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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
Let there be spaces in your togetherness.
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
02:44PM
Unique Readers:
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domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Monday, June 16, 2003 |  |
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 16 Jun 2003 @ 00:21
Posted on Thu, Jun. 05, 2003
Study: Oceans Near U.S. In Crisis
BY SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON - The oceans bordering the United States are overfished, polluted, infested with invasive species, dotted with ''dead zones'' and in a state of crisis, but they still can be saved, an independent commission reported Wednesday.
Bringing the oceans' ecosystems back from the edge of collapse -- one recent study found that 90 percent of the world's big fish have disappeared -- requires dramatic, controversial and expensive efforts to limit fishing, coastal development and runoff from cities and farms, according to the Pew Oceans Commission. Its report is the product of a three-year, $5.5 million study.
''People look at the ocean and it looks blue and peaceful and as good as it always did, but you don't know what's going on beneath the waves,'' said commission member Charles Kennel, the director of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego. ``What is going on is a systematic decline of our marine ecosystem. It's a global crisis.''
The Pew report is the latest in a series of reports warning of worsening problems in the world's oceans. A separate commission, appointed by President Bush, will make its own recommendations next fall, but it already has concluded that ''there are substantial problems in the oceans,'' said presidential commission member Paul Sandifer, senior scientist at the federal Hollings Marine Lab in Charleston, S.C.
For heavily developed coastal states like Florida, the problems are particularly acute -- farm pollution, urban sewage, increasing commercial and recreational fishing pressure.
For decades, researchers have documented a sharp decline in coral off the Florida Keys, the largest living reef in North America.
Toxic algae blooms continue to erupt off Southwest Florida and in Florida Bay, killing seagrass and sponges and juvenile fish. A housing explosion has chewed up mangroves and marshes. A growing number of fish, including coastal species, pose health threats from high mercury.
While state restrictions and a gillnet ban has helped some popular species rebound, notably pompano and redfish, biologists and regulators consider dozens of other species overfished.
''The oceans were always seen to be vast and limitless. Now, we're seeing that's not the case,'' said David White, director of The Ocean Conservancy's regional office in St. Petersburg.
The Pew Commission -- a bipartisan group of scientists, politicians and philanthropists sponsored by an environmental charity -- stressed that it's not too late. ''It is possible to rescue much of the bounty that has been lost, but only if we focus society on protecting and restoring the ecosystem,'' commission member Jane Lubchenco, an Oregon State University marine biologist, told a news conference.
The Pew Commission called for:
• Setting aside far more no-fishing zones in U.S. waters.
• Imposing severe limits on the fishing technique of trawling, which scrapes the sea bottom.
• Strengthening land-pollution laws to regulate storm-water runoff from urban areas, fertilizer-tainted runoff from mass animal farms and cruise ship sewage dumping.
• Acquiring environmentally sensitive land on the coasts.
• Reforming the National Flood Insurance Program and other policies that promote coastal development.
Many commercial fishermen don't want new limits on where and how they catch seafood.
New Bedford, Mass., fisherman Robert Lane, president of the Trawlers Survival Fund, argued that fisheries are reviving. ''Things have bounced back,'' he said.
A top Bush fishery official agreed. ''From a fisheries standpoint, I don't think we're at a crisis point,'' Bill Hogarth, the director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said in an interview. ``We have made progress, but that doesn't mean we don't have things to do.''
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| Sunday, June 15, 2003 | |
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 15 Jun 2003 @ 12:08
Maybe there's something like this in YOUR neighborhood...
I recently went and recycled two printers, a vcr, two computers, a cd player and a monitor. Some of it goes to correctional facilities for repair training and some to recycling plants. It's important to ask where the materials are headed . Some recyclers simply sell it and ship it to countries in Indonesia where there are no recycling laws and the e-waste is burned or buried. There are villages where the rivers are completely toxic and the people are severely impacted,
Here's a great place for free, household, electronic waste recycling: Computers, monitors, printers, cartridges, fax machines, VCRs, microwave ovens, toasters, irons, vacuum cleaners, stereo systems, bicycles, televisions, washers and dryers will be accepted
Oxnard Recycling
Remember: a lot of e-waste contain toxic materials which will leak into landfills and subsequently our water. More >
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| Monday, June 9, 2003 | |
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 9 Jun 2003 @ 08:39
I got an email from Letecia that our house mate, John Roulac, founder of Nutiva Hemp Foods is also known as Mr.Compost. His book about backyard composting is featured at Green Books and has sold over 20,000 copies. This is a UK site , but it's available online at many US outlets too. Here's the google search I did for it.
Here's short synopsis of the book:
Composting allows you to do something for the part of the Earth you live with day by day: your own back garden. Backyard Composting follows basic values, such as putting things where they belong and not making a mess. Composting at home reduces your personal volume of rubbish, conserves water, increases plant growth, replaces the need for toxic chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and is also fun. While you may not win an 'environmental hero of the year' award, your trees, earthworms, butterflies and other flora and fauna will be grateful for your composting achievements!
Backyard Composting also introduces the various types of composting bins and accessories, explaining the pros and cons of each type, and gives instructions for building one from scrap materials.
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| Friday, June 6, 2003 | |
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 6 Jun 2003 @ 10:39
To a 26-Year-Old Mayor, Village Elders Are Many
By Claudia Rowe
New York Times
May 25, 2003
NEW PALTZ, N.Y., May 23
In just a few days, a 26-year-old house painter and puppeteer will become the mayor here, advocating for soybean fuel in village vehicles, reed beds that filter sewage, and college students in village government.
It could be a tough sell. As the first Green Party mayor in New York State, Jason West will succeed a 71-year-old Democrat and veteran of the Korean War who assumed the helm of this historic Hudson Valley community when Mr. West was still in elementary school.
The grumbling around town, however, is less about the newcomer's party than his partisans. Mr. West's surprise victory on May 6 was largely attributed to support from the amply pierced and tie-dye-clad students living on the campus of the State University of New York at New Paltz. One of his running mates was a 23-year-old undergraduate who spent the weeks after Election Day studying for finals.
In a college town where those with permanent homes and 9-to-5 jobs have long looked askance at neo-hippies lounging on front stoops, political power is about to shift from the old guard to a band of idealists who used a man in a chicken suit to get out the vote on campus.
The old guard is not amused.
Peter Savago, the Republican chairman of Ulster County, called the election "a travesty." Robert Feldman, a village trustee who also ran for mayor, is so disgusted that he resigned from the village board, though he had two more years in his term. And the current mayor, Thomas Nyquist, openly bitter about the culmination of his 20 years of public service here, has refused even to discuss the transition with his successor.
Mayor Nyquist called the upset "a student takeover" and predicted that elderly residents would leave New Paltz in droves.
But Mr. West, who takes office on June 1, shrugged off the attacks.
