Tree Hugger Thread

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Vrede too
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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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EPA Administrator’s Security Detail Cost Taxpayers $30,000 for Italy Travel
Total Cost of Scott Pruitt’s Italy Trip Rises to Over $120,000


No Dow Chemical shills at the EPA

Image

The petition to the Senate reads:

"Reject the nomination of Dow Chemical lawyer Peter Wright as assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management."
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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Image

Corporations like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, Unilever, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, and McDonald's all have a huge role to play when it comes to plastic pollution.

Ask the CEOs of these corporations to ensure their packaging is never found in our oceans, waterways, or coasts again. Add your name to the petition.
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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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Trump empowers trophy hunters

Elephants, lions, giraffes, and other imperiled wildlife are facing yet another dire threat.

The same week that the Trump administration disastrously decided to lift the ban on elephant and lion trophy imports, the Interior Department quietly created something innocuously called the International Wildlife Conservation Council, to "advise" on international hunting.

However, contrary to its name, the IWCC actually puts wildlife at grave risk. Turns out, it's run almost exclusively by trophy hunters and gun industry executives who now wield considerable influence over America's international hunting policies.

Make no mistake: The IWCC has very little interest in protecting our planet's most vulnerable wildlife species. One look at the IWCC's members tells you all you need to know. They include:

The NRA's director of hunting policy
The vice president of the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, an organization that lobbies for hunters
A gun industry executive
A veterinarian with ties to the exotic animal trade
A reality-TV safari hunting guide

Missing from the council are members with actual scientific expertise in wildlife conservation.

The council was created to advise the administration on the economic, conservation, and anti-poaching benefits of trophy hunting, but in fact there are very few. The truth is that killing endangered wildlife is not an effective conservation tactic.

Africa's wildlife is in trouble. Elephant populations are declining so fast that some scientists predict African forest elephants could be extinct in less than a decade. And in 2015, African lions were added to the endangered species list.

The IWCC not only poses a serious danger to these and other wildlife species, it will cost American taxpayers $250,000 annually to convene its members in Washington for meetings....

The Trump administration continues to carry out policies that harm wildlife — from rolling back the ban on elephant and lion trophy imports from Zimbabwe and Zambia, to essentially getting rid of the Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking....
:roll: :bs: :cussing:

Tell the Trump Administration: Stop Promoting International Trophy Hunting!
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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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1312. ETTD.

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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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1312. ETTD.

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From Center for Biological Diversity:
Wildlife Services Killed 1.3 Million Native Animals in 2017

The arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as Wildlife Services killed more than 1.3 million native animals last year, the agency has revealed.

These notoriously underreported numbers include more than 600,000 red-winged blackbirds, 69,041 adult coyotes, 23,646 beavers, 3,827 foxes, 1,001 bobcats, 675 river otters, 552 black bears, 357 gray wolves and 319 mountain lions.

The multimillion-dollar federal wildlife-killing program targets wolves, coyotes, cougars, birds and other wild animals for destruction — primarily at the whim of the agriculture industry.
:cry: :ateeth:
Court blocks Trump administration order delaying boost in fuel penalties

A federal court in New York on Monday blocked the Trump administration’s decision to delay a rule that would raise penalties for automakers who do not meet federal fuel efficiency requirements.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order vacating the July 2017 decision of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to suspend a 2016 Obama administration regulation.

The regulation, set to take effect in September, would more than double penalties....
:---P
Subject: Quiz: Who said it...Pruitt, or a polluter?
From: "NRDC - Rhea Suh" <actions@nrdc.org>

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt dodged, distorted, or flat out refused to answer straightforward questions from representatives of both parties during two important House subcommittee hearings last week — questions about his flagrant misuse of over $150,000 in taxpayer dollars for luxury travel and first-class fights ... his shady sweetheart deal for a luxury condo on Capitol Hill owned by the wife of an energy industry lobbyist ... and his request that his security detail use their sirens so he could be on time for a dinner reservation.

And Congress isn’t alone in its suspicions: A national poll conducted by the NRDC Action Fund found nearly 60 percent of Americans think President Trump should fire Pruitt over his ethical misdeeds.

Pruitt doesn’t just live like a fossil fuel CEO — he sounds like one, too. In fact, it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between a soundbite from Pruitt himself and one from the corporate polluters he’s supposed to be policing.

Can you figure out where the big polluter talking points end, and the EPA chief’s musings begin? Find out now: Take our brief, five-question quiz, and tell us who said it: Pruitt or a polluter?

Image

Lawrence, I’ll be honest — even I struggled to figure out whether some of these quotes came from Pruitt, or from the oil and gas industry barons who have funded his path to the EPA. I guess hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions have a way of shaping a man’s opinions.

