Tree Hugger Thread

[Vrede too]

Translated: try to get your NC state Senator to renege on promises s/he has made to the billboard industry in exchange for large bags of money and agreement not to put billboards in the Senator's immediate neighborhood. Good luck.

I just like to remind Sen. Edwards that he's an asshole that's bad for NC now and then.

[O Really]

Translated: try to get your NC state Senator to renege on promises s/he has made to the billboard industry in exchange for large bags of money and agreement not to put billboards in the Senator's immediate neighborhood. Good luck.

I just like to remind Sen. Edwards that he's an asshole that's bad for NC now and then.

Keep up the good work.

[Vrede too]

Keep up the good work.

Every now and then the bribe won't be big enough and even a Repug bastard like Edwards will do the right thing. There's just no telling when that will be.

The House vote does not bode well, HB 645: Revisions to Outdoor Advertising Laws.

73-43
17 Democrat Ayes
Just 6 Repug Noes, including my McGrady

[Vrede too]

10 Ways Andrew Wheeler Has Decimated EPA Protections in Just One Year

... 1. Sidelined Scientists ...
2. Proposed to Restrict the Use of Scientific Data ...
3. Gutted the Coal Ash Rule ...
4. Recommended Unsafe Levels of Drinking Water Contaminants ...
5. Rolled Back Clean Water Act Protections ...
6. Suppressed an Inconvenient Formaldehyde Report ...
7. Ignored EPA Scientists’ Advice to Ban Asbestos ...
8. Weakened the Mercury Emissions Rule ...
9. Slammed Vehicle Emission Rules Into Reverse ...
10. Rescinded the Clean Power Plan ...

Reversing Decades of Bipartisan Protections

If Wheeler truly cared about transparency, he would petition the Trump administration to change the name of his agency to "Every Polluter's Ally." In just 12 months, he has killed or weakened dozens of safeguards with the sole intention of bolstering polluting industries' profit margins even after Congress slashed the corporate tax rate. As a result, millions of Americans will be drinking filthier water and breathing dirtier air, and more will suffer from serious diseases, according to his agency's own accounting.

Wheeler and his predecessor Pruitt have sullied the bipartisan track record of one of the nation's agencies entrusted with protecting public health and safety. So it is little wonder that three former EPA administrators who, notably, served under Republican presidents, recently sounded the alarm on Capitol Hill, urging legislators to step up their oversight of the agency and denouncing its attempts to hamstring science.

"There is no doubt in my mind that under the current administration the EPA is retreating from its historic mission to protect our environment and the health of the public from environmental hazards," former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, who served under President George W. Bush, stated in her written testimony for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "This administration, from the beginning, has made no secret of its intention to essentially dismantle the EPA…. Therefore, I urge this committee, in the strongest possible terms, to exercise Congress's oversight responsibilities over the actions and direction of the EPA."

"Pro-life" GOP? Not for fetuses, not for children, not for adults.

How fast can the political pendulum swing? Ask Maine.

Why We Wrote This

In a world of political hot takes and partisan outrage, it can feel as if an opposing politician or party is doing irreparable damage. But Maine shows how quickly and dramatically things can change.

...

The article is just about the environment, but I'll bet all facets of Maine politics and policy have changed.

[O Really]

"Maine moved fast with trifecta Democratic control of the House, Senate, and governor’s office..."

LePage was truly awful. He somewhat snuck in for his first term with a 38% plurality in a field that included several independents. Don't have a guess as to what would have happened without those cluttering the race. But why he got re-elected after four years of total crap is beyond me. I really hope it won't take 8 years for the rest of the nation to pay attention.

[Vrede too]

... LePage was truly awful. He somewhat snuck in for his first term with a 38% plurality in a field that included several independents. Don't have a guess as to what would have happened without those cluttering the race....

I like runoffs for those situations. Whoever wins should have majority support, otherwise they're often hampered right out of the gate.

Stop Trump's attack on Native lands. No drilling in Chaco Canyon.



The petition to the Bureau of Land Management reads:

"Protect one of our nation's most significant cultural and historical Native sites. Stop fracking across the Greater Chaco Landscape."

[O Really]

... LePage was truly awful. He somewhat snuck in for his first term with a 38% plurality in a field that included several independents. Don't have a guess as to what would have happened without those cluttering the race....

I like runoffs for those situations. Whoever wins should have majority support, otherwise they're often hampered right out of the gate.

Yeah, Maine agrees with you. Went to Forced Choice.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/12/17448450/ ... 8-midterms

[Vrede too]

Yeah, Maine agrees with you. Went to Forced Choice.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/12/17448450/ ... 8-midterms

Did it affect any elections in 2018?

I have no experience with "ranked-choice voting (also known as instant-runoff voting)," but have heard about it for a long time. It makes sense, avoiding the uncertainty of a true runoff delay, saving the voters from the annoyance of continued campaigning and taxpayers the cost of a new election.

