Category Archives: Landmark

How Farmers Can Help Fight Climate Change

by Aaron Small Posted on July 11, 2013

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel’s Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, “Yes, […]

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Following Atticus – Tom Ryan

After a close friend died of cancer, middle-aged, overweight, acrophobic newspaperman Tom Ryan decided to pay tribute to her in a most unorthodox manner. Ryan and his friend, miniature schnauzer Atticus M. Finch, would attempt to climb all forty-eight of New Hampshire’s four thousand- foot peaks twice in one winter while raising money for charity. It wa […]

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Kids Puzzle Fun #1 – Lovatts Crosswords & Puzzles

Junior puzzlers will enjoy hours of quality entertainment with the first issue of Kids Puzzle Fun! This interactive book features ‘Magic Touch’ drawing tools, allowing kids to solve the puzzles by using their finger as a pen. Magic Touch unites the tactile feel of a printed book with a superior digital format, resulting in a more natural, intuitive experienc […]

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How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend – Monks of New Skete

For nearly a quarter century, How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend has been the standard against which all other dog-training books have been measured. This new, expanded edition, with a fresh new design and new photographs throughout, preserves the best features of the original classic while bringing the book fully up-to-date. The result: the ultimate trai […]

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Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draw […]

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Projects for Kids – Authors and Editors of Instructables

21 Projects Guaranteed to Keep Your Kids Occupied This Weekend give you full step-by-step instructions for 21 amazing kids activities that your family will love. Learn how to entertain your kids with the DoodleBot360, LED Throwies, Grow Your Own Magic Crystal Tree, the Marshmallow Shooter and other projects that are sure to hold your child’s atten […]

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The Honest Life – Jessica Alba

As a new mom, Jessica Alba wanted to create the safest, healthiest environment for her family. But she was frustrated by the lack of trustworthy information on how to live healthier and cleaner—delivered in a way that a busy mom could act on without going to extremes. In 2012, with serial entrepreneur Brian Lee and environmental advocate Christopher Gavigan, […]

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America’s most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of German shepherds and as t […]

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Index Astartes: Librarians – Games Workshop

Librarians are the lore keepers and psykers of the Adeptus Astartes, recording the Chapters long and glorious histories. Each Librarian is a formidable foe, able to call upon the power of Warp to smite the enemies of the Imperium with righteous fire and furious anger. About this Series: The Adeptus Astartes are genetically engineered warriors, created by the […]

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Paracord Fusion Ties – Volume 1 – J.D. Lenzen

J.D. Lenzen is the creator of the highly acclaimed YouTube channel “Tying It All Together”, and the producer of over 200 instructional videos. He’s been formally recognized by the International Guild of Knot Tyers (IGKT) for his contributions to knotting, and is the originator of fusion knotting-innovative knots created through the merging of […]

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How Farmers Can Help Fight Climate Change

Posted in aquaponics, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, Landmark, Monterey, ONA, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged africa, agriculture, business, change, china, magic, puzzles, science | Comments Off

