All the News That's Fit to Share
A bona-fide member of the Fifth Estate, practicing Mobile Journalism (MoJo) every chance we get...
Montgomery County Passes Nation’s First Carbon Tax from Climate Challenge on Vimeo.
Nah, there’s no such thing as global warming. We’ve got news for you. Global warming is real. The Easter Bunny is not…
As part of the Department of the Interior’s commitment to building a coordinated strategy to respond to the impacts of climate change on the nation’s natural resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its final strategic plan today that will guide the agency’s efforts to respond to the unprecedented threat posed by global warming.
The plan, titled “Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change,” provides a framework within which the service will work as part of the conservation community to help ensure the sustainability of fish, wildlife, plants and habitats in the face of accelerating climate change. It is an integral part of an overarching strategy establishing a framework for bureaus to coordinate climate change science and resource management plans and actions.
“The growing impacts from climate change on wildlife, plants, and watersheds call for a coordinated and strategic response from the department and its bureaus,” said Tom Strickland, assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and parks. “The Service’s plan is both a call to arms and a clear roadmap for action. It is firmly rooted in sound science, an adaptive, landscape-scale conservation approach, and collaboration with partners.”
Acting director Rowan Gould says the strategy has been shaped by more than 18 months of intensive work and input from employees, as well as comments from partners, and the public submitted during a two-month comment period last fall.
“That input has given focus and clarity to the plan’s discussion of key climate adaptation efforts such as a National Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation Strategy, Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, and species and habitat vulnerability assessments,” Gould said. “Support from our partners — and the American public — is critical, because climate change is a challenge that is too large for any one agency, department, or government to tackle alone.”
by Glynn Wilson
Alabama’s attorney general Troy “Toy Boy” King has now placed the state in the inauspicious company of the likes of Texas and corporate lobbying groups publicly fighting the opportunity to get on the international bandwagon to do something about climate change due to global warming as well as harmful air pollution.
The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson of New Orleans, told Congress earlier this week that regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, deemed a danger to the public health, will be phased in starting in 2011 for large plants and 2016 for smaller ones.
King joined Texas, Virginia and the pro-business manufacturing association in filing the petition with the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., asking the court to review EPA’s decision.
In response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the federal government’s role in regulating air pollutants, the EPA announced in December that the agency would move forward to force states and industries to begin reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases that threaten public health.
What about the press and politicians?
The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson
As the 2010 election season gears up around the country and in the state, as a trained and credentialed public opinion researcher as well as a journalist who has covered public opinion research for about 30 years, I am always looking to see what the data shows versus what political candidates and the media are spending time talking about.
Economic development is always the number one issue to the press in Alabama and politicians running for office here, a fact that is left over from the post-Civil War industrialization as our society moved away from an agricultural society to a manufacturing society. Of course in the years following the Civil War, we called the businessmen who came South “Yankee carpet-baggers,” but over the years, their reputations became less sullied as they provided jobs for an increasing number of citizens, many of whom moved off the farms to the cities.
And in these economic times, when the nation and the state are still suffering from the results of the Bush recession that started in 2007 even though we didn’t find out about it from the media until January 2008, the economy is still the number one concern of voters, according to the Gallup Poll and other research.
Twenty-nine percent of the American public name the economy in general as the number one problem facing the country. Second to that is health care, however. Twenty-six percent of the people say health care is the number one concern, while 15 percent name unemployment.
Other studies show a high correlation between issues being covered prominently by the media and issues identified by the public to be important.
While the environment only polls from one to three percent on the number one problem question, when asked about their personal worries on environmental problems facing the country at this time, the public overwhelming names polluted water as number one.
According to Gallup, a majority of Americans say they worry “a great deal” about four different environment problems involving water: 58 percent are concerned about pollution of drinking water, 53 percent worry about pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, 52 percent express concern about contamination of soil and water by toxic waste, and 51 percent worry “a great deal” about the maintenance of the nation’s supply of fresh water.
Events Planned at Birmingham Southern College
A group of college students representing Birmingham-Southern College’s Students Engaged Actively in Environmental Issues and the Coalition of Alabama Students for the Environment will host a Climate rally at the college’s new Urban Environmental Park Saturday, Oct. 24.
The event is part of International Climate Action Day, where hundreds will gather to support 350.org and Oxfam America, groups calling on world leaders to take action to curb climate change due to global warming from the practice of humans burning fossil fuels for energy.
There will be an iconic picture taken that will be posted on the national organization’s Web site, as well as shown in New York’s Times Square and other places.
