With mid-term elections closing in, politicians are out doing their hand-shaking, baby-kissing thing. They’re also collecting campaign contributions, including nearly $14 million contributed so far, just to the 2010 election cycle, by the oil and gas industry. That kind of money says Don’t forget us when you’re in office. Unfortunately, wildlife doesn’t have the luxury of buying loyalty from representatives. That’s why Defenders of Wildlife is calling on Congress to donate all oil company campaign contributions to help save wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some people argue that oiled birds are better off dead because it takes so many resources to clean, rehabilitate and release — as much as tens of thousands of dollars per bird — and then many of them don’t even make it. But if I had to choose between throwing millions of dollars at that effort, or funding my representatives’ campaigns, my vote would be on the wildlife. Every time.

But it’s not just the birds and other animals showing up covered in oil that need help; the disaster threatens the survival of entire species. Earlier this week, a batch of critically endangered baby Kemp’s ridley sea turtles was released into the Gulf of Mexico. Todd Steiner, director of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, thinks it was a mistake. “We believe they’re going to get into the oil and die.”

How long could it take before the waters are healthy again for marine life? Well, 20 years after the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, oil is still impacting wildlife in the area.

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed its sixth oil-related lawsuit against the government this week, and plans to file at least two more. They’re calling for a new analysis on the impact of offshore drilling on endangered whales and sea turtles because the last report said that drilling really didn’t pose much of a threat to wildlife. Miyoko Sakashita, the Center’s oceans director said, “Like Obama’s April 2 statement that ‘oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills’ … the government must revisit its slipshod analysis that oil drilling poses no risk to the Gulf’s endangered species.”

Instead of fueling politics with money from Big Oil, our government should be focusing on restoring the Gulf and protecting wildlife from corporate interests. Tell your representatives and senators to donate any and all campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry to support local Gulf charities working to save wildlife. Now is the time for government officials to start doing the right thing.

Photo credit: LDWF Biologist Rescues Oiled Sea Turtle

Congress Should Donate Oil Company Campaign Contributions to Save Gulf Wildlife

In an unsurprising move, Senate majority leader Harry Reid made it official this afternoon. He announced he would introduce an “admittedly narrow, limited” energy bill that contains no greenhouse gas provisions and maybe even no renewable electricity mandate. The votes, he said, just weren’t there.

“It’s easy to count to 60,” said Reid, according to Politico. “I could do it by the time I was in eighth grade. My point is this, we know where we are. We know we don’t have the votes.”

Despite tireless climate champion Sen. John Kerry’s  vague assurances that he will keep negotiating for a cap on carbon emissions at some future point in time, Democrats just gave up on the last, best chance to pass a global warming measure anytime soon.  How often does an oil spill Armageddon come along to illustrate why this matters? And the Democrat majority ain’t getting any bigger in November, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world gets it. For god’s sake, even China — America’s eternally convenient climate punching bag  — is reportedly on the verge of establishing a mandatory carbon trading program by 2015.

Looking for someone to blame for this sad state of affairs? Here are a few options:

1) Beholden Democrats: If Republicans go down in flames together, Dems are the stumbling drunks who wouldn’t know party discipline if it hit them upside the head. A few from states such as Louisiana and Nebraska, beholden to their home-state energy interests, balked at any measures to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Even Sen. Reid screwed things up when he suggested he would make politically convenient (for him) immigration reform a priority over climate. Compared to the House-passed version from a year ago, the failed bill was already watered down to cover only electric utilities — even that would only secure only some 53 Democrat votes. Hence, we can also blame:

2) Promiscuous Republicans: The John Boehners and James Inhofes of the Senate would probably wait until the Earth looked like it belonged in The Day After Tomorrow before voting for a climate bill. But some more moderate GOPers, notably South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe played coy — teasing their support for a compromise that they abandoned in the end.

3) Mr. Clean Energy Revolution himself: Green groups have been torn of late about whether to go attack President Obama’s lame climate campaign or whether to pull their punches for the best hope they’ve got. Obama never gave a rousing speech dedicated to climate change and never pulled out the big guns in lobbying for what was supposedly one of his top policy priorities coming into office, as Dot Earth’s Andy Revkin sums up so well.