5 Gorgeous Landmarks Threatened by Rising Seas

by Donekola Posted on July 10, 2013

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Because of climate change, postcard-perfect lighthouses, parks, and seaside city blocks could soon be swallowed into the ocean. So, you spent last weekend celebrating American independence with patriotic fervor and you’re now enthused about the preservation of American history and culture and all things awesome and bygone. Right? Keep that historical buzz going for a moment to contemplate five sites the National Trust for Historic Preservation—the country’s preservers-in-chief—thinks are most vulnerable to flooding caused by sea level rise. Even though the the Trust fields regular requests for planning assistance from coastal cities across country, the group says no comprehensive models yet exist to address sea level rise and its threat to historic landmarks. That’s bad, says Anthony Veerkamp, a program director with the Trust, because without first taking stock of what we might lose, “inevitably there will be adaptation strategies that do lesser or greater harm to historic resources.” Here are five sites the Trust are most worried about: 1. San Francisco’s Embarcadero California’s Bay Area can expect sea levels to rise by up to 55 inches by the end of the century, putting an estimated 270,000 people and $62 billion worth of San Francisco urbanbling at risk of increased flooding. That presents a major challenge to the three-mile stretch of San Francisco’s downtown Embarcadero district, which features more than twenty historic piers, a bulkhead wharf in twenty-one sections, a seawall built in the late 1800s, and the iconic Ferry Building, fully commissioned in 1903. California’s seasonal king tides already overflow San Francisco’s sea walls and occasionally spill into the Embaracadero, providing a preview for what might happen more regularly if sea levels continue to rise. 2. New York City’s Battery When Superstorm Sandy slammed New York City, waters surged with the added force of a high spring tide over Lower Manhattan’s sea walls, producing a “storm tide” more than 14 feet above the average, smashing a 50-year record. In the Battery—that most southern tip of Manhattan from where New York City boomed—flood waters rose in Castle Clinton, a fortress built to prevent a British invasion in 1812, now a museum and entry point for historical tours of New York harbor. Castle Clinton itself was transformed into New York’s first immigration facility: 8 million people entered the US through here (then called Castle Garden) from 1855-1890. The New York City Panel on Climate Change predicts flooding like this at the Battery will beup to five times more likely by mid-century. 3. Miami Beach Miami Beach might nowadays conjure images of bared flesh and art parties, but accompanying the polished pecs is a unique collection of Art Deco, Mediterranean Revival, and MiMo architecture (Miami Modernism is a flamboyant post-World War II style featuring sweeping curved walls, pylons, and stucco-colored avant garde shapes). “Miami beach is remarkably vulnerable,” Veerkamp says. “You’ve got threats coming from both sides, from the bay and the Atlantic.” The EPA suggests that, by the year 2100, there is a 50 percent chance of a 20-inch sea-level rise at Miami Beach. The majority of the city is a flood zone: the OECD lists Miami as the number-one most vulnerable city worldwide in terms of property damage, Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone writes in his definitive article “Goodbye, Miami“, with more than $416 billion in assets at risk. 4. Gay Head Lighthouse, Mass. Perched on a spectacular escarpment in Martha’s Vineyard, the Gay Head Lighthouse was first lit in 1856 (for lighthouse nerds, it was one of the first in the US to receive a first-order Fresnel lens, which has a jagged-surface that uses less glass and allows light to be projected over greater distances than previous models). The National Trust for Historical Preservation says the lighthouse is in danger of toppling over the edge of the Gay Head Cliffs, a consequence of a century’s worth of erosion which the Trust says is being accelerated by climate change-induced storms. It is estimated that in two years, there will not be enough land left to accommodate the machinery and equipment needed to move the tower. 5. Historic Downtown Annapolis

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5 Gorgeous Landmarks Threatened by Rising Seas

Climate Change Will Drive Up Manhattan’s Heat-Related Death Toll
After Sandy, Scientists Hunt for Sewage in New York City’s Harbors
Climate Change Is Making Canada Look More Like the United States
Finally, Some Not-Terrible Climate News: Greenland Not Melting Any Faster
Scientists Map Swirling Ocean Eddies for Clues to Climate Change

What’s up with Gina McCarthy’s nomination to head the EPA?

by muistenam Posted on July 2, 2013

What’s up with Gina McCarthy’s nomination to head the EPA?

By Claire Thompson

Reuters/Jason Roberts

Many of Obama’s nominees have not been popular with Republicans in the Senate, but Gina McCarthy has faced a particularly tough fight. GOP senators boycotted a committee vote on her nomination two months ago, mostly because of their knee-jerk hatred of all things related to the EPA (or, as some prefer to call it, the job-killing organization of America).

McCarthy has a reputation as a tough and experienced policymaker committed to fighting climate change, whose work as Massachusetts’ top environmental advisor contributed to the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 ruling giving EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. She’s worked for Republicans as well as Democrats and collaborated constructively with industry, but that background hasn’t calmed GOP worries about what the EPA might do on climate change.

Over recent months, McCarthy repeatedly assured senators that the EPA was not working on carbon regulations for existing power plants. But then last week, Obama announced in his big climate speech that he planned to order EPA to develop just such regulations. Politico reported last week that this could further endanger McCarthy’s nomination because GOP lawmakers might accuse her of misleading them or argue that she was out of touch and incompetent (although the only people Politico quoted to support that theory were an oil-industry lobbyist and a GOP energy strategist).

But now, a week later, Politico reports that, on the contrary, a McCarthy confirmation is looking increasingly likely. Enough Republicans are philosophically opposed to filibustering presidential nominees that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, says she isn’t concerned about having to lock up 60 filibuster-proof votes in McCarthy’s favor.

Some Republican senators, like Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), find McCarthy qualified and seem likely to support her. So do some fossil-fuel-friendly Democrats, reports Politico:

“My constituents are generally very upset with the EPA and [its] overreach and [its] overregulation,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said.

“Having said that, I have honestly gotten nothing but positive comments back from the industry groups in Louisiana on Gina McCarthy herself. I mean, while the industry groups are very negative towards the EPA generally, they are very positive towards Gina McCarthy as a person … that could potentially find compromises on some of these things.”

Democratic Senate leaders plan to put McCarthy up for a vote sometime this month. As of Monday, EPA has been without a permanent administrator for 137 days, the longest period of time in its history. It’s been 119 days since McCarthy’s nomination, also a record delay.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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What’s up with Gina McCarthy’s nomination to head the EPA?