The event has attracted co-sponsorship and support from national non-profit activist and awareness organizations and state-wide environmental action groups such as the Alabama Environmental Council and Energize Alabama. The event will bring together a community of national and local environmental experts, university leaders from BSC, University of Alabama-Birmingham and Samford University, neighborhood associations and other groups.
Alabama’s political leaders have been invited to attend and share their voice in what Alabama’s government is doing to address this important issue.
Arrive no later than 11:30 a.m. for the photo, with speakers and green fair to follow.
For more information, contact Ben Tracy at bdtracy@bsc.edu or 404-713-1956, or Michael J. Churchman, executive director of the Alabama Environmental Council, at 205.999.5328.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting that Americans seem to be cooling toward global warming. Just 57 percent think there is solid evidence the world is getting warmer, down 20 points in just three years, a new poll shows. And the share of people who believe pollution caused by humans is causing temperatures to rise has also taken a dip, “even as the U.S. and world forums gear up for possible action against climate change.”
US Belief in Global Warming is Cooling
But activists say if the public wants to be apprised of the facts, they would be better off reading this account from The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry:
Can a Reasonable Skeptic Support Climate Change Legislation?
I can say without a shadow of a doubt, after many years of covering this issue and studying it as an academic, that the climate is already being changed by global warming. Anyone who is still in the skeptic camp on this may as well head for Alaska and hang out with that dimwit Sarah Palin, who will never be the president of the United States. I will bet an entire truck load of Yuengling Black and Tan on that…
ATLANTA, Ga. — On coastal North Carolina’s federal wildlife refuges, shorelines are receding and barrier islands are narrowing.
In the Florida Keys, the sooty tern, a sea bird, is showing up to breed three to four months earlier than usual.
Inland, invasive plants such as Alligator Weed are crowding out more desirable food for ducks and geese on refuges in Tennessee and northern Alabama.
These signs, and many others, are consistent with the science on global warming. And the climate models predict far worse, including the extinction of 20 to 30 percent of the world’s species by the end of this century.
As part of the Interior Department’s commitment to building a coordinated strategy to respond to the impacts of accelerating climate change on the nation’s natural resources and safeguard the nation’s fish and wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a draft strategic plan that will guide its efforts to respond to the unprecedented threat posed by global warming.
When finalized, the plan will guide the agency’s response to impacts such as changing wildlife migration patterns, the spread of invasive species, changing precipitation patterns and rising sea levels. It is a key part of the Interior Department’s commitment to building a coordinated response.
“The growing impacts from climate change on wildlife, plants, and watersheds are a call to action,” said Tom Strickland, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for fish and wildlife and parks. “These impacts call for a coordinated and strategic response from the Department and its bureaus. We will help lead a national response that is grounded in sound science, an adaptive, landscape-scale conservation approach, and collaboration with partners. This is a crucial first step in that direction.”
The plan, which can be found on the Web here has three key elements:
Satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in July 2006 and July 2007 showing the retreating ice during the summer. Public Domain.
by Glynn Wilson
Scientists have known for years that the earth is in a dangerous warming trend due to the emissions from greenhouse gases. U.S. government satellites have captured some of the most dramatic evidence of this trend for years by recording the melting and retreat of arctic sea ice.
During the eight years with George W. Bush in the White House, however, when like everything else science took a back seat to politics and religious pandering, the images were classified as state secrets. This prevented scientists from accessing critical information clearly demonstrating the need for swift action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ramp up efforts to protect natural resources and communities from the effects of climate change, according to climatologists such as Thorsten Markus of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
This all changed in July when the Obama administration, signaling a return to respect for science lacking in the Bush years, released 1,000 spy satellite images that show just how rapidly sea ice is melting.
“Some of the most shocking images in this collection capture the loss of summer sea ice near the Alaskan port of Barrow,” according to J.P. Leous, a policy adviser with the Wilderness Society.
From 2006 to 2007 massive sheets of ice disappeared as a result of global warming. A record one million square kilometers of ice was lost.
“The year 2007 was an especially bad year for species that depend on sea ice,” Leous said, especially for endangered polar bears that rely on the ice as a critical hunting platform.
“These are one-metre resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic,” Markus told The Guardian newspaper in England. “This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One-metre resolution is the dimension that’s been missing.”
This newly released evidence is not just a harbinger of disaster for polar bears and other sea creatures. Human populations and communities will increasingly be affected by the trend, including coastal communities along the Alabama Gulf Coast. The sea ice directly protects Alaskan communities from coastal erosion, which is already a problem in several native Alaskan communities, where homes are falling into the sea.
Scientists are increasingly worried about a dangerous feedback loop where global warming melts sea ice, which causes sea surface temperatures to rise, thus causing more sea ice melt, and so on. As the ice melts and sea levels rise, beaches disappear. As ocean water grows warmer, stronger and more violent hurricanes hit shore.