"I've heard their fears of a student takeover, but I'm never quite sure what that means -- if students need money for more shots at the bar, they'll call the village clerk to cut them a check?"
Though Mr. West and his two running mates now control the five-member village board, the young mayor-elect squeaked in with a margin of only 64 votes, and turnout among the population of 6,000 was low. Mr. West estimated that half of the 322 ballots cast for him were from students. In fact, a new board member, Julia Walsh, is a student, and Mr. West and his other running mate, Rebecca Rotzler, 41, are SUNY New Paltz alumni.
Village elders may have seen this coming. Two years ago, they tried to move Election Day from March to June -- when most students are long gone -- though Mayor Nyquist insisted that this was merely an effort to help prospective candidates gather petition signatures in better weather. Mr. West, a regular gadfly at board meetings, fought to get the date moved to May.
All the bitterness and concern leave him somewhat bemused. Mr. West said all he intended to do was to create a more forward-looking village government by controlling sprawl, using solar energy and finding alternative means to handle water treatment -- ideas that resonated with students but left Mayor Nyquist shaking his head.
"I always considered myself an environmentalist, too, but what they're talking about is ridiculous," he said. "We have issues that are much more pressing than putting solar panels on Village Hall."
Foremost among them, according to Mayor Nyquist, is keeping a tight grip on village spending while fixing an aging sewer system. But he is not about to share his wisdom with Mr. West.
"Did you see Bill Clinton meeting with Bush during their transition period?" the mayor asked. "When you're done, you're done. You clean out the office, turn off the light, and shut the door. I paid my dues, and if people decide to run who have no experience, I don't see that it's my position to pull their chestnuts out of the fire."
Actually, President Clinton did meet with President-elect Bush for two hours in the Oval Office, and Mr. West is not a newcomer to politics. He ran twice, unsuccessfully, for the State Legislature as a Green Party candidate and said he decided to enter the mayoral race -- only six weeks before Election Day -- because neither of the mainstream candidates was discussing the long-term effects of New Paltz's booming development.
Mr. West's undergraduate running mate, Ms. Walsh, called the village elders "ungrateful losers."
"I ran because of my belief in democracy," she said. "Students make up over half the population here, yet there's not representation on the board, so I was willing to represent the voice of youth in the village."
To hear older residents tell it, students already make themselves well heard -- cruising the streets every morning at 4 when the bars close and those with more conventional schedules are trying to sleep. Mr. West's campaign pledge to create more student housing in town has only fanned the flames.
"There are people who have ordinary lives who have to sleep at night and get up to go to work in the morning," said Alison Nash, a 15-year resident. "They are just very different lifestyles."
The outcry has grown so vitriolic that the state deputy attorney general, Marty Mack, was moved to leave a congratulations-and-keep-your-chin-up message on Mr. West's answering machine, saying that the same thing happened to him 19 years ago when SUNY Cortland students helped make him mayor of that town at age 31. Naysayers sneered that he would run "a kiddie council," Mr. Mack recalled.
"I wanted to tell Jason not to buy it," he said. "He's as legitimate as any elected mayor, and students are legitimate voters."
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| Friday, May 30, 2003 | |
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 30 May 2003 @ 16:47
Hydrogen's Dirty Secret
President Bush promises that fuel-cell cars will be free of pollution. But if he has his way, the cars of tomorrow will run on hydrogen made from fossil fuels.
By Barry C. Lynn
Mother Jones
When President Bush unveiled his plans for a hydrogen-powered car in his State of the Union address in January, he proposed $1.2 billion in spending to develop a revolutionary automobile that will be "pollution-free." The new vehicle, he declared, will rely on "a simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen" to power a car "producing only water, not exhaust fumes." Within 20 years, the president vowed, fuel-cell cars will "make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of oil."
By launching an ambitious program to develop what he calls the "Freedom Car," Bush seemed determined to realize the kind of future that hydrogen-car supporters have envisioned for years. Using existing technology, hydrogen can be easily and cleanly extracted from water. Electricity generated by solar panels and wind turbines is used to split the water's hydrogen atoms from its oxygen atoms. The hydrogen is then recombined with oxygen in fuel cells, where it releases electrons that drive an electric motor in a car. What Bush didn't reveal in his nationwide address, however, is that his administration has been working quietly to ensure that the system used to produce hydrogen will be as fossil fuel-dependent -- and potentially as dirty -- as the one that fuels today's SUVs. According to the administration's National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap, drafted last year in concert with the energy industry, up to 90 percent of all hydrogen will be refined from oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels -- in a process using energy generated by burning oil, coal, and natural gas. The remaining 10 percent will be cracked from water using nuclear energy.
Such a system, experts say, would effectively eliminate most of the benefits offered by hydrogen. Although the fuel-cell cars themselves may emit nothing but water vapor, the process of producing the fuel cells from hydrocarbons will continue America's dependence on fossil fuels and leave behind carbon dioxide, the primary cause of global warming.
Mike Nicklas, chair of the American Solar Energy Society, was one of 224 energy experts invited by the Department of Energy to develop the government's Roadmap last spring. The sessions, environmentalists quickly discovered, were dominated by representatives from the oil, coal, and nuclear industries. "All the emphasis was on how the process would benefit traditional energy industries," recalls Nicklas, who sat on a committee chaired by an executive from ChevronTexaco. "The whole meeting had been staged to get a particular result, which was a plan to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels and not from renewables." The plan does not call for a single ounce of hydrogen to come from power generated by the sun or the wind, concluding that such technologies "need further development for hydrogen production to be more cost competitive."
But instead of investing in developing those sources, the budget that Bush submitted to Congress pays scant attention to renewable methods of producing hydrogen. More than half of all hydrogen funding is earmarked for automakers and the energy industry. Under the president's plan, more than $22 million of hydrogen research for 2004 will be devoted to coal, nuclear power, and natural gas, compared with $17 million for renewable sources. Overall funding for renewable research and energy conservation, meanwhile, will be slashed by more than $86 million. "Cutting R&D for renewable sources and replacing them with fossil and nuclear doesn't make for a sustainable approach," says Jason Mark, director of the clean vehicles program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The oil and chemical industries already produce 9 million tons of hydrogen each year, most of it from natural gas, and transport it through hundreds of miles of pipelines to fuel the space shuttle and to remove sulfur from petroleum refineries. The administration's plan lays the groundwork to expand that infrastructure -- guaranteeing that oil and gas companies will profit from any transition to hydrogen. Lauren Segal, general manager of hydrogen development for BP, puts it succinctly: "We view hydrogen as a way to really grow our natural-gas business."