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, Landmark, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged article, court, environment, gop, massachusetts, obama, Ona, republicans | Comments Off

This Is What a Multimillionaire Calling In His Chits Looks Like

by BenjamingBolton Posted on June 14, 2013

Mother Jones

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Art Pope is the conservative mega-donor in North Carolina whose millions helped usher in Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature in 2010, and who dropped millions more in 2012 to elect Republican Gov. Pat McGrory. Perhaps to say thanks, McGrory promptly named Pope, a former board member of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity group, the state’s new budget director.

One of Pope’s pet causes has been killing North Carolina’s public funding program for judicial elections, an aim of his when he served in the state legislature. The NC Public Campaign Fund, as it’s known, provides judicial candidates with taxpayer money to fund their campaigns so long as they collect 350 or more small donations from registered voters and also abide by campaign spending limits. The program is popular: Since its launch in 2004, 80 percent of judicial candidates in contested race for state Supreme Court and North Carolina Court of Appeals have used it. In May, 14 of the 15 judges on Court of Appeals, judges who represent both parties, urged state lawmakers to preserve the program. “Our current system of nonpartisan judicial elections supplemented by public financing is an effective and valuable tool for protecting public confidence in the impartiality and independence of the judiciary,” the judges said.

North Carolina’s judicial public financing program gets its money from a $3 check box on state tax forms and a $50 annual fee paid by attorneys. The budget proposed by North Carolina Republicans would suck all the money out of the elections fund and eliminate its funding sources, a death blow to the program. But as Chris Kromm of Facing South writes, state Rep. Jonathan Jordan, a Republican, had a fix. He offered a budget amendment that would preserve the $50 attorney fee while still sucking out all the fund’s money and eliminating the taxpayer check-box. Although Jordan’s amendment would hurt the fund in the short term, the attorneys fees would replenish it over time. Other Republicans liked this idea.

That’s when Art Pope called in his chits:

Soon after Jordan’s amendment was filed the next day, the multimillionaire GOP donor and budget director for Republican Gov. Pat McCrory made a rare visit to the General Assembly and took Jordan aside. When the impromptu meeting with Pope ended, Jordan made an abrupt U-turn and dropped the amendment.

The amendment died—and with it chances of saving North Carolina’s pioneering judicial program.

Art Pope took a direct role in killing the landmark election reform measure even though his presence as budget director wasn’t needed, since Jordan’s amendment was revenue-neutral. His involvement highlights the unique power Pope holds as both a top campaign donor to state lawmakers and the highest ranking member of McCrory’s cabinet.

It also marks the culmination of a more than decade-long crusade by Pope to dismantle judicial public financing and other reforms that aim to curb the clout of big donors like himself in North Carolina politics.

Why, you might ask, would Jordan so easily abandon his amendment? Well, the money trail is a good place to start:

When Jordan first ran for office in 2010, he was one of two dozen Republicans that benefited from a flood of money Pope poured into elections, helping the GOP capture the state legislature.

That year, Jordan received $16,000 in campaign contributions from Pope and his close family, the maximum allowed by law. On top of that, three groups backed by Pope—Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Action, and Real Jobs NC—shoveled more than $91,500 into election spending on Jordan’s behalf, bringing Pope’s total investment in launching Jordan’s legislative career to more than $107,000.

But Pope’s connection to Rep. Jordan goes back even further. In the late 1990s, Jordan spent two years as research director at the John Locke Foundation, one of a network of conservative groups in North Carolina largely funded by Art Pope’s family foundation.

In an email to the News and Observer newspaper, Pope declined to comment on his talk with Rep. Jordan. “Of course the governor’s recommended budget proposed to stop giving taxpayer dollars to political campaigns,” Pope said. “That position has not changed, and I have stated this to the legislators, members of the public, and organizations such as Common Cause when they have asked about the issue.”

Episodes like these are what make North Carolina such a fascinating case study. On the one hand, you have Pope, an ideologue who gave handsomely to conservative causes for decades and now controls North Carolina’s budget. On the other, there is a progressive groundswell pushing back against Pope, McGrory, and the Republican majorities in the legislature. But in this case, the imminent death of North Carolina’s judicial funding program shows just how much clout a single donor can have.