Take our quiz to see how well you know the difference between Pruitt and his polluter cronies. And stay tuned for more updates from NRDC about how you can help us continue to fight back against Pruitt’s assault on our planet.

Good luck,

Rhea Suh
President, NRDC
"Thanks for taking our quiz — you got 4 questions right (out of 5)." I missed #2.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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NEWS from NIRS

For immediate release:
May 3, 2018

CONTACTS:
Tim Judson, Executive Director 301-270-6477 / timj@nirs.org
Mary Olson, Lead Intervenor 828-242-5621(cell) maryo@nirs.org

Duke Energy (finally) agrees: Levy County New Nukes Wrong Plan
NIRS and Levy County FL Environmental Leaders Celebrate!


Today US Nuclear Regulatory Commission announces Termination of Levy County Units 1 & 2 Combined Nuclear Construction and Operating Licenses at request of site owner, Duke Energy

Ten years ago Duke (then, Progress Energy) began the idea of adding two nuclear reactors to the Nature Coast of Florida. Today, a billion dollars, and thousands of hours of volunteer and public-interest staff time later, the proposal for Levy County Nuclear 1 & 2 is now, officially, dead. Duke Energy has arrived at a decision which confirms allegations by local environmental leaders for nearly a decade: the Levy County cypress swamps are a bad place to build a major industrial power generating site, let alone one capable of contaminating the pristine groundwater and freshwater springs of Levy County with radioactivity. Duke likely blames the debacle of its chosen reactor design, the AP1000, by the now bankrupt Westinghouse / Toshiba.

Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) Staff Biologist, Mary Olson, was recruited by the Levy leaders to help challenge the proposed site. “We celebrate every atom that will never become highly radioactive waste, and every Rem of dangerous radiation exposure that has now been prevented,” said Olson. NIRS was founded in 1978 by grassroots activists who oppose nuclear energy, including individuals who led pro se interventions on the first nuclear power reactor licenses under the Atomic Energy Act. Olson led pro se challenges of Duke Energy nuclear license extensions in North Carolina in 2001--2005.

NIRS formed a loose-knit coalition with the Ecology Party of Florida and others in 2008. Early in 2009 a license intervention was filed, raising multiple issues from impact on drinking water in Levy County, to climate impacts, and radioactive waste management. NIRS managed the administrative law process until 2012 when the grassroots effort had garnered sufficient local support to be able to hire noted nuclear licensing attorney, Diane Curran of Harmon, Curran and Spielberg.

Diane Curran said today, “Thank goodness that this environmentally destructive project was finally stopped by the economic reality that it is not needed and way too expensive. But the public should be concerned that the regulatory system designed to protect ratepayers and the environment failed miserably along the way.”

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US NRC) appointed an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) of three judges in 2009 to hear the groups’ petition. A number of the issues raised were admitted and after an evidentiary hearing featuring multiple experts, the panel ruled some issues “out of scope,” some appropriate to different authority, and some rejected. The ASLB declined the petition in 2012. The US NRC subsequently awarded two COL (construction operating licenses) to Progress Energy / Duke in 2016. In the meantime, the project’s price tag had grown to $20,000,000,000. Duke decided to postpone the project, since the NRC licenses would remain valid for 20 years. Meanwhile many public interest organizations, investigative journalists and experts challenged the financial side of the deal.

Other organizations who contributed to the now successful challenge are Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Union of Concerned Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility of Florida, Sierra Club, and Sierra Club Education Fund of Florida, West Palm Beach Environmental Coalition, Southern Student Renewable Energy Coalition, Rising Tide and Everglades EarthFirst!

“The entire Levy County Nuclear project stands as a tragic testament to the costs in both time and money of missing out on the real solutions for energy, security and climate stabilization. As a community we raised real solutions that were ignored, denied and rejected. Energy efficiency and solar are not even “admissible” as contentions in federal nuclear licensing—only other technologies for industrial-scale production of electric current are considered ’viable’ alternatives to a nuclear power reactor proposal, according the NRC staff. We must do better,” said Olson, “so, Duke—thank you for joining us in rejecting nuclear! We call on you to now LEAD in efficiency and solar as part of Florida’s energy future.”

Mary Olson
Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Southeast
maryo@nirs.org
www.nirs.org
828-252-8409 / 828-242-5621 cell
:clap: :---P

I recreated in beautiful Levy County a couple of years ago. This is a big win for the FL environment and ratepayers. Too bad about the billion dollars they're on the hook for.
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Image

Get involved and join hands on May 19, 2018. Say NO to dirty fuels and YES to clean energy.