To protect its fuel franchise, the energy industry has moved swiftly in recent years to shape government policy toward hydrogen. In 1999, oil companies and automakers began attending the meetings of an obscure group called the National Hydrogen Association. Founded in 1989 by scientists from government labs and universities, the association was a haven for many of the small companies -- fuel-cell designers, electrolyzer makers -- that were dabbling in hydrogen power. The group promoted the use of hydrogen but was careful not to take any position on who would make the fuel or how.
All that changed once the energy industry got involved. "All of a sudden Shell joined our board, and then the interest grew very quickly," says Karen Miller, the association's vice president. "Our chair last year was from BP; this year our chair is from ChevronTexaco." The companies quickly began to use the association as a platform to lobby for more federal funding for research, and to push the government to emphasize fossil fuels in the national energy plan for hydrogen. Along with the big automakers, energy companies also formed a consortium called the International Hydrogen Infrastructure Group to monitor federal officials charged with developing fuel cells. "Basically," says Neil Rossmeissl, a hydrogen standards expert at the Department of Energy, "what they do is look over our shoulder at doe to make sure we are doing what they think is the right thing."
As hydrogen gained momentum, the oil companies rushed to buy up interests in technology companies developing ways to refine and store the new fuel. Texaco has invested $82 million in a firm called Energy Conversion Devices, and Shell now owns half of Hydrogen Source. BP, Chevron-Texaco, ExxonMobil, Ford, and General Electric have also locked up the services of many of America's top energy scientists, devoting more than $270 million to hydrogen research at MIT, Princeton, and Stanford.
Such funding will help ensure that oil and gas producers continue to profit even if automakers manage to put millions of fuel-cell cars on the road. "The major energy companies have several hundred billions of dollars, at the least, invested in their businesses, and there is a real interest in keeping and utilizing that infrastructure in the future," says Frank Ingriselli, former president of Texaco Technology Ventures. "And these companies certainly have the balance sheets and wherewithal to make it happen."
The stakes in the current battle over hydrogen are high. Devoting the bulk of federal research funding to making hydrogen from fossil fuels rather than water will enable oil and gas companies to provide lower-priced hydrogen. That, in turn, means that pipelines built to transport hydrogen will stretch to, say, a BP gas field in Canada, rather than an independent wind farm in North Dakota. Even if the rest of the world switches to hydrogen manufactured from water, says Nicklas, "Americans may end up dependent on fossil fuels for generations."
The administration's plans to manufacture hydrogen from fossil fuels could also contribute to global warming by leaving behind carbon dioxide. Oil and coal companies insist they will be able to "sequester" the carbon permanently by pumping it deep into the ocean or underground. But the doe calls such approaches "very high risk," and no one knows how much that would cost, how much other environmental disruption that might cause, or whether that would actually work. "Which path we take will have a huge effect one way or the other on the total amount of carbon pumped into the atmosphere over the next century," says James MacKenzie, a physicist with the World Resources Institute.
Even if industry manages to safely contain the carbon left behind, the Bush administration's plan to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels will wind up wasting energy. John Heywood, director of MIT's Sloan Automotive Lab, says a system that extracts hydrogen from oil and natural gas and stores it in fuel cells would actually be no more energy efficient than America's present gasoline- based system.
"If the hydrogen does not come from renewable sources," Heywood says, "then it is simply not worth doing, environmentally or economically." More >
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| Thursday, May 29, 2003 | |
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 29 May 2003 @ 16:38
Hydrogen's Dirty Secret
President Bush promises that fuel-cell cars will be free of pollution. But if he has his way, the cars of tomorrow will run on hydrogen made from fossil fuels.
By Barry C. Lynn
Mother Jones
When President Bush unveiled his plans for a hydrogen-powered car in his State of the Union address in January, he proposed $1.2 billion in spending to develop a revolutionary automobile that will be "pollution-free." The new vehicle, he declared, will rely on "a simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen" to power a car "producing only water, not exhaust fumes." Within 20 years, the president vowed, fuel-cell cars will "make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of oil."
By launching an ambitious program to develop what he calls the "Freedom Car," Bush seemed determined to realize the kind of future that hydrogen-car supporters have envisioned for years. Using existing technology, hydrogen can be easily and cleanly extracted from water. Electricity generated by solar panels and wind turbines is used to split the water's hydrogen atoms from its oxygen atoms. The hydrogen is then recombined with oxygen in fuel cells, where it releases electrons that drive an electric motor in a car. What Bush didn't reveal in his nationwide address, however, is that his administration has been working quietly to ensure that the system used to produce hydrogen will be as fossil fuel-dependent -- and potentially as dirty -- as the one that fuels today's SUVs. According to the administration's National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap, drafted last year in concert with the energy industry, up to 90 percent of all hydrogen will be refined from oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels -- in a process using energy generated by burning oil, coal, and natural gas. The remaining 10 percent will be cracked from water using nuclear energy.
Such a system, experts say, would effectively eliminate most of the benefits offered by hydrogen. Although the fuel-cell cars themselves may emit nothing but water vapor, the process of producing the fuel cells from hydrocarbons will continue America's dependence on fossil fuels and leave behind carbon dioxide, the primary cause of global warming.
Mike Nicklas, chair of the American Solar Energy Society, was one of 224 energy experts invited by the Department of Energy to develop the government's Roadmap last spring. The sessions, environmentalists quickly discovered, were dominated by representatives from the oil, coal, and nuclear industries. "All the emphasis was on how the process would benefit traditional energy industries," recalls Nicklas, who sat on a committee chaired by an executive from ChevronTexaco. "The whole meeting had been staged to get a particular result, which was a plan to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels and not from renewables." The plan does not call for a single ounce of hydrogen to come from power generated by the sun or the wind, concluding that such technologies "need further development for hydrogen production to be more cost competitive."
But instead of investing in developing those sources, the budget that Bush submitted to Congress pays scant attention to renewable methods of producing hydrogen. More than half of all hydrogen funding is earmarked for automakers and the energy industry. Under the president's plan, more than $22 million of hydrogen research for 2004 will be devoted to coal, nuclear power, and natural gas, compared with $17 million for renewable sources. Overall funding for renewable research and energy conservation, meanwhile, will be slashed by more than $86 million. "Cutting R&D for renewable sources and replacing them with fossil and nuclear doesn't make for a sustainable approach," says Jason Mark, director of the clean vehicles program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The oil and chemical industries already produce 9 million tons of hydrogen each year, most of it from natural gas, and transport it through hundreds of miles of pipelines to fuel the space shuttle and to remove sulfur from petroleum refineries. The administration's plan lays the groundwork to expand that infrastructure -- guaranteeing that oil and gas companies will profit from any transition to hydrogen. Lauren Segal, general manager of hydrogen development for BP, puts it succinctly: "We view hydrogen as a way to really grow our natural-gas business."