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This Is What a Multimillionaire Calling In His Chits Looks Like

Posted in FF, GE, Landmark, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged courts, dark money, elections, landmark, money in politics, Ona, politics, venta | Comments Off

FEMA Report: Climate Change Could Increase Areas At Risk of Flood by 45%

by Myrna Posted on June 13, 2013

A landmark study finds climate change could have a huge impact on the National Flood Insurance Program. Clean-up in Breezy Point following Hurricane Sandy, November 5, 2012. Bryan Smith/ZUMAPRESS.com Rising seas and increasingly severe weather are expected to increase the areas of the US at risk of floods by up to 45 percent by 2100, according to a first-of-its-kind report released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday. These changes could double the number of flood-prone properties covered by the National Flood Insurance Program and drastically increase the costs of floods, the report finds. The report concludes that climate change is likely to expand vastly the size and costs of the 45-year-old government flood insurance program. Like previous government reports, it anticipates that sea levels will rise an average of four feet by the end of the century. But this is what’s new: The portion of the US at risk for flooding, including coastal regions and areas along rivers, will grow between 40 and 45 percent by the end of the century. That shift will hammer the flood insurance program. Premiums paid into the program totaled $3.2 billion in 2009, but that figure could grow to $5.4 billion by 2040 and up to $11.2 billion by the year 2100, the report found. The 257-page study has been in the works for nearly five years and was finally released by FEMA after multiple inquiries from Climate Desk and Mother Jones. As of 2013, the NFIP insures 5.6 million properties. But by the end of 2100, that number could grow to as many as 11.2 million. The report attributes only 30 percent of the increased risk of flooding to population growth; 70 percent is due to climate change. FEMA designates what are known as special flood hazard areas, where there is a 1 percent risk in any given year of a major flood occurring. (They’re also known as 100-year floodplains.) If you have a federally backed mortgage on your home and it’s in a special flood hazard area, you are required by law to carry flood insurance. As of 2013, the NFIP insures 5.6 million properties. But that number could double by 2100, to as many as 11.2 million, the report found. Having to insure twice as many properties would be a big deal for the NFIP. It generally works like any other insurance program, using the premiums that policy holders pay in each year to cover losses when they occur. But the program has been walloped by major storms in the past decade. The NFIP went $16 billion in debt on Hurricane Katrina, and after Sandy will be $25 billion in the hole, a debt it may be unable repay. The report projects that the average loss on each insured property could increase as much as 90 percent by 2100. If future storm victims aren’t forced to eat their losses, taxpayers may have to cover the difference. The FEMA study is based on the assumption that sea levels will go up by four feet in the next 86 years. But a report released last year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted that sea level rise could be more than six feet. Whether it’s four feet or six feet, rising seas cause shoreline erosion and recession, and create greater surge risk in the event of major storms. The FEMA report also notes that flooding around rivers will likely become worse in a warming world, due to changes in precipitation frequency and intensity. Population growth, which causes increases in paved areas and changes in runoff patterns and drainage systems, will affect the amount of flooding from rivers, the FEMA report notes. The FEMA findings paint a grim picture for an insurance program that is already debt-laden and is one of the largest fiscal liabilities for the US government. The projections for climate costs make it appear much less likely that the program will ever be fiscally sound without significant changes. The report warns that future payments from the program “may be larger than the NFIP’s current funding and borrowing structure accommodates.” Climate change has been conspicuously absent from the formulation of FEMA’s projections. But this report finds that climate change is a major driver of increased flood risk, and FEMA is expected to start considering climate change as it draws up maps highlighting areas that could face future flooding. The average price of policies would need to increase by as much as 70 percent to offset projected losses. Climate change will likely make flood insurance much more expensive for the federal government, but also for individual policyholders. Right now, a number of homeowners who get their flood insurance from the federal government pay subsidized rates. But for the program to stay solvent, the average price of policies would need to increase by as much as 70 percent to offset projected losses, according to the FEMA report. That means individual policyholders who now pay an average rate of $560 per year could have to pay as much as $952 per year by 2100. The report, which was put together by the consulting firm AECOM, states that it is intended to serve as a “scoping-level study” and is not a set of policy recommendations. The point is to “serve as the foundation for more refined analysis as the science of climate change advances.” View the original here – FEMA Report: Climate Change Could Increase Areas At Risk of Flood by 45% Related Articles How Climate Change Makes Wildfires Worse Samantha Power’s Climate Silence Methane Leaks Could Negate Climate Benefits of US Natural Gas Boom: Report

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FEMA Report: Climate Change Could Increase Areas At Risk of Flood by 45%

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European Officials Move To Curb Overfishing

by Myrna Posted on May 30, 2013

Officials hailed the deal as a landmark agreement, but environmentalists said it might not be ambitious enough. Visit source: European Officials Move To Curb Overfishing ; ;Related ArticlesAbout New York: Going All Out in Support of Indian PointNational Briefing | New England: Massachusetts: State Sues Over Cod LimitsJapan Suspends Some Imports of U.S. Wheat ;

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European Officials Move To Curb Overfishing