I see that, while I was off in another country for three weeks, nothing much has changed here... except for the fact that showing a film clip of a glacier melting in reverse proves you don't need to worry about global warming.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A little girl blows away dandelion fluff as an announcer says, "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life," in an advertisement targeting global warming "alarmists," especially Al Gore.

The television ads, screened for the press on Wednesday and set to air in 14 U.S. cities starting on Thursday, are part of a campaign by the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute to counter a media spotlight on threats posed by worldwide climate change... Against backdrops of a park, a beach and a forest, one celebrates the benefits of greenhouse gas-producing fuels.

"The fuels that produce CO2 (carbon dioxide) have freed us from a world of back-breaking labor, lighting up our lives, allowing us to create and move the things we need, the people we love," the ad runs. "Now some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed -- what would our lives be like then?"

The other ad questions media reports of the threat of climate change, especially a Time magazine issue devoted to the topic, and shows film of a glacier melting and then runs in reverse to show the glacier reconstituting itself.

Can somebody please find these ads and send me the YouTube link?

Republican Pricks Angry Over ANWR Failure. Threaten to Punish The Puget Sound For Daring to Fight Back.

After Sen. Cantwell inserted language into a recent budget bill that would have kept the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge free of oil derricks, Ted Stevens (R-Bridge to Nowhere) retalliated by creating legislation that would end long-standing protection of the Puget Sound from oil spills and shipwrecks. Tell Ted Stevens to go jump off his fancy new bridge.

From Cantwell's site:

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has introduced a bill to repeal the Magnuson Amendment, a law written by Washington's own Warren Magnuson in 1977 to limit oil tanker traffic in Puget Sound. The Magnuson Amendment has kept the Cherry Point Refinery near Bellingham from becoming a super-port for oil to be shipped overseas and across the country. Stevens' bill will undo these protections. If it passes, pristine Puget Sound is at risk for oil spills, with little economic or energy benefit to our state.

ANWR's off the table for the House budget bill, though it still could show in the final bill given our 51 friends in the Senate.

In any case, truckers are pissed. And who could blame them? Clearly the solution here is more oil - AMERICAN oil, and not the stuff we boat off to Japan, neither. It's a case of simple free-market economics. Supply and demand, dummies, supply and demand.

In other news...

Why don't they understand the importance of driving huge trucks, burning lots of gas, and not cleaning up after ourselves? We have a RIGHT to dump pollutants into our environment!

Ok, well, except for the fact that we have to live in this environment of ours, and if we dump pollutants into it, we have to drink contaminated water, and breathe contaminated air. And then we will all get cancer.

Although most Americans are in denial of such things (we have a right to drive big SUVs!), the French seem to grasp the concept. They have AMENDED THEIR CONSTITUTION to include an "Environmental Charter".

Get this: the P-I just reported today that President Bush is asking Washington and Oregon States' damn operators to stop spilling water over the top to let spawning salmon through.

A US District Court judge in Portland ruled a while back that the damns should spill the water, despite the $67 million revenue loss, because it's essential to protect both the health of salmon and the health of the salmon fishing industry.

Bush is asking a higher court to overturn that ruling, because he says that this is a useless waste of potential hydroelectric power, when he's got a salmon scheme that's so crazy it just might work:

A program to divert fish captured in holding tanks at the damns, where they are then trucked or barged to the Columbia River in Oregon.

We are going to spend our taxpayers' money on putting SALMON in TANKS so that they can be DRIVEN in TRUCKS down the RIVER.

Hey Mr. President! Over here! I've got a crazy scheme too:
Let the salmon fucking swim on their own.

Yesterday I read an interesting article in the Seattle Times about efforts to set aside land near Snoqualmie Falls, to protect the land from development. It was interesting to me because it seems like I don't often hear about these sorts of things going on right in our backyard. First, the article talked about past efforts at conservation, which have succeeded in preserving the 100 acres of wilderness behind Snoqualmie Falls - the land was purchased by Cascade Land Conservancy. If not for this group, all that wilderness would probably now be subdivisions of the town of Snoqualmie. So, yay for conservation!

Next the author talks about current efforts for conservation in the same area: "The plan, looking ahead to a century of growth expected to double the population in a four-county region, aims to make almost 1.3 million acres of forests, farms and stream beds in the Cascades foothills — an area 24 times the size of Seattle — permanently off-limits to developers." That's a lot of wilderness! I love it.

Got yard waste? Ok, so you have an apartment and no yard. Well, do you have food scraps? Mmmm, so you eat out all the time. Shooooot-- go on and tell you friends about this, then. Seattle is recycling yard waste and food scraps. Yay! The city is almost half way to its goal of getting new easier-to-use receptacles out there for people to take advantage of this cool new program. Cuz guess where the yard waste and food scraps go if they're not composted...

The landfill.

