Tag Archives: nation

The Beekeeper’s Lament – Hannah Nordhaus

by Myrna Posted on April 14, 2018

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Beekeeper’s Lament

How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America

Hannah Nordhaus

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: May 24, 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins e-books

Seller: HarperCollins


“You’llnever think of bees, their keepers, or the fruits (and nuts) of their laborsthe same way again.” —Trevor Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters Award-winning journalist Hannah Nordhaus tells the remarkable story of John Miller, one of America’s foremost migratory beekeepers, and the myriad and mysterious epidemics threatening American honeybee populations. In luminous, razor-sharp prose, Nordhaus explores the vital role that honeybees play in American agribusiness, the maintenance of our food chain, and the very future of the nation. With an intimate focus and incisive reporting, in a book perfect for fans of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire,and John McPhee’s Oranges, Nordhaus’s stunning exposé illuminates one the most critical issues facing the world today,offering insight, information, and, ultimately, hope.

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The Beekeeper’s Lament – Hannah Nordhaus

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Native American tribes come together to protect Bears Ears from Trump

by LethaDevore Posted on March 23, 2018

This story was originally published by HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Members of the Native American tribes that once came together to petition for the creation of Bears Ears National Monument gathered near the site Sunday to share stories about their connections to the sprawling landscape that the Trump administration recently stripped of certain federal protections.

Named after a pair of buttes, Bears Ears is home to thousands of Native American archeological and cultural sites and is considered sacred to many tribes. Tribal elders and other members of the Navajo Nation, Hopi, Zuni, and Ute Mountain Ute tribes made it clear at the gathering that they are focused on ensuring the area is given the protections they believe it deserves: nothing less than the 1.35 million acres set aside by President Barack Obama in 2016.

Malcolm Lehi, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe who lives near White Mesa, said energy is building in indigenous communities, and lawmakers and government officials can’t turn a blind eye.

“It’s a really strong movement,” he said. “I like what I see.”

In December, on the recommendation of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, President Donald Trump reduced Bears Ears by 85 percent, cutting it to 201,876 acres, and divided it into two disconnected areas. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, the group of tribes that petitioned for monument status, condemned the move — which opened the door for new mining claims — and filed a legal challenge.

That Trump decided to gut Bears Ears came as no surprise, given comments he and Zinke made early in their review of the area.

The national monument designation “should never have happened” and was made “over the profound objections” of Utah citizens, Trump said at an executive order signing ceremony. And in a summary report in August, Zinke said the overwhelming number of public comments in support of maintaining the size of Bears Ears and other monuments was simply due to “a well-orchestrated national campaign organized by multiple organizations.”

The last few months have only further confirmed critics’ fears about the administration’s motives. Uranium mining company Energy Fuels Resources, a U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian firm, lobbied the administration to dramatically reduce the monument’s size, the Washington Post reported in December. And the New York Times obtained emails via a public records request that show potential future oil extraction played a central role in the decision.

The storytelling event on Sunday was organized by Utah Diné Bikéyah, a nonprofit organization working to safeguard Bears Ears and other ancestral lands, and came a little more than a week ahead of public scoping meetings that the Bureau of Land Management is hosting as it plans for how to manage the new, smaller monument.

Tara Benally, of the Navajo Nation, said Bears Ears has sustained her people for generations, and that they still use the area for religious ceremonies and to collect food and traditional medicinal plants.

“Losing Bears Ears to a cloud of industrial smoke from extraction and mining does not keep that preservation of life for us,” she said.

Clark Tenakhongva, an artist and the vice chairman of the Hopi Tribe, echoed that message. The Hopi, he said, believe they were the first to occupy this area and feel a responsibility to protect it.

“We do not want or believe that mining is good for our people,” he said at the event. “It may bring revenue, but what are we doing to the Earth?”