That’s reality. It really is too bad that the reality of this issue was denied for eight long years by an administration driven by corporate greed — not the long-term best interest of the country’s population.
 |
Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson
It is almost too nice a spring day outside to be sitting in front of a computer writing a column, but there are a few things I have to say today besides talking about watching the revolutionary garden grow.
The tomatoes, collards, green beans and corn are coming up fine and will help offset the rising food prices this summer in Bush’s recessionary world.
But that’s not all that’s going on in the world, not that you would know it by reading the corporate news media and watching the public relations that passes for news on the local television airwaves.
The state of the economy seems to be affecting the news media as it often does in hard times. It is becoming harder and harder to find real news stories worth reading even in the national papers. Every news organization in the country is still talking about the Reverend Wright today, even as presidential candidate Barack Obama went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” for the full hour this morning and still sounded like the smartest, most reasonable candidate in the race.
While Senator John McCain continued to support Bush’s surge this week and made a strange appearance in Selma, Alabama last week, as if any African-Americans were ever going to vote for him, Hillary Clinton was showing her support for Israel with language much like Bush when she talked about “obliterating” Iran if they ever launch a nuclear attack on the Jewish state.
Of course what the American masses who barely keep up may not realize is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and will most likely never obtain one. Dick Cheney and the Israeli military will see to that – if Bush doesn’t send in the U.S. Air Force soon and start World War III.
Obama pointed that out for Tim Russert, who just had to raise the issue – even though he should know better.
Even Brian Williams, the anchor and managing editor of NBC’s “Nightly News,” pointed out in a blog column the other day that the New York Times circulation is down and said this:
“I must admit that on Sundays it becomes a tough paper to figure out. While (last) week’s paper featured an op-ed piece by Elizabeth Edwards bemoaning the lack of serious, in-depth coverage of the political race, it’s tough to figure out exactly what readers the paper is speaking to, or seeking.”
I’ve been wondering that myself, since I check out the Times Website a couple of times a day looking to see if they might be breaking another story on the illegal surveillance program being run by the Bush administration – or something. The paper is credited with breaking a big story on that back in 2005, even though we had been talking about it on the blogs already, but where is the followup?
The Washington Post has done some fairly interesting stories of late, especially Dana Milbank in his “Washington Sketch” column, which by the way is online only and not in the print edition of the newspaper. Here are a couple of examples.
Anniversary of ‘Mission Accomplished’ Draws Laughs
The Incredible Shrinking Presidency of George W. Bush
The fare was so weak today I turned to The Nation magazine, where at least I found this:
But even that is not as strong as what you can sometimes find here at the little old Locust Fork Journal, when we have the resources and the motivation to go out and find the good stories.
I mean the Birmingham News is focusing all it’s guns on going after another African-American Democrat these days, the poor new mayor of Birmingham, instead of focusing its investigative attentions perhaps on a big story like why Birmingham has some of the most polluted air in the country. Was that story on the front page? Of course not. It’s “bad news,” not PR or manufactured news designed to bash Democrats.
Birmingham in Top Eight Polluted Cities
I mean we know what causes the bad air, mainly Alabama Power’s coal-fired power plants, along with the lack of an automobile inspection program that would help get the old polluting cars and pickup trucks off the roads. But I guess all that Alabama Power advertising money keeps them focused on things like doing the PR for the State Troopers in their “Take Back the Highways” campaign to keep drunks off the road (and everybody else who might like to have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner out at a restaurant).
If the local press had put as much effort into investigating the causes of the bad air and potential solutions as they do drunk driving, we could have already solved the problem.
Here’s a simple suggestion no one in the press or the presidential race has thought about. What if every car on the road and every house in the suburbs had a white roof? That would reflect sun light back into the atmosphere like the glaciers that are now melting due to global warming.
And what if the federal and state governments switched the tax incentives to putting solar cells on houses instead of investing in oil exploration and bio-fuels, which is one of the major factors leading to high food prices.
If you are also disgruntled with the fare in the newspapers or TV news stations and want to help us chase those headlines and investigative reports, please consider making a donation today. You will be glad you did.
Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday and urged the United States and China to make the boldest moves on climate change or “stand accountable before history for their failure to act.”
“We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here,” Gore said in his acceptance speech.
Gore shared the Nobel with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for sounding the alarm over global warming and spreading awareness on how to counteract it
AP: Gore Gets Nobel Prize, Warns of Ominous Global Warming Threat
Al Gore’s Nobel Lecture as the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for 2007
Harper’s No Comment