Seattle Times has the full scoop, as well as the nitty gritty of how to compost with the city (like what food counts and where to store your food scraps). More below the fold.

...and by "edited" I mean "completely and utterly mislead the public to favor industry." Well he resigned. Guess where he's working now? Let me tell you because you'll never guess:

ExxonMobil!

Shocking, isn't it?

Ok, it's going to be hard for me to explain this without quoting Dave's whole post over at Gristmill. So I'll just tell you to go read it and tell me what you think. Oh, and definitely read jimbeyer's comment that Dave points to in his post (I almost didn't). Jimbeyer is a smart, articulate guy.

I was blown away by this post. In a whole new way I really "got" why having a society based on renewable energy was so radical and fundamentally disruptive to our society's current power structures.

Ok, here are a few gems from the post:

"Renewable energy is about the permanent loss of a major source of control of much of modern humanity."

Renewable energy is part of the historical trend putting more and more power in the hands of individuals, fracturing the elites that once held it. That -- not feasibility, or economic viability, or dead friggin' birds -- is the biggest challenge it has to overcome.

Hi everyone (Hi Riisa. See- I'm doing it, I really am; I'm finally posting).

I've been invited to blog on betterdonkey about environmental shenanigans, so here I am... blogging about environmental news, tidbits and random thoughts.

Grist Magazine just interviewed Nickels about his initiative to get mayors across the country to "meet or beat Kyoto Protocol targets." This is a big (and cool) deal. While the Bush administration is failing us on climate change (among other things), local governments are coming to the rescue. Here are a few snippets:

A couple of months ago I got way super duper excited because Mayor Nickels decided that Seattle was going to board the Good Ship Kyoto, and he was gonna take America's other cities with him.

"Little boy, this giant scissors is for cutting through Red State Red Tape."

What rocks? Is that while the big plan was to get this up and rolling during the annual meeting of the US Conference of Mayors, Mayor Nickels already has 131 other mayors marching lockstep with him on the road to environmental responsibility.

Now, I am not in the habit of making wholesale endorsements of anything Seattle's mayor does. However. As Mayor Jerry Ryan of Bellevue, Nebraska put it, You've got to ask, 'Is it remotely possible that there is a threat?' If the answer is yes, you've got to act now".

If our Greg can get this big Red from little Nebraska to follow his lead, he's obviously doing something right.

It's stories like this that make me glad my parents packed my high desert ass up and brought me to Washington when I was only two. Had they not brought me with them I'd of been sad indeed. =)

From the Washington Environmental Council (WEC):

"After the Senate version (SB 5509) passed out of the Senate on a 32-16 vote it passed the House on 3/30/05 with a strong bi-partisan vote of 78-19. The Governor signed the bill the first week of April. The legislation requires state buildings, schools, and universities to be built and certified as high performance, green buildings. This will result in buildings that save energy and water, are cheaper to operate, and improve student learning and employee performance."

Many of you have probably seen the recent reports that the planet is not faring so well against the onslaught of human development. I get pissed about this daily so I won't go on about it lest this rant become encyclopedic.

Instead I'd like to focus on our states contribution to global climate change.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about chemicals in cosmetics that are, over the long term, poisonous. In today's PI, an article discusses another type of chemicals that may be slowly poisoning us - fire-proofing chemicals, known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers. As the article notes, scientists have found the chemicals "in fish caught in the Columbia River, local women's breast milk and household dust in Seattle."

Now, apparently, whether these chemicals are dangerous is still up in the air: "Industry groups insist it is safe, while environmentalists and some government officials maintain there is cause for concern." While my initial instinct is to trust environmentalists (whose primary concern is for the health and safety of humans and other creatures) over industry groups (whose primary concern is profit), this article is pretty vague on this point. We could use some better data on what effect these chemicals have on people, particularly small children. Or maybe the data exists, and we need some journalists who actually know how to cite scientific data. A particularly maddening sentence from the article reads: "Although there's no evidence that PBDEs have accumulated in people at levels that pose an immediate health threat, there are concerns that the flame retardants can harm brain and bone development and thyroid function." So, is there scientific evidence, or not? Is anyone studying this? I want to know!

In case you've yet to hear, the Senate has approved drilling in ANWR, the Arctic National Reserve.

Bummed out about it? Feel helpless?

lorax over at dailykos has some excellent ideas on how we can continue the fight here.

Donate some of your cell minutes a give the following companies a call:

ExxonMobil: (972) 444-1000

ChevronTexaco: (925) 842-1000

Both have previously stated they would drill in ANWR if given the chance. Tell them you'll boycott them until they reverse this policy.

However, you need to buy gas, right? Well, buy it from BP and Conoco Phillips who have both stated they do not support drilling in ANWR. Want to be an extra rad Betterdonkey? Give them a call and tell them you'll be supporting them due to their stance on ANWR.

BP: (281) 366-5174 and (202) 457-6603

ConocoPhillips: (281) 293-1000