Supreme court weighs in on Exxon Valdez case

This should be an interesting case to watch. Justice Samuel Alito, who owns Exxon stock, is not taking part in the case. A 4-4 split on that or any issue would leave the appeals court ruling in place. If punitive damages are not harsh, this will send a signal to oil companies around the world that they can lower their standards for environmental safety. If Exxon is hurt in the wallet, then oil companies will exercise due diligence in their practices. Corporations are accountable to their shareholders and the only thing that influences their behavior is the bottom line. I'm sure that the neocons that have been trying to stack the courts are hoping their judges deliver along in accordance to the ideology that permeates the Bush administration.

GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT OUTLOOK

United Nations released it's Global Environmental Outlook... and guess what? The outlook for our speices is not good.

How I feel after reading Cal Thomas

A friend of mine has a daughter that does these wonderful paintings.

Here is her ESTY link!

Sources: $4.6 billion settlement in power plant air pollution case

I hope this is the beginning of a new era, where companies that are destroying our atmosphere and our planet reaping their just rewards in monetary fines slapped on them. I like what someone said recently who was speaking for the National Wildlife Federation; “Environmentalists need to fight a war! If you aren’t a sore looser, you aren’t a good advocate for the environment.”

Reading the book, "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman

I'm reading his book right now. So far it's been an eye opener. The saddest thing I learned about was the over abundance of polymers that is entering the oceans food chain. Organisms of all sizes are beginning to ingest polymers. They mistake them for jelly fish, fish eggs, and small animals. The plastics are not biodegradable. Right now there is a ratio of 6:1 in our oceans of polymers to phytoplankton. Phytoplankton is beginning to ingest the polymer too. Most organisms can not digest material and die from it.

The Pacific Ocean now has places where there are miles and miles of trash floating on the surface. Ships avoid the area but if they accidentally enter this area, they have to crawl through the debris with as much caution as if they were moving through ice filled waters. He said this area in the Pacific Ocean where trash has accumulated is as large as the state of California. He also said that there are other tropic oceans that are getting as bad as the Pacific Ocean. ( If this is true, I wonder why there aren't any photos of this. Is that not something you can see from space? If anyone knows of photos, please share them.)

Even it if it's not quite as bad as he claims it to be, this doesn’t sound too good does it? What will happen to the ocean’s web of life? Even if we stop producing polymers today, the plastic that is already in there will reek havoc for centuries to come. How can we continue to let this happen? How can we stop. It seems hopeless to me right now.

I’m just now starting the second part of his book. I hope that he has a more upbeat message….

What doesn't our government get? People what eco-friendly cars a survey finds!

People want green cars... as reported by Wired Magazine in an article written by By Marty Jerome. "It's not just mileage that matters in purchase decisions. The study found that environmental performance was a more of a force in buying decisions than most automakers realize."

A call for Ecofiction

Interesting blog entry titled: Ecofiction: Storytelling, social change, and ecoliteracy from the Bioneers website. This blogger is arguing that we get people thinking about eco issues through the art of storytelling. Sundance Channel has some great eco-cartoons that tell the story in a funny way. One guy for example, has turned activist because he met the girl of his dreams. But it’s not going to change anyone’s mind by watching it either.

The hard thing about this "Save the Earth" message is that it's too serious issue. Humor is a powerful weapon and should not be ignored. However if the message is one that we should take seriously how do we make it funny? A good example would be World War II. How would you make a comedy about World War II? I'm sure there was plenty of satire about the bad guys, but this time, we are the bad guys. Our life style is out-stripping the planet. Anyone want to go chew on roots instead of have a glass of delicious red wine? I'm not going to volunteer. Our desire for creature comforts puts us in a pickle. Future generations can blame us for trashing the planet but I’m not going to go live in a cave to make them happy. Right wing whacko’s will poke fun at us and say we are just a bunch of eco-hypocrites while criticizing every thing we say or do. (Frank Luntz said he wasn’t going to talk to environmentalist because they are “mean people.”) "The World is coming to an end? People have been saying that since the beginning of time, so what makes it different this time," they will argue.

Mother Nature will rid herself of the problem. When she can no longer sustain the life on this planet, things will die. People, creatures, plants, etc, will simply go extinct. Scientist are already predicting that within this century one third of all species on this planet will go extinct. In fact, there is even a book called, "The Sixth Extinction." But of course, some of those things going extinct are bugs and critters that most people don't see or even know about so it doesn't seem significant.

Can someone creative and talented come along and write fiction stories that people can understand that don't bore or scare someone to death? One author I recommend is: Carl Hiaasen. He has two wonderful fiction stories that wrestle with environmental issues in a delightful way: "Hoot" and "Flush". We need more talented writers to develop stories about the environmental concerns that allow us to learn without throwing us into a state of despair. So all of you would be eco- authors, get writing!

Walls of Death?

I was reading this article arguing against a "vegetarian diet" and came across a this quote about current fishing practices:

...With the North Sea almost fished out and now highly regulated, third-world fishermen, hungry for foreign currency, are plundering their own declining stocks in other unregulated oceans.

With fish becoming increasingly difficult to catch in quantity, modern fishermen and their equipment are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Cornish fishermen are using four-mile-long drift nets to catch tuna in the northern Atlantic. The nets are called 'walls of death' because of the numbers of dolphins and other unwanted fish they catch. The Japanese fish for tuna with lines up to sixty-five miles long with thousands of baited hooks. In the North Sea, trawling does more damage than pollution.