To protect its fuel franchise, the energy industry has moved swiftly in recent years to shape government policy toward hydrogen. In 1999, oil companies and automakers began attending the meetings of an obscure group called the National Hydrogen Association. Founded in 1989 by scientists from government labs and universities, the association was a haven for many of the small companies -- fuel-cell designers, electrolyzer makers -- that were dabbling in hydrogen power. The group promoted the use of hydrogen but was careful not to take any position on who would make the fuel or how.
All that changed once the energy industry got involved. "All of a sudden Shell joined our board, and then the interest grew very quickly," says Karen Miller, the association's vice president. "Our chair last year was from BP; this year our chair is from ChevronTexaco." The companies quickly began to use the association as a platform to lobby for more federal funding for research, and to push the government to emphasize fossil fuels in the national energy plan for hydrogen. Along with the big automakers, energy companies also formed a consortium called the International Hydrogen Infrastructure Group to monitor federal officials charged with developing fuel cells. "Basically," says Neil Rossmeissl, a hydrogen standards expert at the Department of Energy, "what they do is look over our shoulder at doe to make sure we are doing what they think is the right thing."
As hydrogen gained momentum, the oil companies rushed to buy up interests in technology companies developing ways to refine and store the new fuel. Texaco has invested $82 million in a firm called Energy Conversion Devices, and Shell now owns half of Hydrogen Source. BP, Chevron-Texaco, ExxonMobil, Ford, and General Electric have also locked up the services of many of America's top energy scientists, devoting more than $270 million to hydrogen research at MIT, Princeton, and Stanford.
Such funding will help ensure that oil and gas producers continue to profit even if automakers manage to put millions of fuel-cell cars on the road. "The major energy companies have several hundred billions of dollars, at the least, invested in their businesses, and there is a real interest in keeping and utilizing that infrastructure in the future," says Frank Ingriselli, former president of Texaco Technology Ventures. "And these companies certainly have the balance sheets and wherewithal to make it happen."
The stakes in the current battle over hydrogen are high. Devoting the bulk of federal research funding to making hydrogen from fossil fuels rather than water will enable oil and gas companies to provide lower-priced hydrogen. That, in turn, means that pipelines built to transport hydrogen will stretch to, say, a BP gas field in Canada, rather than an independent wind farm in North Dakota. Even if the rest of the world switches to hydrogen manufactured from water, says Nicklas, "Americans may end up dependent on fossil fuels for generations."
The administration's plans to manufacture hydrogen from fossil fuels could also contribute to global warming by leaving behind carbon dioxide. Oil and coal companies insist they will be able to "sequester" the carbon permanently by pumping it deep into the ocean or underground. But the doe calls such approaches "very high risk," and no one knows how much that would cost, how much other environmental disruption that might cause, or whether that would actually work. "Which path we take will have a huge effect one way or the other on the total amount of carbon pumped into the atmosphere over the next century," says James MacKenzie, a physicist with the World Resources Institute.
Even if industry manages to safely contain the carbon left behind, the Bush administration's plan to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels will wind up wasting energy. John Heywood, director of MIT's Sloan Automotive Lab, says a system that extracts hydrogen from oil and natural gas and stores it in fuel cells would actually be no more energy efficient than America's present gasoline- based system.
"If the hydrogen does not come from renewable sources," Heywood says, "then it is simply not worth doing, environmentally or economically." More >
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| Monday, May 19, 2003 | |
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 19 May 2003 @ 10:59
Though this is about my specific location and water supply considerations, it's applicable to all communites and our relationship to water resources.
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The article below, "Water experts say allotting supply for farms, homes could be difficult", raises several good points that relate to current efforts to preserve and restore the environment in Ventura County. For instance:
1) The city of Ventura is currently updating it's Comprehensive Plan, a document that will dictate how much the city will grow in the future, and where. Although water supply has been discussed in the CPAC process, city water managers have stated that our water supply will provide for only 15 years growth at the current growth rate. The Comprehensive Plan aims to continue to grow for 20 years, at a potentially accelerated rate. The city aims to expand city boundaries and build on SOAR agricultural land in order to do this, regardless of water supply limitations.
2) Meanwhile, the Casitas Municipal Water District recently announced a moratorium on new customers in the Ojai Valley. This in response to the requirement that they allow enough water to flow in the Ventura River for fish to survive (6" depth). They say they will actively seek new sources of water, including conservation and state water supply. (Note that part of the city of Ventura's supply comes from Casitas)
Nowhere in the discussion is the mention of sustainability. It is clear that water is the ultimate limiting factor in the population growth of California, but will it be too late?
Paul Jenkin
Environmental Director, Surfrider Foundation
Ventura County Chapter
Coordinator, Matilija Coalition
Matilija Coalition
Surfers Point
http://ojaivalleynews.com/issues2003/05-May2003/05-09-03/05-09-03editorials.html
http://ojaivalleynews.com/issues2003/04-April2003/04-11-03/04-11-03editorials.html
______________________________________________________________
Water experts say allotting supply for farms, homes could be difficult
By John Krist
May 16, 2003
As California's population grows by a projected 15 million people over the next two decades, thirsty cities will increasingly turn to agriculture as a source of water, possibly jeopardizing one of the state's most important industries, experts warned farmers and irrigation district managers Thursday.
"Agriculture, in our view, is becoming the new water storage facility for the state," said Mike Wade, executive director of the Farm Water Coalition, a lobbying and education group.
Wade, one of several speakers during a symposium sponsored by the Association of Water Agencies of Ventura County, said that if water transfers between farms and urban agencies are not planned carefully, they could end up devastating California agriculture and the communities that depend on it for their economic health.
More than 80 percent of California's developed water supply is used by agriculture, and urban agencies are increasingly seeking to negotiate deals to buy some of that water for homes and businesses, believing it a cheaper and politically more realistic alternative than building new dams.
Another panelist suggested it is possible to arrange for farmers to sell some of their water to cities without causing hardship. Recently negotiated deals between the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Sacramento Valley rice growers provided an economic boost for farmers, secured a low-cost supply of water for MWD customers, minimized environmental harm and provided benefits for small agricultural communities, said Timothy Quinn, MWD's vice president for state water resources.
"The role of agricultural water transfers is not to go up and bleed ag dry," Quinn said. "We have no interest in talking to farmers who want to sell the farm, take the money and head to Hawaii."
MWD provides water through its 27 member agencies to about 17 million people in six Southern California counties. Two-thirds of Ventura County residents receive MWD water through the Calleguas Municipal Water District. About half of MWD's water comes from the State Water Project, and the rest is pumped across the desert from the Colorado River.
Both of those sources have been tapped out. The SWP has contracts to deliver more water than it can reliably supply each year, and the federal government recently reduced California's diversion of Colorado River water by 620,000 acre-feet. (An acre-foot, 325,900 gallons, is enough to supply two average Southern California households for a year.)
