Sarah Newman
December 15, 2008 | 5:56 pm EST
We’ve been following the mess that is the Supreme Court ruling on the controversy over the Navy’s use of sonar (which ought to be in all caps because it’s an acronym, but whatever) technology off the Southern California coastline, which is harmful to marine life (you can check our last post on the issue here, where we learn the Supreme Court ruled for the Navy).
But, apparently, the issue hadn’t been fully resolved, and today we learn from the Washington Post that the Navy and environmentalists have settled another lawsuit. From the article:
The Navy said Saturday the deal reached with the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups requires it to continue to research how sonar affects whales and other marine mammals. It doesn’t require sailors to adopt additional measures to protect the animals when they use sonar.
So, basically, this agreement sticks to the Supreme Court ruling saying sonar is allowable, but gives slight concessions to environmentalists in that the Navy will continue to figure out the specific harms done to marine life through the exercises, thus hopefully finding a way to avoid those harms.
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With only a few weeks remaining in Bush’s final term, you would assume that you could finally take a breath, relax and enjoy the waning days of his disastrous terms. However, Bush and his cronies are a bit sneakier than that and are trying to ram through some dreadful 11th hour policies that would have detrimental long-term consequences. Bush has signaled to oil companies that they can do their Christmas shopping on our treasured national lands.
Bush’s plan will open up the Redrock Wildnerness Area in Utah to mining. This pristine land is near American jewels such as Canyonlands, Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument. On December 19th, an auction will be held to the highest oil and gas bidders to sell off leases to 160,000 acres of this land for drilling.
We must stop the Bush Administration’s 11th hour attempts to inflict their final disastrous environmental policies on the American public. takepart today to sign the Natural Resources Defense Council’s petition to stop this land grab.
photo: mbgrisby, Creative Commons
Why is this the busiest time of year for the US Postal Service? Because people are sending gifts and cards as a way to express their gratitude and love to their friends and family scattered around the globe. Ok, so maybe some people don’t have such selfless intentions, but nonetheless, this is the time to send cards, both eco-friendly paperless and traditional paper ones. No matter how or what you choose to send to people, consider sending a card this year to a stranger. Yes, someone you don’t know, but a person who would genuinely appreciate a card from you-seriously. And, with our sliding economy, a card is an economical way to bring some positive change to the world.
1. Send a card to a veteran. It’s a simple way to wish happy holidays to someone who patriotically served our country.
2. Although the recent election had a record turn-out number of voters, especially amongst young people, there are still millions of people who are not registered to vote. Send a holiday greeting to an unregistered friend and tell them how to register before the next election. Voting is a civil right that we should be grateful for.
3. While this tends to be a Christmas-centric “holiday” season, strides have been made by retailers and civic leaders alike to be more inclusive of all the holidays that occur at this time of year. So, this is an opportunity for individuals to learn more about other holidays and religions. I’m not talking about sending kosher Kwanzaa-colored candy canes to friends of different faiths. I mean having a genuine dialogue to better understand and appreciate other religious traditions.
with Joel Reynolds
How do you feel when you hear a piercing fire alarm or siren? You cringe, become a bit disoriented and want to get as far away as you can from the terrible noise, right? Well, imagine you’re a whale and you hear deafening high-intensity sonar from the Navy. But, if you’re a whale, you can’t exactly flee to higher ground.
Whales, dolphins and other marine mammals depend on sound to survive in the depths of the ocean. Through sound, they are able to navigate, communicate, find food, avoid predators and find mates. However, the sonar sounds cause massive disruption to their natural way of living in the oceans, thus threatening their very survival.
While this is depressing and disturbing, our friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have been tirelessly leading the fight for more than a decade to reduce the impacts of sonar to marine mammals. Recently, a Supreme Court ruling on sonar was a slight set-back, but has further energized the organization to continue fighting for stronger protection measures when sonar is used in military training. Learn more from NRDC’s senior attorney, Joel Reynolds, about the recent Supreme Court ruling:
Supreme Court Limits Protection for Whales
by Joel Reynolds
In its first decision of the Term, the Supreme Court recently struck down by a vote of 5-4 two important safeguards that protect whales from dangerous mid-frequency sonar used during naval training off the coast of California. While we believe these safeguards are necessary to protect marine mammals, the ruling was actually very narrow and left in place four other vital safeguards that we won in the lower courts. In fact, the Court explicitly recognized that the military does not have absolute discretion but, like all of us, is subject to the rule of law. In this case, the Court majority was troubled by what it determined to be an inadequate balancing of the respective interests by the district court.
Everyone is feeling the pinch of our dismal economy. One sector that will be severely impacted by the economic woes of most Americans is non-profit organizations. Please consider a donation to one or some of those listed below. I’ve had the pleasure of working with them and have seen the successes of their courageous work. There are many more that aren’t included here; learn more about them and consider a donation to them as well.
1. More than 35 million Americans are “food insecure,” meaning they do not know where their next meal will come from. Your donation to Feeding America will help to bridge this gap. For every dollar you donate, you provide 16 bowls of food. With our serious economic decline, even more families are facing food shortages. Your critical support for this important program will help to close this gap and ensure that more people have meals this holiday season.