Fish are very good at renewing themselves – if they are allowed to do so. But few will let them. Despite international agreements and quotas, in the northern seas, no-one, with the possible exception of Iceland, is managing their fish stocks properly and the problem of over-fishing is spiralling out of control.

I'm not ready to give up my vegetarian lifestyle. After being a vegetarian since 1995, I don't even like the taste of meat, or fish. I can't stand the thought of factory farming...

In good company, THOMAS FRIEDMAN agrees with me!

My husband sent me a copy of Friedman's June 3 Op-Ed piece. He essentially says the same thing I said in my last journal post. Green is going nowhere until our leaderless leaders stop chasing money and start providing leadership. I can see that I'm not the only one totally disgusted with our government!

Here's his Op-Ed piece.

June 3, 2007
Our Green Bubble
By THOMAS FRIEDMAN

Surely the most glaring contrast in American political life today is the amount of words, speeches and magazine covers devoted to the necessity of “going green,” “combating climate change” and gaining “energy security,” and the actual solutions being offered by our leaders to do any of these things. You could very comfortably drive a Hummer through the gap between our words and deeds.

We are playing pretend — which, when you think about it, is really troubling. Here are the facts: Our worst enemies, like Iran, have been emboldened by all their petrodollars. The vast majority of scientists tell us that global warming caused by our burning of fossil fuels is a real danger. And with three billion new consumers from India, Russia and China joining the world economy, it is inevitable that manufacturing clean, green power systems, appliances, homes and cars will be the next great global industry. It has to be, or we will not survive as a species.

And yet ... and yet our president and our Congress still won’t give us an energy bill that would create the legal and economic framework to address these issues at the speed and scale required.

If you were President Bush, wouldn’t you want to leave behind something big, bold and important on energy, just in case — you know, just in case — Iraq doesn’t turn out so well?

I sure would. But the president still has not challenged Congress or the country to undertake a radical departure on energy. So we still have only “energy politics,” not “energy policy.” Like previous energy bills, the packages working through the House and Senate today represent more “the sum of all lobbies,” as the energy expert Gal Luft, co-chairman of the Set America Free Coalition, puts it, not the sum of our best ideas.

Some lawmakers are pushing corn ethanol from Iowa, either because they hail from that area and are looking to give more welfare to farmers by wasting money on an alternative fuel that will never reach the scale of what is needed, or because they plan to run in the Iowa caucuses. Others are pushing huge subsidies to turn coal into gasoline, because they come from coal states. Those who don’t come from Michigan want higher mileage standards imposed on Detroit, while those who come from Michigan prefer to continue their assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by blocking tougher mileage requirements.

“The only green that they are serious about in Congress right now is the one with Ben Franklin’s picture on it,” Mr. Luft said.

Yes, it is helpful that Mr. Bush expressed a desire last week to work with other nations to limit greenhouse gases. His bully pulpit matters. But no one will — or should — take him seriously unless his government first leads by example. What would that look like? It has to start with a clear, long-term price signal. That is, a carbon tax or gasoline tax — or a cap and trade system with a binding national ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions — which would set a price for dumping carbon into the atmosphere or driving a gas-guzzling car.

Get Washington to signal that gasoline is never going to retreat from a level of $3.50 or $4 a gallon — and that wind and solar subsidies will be there for a decade, not stop and start as they always have before; get Washington to commit to buying a fixed volume of solar and wind power for government buildings and Army bases for 10 years, with only U.S.-based manufacturers able to compete for contracts; get Washington to set a new fleet average of 35 miles per gallon for Detroit within 10 years — with no loopholes; establish government loan guarantees for any company that wants to build a nuclear power plant; and, finally, build a national transmission grid — a green power superhighway — so that solar energy from Arizona or wind from Wyoming can power homes in Chicago. Do all that and our private sector will take America from green laggard to green leader.

Unfortunately, Congress is brewing instead a hodgepodge of incrementalism. This is particularly disappointing when America’s corporate icons — G.M., G.E., A.I.G., DuPont, PepsiCo — “have all come out in favor of a national mandatory limit on carbon emissions,” notes Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. “But Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have not risen to their challenge.” (AMEN)

We have a multigenerational problem that requires a systemic, multigenerational response, and that can happen only if we get our energy prices right. Only that will guarantee green innovation and commercialization at scale. Anything less is wasted breath and wasted money — and any candidate who says otherwise is only contributing to global warming by adding hot air.

Where have the real leaders gone?

I am so discouraged. I have spent a week scouring the Internet, looking for real solutions for moving the planet away from “business as usual” to a more healthier and sustainable way of life. I’m looking for business champions that are helping people lower their carbon footprint, providing a way of reducing the chemicals we use every day and helping us find a better way to live on this planet

I see small groups of people trying to make a difference. But it is difficult to find publicly traded companies that are profitable and making their shareholders happy while producing goods and services that are not impacting the planet in a negative way. There are a few, but there are not nearly enough to make the difference that needs to be made in the amount of time we have to do it. This is why I believe it is the responsibility of governments to jump-start the process. Businesses are out there, risking everything with little assurances that the market will reward their efforts. Most people are not even aware of the real dangers that we face because they have been lied to by groups that have paid million of dollars to cloud the issues with media propaganda.

I think the neo-conservatives are wrong, wrong, wrong! Their idea is economic Darwinism, the strongest survive. They don’t care who wins or looses, its part of the natural law, they argue! I just don’t see how the momentum will change without a push from governments. And right now our government believes is laze-faire and would rather spend billions of dollars on a war for oil, than billions of dollars on finding a way to free ourselves from our dependency on foreign oil. It is the government’s responsibility and they are not leading our country in the right direction! That is for sure!