Click on map to organize // search // for an event near you

Bunches on the NC and FL coasts, a few on the SC coast, apparently no solidarity actions near me.
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Washinton Post: Someone, somewhere, is making a banned chemical that destroys the ozone layer, scientists suspect

Emissions of CFC-11 have climbed 25 percent since 2012, despite the chemical being part of a group of ozone pollutants that were phased out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
[…]
Officially, production of CFC-11 is supposed to be at or near zero — at least, that is what countries have been telling the U.N. body that monitors and enforces the Montreal Protocol. But with emissions on the rise, scientists suspect someone is making the chemical in defiance of the ban.

“Somebody’s cheating,” Durwood Zaelke, founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and an expert on the Montreal Protocol, said in a comment on the new research. “There’s some slight possibility there’s an unintentional release, but … they make it clear there’s strong evidence this is actually being produced.”

The scientists don’t know exactly who, or where, that person would be. A U.S. observatory in Hawaii found CFC-11 mixed in with other gases that were characteristic of a source coming from somewhere in eastern Asia, but scientists could not narrow the area down any further.
Have a nice day.

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Re: Tree Hugger Thread

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http://www.blueridgedebate.com/viewtopi ... fcs#p78366
rstrong wrote:
Sat Aug 19, 2017 10:57 pm
An interesting related article just recently:
In Homo sapiens 200,000-year history, we know about several close shaves with extinction. One came 70,000 years back when the numbers of fertile Homo sapiens dropped to just 10,000. The cause may have been linked to the Toba supervolcanic eruption around this time (74,000 years) — the biggest eruption in 2.5 million years — which would have led to a volcanic winter enveloping the planet, possibly for centuries. Indeed, eruptions continued 15-20,000 years after the first blast according to recent research. However, the supereruption theory for H. sapiens population crash is disputed.

The second close shave is a little more recent and linked to our love of cold beer. In 1928, scientists created "safe" new chemicals for refrigerators and air conditioners — CFCs. But the first C in CFCs is an angry little element, chlorine. Apparently unbeknownst to the scientists and their corporate overlords, these chemicals had a vociferous appetite for ozone in the upper atmosphere. The ozone layer has protected life on Earth for billions of years. Without it, the sun's radiation would sterilise the surface. Even weakening this shield would lead to crop damage making our survival questionable even if we shovelled on the sun cream. When the ozone hole was discovered in the 1980s nations agreed to outlaw CFCs and disaster was averted.

If we had not noticed the growing hole, or decided to sit on the problem, humans would have run into a catastrophe more serious than warm beer by the end of this century. Worse, if chlorine had been swapped out for its angrier, less stable sister, bromine — an entirely logical choice that would have kept beer just as cool — then H sapiens demise may have been sooner than expected. Bromine's ozone killing properties make it almost one hundred times more dangerous than chlorine. By the 1970s there could have been a catastrophic ozone hole everywhere all year round according to Paul Crutzen who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on ozone.
So we were lucky we didn't go with bromine. And even then we were lucky we noticed AND acted, lucky the British and US Antarctic research stations existed and that the US Congress didn't turn anti-science a few decades earlier.
Vrede too wrote:
Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:35 pm
I know that CFCs are very bad, never thought of them as possibly extinction level bad. Thanks . . . I think.
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Well.... I didn't want to alarm anyone. It's not the end of the world.

Immediately, at least.

It does raise an interesting ethics question: Suppose the country producing it is found, and refuses to stop. And the US President threatens military action to shut it down. While a popularity boost might be his main motivation, there's certainly a valid reason to support it.

Is that reason sufficient? Would you support military action?

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rstrong wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 10:44 am

Is that reason sufficient? Would you support military action?
Theoretically, yes. But I'm not so sure I could support any military action run by the current President*. Too many things can go wrong, even in pursuing a valid objective. Sad, but I'd count the danger from the potential ozone-destroying country to be no greater than a Trump unhinged with a nuke button.

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Good point.

Bush I gave the Pentagon a set of objectives regarding Gulf War I, and let the experts decide how to meet them. It went well.

Bush II / Cheney / Rove on the other hand considered themselves the experts, and micromanaged the Pentagon. It went badly. And is still going badly 15 years later.

Donald "I know more than the generals do, believe me" Trump is likely to do even worse.

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Intentional poisoning of the planet could be considered terrorism and treated accordingly. However, since the purpose is commercial/industrial gain, I suspect their are many effective strategies short of military action once the perp is IDed. Plus, one would have to be certain that the war making wouldn't cause even greater environmental harm.
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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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1312. ETTD.

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