At the start of the year, with much of the West still gripped by drought, the Department of Water Resources notified state water contractors that they could count on receiving only 45 percent of their allocations. Quinn said MWD then decided to execute contracts it had negotiated earlier with several irrigation districts serving primarily rice farmers in the Sacramento Valley, calling for 97,200 acre-feet Feb. 14, and another 50,000 acre-feet on March 1.
The agency considered buying another 20,000 acre-feet on May 1 but decided not to when DWR increased its estimate of summer deliveries after the Sierra Nevada snowpack suddenly was boosted by what state hydrologists are referring to as an "awesome April" of heavy precipitation. On April 24, DWR said contractors would get 70 percent of their entitlements, and as of this week, Quinn said, the estimate had risen to 90 percent.
MWD paid $105 an acre-foot for the rice farmers' water, which is about a sixth of the price urban agencies pay for state water. To free up water for sale to MWD, farmers agreed to idle some of their cropland. To minimize economic harm to the local economy, the irrigation districts agreed to allow no more than 20 percent of their farm acreage to go fallow, and the price paid by MWD includes a $5-per-acre-foot fee those communities can use for assistance programs.
Quinn said the reason MWD was able to overcome the usual suspicion rural water users have toward urban dwellers -- particularly when one of those groups is from Northern California and the other is from the south -- was that MWD has invested more than $30 million over the past decade in environmental restoration programs in the Sacramento Valley. When Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Jan. 1 cut off California's access to Colorado River water, the trust MWD had cultivated during its long partnership with northern irrigation districts paid off.
"If you just go to them and say, 'Do it because the big city needs it,' well, I haven't seen that work anywhere in California," Quinn said. More >
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| Saturday, May 17, 2003 | |
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 17 May 2003 @ 17:13
US Launches GM Trade War
By Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online, Washington
Washington has brought a complaint against the European Union for refusing to allow the sale of genetically modified (GM) food or crops, escalating trade tensions between the world's two biggest economic blocs.
The United States - and twelve other agricultural exporting nations - want the EU to repeal its five-year moratorium on GM foods, or face trade sanctions under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said that the US had run out of patience after years of EU procrastination on the issue.
"The EU's persistent resistance to abiding by its WTO obligations has perpetuated a trade barrier unwarranted by the EC's own scientific analysis, which impedes the global use of a technology that could be of great benefit to farmers and consumers around the world," he said.
(The EU) has perpetuated a trade barrier which impedes the global use of a technology that could be of great benefit to farmers and consumers around the world Robert Zoellick US Trade Representative The EU is unlikely to lift the block on GM food imports, which is widely supported by European consumers, and is also developing tough new labelling regulations which worry US farmers.
EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy questioned the motives behind the US case, and denied there was a "moratorium" on GM foods.
"The EU regulatory system for GM authorisation is in line with WTO rules: it is clear, transparent and non-discriminatory. There is therefore no issue that the WTO needs to examine," he said.
If this attempt succeeds, the US will force GM foods onto European markets regardless of the wishes of consumers
Linda Stupples
Friends of the Earth
And EU consumer and green lobby groups vowed to oppose the US decision.
"If this attempt succeeds, the US will force GM foods onto European markets regardless of the wishes of consumers," said Friends of the Earth Policy Director Liana Stupples.
Trade Wars
Under WTO rules, the two parties have 60 days to consult before a trade disputes panel is set up.
Ultimately, if the panel rules against the EU, it could impose trade sanctions, giving the US the right to impose retaliatory tariffs on EU goods.
Mr Zoellick told BBC News Online that the US would be seeking "several hundred million dollars" in damages, but that the importance of the case went far beyond the immediate damage to US agriculture.
Developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were cutting back on research and production of GM crops, because they were afraid they could not export them to Europe, he said, hurting poor farmers worldwide.
And to support his point, scientists and farmers from developing countries joined the press conference to argue for the economic benefits of GM crops.
Mr Zoellick denied that the US decision to bring the case had anything to do with the WTO's recent approval of $4bn in EU retaliatory sanctions against the US in another case, involving tax breaks for foreign subsidies of US companies.
However, he appeared to concede that the US had delayed bringing the case in the run-up to the Iraq war, when it was trying to gain EU support for a fresh UN resolution.
World Trade Talks
The US move could also increase the difficulties of reaching a deal on agriculture in the Doha round of global trade talks.
Those talks appear stalled ahead of a summit in Cancun, Mexico, in the autumn.
The US and the EU are at loggerheads over how to reform agricultural subsidies to benefit developing countries.
Many of the countries joining in the US action are part of the Cairns group of agricultural exporting nations which has been lobbying the WTO to open agricultural markets.
A number of them are now seeking separate free trade agreements with the United States.
Countries joining US trade complaint: Argentina, Canada, Egypt
Countries joining as third parties: Australia, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Uruguay.
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2003/05/13 18:17:28 GMT More >
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| Thursday, May 8, 2003 | |
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 8 May 2003 @ 22:57
Chart of Comparative Nutritional Values of Leafy Vegetables and Weeds
Most of our common weeds contain more nutrients than our garden crops.This chart shows the comparison levels of nutrients. Details of each weed follows. Those that have links will take you to a more in depth look at each one.
http://www.living-foods.com/articles/whywildfood.html
http://visitors.gardeningclub.com/mag_articles/article_8.asp
http://www.olivenaturals.com/foods.htm
http://www.rawfoodliving.com/foraging.html
------------------------------
,B>"Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food" Hippocrates More >
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| Monday, April 21, 2003 | |
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 21 Apr 2003 @ 18:09
Green Consumer
By Michael Lipske
Exposing the True Nature of Chocolate
IF PAST STATISTICS are any measure, Americans may eat more than three billion pounds of chocolate this year. In the next few weeks alone, more than 60 million chocolate bunnies will go on sale in this country for Easter, and millions more chocolate candies will roll off the assembly lines in time for Mother's Day. None of them, it turns out, could be made or sold without a little help from Mother Nature. "A tiny fly no bigger than the head of a pin is responsible for the world's supply of chocolate," says Allen Young, a leading cacao expert and curator of zoology at the Milwaukee Public Museum.
Every piece of chocolate we eat starts out as seeds found within football-shaped green, yellow or red pods that grow from cacao trees. Theobroma cacao, the source of cocoa and chocolate, is a native of Central and South American rain forests. Cacao was, in fact, the name for the tree used by ancient Mayans who cultivated the plant and concocted beverages of foaming chocolate more than 1,000 years before the first European explorers arrived in the New World.
In pollination studies conducted during the past decade in Costa Rica, Young has discovered that midges—tiny flies that live in dense, Neotropical rain forests—are crucial to the perpetuation of cacao trees. That's because the flies are the only creatures that can work their way into the small, convoluted flowers the trees grow. Without the pollination functions the midges perform, the seedpods would not become fertilized. And without the seeds, chocolate would become an endangered product. "As rain forests are cleared, we are losing the pollinators that live in them, and that could have dire consequences," notes NWF senior biologist Gabriela Chavarria, a pollinator expert.