The tribes say they were ignored throughout the administration’s months-long review — a claim the Interior Department has dismissed. Zinke did meet with representatives of the tribal coalition last year, but for just one hour. He also toured Bears Ears with several monument opponents, including Utah’s Republican Governor Gary Herbert and commissioners of San Juan County, where the monument is located.

Zinke sparred with Arizona’s Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego on this topic during a congressional budget hearing last week. Gallego, who has introduced legislation that would protect the monument’s original boundary, asked the former Montana congressman about how many times he had met with industry representatives versus coalition members. Zinke said “all sides were represented” in his recommendation to Trump.

Gallego toured Bears Ears over the weekend and ended his visit with a stop at Utah Diné Bikéyah’s event. He told HuffPost that meeting with tribal members and hearing stories about their connections to the area only reinforced for him that the area is worth preserving. Shrinking the monument is an attack on the United States’ public lands and is “stripping parts of, I would say, people’s souls, because the Native American population here is so connected with that,” he said.

Gallego added that he expects “a monumental fight” — one he sees the Trump administration ultimately losing, whether in court or via congressional action.

“People are excited about protecting Bears Ears,” he told tribal members. “It’s something we have to continue to work on. But what I see for the first time in a long time is that the movement to protect Bears Ears is on the offense.”

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Native American tribes come together to protect Bears Ears from Trump

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Lack of snowpack leaves the West hung out to dry

by RosieEddy4 Posted on March 13, 2018

The lack of snow across the West this winter points to a parched summer ahead.

In California, Colorado, and across the Southwest, the snowfall has ranked among the lowest on record. The last four months have also been among the warmest throughout most of the region, according to a report out last week. Parts of eight states already are already under “extreme” drought conditions.

Snowy, chilly winters are critical when it comes to recharging the West’s mountain snowpack, the source of water for rivers and reservoirs during the increasingly long and hot summer days. Less snow in the mountains, in other words, means less water for everybody living below.

“I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that this winter is the stuff of nightmares for water managers in the Colorado River watershed,” says Luke Runyon, a Colorado-based public radio reporter focusing on western water. Some 40 million people in seven states depend on water from the Colorado River, and at this point, spring storms across the river’s wide drainage area would need to produce snow at more than 300 percent of the typical rate just to get back to normal for the season.

In the river’s main storage spot, Lake Mead just south of Las Vegas, Nevada, water levels are on track to fall so low that they would trigger the first-ever official shortfall late next year, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Water rationing would be the next step.

Warmer, drier winters like this one are exactly what you’d expect with climate change. A new study published earlier this month showed that over the past 100 years, more than 90 percent of snow monitoring sites throughout the West have seen a decline in snowpack. In total, that’s a loss of summertime water storage equivalent to Lake Mead.

“It is a bigger decline than we had expected,” said Philip Mote, a climate scientist at Oregon State University and lead author on the study, in a statement. “In many lower-elevation sites, what used to fall as snow is now rain.”

The evidence of dwindling snowpack is nearly everywhere you look. According to the latest information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the period between Nov. 1 and Feb. 28 was at or near the warmest and driest on record for nearly every corner of the Southwest. In Arizona, the Navajo Nation has declared a drought emergency, and farmers across the West are preparing for a dry summer, contemplating killing livestock for fear they won’t be able to feed them later this year. Last week, a 23,000-acre wildfire popped up near the Colorado-New Mexico border, a striking example of just how dry things are right now.

In California, statewide snowpack on March 1 rivaled the lowest ever measured, just 19 percent of normal. A series of big storms have since nudged that value to about 37 percent of normal — a major win in a state where every drop counts. One problem, though: New data from the California’s Water Resources Control Board show that people are using more water after last year’s relatively good rains, as usage rates are back near where they were before the state’s five-year drought. It seems that many Californians have already forgotten what they learned about how to save water.

Faith Kearns, a water scientist at the California Institute for Water Resources, says the state is already planning on varying levels of shortfalls this summer. “It’s going to be another dry year,” she says. “Our reservoirs are in decent shape from last year’s storms, but we need to continue conserving.”