Wiki has a long article on it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
Not perusing it now. If it's ever proposed here I'll be interested in the pro and con arguments.

[O Really]

Yeah, Maine agrees with you. Went to Forced Choice.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/12/17448450/ ... 8-midterms

Did it affect any elections in 2018?

Seemed to work for (D) Jared Golden

Elections
See also: United States House of Representatives elections in Maine, 2018 § District 2
On August 24, 2017, he announced his candidacy against Bruce Poliquin to serve in the United States House of Representatives for Maine's 2nd congressional district.[8] On June 20, 2018, Golden was declared the winner of the Democratic primary.[9]

On election night, Golden trailed two-term incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin by 2,000 votes. As neither candidate won a majority, Maine's newly implemented ranked-choice voting system called for the second preferences of the two independent candidates to be redistributed to either Poliquin or Golden, in accordance with those voters' second choice on the ballot. The independents' supporters overwhelmingly ranked Golden as their second choice, so he defeated Poliquin by 3,000 votes after the final tabulation.[10] He is the first challenger to unseat an incumbent in the district since 1916.[11]

Poliquin opposed the use of ranked-choice voting in the election and claimed to be the winner due to his first-round lead. He filed a lawsuit in federal court to have ranked-choice voting declared unconstitutional and be declared the winner. Judge Lance E. Walker rejected all of Poliquin's arguments and upheld the certified results.[12] Poliquin appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and requested an order to prevent Golden from being certified as the winner, but the request was rejected.[13] On December 24, Poliquin dropped his lawsuit, allowing Golden to take the seat.[14]

[Vrede too]

... Seemed to work for (D) Jared Golden ...

Wow . Thanks.

Fwiw, I would be satisfied if the procedure had elected a Repug, though not happy about it.

[Vrede too]

Trump administration appoints opponent of public land to oversee 250 million acres of government-owned wilderness

... Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed the order making William Pendley the acting head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)....

That is an ugly, ugly sentence.

David Bernhardt
William Pendley

Crap.

To be accurate, most BLM land is not "wilderness", but that doesn't lessen the damage they can do.

[Vrede too]

Challenging EPA's New FOIA Rule, Suit Seeks to Stop Trump's "Shameful Attempt to Keep Americans in the Dark"
"We have a right to know what EPA is trying to hide and which Trump appointee is trying to hide it."

Stop Trump's EPA from hiding information from the public



The petition to the Senate reads:

"Support the Open and Responsive Government Act of 2019 to ensure that the public can access information in the way the Freedom of Information Act intended."

[Vrede too]

Help us tell Governor Cooper to protect North Carolina’s natural beauty by vetoing the bad billboard bill (H645).

[Vrede too]

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) claims, vs. 45SHOLE:
47 lawsuit wins
3 defeats
37 pending, with another one over the ESA rollbacks anticipated soon



The only silver lining to the 45SHOLE *admin's evil is its sheer incompetence.

[Vrede too]

Trump’s war on the N.C. environment

When a majority of North Carolina voters backed Donald Trump in 2016, many believed his promise that he would drain the swamp in Washington, D.C. That hasn’t happened, but Trump has been busy pulling the plug on North Carolina’s real swamps — and its forests, streams, coastal waters, air quality and wildlife.

A state with a richness of natural resources and wildlife helped elect a president who is shaping up to be a one-man environmental disaster. He scoffs at climate change as more powerful hurricanes pummel the state and sea level rise threatens the coast. He’s pushing for oil and gas drilling off of North Carolina, putting the coastal environment and the tourist industry at risk. He has reduced federal clean water protections intended to limit pesticides, fertilizer and animal waste from entering streams and wetlands, an important issue in flood-prone eastern North Carolina. He has moved to block Obama-era limits on emissions from coal-burning plants that would have helped clear the air in the western part of the state.

Now comes Trump’s latest assault on nature that could have a major impact in North Carolina. He is about to weaken the Endangered Species Act, an environmental law passed in 1973 with bipartisan support and signed by a Republican president, Richard Nixon. The law has saved 99 percent of species on the list from extinction, largely through habitat conservation efforts that also benefit other wildlife....

[Vrede too]

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in water systems. I appreciate hearing from you.

PFAS are a large group of man-made chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products since the 1950s. They have been used in non-stick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain resistant fabrics and carpets, some cosmetics, and products that resist grease, water, and oil.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that human exposure to PFAS is a public health concern. Further, the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) have been tasked to assist local, territorial, tribal, state, and federal partners to address this concern.

You may be interested to know that I am the proud co-sponsor of three bills related to PFAS. On February 28, 2019, Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and I introduced S. 638, the PFAS Action Act of 2019. If enacted, this legislation would classify PFAS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), enabling eligibility for cleanup funds under the EPA Superfund law and making polluters undertake or pay for remediation.