Today, cacao is cultivated in equatorial countries worldwide, frequently in open plantations rather than beneath a forest canopy, as it was originally grown. As a result, cacao farming in many areas has created a host of environmental problems. Roughly a third of the world crop is lost every year due to plant pests and diseases. Growers in Asia have fought back with fungicides, pesticides and herbicides, resulting in "a tremendous loss of biodiversity and contaminated waters and soils," says Joe Whinney, founder of Organic Commodity Project, Inc. (OCP), a Massachusetts-based buyer and seller of organic cocoa. In West Africa, vast areas of rain forest have been replaced by cacao planations, as well as coffee and other tree crops. Ultimately, much of the land ends up as pasture. "It's a terrible cycle that is not slowing down," says Whinney.
He and some other experts believe, however, that the cycle can be broken. Grown wisely, cacao—more than most other crops—has the potential to help preserve tropical forests and biodiversity while providing a living for small-scale farmers.
Like shade-grown coffee, cacao grown in the traditional manner under a sheltering canopy of taller rain forest trees provides winter habitat for dozens of bird species that migrate between the United States and Latin America. In 1994, scientists in Brazil even discovered a previously unknown species of ovenbird, dubbed the pink-legged graveteiro, on shade-grown cacao farms in the state of Bahia. The natural forest that the pink-legged graveteiro evolved in "is extremely close to being wiped out," says Bret Whitney, an American ornithologist who has studied the species. Without cacao, he adds, the bird "would be extinct."
Most of the world's cacao is still grown on small farms and many of America's large chocolate companies have come to understand that with cacao production, small can definitely be beautiful. The World Cocoa Foundation, established by the chocolate companies in 2000, has declared its mission to be "improving the standard of living of cocoa farmers around the world by providing training on low-cost methods to produce quality cocoa in a sustainable, environmentally friendly manner."
"The industry now definitely gets it," says Whinney, who has allied his company with the World Cocoa Foundation. For evidence, Whinney points to "one tiny piece" of what he believes could be cacao's "hopeful environmental future."
It's a project being conducted by the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana with help from the World Cocoa Foundation. Seeds from the neem tree (a native Indian species with documented natural pesticide properties) are collected, dried, crushed and mixed with water. This neem slurry is then sprayed on cacao trees to kill capsid beetles, a serious cacao pest in West Africa. The natural pesticide apparently causes no harm to pollinators and other beneficial insects. Ideally, the project will enable Ghanian farmers to harvest more cacao pods from their trees, thus increasing their income and reducing their need to clear more forest.
Many cacao growers have long been frustrated by the fact that only one to three percent of the hundreds of flowers on a cacao tree bear fruit. In the plantations, says Young "you tend to have this discrepancy between flower production and fruit set. We think the whole dynamic of pollination is disrupted in a plantation habitat."
If that's bad news for plantation operators, it's yet another argument for growing cacao on farms tucked in and around natural rain forests rather than clearing the forests to make room for agriculture. "We have a project now in Costa Rica looking at what kind of canopy cover provides the best pollination in cacao trees," says Young. Supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the long-term study will examine the role of cacao farms in maintaining biodiversity. "We think cacao is a good candidate for a model of saving biodiversity while providing small farmers with a diversified revenue stream." The scientist explains that farmer income could flow not just from cacao but also from fruit trees and even selective timber cutting.
It seems too good to be true: Save rain forests and satisfy candy cravings. But as Young says, "Cacao has a lot going for it."
For more information about both chocolate and pollinators, including links for buying environmentally sound products
Writer Michael Lipske lives in Washington, D.C.
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| Tuesday, April 8, 2003 | |
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 8 Apr 2003 @ 05:46
The Green Money Journal is one of the oldest and most widely read magazines and websites catering to the socially and environmentally responsible business world. The goal of the Green Money Journal is to educate and empower individuals and businesses to make informed financial decisions through aligning their personal, corporate and financial principles. Currently, the publication has 10,000 subscribers across the country and the world.
Cliff Feigenbaum is a leading independent voice in socially responsible investing and green business. He is the founder and publisher of the Green Money Journal, a bimonthly newsletter that has emerged as a leading clearinghouse for information on the SRI movement. In 1995, Feigenbaum launched GreenMoney.com, one of the largest socially responsible investing and business web sites. He also is the co-author of "Investing With Your Values" (Bloomberg/New Society). Feigenbaum contributes articles and information to numerous publications, and has appeared on many TV and radio programs. He is an active member of the Social Investment Forum and Business for Social Responsibility. Feigenbaum lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I've listed a few of the resources I have found on the Green Journal website below.
Community Investing:
Calvert Foundation's Calvert Community Investments provide capital to a diverse portfolio of innovative programs which provide resources that help people grow stronger and meet their own needs.
New Mexico Community Development Loan Fund is an alternative source of loans and technical assistance, empowering low-income people, serving as their advocate, and providing aid to individuals and groups furthering the positive social and economic development of low-income communities.
Permaculture Credit Union is possibly the first credit union to be founded upon the Earth Care principles of Permaculture ethics, namely, respect for natural systems, respect for people, and no waste.
Self-Help Credit Union was founded in 1980 to help all North Carolinians gain access to affordable homes, decent jobs and economic security. They have lent $70 million to help low-wealth minorities, women, rural residents and others buy homes, build businesses and strengthen community resources.
ShoreBank Pacific is a commercial bank with a mission to support environmentally friendly businesses in the Pacific Northwest. "We believe business can change to become more sustainable, less wasteful and more environmentally benign without sacrificing the bottom line. We've created a bank to prove it."
Socially Responsible Investing
Goodfunds provides high-quality professional financial planning and investment management services to individuals and institutions from their Seattle-based office, specializing in serving socially, environmentally, and financially concerned investors since 1986.
KLD, Research & Analytics, Inc. is a leading authority on social investing, and provides a full range of social investment support services for financial professionals and institutional managers. The firm's clients included money managers, banks, mutual funds, pension funds, religious organizations, foundations and endowments.
Light Green Advisors (LGA) is a Seattle-based investment advisor, founded to provide mainstream, environmentally aware investors with investment options that are environmentally and financially sound. LGA manages Standard & Poors 500TM-based investments for environmentally-conscious organizations and individuals interested in supporting companies with the best track records in their industries.
Prentiss Smith & Company has been providing socially responsible portfolio management since 1982. Excellent risk adjusted return has allowed our clients to enjoy consistent performance over the past 20 years while having their money reflect social values. Provide services for individuals, not-for-profit organizations, endowments and foundations. Account minimum size is $250,000.
