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DEFENDING ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
June 8, 2004
"The wilderness called them. They did not come to patronize the commercial establishments, which already deface too much of Mount Hood. They did not come to admire the efficiency of high-tech logging operations or the gleaming new highway spans at ski areas." - Margo Earley, volunteer backpack leader for the Sierra Club, in the June 8, 2004 Oregonian article entitled "Additional Mount Hood Protections Get Support." Earley, one of over 300 people attending this week's Mount Hood Summit II, on why the hikers she leads come to Mt. Hood. The Summit was held to generate ideas on how to resolve conflicts brought on by the pressures of population, logging and development on the Mt. Hood National Forest.
(1) ENERGY: Renewable Do-able
(2) LANDS: Lands Across America
(3) TAKE ACTION: Protect Alaska's Tongass National Forest
1. ENERGY: Renewable Do-able
"Remember, a real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided." Tony Robbins, motivational guru and infomercial regular, hit the nail on the head with this bit of wisdom. The Bush administration fails to take action and use available technology and know-how to move beyond our dependence on polluting power plants by harnessing renewable resources like solar and wind energy. China, on the other hand, bellied up to the bar last week by declaring that it would generate 10% of its power through renewable sources by 2010. If China achieves this goal, it will become a world leader in developing alternatives to fossil fuels.
Read more about China's goal: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6x5h,km3,evdo,i4yl,irqz,5w4u
Tell friends about currents! Visit this link: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6x5h,km3,d67b,h50q,irqz,5w4u
2. LANDS: Lands Across America
Ninety-eight years have passed since the signing of the Antiquities Act, one of the fundamental tools with which President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt carved out his strong conservation legacy. On the anniversary of this landmark legislation, the Sierra Club and other environmental leaders are drawing attention to the ways in which the Bush administration is undermining this legacy across America's National Parks and Monuments. Roosevelt signed this legislation to protect historic landmarks, prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest for future generations.
Read more about conservation legacy of President Theodore Roosevelt: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6x5h,km3,axe9,b4hg,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Protect Alaska's Tongass National Forest
Few things are more closely related than the Bush administration and its willingness to spend taxpayer dollars on bad commercial logging projects. Nowhere does the Forest Service lose more money subsidizing commercial logging than Tongass National Forest in Alaska - the world's largest remaining coastal temperate rainforest. Each of the past several years the Forest Service has lost about $30 million logging the Tongass. Not only has the Bush administration removed the Tongass from the protections of the Roadless Rule, it is now planning nearly 50 timber sales in its wild forest areas and trying to add an extra $5 million to subsidize logging and logging roads in the Tongass! Representatives Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Robert Andrews (D-NJ) are working to reduce taxpayer subsidies that promote commercial logging in the Tongass.
Please tell your Representative to support the Chabot/Andrews effort to reduce logging in the Tongass National Forest: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6x5h,km3,lrw0,c4s6,irqz,5w4u
"The government has the authority to get this data without an amnesty agreement. That's one of the things that makes this so objectionable -- there is no reason for the government to cut a sweetheart deal." - Barclay Rogers, Environmental Law Attorney for the Sierra Club, quoted in the June 3, 2004 New York Times article on the Bush administration's backroom deal with the meat industry. The deal lets factory farm polluters off the hook for any violations of the Clean Air Act.
(1) CLEAN WATER: Thumbs Up
(2) GLOBAL WARMING: Dumb and Hummer
(3) TAKE ACTION: House Republicans Resurrect Polluting Energy Bill
1. CLEAN WATER: Thumbs Up
Students in Upper Thumb, Michigan are rolling up their jeans to wade the waters of the Pinnebog River. Several times a year biology teacher Steve Varner, in cooperation with the Sierra Club's Water Sentinel Project, takes students to the Pinnebog to dip nets against the river bottom in search of signs of life. After identifying and releasing all the organisms, the students give the sample a water quality rating ranging from excellent to poor. The trips create a connection between the students and the environment and hopefully plant the seed for future clean water advocates.
Read more about the Sierra Club Water Sentinel Project: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6uwi,km3,mcq,i06u,irqz,5w4u
2. GLOBAL WARMING: Dumb and Hummer
The Sierra Club website is bringing you a whole new batch of Hummer humor. The revamped site brings you your daily HummerScope, breaking news items (for instance, did you know J Lo left Ben because he bought an H2?), flash movies and more. It's just our way of finding a fun way to educate the public on how these three-ton, 11-mile-per-gallon vehicles accelerate global warming.
