildlife_groups_ask_federal_courts_uphold_polar_bear_hunting_ban_061608.html

Any attempt to bring an industrial monster under control...
Court Rejects EPA Limits on Emissions Rules
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out an Environmental Protection Agency rule limiting the ability of states to require monitoring of industrial emissions.  The 2-to-1 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the most recent in a series of judicial setbacks to the Bush administration's efforts to reshape federal policies under the Clean Air Act.
Click here to read more on our site

...must be fought tooth-and-nail by these weasels.
Ex-EPA Official Says White House Pulled Rank
Administration ordered California emissions plan quashed, former deputy testifies.
A former Environmental Protection Agency official Tuesday contradicted EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson's congressional testimony on one of the administration's key global warming decisions, saying the White House ordered Johnson to block California's bid to regulate vehicles' tailpipe emissions.
Click here to read more on our site
Bush's Puppets
EPA administrator Stephen Johnson neglects his federal oath.
Some of us had high hopes for Stephen Johnson when President Bush appointed him in March 2005 as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Click here to read more on our site
Scientists Were Censored by NASA
Appointees in NASA press office blamed.
An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.
Click here to read more on our site
White House Ignored EPA Report on Regulating Emissions
White House refused to open pollutants e-mail.
The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.
Click here to read more on our site
White House Disavows EPA Plan on Emissions
The Bush administration today disavowed its own proposal to seek comment on whether the government should regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, declaring that the proposed approach would be unworkable.  Under pressure from the Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent the past 15 months exploring how the government might regulate emissions linked to global warming, a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.
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Citing Need for Assessments, US Freezes Solar Energy Projects
Denver - Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.  The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.
Click here to read more on our site
Senate Inaction Kills Climate Change Bill
On Friday, the Senate set aside a bill to combat climate change after failing to gather the 60 votes necessary to move the legislation forward. The bill, S.3036 , was proposed by Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) and John Warner (R-Virginia) to fight the country's massive level of carbon emissions. The legislation would instate a cap-and-trade system to gradually decrease US emissions by two percent a year for an ultimate 2050 goal of emissions 66 percent below 2005 levels.
Click here to read more on our site

And they plan to continue their fight:
US election: US think tank names Palin as enemy of the environment
Centre for Biological Diversity condemned Alaska governor as a 'global warming denier'
By Suzanne Goldenberg
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/guardian-09-17-2008.html

Maybe they think renewable energy is too dangerous...

Gone with the Wind

Video clip shows a wind turbine exploding during high winds.

But the corporations are finally starting to get it:
GM Closing Four Plants in Shift From Trucks Toward Cars
Responding to a consumer shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles, General Motors said Tuesday that it would stop making pickup trucks and big S.U.V.s at four North American assembly plants and would consider selling its Hummer brand.  The moves, announced Tuesday by the company chairman G. Richard Wagoner Jr., will slash 500,000 units from the automaker's overall production, and pave the way for increased investment in smaller cars and passenger vehicles.
Click here to read more on our site
General Motors, Others  Decide the SUV is Dead - U.S. News Rankings and Reviews
http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/080604-General-Motors-Others-Decide-the-SUV-is-Dead/
Automakers Race Time as Their Cash Runs Low
Detroit - The downturn in the American auto industry is rapidly becoming a full-blown fight for survival among Detroit's big automakers.  With the combination of high gas prices and a weak economy crippling vehicle sales, the resources of General Motors and the Ford Motor Company are being stretched to the limit.
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The modern car is almost a century old...and that's about as old as I think it will get.

Facts for Features Special Edition: Model T Centennial (Oct. 1)

Collection of facts and statistics for the October 1, 2008, centennial celebration of when "on Oct. 1, 1908, Ford Motor Co. introduced the Model T, generally regarded as the first affordable automobile and the car that industry experts say 'put America on wheels.'" Features data about auto manufacturing, car sales and ownership (such as California having the most registered vehicles according to the latest figures), and related topics. From the U.S. Census Bureau.

My advice is to hop in the car this equinoxe, put in some $4 gas, and take a trip to the woods.
Congress Pushes to Keep Land Untamed
Bills could add millions of acres of wilderness.
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Study Says Old Growth Forests Bank Carbon Dioxide
Grants Pass, Oregon - A group of forest scientists from the United States and Europe reports that a growing body of evidence settles an old question over whether old growth forests store more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they release.  Based on a review of research from more than 500 forest sites around the world, the answer, published Thursday in an online edition of the journal Nature, is that most forests between 15 and 800 years old do, and the total amounts to about 1 billion metric tons a year, or about 10 percent of the ne
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And imagine the future:
Costa Rica Bids to Go Carbon Neutral
In February 2008, Norway, New Zealand, Iceland and Costa Rica made a commitment to go carbon neutral.
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If not...there's always outer space.
Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet

Vive le screed!