Trillium Asset Management. For over 15 years, Trillium has been the leader in the social investment field. We are a majority employee- and women-owned firm, guided by a belief that investing can promote social and economic justice in conjunction with returning a profit to the investor. Trillium manages investment portfolios for a broad array of individuals and institutions. We manage equity, balanced, and fixed income accounts, with a client-driven, highly personalized management style. Client needs and objectives are foremost in the Trillium approach to investing.
SRI Mutual Funds
Development Capital Fund The DEVCAP Shared Return Fund is an innovative mutual fund designed to achieve solid returns and provide small business assistance to the world's working poor. This fund gives you the chance to help people of developing nations work toward self-sufficiency.
Domini Social Equity Fund offers you an opportunity to invest in a diversified stock portfolio that is consistent with your sense of social responsibility. The total return performance of this no-load mutual fund corresponds to the total return of the Domini 400 Social Index, an index of 400 companies that pass multiple broad-based social or ethical screens.
Neuberger Berman Socially Responsive Fund focuses on undervalued stocks with solid financial characteristics that also meet specified criteria of corporate citizenship in such areas as the environment, equal opportunity, and the quality of the workplace.
The New Alternative Fund is a socially responsible Mutual fund concentrating our investments in Environmental Investment, Renewable Energy, Fuel Cells , Recycling and Energy Conservation, Organic Foods It is the first Environmental fund, founded in 1982 seeks to be the greenest fund in America The Fund invests in common stocks seeking long term gain for our investors.
Pax World Fund A no-load, diversified, open-end, balanced mutual fund designed for those who wish to receive income and to invest in life-supportive products and services.
Green Consumer & Natural Products
RedJellyFish is a company built to serve people who are interested in natural living. You can get your Internet access and long distance telephone service through them and they will automatically make a monthly donation that will purchase and protect vital rainforest. They also have beautiful free e-cards and puzzles, as well as news and other information to help you live a healthy, natural lifestyle.
Sustainable Business Education
PRESIDIO WORLD COLLEGE, affiliate of Alliant International University. Two-year M.B.A. in Sustainable Management integrates concerns for social equity and environmental responsibility with the learning of solid business skills. Cohorts meet five weekends each semester, combined with presentations and threaded discussion on-line.
Socially Responsible Shopping
WORLDSTOCK exists at the crossroads of development and business. We place the resources of a large internet retailer at the service of artisans worldwide. They connect directly to the global economy, skilled producers driving a 21st century vehicle. Great handmade goods at net 1% profit pricing. Worldstock.com is in partnership with Overstock.com.
Frey Vineyards located in Northern Californa in Mendocino County, is the oldest and largest organic winery in the US. Family owned and operated, Frey Vineyards produces 14 premium varieties of certified organic and biodynamic wines with no sulfites added.
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| Friday, April 4, 2003 | |
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4 Apr 2003 @ 19:30
Insects thrive on GM 'pest-killing' crops
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
30 March 2003
Genetically modified crops specially engineered to kill pests in fact nourish them, startling new research has revealed.
The research – which has taken even the most ardent opponents of GM crops by surprise – radically undermines one of the key benefits claimed for them. And it suggests that they may be an even greater threat to organic farming than has been envisaged.
It strikes at the heart of one of the main lines of current genetic engineering in agriculture: breeding crops that come equipped with their own pesticide.
Biotech companies have added genes from a naturally occurring poison, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which is widely used as a pesticide by organic farmers. The engineered crops have spread fast. The amount of land planted with them worldwide grew more than 25-fold – from four million acres in 1996 to well over 100 million acres (44.2m hectares) in 2000 – and the global market is expected to be worth $25bn (£16bn) by 2010.
Drawbacks have already emerged, with pests becoming resistant to the toxin. Environmentalists say that resistance develops all the faster because the insects are constantly exposed to it in the plants, rather than being subject to occasional spraying.
But the new research – by scientists at Imperial College London and the Universidad Simon Rodrigues in Caracas, Venezuela – adds an alarming new twist, suggesting that pests can actually use the poison as a food and that the crops, rather than automatically controlling them, can actually help them to thrive.
They fed resistant larvae of the diamondback moth – an increasingly troublesome pest in the southern US and in the tropics – on normal cabbage leaves and ones that had been treated with a Bt toxin. The larvae eating the treated leaves grew much faster and bigger – with a 56 per cent higher growth rate.
They found that the larvae "are able to digest and utilise" the toxin and may be using it as a "supplementary food", adding that the presence of the poison "could have modified the nutritional balance in plants" for them.
And they conclude: "Bt transgenic crops could therefore have unanticipated nutritionally favourable effects, increasing the fitness of resistant populations."
Pete Riley, food campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said last night: "This is just another example of the unexpected harmful effects of GM crops.
"If Friends of the Earth had come up with the suggestion that crops engineered to kill pests could make them bigger and healthier instead, we would have been laughed out of court.
From the Independent
"It destroys the industry's entire case that insect-resistant GM crops can have anything to do with sustainable farming."
Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, said it showed that GM crops posed an even "worse threat to organic farming than had previously been imagined". Breed- ing resistance to the Bt insecticide sometimes used by organic farmers was bad enough, but problems would become even greater if pests treated it as "a high-protein diet".
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| Tuesday, April 1, 2003 | |
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 1 Apr 2003 @ 09:25
Berry is a strong defender of family, rural communities, and traditional family farms. He has developed 17 rules for the healthy functioning of sustainable local communities. The underlying principles could be described as 'the preservation of ecological diversity and integrity, and the renewal, on sound cultural and ecological principles, of local economies and local communities':
1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.
2. Always include local nature - the land, the water, the air, the native creatures - within the membership of the community.
3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbours.
4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products - first to nearby cities, then to others).
5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of 'labour saving' if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.
7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.
8. Strive to supply as mush of the community's own energy as possible.
9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.
10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.
11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.
12. Sees that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.
13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.
14. Looks into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programmes, systems of barter, and the like.
15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighbourly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighbourhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.
From Heureka More >
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| Saturday, March 15, 2003 | |
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 15 Mar 2003 @ 15:14
Bush Getting Close to Winning His Arctic Oil Drilling Measure in Congress
By H. Josef Hebert Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Republicans say they have moved to within a single vote of guaranteeing President Bush one of his top domestic priorities - opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The issue could be decided as early as next week.
An internal GOP memo that circulated Tuesday in the Senate expressed confidence that 49 senators now plan to vote for drilling in the refuge, starting a scramble in search of the remaining lawmaker who would be needed to get the provision through as part of a budget measure.
Read ... More >
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 15 Mar 2003 @ 14:35
I wish I had comment on this. Go figure.
Californians who recently took the trouble to put up solar electric panels expected hearty thanks from a state desperate for clean energy to relieve its strained power grid.
Instead, they may be getting a bill.
A California Public Utilities Commission proposal would slap a charge on consumers who start generating their own power. The reason: to cover the high costs of electricity the state bought for utility customers during the energy crisis two years ago.