4) Greedy Power Companies: After Big Oil and Big Manufacturing eked out a pass from the climate bill in the end — it came down to electric utilities, which represent a major portion of U.S. emissions. Would they go-it-alone? Some executives did in fact negotiate in good faith for a bill they could live with. But, sensing their leverage, they also tried to win major exemptions from existing air pollution rules, making the negotiations a tough pill for liberals to swallow in the end.

5) Big Green vs. Grassy Green? The environmental world is increasingly fractured between two camps (see #4 above). Big Green groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, believe the best strategy to win a climate bill is to negotiate politically realistic compromises with energy interests. Grassroots groups such as Greenpeace or 350.org are less willing to settle and believe a push from below is the key missing piece. Both ideally want the same thing in the end, but this division of interests is not helping anyone.

In the end, there is no one person, industry or group who killed this bill. But, I’m honestly disappointed in President Obama for not doing more to back up Sen. Reid. The health care bill and the financial reform bill looked bleak, but in those cases, our leader would not settle for inaction. As always for climate, here’s to next year.

Photo Credit: Sister 72, Flickr User

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Who Killed the Climate Bill?

Years ago she moved to the San Fernando Valley with her boyfriend looking for work. He was a union welder for 30 years. The work ended and because of health issues they ended up homeless.

Together they have collected unemployment benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability payments but now they’re separated so she has to resort to panhandling to make ends meet.

That’s Funny, She Doesn’t Look Homeless

Currently, the agency is accepting public comments on whether or not it should finally regulate coal ash as the hazardous substance that it obviously is. (Sign our petition to tell EPA that coal ash is hazardous.) But before it could do that, EPA had to quit promoting a permissive coal ash recycling program, which a hazardous designation could in part end.

Earlier this month, the EPA took down a web page an industry partnership program that promoted the reuse of coal ash in products ranging from consumer goods and building materials to soil treatments for farms. On the one hand, recycling makes sense: Coal ash is the nation’s second largest waste stream (right behind the waste generated by coal mining itself, actually.) If we have to do something with all that waste then some of the recycling options, for instance as a replacement for cement in concrete, are good ways to safely lock away the toxins.

On the other hand, many other reuses make no sense whatsoever and can lead to severe health and environmental problems. Ash, for example, is being used in drywall in people’s homes, for example, and as fill dirt in construction projects, where it can contaminate groundwater.

And just as plenty of soda bottle end up in landfills, not all coal ash gets recycled. Only about 44 percent of the 140 million tons of coal ash we generated 2008 got  reused. Coal burners dumped much of the rest in giant, unlined slurry ponds, where the toxins  can easily leech into groundwater and local waterways. Back in December 2008, a retaining wall in one of these ponds failed at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Harriman plant, catastrophically releasing as much as 2.6 million cubic yards of ash slurry into a tributary of the Tennessee River.

You can use this handy petition to submit your own public comment and tell both EPA and King Coal that Americans refuse to be poisoned by dirty energy any longer.

We need lots of comments submitted to the EPA, so if you only have time to sign one petition, that’s the one to sign. But if you want to do even more to help, you’re in luck.

Predictably, the coal industry’s allies in Congress are fighting back. Senators Brownback and Conrad are trying to pressure the EPA into rejecting federal coal ash disposal standards. You can sign a petition calling on your Senators to oppose any effort to undermine the EPA’s authority.

Photo credit: Wade Payne/Greenpeace

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Speak Up And Tell The EPA To Regulate Coal Ash As A Hazardous Substance

As a legislator, McDonnell was chief sponsor and author of a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marriage. McDonnell’s Web site proudly boasts that he was twice named “Legislator of the Year” by the Virginia Family Foundation, an ultra-conservative group. As governor, in February 2010, he signed an executive order banning discrimination against state workers on the basis of race, sex, religion and age — but not sexual orientation, as his predecessors had done. A month later, after much criticism, he issued an executive directive (not as strong as an executive order), saying that he would not tolerate discrimination of any kind, including that based on sexual orientation. And his Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli forced the halt of a proposed state regulatory change that would have allowed government employees to add same-sex partners to their state health benefits.