It’s clear that the West’s steady and transformative slide into a drier future has already begun. This is just the start.

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Lack of snowpack leaves the West hung out to dry

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Hear ye, hear ye, the Washington state carbon tax is dead. (Again.)

by JesusSiddins0 Posted on March 2, 2018

On the first of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eighteen, the Evergreen State’s proposed carbon tax passed from this earth. Its untimely end came, as the end comes to most bills, in Legislature.

The tax plan drew its last breaths on the floor of the Washington Senate, only a few votes shy of passing through to the House. Both chambers of Washington’s state legislature are controlled by Democrats, so the fate of this bill is a testament to how hard it is to agree on a price on carbon, even among lawmakers amenable to environmental policies. (This, by the way, isn’t the first time Washington state has tried to pass an ambitious carbon tax — a $25-per-ton tax perished in 2015.)

Our dearly departed bill had a bright future ahead of it, say supporters who would have liked to see Washington become the first state in the nation to impose a tax on pollution. Instead, the young proposal was cut down before its time, leaving uncertain the fate of similar bills currently waiting in a number of other states across the country.

The tax is survived by its creators, Washington Governor Jay Inslee and the bill’s primary sponsor, Seattle Democrat Senator Reuven Carlyle. The bereaved have vowed to continue to fight for all the tax stood for.

Inslee originally proposed a $20 per ton price on carbon emissions in early January, which would have raised $3.3 billion dollars in four years. The youthful optimism of that initial tax was later tempered with the pragmatism of age, to become the bill known to friends and family as Senate Bill 6203 — levying a $12 tax per ton price on the sale or use of fossil fuels, to increase at a rate of $1.80 annually until it reached a cap of $30 per ton.

The money raised by the tax — an estimated $766 million in its first two years — would have helped the state fund things like natural disaster relief and clean energy, and not been returned to consumers in the form of a check or a tax credit as some of this bill’s predecessors would have had it.

Now the Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy — a coalition of health advocates, business leaders, and environmental groups — will propose its a “fee on pollution”* in the coming weeks, believing people overwhelmingly support a tax that funds the clean energy economy. “From the air we breathe to worsening fires and floods, we know pollution and climate change affect us every day,” says a statement from the alliance. “Dirty energy has hurt our health and our climate for years, and it’s time to start cleaning up the mess.”

So pour one out for SB 6203, gone but NEVER forgotten. We barely knew ye, SB, but we hope you’re in a greater, greener world, one where you can roam free with all the other carbon taxes of our better nature.

*This post has been updated. It previously referred to the new Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy proposal as a “carbon tax” and included a quote from the coalition’s spokesman unrelated to its current initiative.

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Hear ye, hear ye, the Washington state carbon tax is dead. (Again.)

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Energy Transfer Partners has until April to develop an oil-spill response plan for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

by AmberMsq38 Posted on December 5, 2017

Today, the president signed two proclamations drastically cutting land from two federal monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, by 80 percent and 45 percent, respectively.

When President Obama designated Bears Ears a national monument last year, it was a huge victory for five Utah tribes — the Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, Hopi, and the Pueblo of Zuni — who came together in 2015 to push for the preservation of what they estimate are 100,000 cultural and ancestral sites, some dating back to 1300 AD, in the region.

“More than 150 years ago, the federal government removed our ancestors from Bears Ears at gunpoint and sent them on the Long Walk,” Navajo Nation Council Delegate Davis Filfred said in statement. “But we came back.”

The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives the president authority to establish national monuments, largely to thwart looting of archaeological sites. Trump is the first president to shrink a monument in decades.

The five tribes have said they will bring a legal case against the administration — the outcome could redefine the president’s powers to use the Antiquities Act. “We know how to fight and we will fight to defend Bears Ears,” Filfred said.