On March 28, 2019, Senator Stabenow (D-MI) and I introduced S. 950, the PFAS Detection Act. If enacted, S. 950 would require the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to perform a nationwide survey of perfluorinated compounds. The survey would focus on the concentration of perfluorinated compounds in estuaries, lakes, streams, springs, wells, wetlands, rivers, aquifers, and soil. On May 8, 2019, we also introduced S. 1372, the PFAS Accountability Act. If enacted, S. 1372 would encourage the Department of Defense (DoD) to enter into cooperative agreements with states for removal and remedial actions to address drinking, surface, groundwater and soil contamination from PFAS at active military installations and National Guard facilities.

You will be pleased to know that on June 27, 2019, the Senate passed both S. 950 and S. 1372 as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year (FY) 2020. I worked with the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-OK), as well as the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) and Ranking Member Carper to ensure that these important pieces of legislation were able to move through the Senate as a part of the NDAA. I am very proud of this bipartisan accomplishment that will facilitate faster identification and cleanup of contaminated water while helping to prevent future contamination.

North Carolina has an unfortunate history with PFAS and other water contaminants and I will continue fighting for policies that guarantee all North Carolinians have access to clean water. Please know that as other contamination issues come before the Senate, I will keep your views in mind.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. Please do not hesitate to contact me again about other important issues.

Sincerely,
Thom Tillis (R-NC)
U.S. Senator

Not sure about other states, but PFAS have been a big issue in NC.

Still, it's weird to see GOP Tillis singing:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51BQfPeSK8k

[Vrede too]

The petition to BlackRock reads:

"Your investments in oil, mining and agribusiness in the Amazon are quickly destroying rainforests, violating indigenous rights and worsening our climate crisis. Stop funding the destruction of the Amazon and destroying the homes of its indigenous inhabitants."

[Vrede too]

Nestlé plan to take 1.1m gallons of water a day from natural springs sparks outcry
Opponents fighting to stop the project say the fragile river cannot sustain such a large draw

The crystal blue waters of Ginnie Springs have long been treasured among the string of pearls that line (north) Florida’s picturesque Santa Fe River, a playground for water sports enthusiasts and an ecologically critical haven for the numerous species of turtles that nest on its banks.

Soon, however, it is feared there could be substantially less water flowing through, if a plan by the food and beverage giant Nestlé wins approval.

In a controversial move that has outraged environmentalists and also raised questions with authorities responsible for the health and vitality of the river, the company is seeking permission to take more than 1.1m gallons a day from the natural springs to sell back to the public as bottled water.

Opponents say the fragile river, which is already officially deemed to be “in recovery” by the Suwannee River water management district after years of earlier overpumping, cannot sustain such a large draw – a claim Nestlé vehemently denies. Critics are fighting to stop the project as environmentally harmful and against the public interest....

:cussing: I don't remember Ginnie Springs, but I've played in the area.

Don't think I'll get the book, but the facts cited are interesting:

To Fight Global Warming, Think More About Systems Than About What You Consume

By Bill McKibben

INCONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION
The Environmental Impacts You Don’t Know You Have
By Tatiana Schlossberg

This book careens and skitters across the landscape of its topic, which means I now know a number of interesting things I didn’t know when I picked it up: Netflix uses up 15 percent of all the internet bandwidth on earth; shoppers return 35 percent of the goods they buy online, which is as much as six times more than when they shop in stores; producing polyester for clothes emits as much carbon dioxide as 185 coal-fired power plants; a single fleece garment can shed 100,000 plastic microfibers in one washing....

So, for instance, cashmere used to be a relatively rare luxury item. But the Chinese began to see an opportunity for an export market, and soon Inner Mongolia was surging in population — of herders, but mostly of goats, from five million in 1990 to 26 million in 2004. Those goats, in turn, have overgrazed much of the region’s remarkable grasslands, turning them into desert. “To put it more simply: More goats to meet increasing demand ... means there is more grazing, and therefore more desertification, so the goats are undernourished, which makes their hair coarser, causing the supply of high-quality cashmere to shrink, causing the herders to breed more goats to try to meet the demand for better cashmere, and on and on forever until, once again, the world collapses in on itself like a dying star.”

One response to this would be to urge readers to buy less cashmere (and less fleece, and less cotton, and less viscose rayon, all of which Schlossberg also covers)....

[Vrede too]

Urge Glacier Bay National Park to stop giving Carnival Corporation a free pass. Tell the Park Service to ban Carnival Corporation ships from entering Glacier Bay (AK) waters.

[Vrede too]

Demand Real Solutions for Chemical Contamination of Our Water
Urge your member of Congress to address this public health crisis and protect our water from toxic PFAS chemicals.