McDonnell’s former in-law, however — the divorced spouse of his wife’s sister — is transgender. In April, at an LGBT-rights rally held by Equality Virginia, she announced to the crowd, “I am father to three of the present governor’s nephews and nieces.” She said she wants to use her association with the governor to advance LGBT rights, especially because she fears her personal situation may have “hardened” some of his views.

The Washington Post has a long piece today on Deane, and reports that several LGBT activists are skeptical of Deane’s motives. Sen. A. Donald McEachin (D-Richmond), an advocate of LGBT rights, told WaPo that “several activists have told him they are worried that Deane will shift attention from the cause to her,” and that “It’s incumbent to all of us to keep the issue front and center. The more all of us do to speak out about the issue, the more it becomes about the issue.”

Wait just a minute. The “issue” here is civil rights — and civil rights are about people. One cannot separate them from the people whom they affect.

Yes, there are those whose activism seems motivated by the desire for personal fame rather than truly benefiting the cause. I have no idea if Deane is that kind of a person. I also hope that the comments about her are not motivated by transphobia. On the other hand, she is related to the governor through a marriage that has ended, which seems a tenuous connection — but tenuous or not, the situation also reflects that more and more non-LGBT people will at some point in their lives know someone who is LGBT.

These connections are critical for equality. Research from the Pew Center has found that “People who have a close gay friend or family member are more likely to support gay marriage and they are also significantly less likely to favor allowing schools to fire gay teachers than are those with little or no personal contact with gays.” It does not seem like a stretch to think this would apply to those who know transgender people as well.

Imagine what would happen if every LGBT friend, relative, and ex-relative connected to anti-LGBT politicians made themselves publicly known, in addition to having private conversations with the official. It would be no guarantee that the politicians would change their minds, but it would make it much more awkward for them to justify their positions.

Come out. Be visible. That is perhaps the oldest and simplest tactic in the LGBT-rights handbook. Could it also be the most effective?

Photo credit: Conk 9

Six Degrees of Bob McDonnell

The “as if” at the end of this public service announcement immediately makes me think of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. And while this might seem pretty flippant for a commercial about rape, I think that’s what really makes this spot work. It’s so utterly ludicrous to think of a woman standing in front of the mirror, trying to decide what skirt will make a guy have sex with her against her will, and asking the sales lady for advice on rape fashion.

The Scots are hardly the only ones to blame women for wearing “revealing” clothing if they get raped. I’m not going to get deeply into the arbitrary designation of what is “revealing” or not, and how that depends on individual and cultural perspective. I won’t dive in about how a woman who want to dress up in a cute skirt maybe looking for somebody she’d like to have consensual sex with isn’t offering all men an open invitation to rape her if they have the urge. I like this ad, and I’ll let its mockery mostly speak for itself. Nobody asks to be raped. Ever. It’s as simple as that.

Scots Make it Clear: My Skirt Isn’t Asking You to Rape Me

Due to an increased global demand for the fish’s meat, shark populations have seriously plummeted in recent years. According to Oceana, more than 100 million sharks are killed every year for their meat, oftentimes through “finning,” a brutal process where fishermen cut off sharks’ fins and throw their bodies into the ocean to die. In other cases, sharks get trapped and killed as bycatch during longline tuna fishing. Some species of shark have declined by as much as 99 percent. Sharks may reign at the top of the ocean’s food chain, but the fish’s survival is nothing short of precarious.

The severity of the shark situation is well-documented, yet stores and restaurants across the world still serve up shark meat. Even Henry’s Farmers Markets, a grocery store chain, sells shark meat, despite the store’s supposed commitment to providing products that “support a healthy lifestyle.” I’ve got news for you, Henry’s: Shark meat isn’t healthy for people, and it sure as heck isn’t healthy for ocean ecosystems.

This whole situation begs the question of why shark meat is so popular in the first place. Historically, only the most uppercrust families in China consumed shark fin soup. But recently, the soup’s popularity expanded exponentially, and is now eaten throughout Asia by middle and upper classes. Folks throughout the world also consume the fish’s meat, but the fins are where the real money lies. To show just how popular shark fin soup has become, according to an Oceana report (pdf), in 2008, 87 countries exported shark fins to Hong Kong, including the U.S.