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Energy Transfer Partners has until April to develop an oil-spill response plan for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

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How to watch the eclipse without trashing the Earth

by RandolphRagsdale Posted on August 18, 2017

The moon will pass in front of the sun on Aug. 21, cutting a swath of shadow across the country and blocking our nearest star for about two minutes in the middle of the day. Millions of Americans are traveling just to stand in the passing darkness.

The problem is, all those humans (as many as 7 million by one estimate) could do a lot of damage. The official eclipse website compares the event to “20 Woodstock festivals occurring simultaneously across the nation,” which sounds rambunctious indeed. Max Yasger’s farm took more than a month to clean up.

So here are some tips for making your Great American Eclipse as low-impact and environmentally friendly as possible.

Watch out for cars

As small towns prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime level of crowding, the potential for real emergency is high. Traffic jams are predicted for Charleston, South Carolina, and Salem, Oregon, which could make it harder for emergency services to respond to accidents in the hours surrounding the solar eclipse. Plus, hours of inhaling all those exhaust fumes take a toll on your health.

Taking a plane, train, or automobile? Looks like it’s time to research some carbon offset plans. If not, consider giving yourself and the planet a break by taking a bike or bus to your viewing site.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire

It’s wildfire season in the West, which means popular eclipse viewing sites in Oregon — where as many as a million visitors are headed — could be near an active blaze. Multiple wildfires are burning in the state.

Officials expect small fires from eclipse enthusiasts, whether from careless campers or from cars pulling over into tall, dry grass at the edge of the road. The long, wet winter has given way to a hot, dry summer, which means conditions are prime for wildfire. Even a few small fires could get out of control quickly, and evacuation routes will be clogged with tourist traffic.

All of this means officials have placed the risk of a major wildfire emergency at “moderate to high.” One fire scientist wrote: “In short, I fear a disaster; an eclipse apocalypse. I really hope I’m wrong.”

Yikes. You should check wildfire conditions near you before you head to your viewing site. And if you’re camping out for the eclipse, abide by any fire bans and make sure to put out all fires completely. For more information, the Oregon Department of Transportation has a complete guide on how to avoid starting a fire here.

Don’t be trashy

With so many eclipse chasers flocking to small towns and campgrounds along the eclipse route, a lot of garbage will be left behind. Residents of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, are already calling for volunteers to help tidy up. Some towns are putting trash cans and port-a-potties near major access routes, but even these emergency facilities are sure to be overwhelmed. Pro tip: Take your trash with you; bonus points for separating out the recyclables. Basically, don’t make a mess wherever you are. You know, just like any other day.

Be remote

Of course, the lowest-impact way to watch the solar eclipse is from afar. Even though only 14 states will experience the total eclipse of the sun, all of the lower 48 will see some degree of partial eclipse. So pick up some eclipse glasses (even more important if you’re not in the path of totality) and go stand outside on Monday.

NASA will also live-stream the entire event from multiple space crafts and weather balloons, ensuring you get a prime view, minus the traffic jams and carbon emissions. Just pretend you planned it this way all along.

Link: 

How to watch the eclipse without trashing the Earth

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Al Franken had to explain the scientific method to Rick Perry.

by FatimaAbigail Posted on June 23, 2017

The nation’s largest privately owned coal company, Murray Energy, just filed a lawsuit against the Last Week Tonight host over the show’s recent segment. Oliver had criticized the company’s CEO, Robert Murray, for acting carelessly toward miners’ safety.

Murray Energy’s complaint stated that the segment was a “meticulously planned attempt to assassinate the character and reputation” of Murray by broadcasting “false, injurious, and defamatory comments.”

Oliver shouldn’t be too concerned, according to Ken White, a First Amendment litigator at Los Angeles firm, who told the Daily Beast that the complaint was “frivolous and vexatious.”

The lawsuit is hardly a shocking development. Before the show aired, Oliver received a cease-and-desist letter from the company. He noted that Murray has a history of filing defamation suits against news outlets (most recently, the New York Times).

Oliver said in the episode, “I know that you are probably going to sue me, but you know what, I stand by everything I said.”