The whole story can be read at Mercury News More >
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| Monday, March 10, 2003 | |
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 10 Mar 2003 @ 20:06
The blatant disregard for life that I see emanating out of D.C. is astounding not to mention appalling. We leave dirty uranium strewn about the Middle East that's already mutating plant, animal and human life, we back out of the Kyoto environmental agreement, and now the Pentagon wants us to veiw them as "more special" than anyone else and begin irreversible damage on the northern continent.
Are these people heartless, childless, ignorant that there are generation coming after them that might just need a clean water table and healthy soil to survive.
This is disgusting. There is no excuse for bad behavior as Letecia would say. I think a spanking is in order.
Pentagon asking for exemption
By Washington Post, 3/7/2003
WASHINGTON - With war looming in Iraq, the Bush administration this week asked Congress to exempt the Defense Department from a broad array of environmental laws governing air pollution, toxic waste, endangered species, and marine mammals.
The Pentagon says it needs relief from environmental regulations that protect endangered species and critical habitats on millions of acres of military training ranges across the country.
In some cases, the plan would grant state officials greater flexibility in meeting federal clean air standards if they can demonstrate there was a sudden influx of jet fighters, tanks, and other military hardware that added to the overall air pollution.
Congress rejected most of these proposals last year when they were floated at the last minute by the Pentagon. But this time, the administration is moving early to promote them.
The proposed changes, which began circulating on the Hill late Monday as part of the 2004 defense authorization bill, are certain to trigger a bruising battle pitting Pentagon officials and their allies in Congress against environmentalists and Democrats.
Defense officials contend that their plan is designed to strike a ''common sense'' balance between environmental stewardship and wartime readiness.
Critics of the administration plan say that the Pentagon hasn't made a compelling case that current laws have impeded readiness activities and that existing regulations already can be waived in the interests of national security.
A General Accounting Office report on military training issued in June found that readiness data don't support the Pentagon's claims that it is being hurt by environmental laws.
This story ran on page A24 of the Boston Globe on 3/7/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. More >
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| Saturday, March 1, 2003 | |
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 1 Mar 2003 @ 12:10
Turn your back for one second and....
Last week Congress passed an appropriations bill which overturns USDA regulations requiring all organic livestock to be fed 100% organic feed.
My friend Eric Werbalowsky, permaculture guru and master MC forwarded this to me. Check out Farmer and the Cookour local hub for permaculture aaaaaaaction, seed swaps, lectures, locally grown produce and good ol' yummy home cookin'.
*****Take Action - to Protect The integrity of Organic Standards*****
Senator Leahy (D-VT) is introducing the Organic Restoration Act to repeal this rider along with Representative Sam Farr (D-CA) in the House. Both of these bills were introduced on February 26, 2003.
Co-sponsors are needed ASAP in the House AND Senate - both Republicans and Democrats.
For the repeal bill to be successful, we must generate a lot of interest and public comment on the Organic Restoration Act all across the nation. It is important that everyone - farmers, consumers, environmentalists, and the entire organic industry - talk to their members of Congress and
get them on board in supporting the Organic Restoration Act. We must stand up to this blatant attempt by agribusiness to have their way with the organic standards.
****What You Can Do - Take Action!******
Contact your representatives in Washington and demand that support the Organic Restoration Act to repeal the language inserted into Section 771 of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill undermining the integrity of the organic label for meat, poultry, eggs and dairy.
The message is simple: Urge your Senators and Representatives to support the Organic Restoration Act that was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Sam Farr to repeal Section 771 of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Repealing this section is in the interest of consumers, organic farmers and the environment. Repealing this section will encourage continued growth of organic agricultural production in
the United States, one of the bright prospects for U.S. agriculture
overall.
You can find your
Senator here.
You can find your Representative here.
Representative Farr's office has asked that we target the following Representatives, if you know of folks that live in their states please forward on this email to them.
Allen Boyd, Jr. (D-FL/2) 202-225-5235 Agriculture Aide:Charla Penn
Jerold Nadler (D-NY/8) 202-225-5635 Agriculture Aide: Kisette Morton
Dennis Rehberg (R-MT) 202-225-3211 Chief of Staff: Erik Iverson
Jim McDermott (D-WA/7) 202-225-3106 Agriculture Aide: Sean Hughes
Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD/1) 202-225-5311 Agriculture Aide: Jeri Finke
Please also let your local health food store know what you are doing.Tell them to carry NO products by Fieldale Farms, the company in GA that instigated this movement to gut the organic livestock feed standards. They also produce poultry under the Springer Mountain Farms and Redding labels.
Tom Taylor
Field Organizer
Organic Consumers Association
Tel: 612-331-7309
Fax: 612-331-7483 More >
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| Thursday, February 27, 2003 | |
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 27 Feb 2003 @ 19:40
Upcoming Symposium with the Worldwatch Institute and UCSB
Friday, March 7 & Saturday, March 8, 2003
Santa Barbara, CA
Are you in the Santa Barbara area? The Worldwatch Institute and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) will be presenting our second annual symposium, The Challenge of Sustainable Development, on March 7 and 8 at UCSB.
Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin and Senior Researchers Hilary French and Molly O Meara Sheehan will participate in lectures and panels that explore the environmental challenges of the 21st century, and present solutions for achieving an ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just future. For more information, go to arts and lectures or call 805.893.3535.
About World Watch magazine: This bimonthly magazine is published by the Worldwatch Institute. Launched in 1988, the magazine has won the Alternative Press Award for investigative journalism, the Project Censored Award, and a number of Utne Reader awards. Recent editions have featured articles on the imminent disappearance of more than half of the world s languages, airport sprawl, the rapid growth of organic farming, and human genetic engineering. To order a subscription, please visit Worldwatch Magazine.
About the Worldwatch Institute: The Worldwatch Institute is an independent research organization that works for an environmentally sustainable and socially just society in which the needs of all people are met without threatening the health of the natural environment or the well-being of future generations. By providing compelling, accessible, and fact-based analysis of critical global issues, Worldwatch informs people around the world about the complex interactions among people, nature, and economies. Worldwatch focuses on the underlying causes of and practical solutions to the world s problems, in order to inspire people to demand new policies, investment patterns, and lifestyle choices. For more information, visit the Worldwatch Institute. More >
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| Tuesday, February 18, 2003 | |
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 18 Feb 2003 @ 18:27
Bring Your Own Cup...
Just a thought. I read this the other day.
A message from our beautiful Gaia, please bring and use your own non-disposable cup (preferably ceramic or metal) if you stop to get a hot drink sometime during your day.
Each 24 hours American citizens generate 25 million empty, i.e. throw away, ie. trash, i.e. land fill hot drink cups.
BYOC More >
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Sounding Circle - Category: Permaculture