Maybe I’m naiive or just fussy about my fish, but I’m truly surprised by shark’s popularity, especially considering that shark fishing is so unhealthy for both people and the environment. Most species of shark contain extremely high levels of mercury, so consuming them really isn’t advisable for anyone. Plus, sharks reign at the top of oceanic food chains, serving the all-important task of keeping populations of other species in check. Remove the top of the food chain and the world’s waters can get—to put it mildly—irreparably damaged. Shark fin soup already seems pretty unappetizing. The fact that it’s loaded with mercury and is largely responsible for the world’s declining oceans—well, I’d rather eat something as gross as KFC’s Double Down sandwich.

To really boost shark populations, the world needs to institute international shark fin bans, adopt species-specific management, and make efforts to reduce shark bycatch. According to the International Union of Conservation for Nature (IUCN), 50 of the world’s 307 shark species are listed as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered. Yet only three shark species—the white, whale, and basking—are protected internationally by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The population data on sharks is out there, but legislative bodies can’t (or rather, won’t), put the proper protections in place.

Groups like Oceana and Iemanya Oceanica are pushing for greater protections for sharks. But consumers can take action now by refusing to eat the fish and calling out supermarkets that continue to sell the threatened swimmer. If we decrease demand for shark meat, fishermen will eventually realize it’s not worth their while to keep killing the animals. Sign this petition telling Henry’s Farmers Market to stop selling shark meat, and be on the lookout for other supermarkets that may stock imperiled sharks.

Photo credit: StormyDog via Flickr

Why are Supermarkets Selling Shark Meat?

?Rosemary's?Quarry produces approximately one-million tons of aggregate annually.
????
?Granite has a history of creating pit mines for aggregate. And?quite?a history in Oregon; the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality?
recently fined Granite for polluting?the watershed of that state.?
?What would stop them from doing the same to our watershed???
????
?The Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve is in the midst of the?Santa Margarita Valley.? Nestled?near the?cities of Fallbrook, Murrieta, Rainbow, and?Temecula, the Valley is a welcome retreat from fast-paced city life,?and?is one of the last pristine places in the area.? The?Valley is also home to the Santa Margarita River – one of the?very few free-flowing rivers of Southern California.??
?
?The local Luiseno Indians?are opposed to the quarry. The site is
considered sacred to tribal members, and said to?have artifacts important?to their cultural heritage.??Their voice has thus far been ignored.
?
?Native residents, homeowners, schools, doctors, entire cities, and?nearly 8oo local companies and bussinesses are opposed to the Quarry as well.
?Their opinions don't count, apparently.??
???
?????????????????????????????? The Consequences?
The objective of this?quarry is to mine as much aggregate from the 414 acre site as possible by any means possible.
?The difference between this mine and others??This time, an entire mountain?needs to be taken down and broken up to acquire that aggregate. That means using 10,000 pounds of explosives per blast, per day. Twenty hours a day, six days a week(minemum). For seventy-five years. ?There is also the 310 gallons of fresh, clean water that will be used?per minute to manufacture the aggregate. That adds up to 86,000 gallons per day, or roughly 2,028,233,000 gallons?over the course of the mines 75-year?lifetime.
??Not to mention the huge trucks (needed to take the aggregate to buyers) that will clog the i15 freeway?even more than it already is. Oh, and the extra diesel soot as a byproduct of all those trucks.?
??
? It will also create sillicate dust to pollute the air. That sillicate will be carried on the breeze at least?fifty miles in all directions from the?
quarry site.?Residents, both human and not,?will suffer respiratory problems as a result of the toxic nature of sillicate.? The dust will settle over and smother anything in its path.
???
?? Even Granite's own environmental report admits there will be substantial ecological consequences?to the?area surrounding the mine.?
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?? The Riverside County Board of Supervisors is considering?approval of??this? monstrous pit mine to increase revenue and create jobs. Every?concern over the impacts -?environmental, cultural, residential -?of this?quarry?have thus far been ignored.???

?Of course, it will create?jobs.? But at what cost?
???
??With so much aggregate already being mined from?Rosemary's Quarry,?within such a close proximity?to the Liberty Quarry,?is yet another pit mine really needed??
??
?What is more important? Economy? Or preserving?our cultural heritage, our right to health as residents, and our?scarce SouthernCalifornia?coastal-inland??habitat???
???????????????????????????????? You decide.?
??

No Quarry!