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Al Franken had to explain the scientific method to Rick Perry.

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We broke down Trump’s baffling speech on the “solar wall.”

by WinifredK29 Posted on June 22, 2017

The nation’s largest privately owned coal company, Murray Energy, just filed a lawsuit against the Last Week Tonight host over the show’s recent segment. Oliver had criticized the company’s CEO, Robert Murray, for acting carelessly toward miners’ safety.

Murray Energy’s complaint stated that the segment was a “meticulously planned attempt to assassinate the character and reputation” of Murray by broadcasting “false, injurious, and defamatory comments.”

Oliver shouldn’t be too concerned, according to Ken White, a First Amendment litigator at Los Angeles firm, who told the Daily Beast that the complaint was “frivolous and vexatious.”

The lawsuit is hardly a shocking development. Before the show aired, Oliver received a cease-and-desist letter from the company. He noted that Murray has a history of filing defamation suits against news outlets (most recently, the New York Times).

Oliver said in the episode, “I know that you are probably going to sue me, but you know what, I stand by everything I said.”

Source article – 

We broke down Trump’s baffling speech on the “solar wall.”

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Ringer, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized, wind energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We broke down Trump’s baffling speech on the “solar wall.”

Oil will keep flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline — for now.

by SpencerMccombs3 Posted on June 22, 2017

The nation’s largest privately owned coal company, Murray Energy, just filed a lawsuit against the Last Week Tonight host over the show’s recent segment. Oliver had criticized the company’s CEO, Robert Murray, for acting carelessly toward miners’ safety.

Murray Energy’s complaint stated that the segment was a “meticulously planned attempt to assassinate the character and reputation” of Murray by broadcasting “false, injurious, and defamatory comments.”

Oliver shouldn’t be too concerned, according to Ken White, a First Amendment litigator at Los Angeles firm, who told the Daily Beast that the complaint was “frivolous and vexatious.”

The lawsuit is hardly a shocking development. Before the show aired, Oliver received a cease-and-desist letter from the company. He noted that Murray has a history of filing defamation suits against news outlets (most recently, the New York Times).

Oliver said in the episode, “I know that you are probably going to sue me, but you know what, I stand by everything I said.”

Read this article:  

Oil will keep flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline — for now.

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Ayelet Waldman’s Resistance Reading

by GenaShinn413338 Posted on April 30, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Claire Lewis

We asked a range of authors, artists, and poets to name books that bring solace or understanding in this age of rancor. Two dozen or so responded. Here are picks from the witty and thoughtful Ayelet Waldman, whose recent book about microdosing with LSD caused a bit of a stir in the straight world.

Latest book: A Really Good Day
Also known for: Bad Mother
Reading recommendations: It was as if Mohsin Hamid knew exactly what would convulse the world when he wrote Exit West. It’s a novel about refugees, about cruelty and empathy and compassion, and in the end—oddly—about the possibility of an odd kind of redemption. I am surely not going to be the only one who recommends George Saunders‘ Lincoln in the Bardo, but listening to the audiobook (something I don’t normally do) was one of the most transporting literary experiences of my life. It was both a refuge (I’d put in my earbuds and hide from the horrors of the news) and an inspiration. Led by a brave, brilliant, and indeed tormented man, this nation rejected slavery. It is at least possible that we will one day reject racism, xenophobia, misogyny and all the various tyrannies of this foul administration and the vicious moron who leads it.
______________

So far in this series: Kwame Alexander, Margaret Atwood, W. Kamau Bell, Jeff Chang, T Cooper, Dave Eggers, Reza Farazmand, Piper Kerman, Phil Klay, Alex Kotlowitz, Bill McKibben, Rabbi Jack Moline, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Peggy Orenstein, Wendy C. Ortiz, Karen Russell, Tracy K. Smith, Ayelet Waldman, Gene Luen Yang. (New posts daily.)

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Ayelet Waldman’s Resistance Reading

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