by Frances Beinecke

After 35 years working as an environmental advocate, I have done my share of consensus building and coalition tending. It’s not always easy finding common ground, even among those who are fighting for the same cause. But on Tuesday the environmental community reached an unprecedented level of agreement. More than 30 leading conservation, climate, and environmental groups representing millions of members released a joint plan for President-Elect Obama’s transition team.

The plan covers a wide range of issues that merit prompt presidential attention, but it underscores the immediate need to channel America’s ingenuity into solving the entwined economic, climate, and environmental crises.

As members of our coalition worked tirelessly over the past few weeks to devise the plan, I noticed that many of us were grappling with the same two conflicting emotions.

The first was hope. Our meetings and conference calls had a level of excitement I have not detected in years. After two terms of failed leadership, we see the promise in a president who made solving global warming the subject of his second major policy announcement.

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NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft has confirmed (for the first time ever) the presence of water on Mars.

The Phoenix found the water in the form of ice at the Martian north pole.

I wonder if we can use any of it to replace the Texas-sized ice sheets melting away from Earth’s polar ice caps every 30 seconds or so?

takepart by joining the fight against global warming so we won’t have to go hat in hand to Marvin the Martian…

Tomorrow’s news today courtesy of the U.K.   “For the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.”  Ice retreated to a record level in September when the Northwest Passage — the sea route through the Arctic Ocean — opened up briefly for the first time in recorded history.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

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On Wednesday The New York Times (and many other news outlets) reported on an immigration/borders story that I worry many folks missed. The below paragraph really says it all:

Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all. Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom. [The New York Times]

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. This week we celebrated some of our own favorite top 10 bloggers who work night and day to provide us up-to-date info on films, literature, and feminist news. Don’t miss these exciting and informative blogs, as well as some of our most popular stories of the week.

Katie:

“La Misma Luna Under the Same Moon,” Not the Same Old Movie

Top 5 Eco-Friendly Gadgets for Under $50

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Nicole:

Top 10 Literary and Book Blogs

NBC11 First Wind Powered TV Station

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Giulia:

Top 10 Feminist Blogs

Horton: The New Mascot for Pro-Life

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Gina:

Top 10 Film Blogs

Top 10 Films I Would See If I Was At SXSW

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Kerry:

Our Pharmaceutically Fouled Water Supply

Top 7 New Sins Against God’s Green Earth

La misma luna (Under the Same Moon) is the story of Rosario and her 9 year old son, Carlito, who are separated by the U.S.-Mexico border, but united by love. The film, directed by Patricia Riggen and starring America Ferrera (Ugly Betty, Real Women Have Curves), Eugenio Derbez (Padre Nuestro), Adrian Alonso (The Legend of Zorro) as Carlito, Kate del Castillo (Bordertown) as Rosario, and featuring music by the Golden Globe-winning Los Tigres del Norte comes out on March 19th, but has already met critical acclaim at advanced screenings. It kicked off the 25th Miami International Film Festival, The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF), The San Diego Latino Film Festival, and received a standing ovation at Sundance. In the film, Rosario leaves her son in Mexico and moves to the United States to work as a maid and to raise enough money to bring her son to The States. As Rosario searches for a better life, Carlito begins a voyage from Mexico to LA, searching for his mother. The story, in which a mother must leave her son in her native Mexico to try to build him a better life in the United States, is not mere fantasy, but is based on the countless true stories in which people risk their lives to cross a border that not only separates Mexico from the U.S., but, poverty from prosperity.

Check out the trailer below.

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As if video games don’t already glorify violence, prejudice, sexism etc., now, there is a video game that teaches people how to fight against… the unfair detention and deportation of immigrants? ICED, which stands for both the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department and “I Can End Deportation,” is brought to you by Breakthrough, an international human rights organization that uses education and popular culture to promote values of dignity, equality, and justice. The game raises awareness about the draconian policies which have detained or deported of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people in the last decade. The goal of the game, in which players are in the virtual bodies of an immigrant, is to become a U.S. citizen and avoid getting deported. As the player you have to escape ICE officers, and answer questions on immigration. But if you answer questions incorrectly, or make poor decisions, you will be detained with no respect for your human rights.

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By Katie Halper

Americans can breath easy: a major terrorist threat has been averted in the nick of time. When Federal agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided a home in Conneaut, Ohio, they didn’t find the man they were looking for but something much worse: A 27-year-old Honduran woman breast feeding her 9-month old daughter. Indecent exposure in the guise of nursing was just one of her crimes. Saida Umanzor was an alien who had illegally entered the country. Face to face with this duplicitous and dangerous alien, the ICE officials did what any patriots who care about national security and love America would do: they took Umanzor’s 9 month old daughter from her mother’s breast, placed her and her sister in social services, and arrested and jailed Umanzor.

For the eleven days Umanzor was in jail, she was barred from seeing her three children including the baby Brittney who, because she had never eaten anything other than breast milk, ate nothing for three days. Because Umanzor was unable to nurse and express her milk, she experienced painful breast engorgement.

Saida Umanzor, her five-year-old son, and her husband are all under house arrest and await deportation. Brittney and her sister, both born in the U.S.A, will be allowed to stay and live the American Dream their relatives parents and brother don’t deserve.

Because of totally unwarranted outrage around the story, ICE changed its policy on the treatment of nursing women. Luckily ICE isn’t totally capitulating to the immigrantista agenda. An ICE spokeswoman explained: “Parents are putting their children in these difficult situations.” Umanzor put her child in this dangerous situation the second she put her at her breast. If only people who risked their lives entering the country, in part, perhaps, to give their children a better lives, would stop being so selfish and start thinking about their children.