2. How does the gift of a goat, cow or natural resources management training translate into self-sufficiency for a family in Tanzania or a community in Nepal? Heifer International is building sustainable communities worldwide by investing directly in them with long-term solutions. Your gift will help the 60 year old organization continue its success in providing people with the tools for self-sufficiency, economic development and healthy well-being.
3. Give the gift of health. International Rescue Committee’s health basket contains medicine to prevent malaria and other diseases, materials for safe drinking water, baby delivery kits and training of local health workers. IRC asks you to be part of their journey “from harm to home” by pledging a donation this holiday season to provide much-needed health supplies for communities around the world. If your donation is in someone’s honor, they will receive a card explaining the gift.
4. Give a monkey a home. No, you don’t need to have the monkey live with you but in a beautiful tract of rainforest in Costa Rica through the Natural Resources Defense Council’s “Revive a Rainforest” campaign. Your donation of $10 will plant a rainforest tree, thereby helping to revive the Turrialba region which previously had been rainforest but is now a barren, desolate area. Read the rest of this entry »
Melting polar ice caps, extinction of endangered species, worsening air pollution, wildfires, droughts, spread of diseases. These are all frightening effects of global warming that make me want to takepart to further reduce my personal contribution. What do they mean to you?
Well, you could be part of the 1/5 of the general US public that doesn’t believe global warming is happening. Yes, it’s not just Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney who are the naysayers but a whopping 60 million Americans. I think part of the problem is the phrase “global warming.” An increase of one or two degrees on the planet will have drastic effects on its delicate ecological balance but people might be able to ignore (to some degree) how it affects their daily lives. And, some people might think that having Miami Beach weather in Seattle might be a good thing (though I don’t know if culturally people in Seattle would be happy about that). However, global warming doesn’t mean warmer temperatures everywhere. It means chaos on the planet with warming in some places, colder temperatures in others and a complete churning of the intricate, delicate balance of nature.
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The Bush Administration is pushing through their final, 11th hour regulations that are the icing on the cake after eight painful years of their attacks on many health, environmental and civil protections that were legislated at the state and federal level in the past century. Of their 90 proposed changes, the majority will weaken standards designed to protect consumers, the environment and wolves. Yes, wolves. It’s not just Sarah Palin and her cronies who like to attack wolves but also the Bush Administration (of no surprise).
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Administration’s new plan could kill up to 1,000 gray wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho in one year! The organization says this dangerous proposal could “unleash state-sponsored massacres that could push gray wolves back to the brink of extinction.”
Takepart today to protect our nation’s gray wolves by sending a letter to Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne.
*photo from dobak’s flickr stream (creative commons)
A few months back, I wrote about the unexpectedly welcome news that President Bush asked his cabinet for a plan to protect the waters around some of the most remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, including the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot on earth. We read that, and we thought, “Huh. That’s pretty awesome. We’ll put this one in the win column for this administration.”
Aaaaaannnnnd…not so fast. There are objections to the plan. And, not from the most helpful of places. Richard Dreyfuss The Penguin Vice President Dick Cheney is not onboard with this idea, at all. The Washington Post reports (and, yes, sorry about the cheap dig at the Vice President…they’re not even original jokes, and all joking aside, I have heard he’s a nice man, in person):
Vice President Cheney and some officials in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have argued that the plan could hurt the region’s economy by barring fishing and energy exploration.
Ah, yes. Money. It always comes down to money.
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We tend to not always speak too highly of the Environmental Protection Agency on these pages, so I think it’s important we take a moment and note the good news that the EPA today ordered that the amount of lead in the air be reduced by ninety percent. MSNBC reports that this is the first update to the lead standard in 30 years, when leaded gasoline was phased out of use (hence why all our gas is still called unleaded, in case you hadn’t ever actually thought about that).
Some environmental groups are concerned about the ability of the EPA to actually monitor this change. Gina Soloman of the Natural Resources Defense Council says,
With less than 200 air lead monitors nationwide, scientists don’t even know how much lead is in the air in most communities…Now that the EPA has recognized the severity of lead exposure, it must rebuild the monitoring network.
The EPA issued the guidelines following a court ruling that ordered the agency to review its lead standards. But hey, whatever works, eh?
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You may not be intimately familiar with the Kingston Trio, a folk group that originated in then 1950’s, probably best known for their reinterpration of “Tom Dooley,” or their original, “The MTA.” In case you are aware of the group, then you’ll also find it sad that Nick Reynolds, a founding member of the trio, passed away on Wednesday in San Diego.
In celebration of the man and the group, here’s a video of the group in its heyday performing the classic “The MTA,” with Mr. Reynolds on vocals.
A sad event, indeed. In reading the obituary on the Trio’s website, I noticed that in lieu of flowers, “Nick’s family suggests memorial contributions be made to the Natural Resources Defense Council.” I can’t think of a better time than now to do so, in the memory of a great musician. So takepart and visit the website for the NRDC, and give if you can. And here’s another classic Trio track.