Check out the all new Hummerdinger website: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6uwi,km3,8src,4uua,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: House Republicans Resurrect Polluting Energy Bill
House Republican leader Tom DeLay hopes to capitalize on high gas prices by bringing the Bush administration's flawed energy bill up for yet another vote in Congress. While this destructive bill was successfully blocked twice in the Senate, DeLay can't resist another vote on a bill that is more about helping corporate polluters than actually moving America forward through clean energy solutions. The administration's own Department of Energy has stated that the bill would do nothing to lower gas prices, cut imports, or reduce consumption. The bill would open up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, undermine key clean air and clean water standards, and funnel billions of dollars to corporate polluters.
Tell your Representatives to vote against this destructive bill and focus on existing clean energy solutions: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6uwi,km3,86t5,8cb9,irqz,5w4u
"To the dismay of some Western governors, fish and game commissioners, ranchers and hunters - many of them lifelong Republicans - the administration has not produced a balanced [energy] policy. Both Washington and the regional B.L.M offices have repeatedly made clear their belief that extraction of oil and gas trumps all other uses of the public lands." - New York Times editorial entitled "Lands in Need of Care" (June 1, 2004)
(1) GLOBAL WARMING: Driving Progress
(2) LANDS: Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer
(3) TAKE ACTION: Protect Us from Mercury
1. GLOBAL WARMING: Driving Progress
Gas prices are skyrocketing. U.S. oil dependence is on the increase. Global warming continues to heat up. This is why the Sierra Club recently kicked off its new Hybrid Evolution Campaign encouraging Americans to demand clean cars and clean energy. The campaign will drive hybrid vehicles along three routes while holding rallies locally to educate communities about the Bush administration's backward energy policy that increases America's dependence on oil and other polluting sources of energy. The rallies will give Americans the chance to test drive hybrids, learn about renewable energy, and find out more about how the Bush administration's policies threaten their local environment.
Find out where the Hybrid Evolution Campaign will stop: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6td6,km3,n1g,g0vf,irqz,5w4u
2. LANDS: Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer
A new batch of visitor surveys reveals that travelers actually want to see the beautiful scenery of the National Parks they frequent! Summertime haze caused by pollution covers the majestic views in places such as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Not helping the matter, the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing plans for improving park air that could actually compromise the basic goal of cleaning the air in our National Parks.
Read this New York Times news service to learn more: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6td6,km3,7z3i,ckok,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Protect Us from Mercury
In January 2004, the Bush administration published their ill-conceived mercury pollution plan. Even though we have the technology to reduce mercury pollution by 90% or more by 2008, the Bush administration wants to permit three times more mercury pollution than enforcement of the Clean Air Act allows - for decades longer. According to the EPA, one in six U.S. women of childbearing age has mercury levels in her blood high enough to put her baby at risk. That means approximately 630,000 newborns are at risk each year. The Bush administration's proposed rule is endangering public health by delaying cleanup up poisonous mercury. Please comment before the deadline on June 29.
Click here to urge EPA administrator Mike Leavitt to keep mercury out of our air and water: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6td6,km3,4v5r,g0hx,irqz,5w4u
"All the great natural resources which are vital to the welfare of the whole people should be kept either in the hands or under the control of the whole people." - Theodore Roosevelt
(1) LANDS: Leave a Tip
(2) PUBLIC OPINION: Poll Vault
(3) TAKE ACTION: Now Playing...and Playing and Playing
1. LANDS: Leave a Tip
Decisions, decisions.... With 4,000 miles from Missouri to Oregon to choose from, a traveler visiting the wildlands that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored 200 years ago could feel overwhelmed by the choices. The Kansas City Star wants your help in finding out the can't-miss stops, the best museums, the most interesting history lessons and other helpful travel tips directly from those who've traveled the trail. The deadline is June 7, 2004 and the Star will publish the best tips later in the month. Send your tips to aspenner@kcstar.com.
Find out more about what's lost and what's left of the wild America of Lewis and Clark: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6rqr,km3,atrp,5on6,irqz,5w4u .asp
TELL FRIENDS ABOUT CURRENTS! VISIT THIS LINK: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6rqr,km3,d67b,h50q,irqz,5w4u
2. PUBLIC OPINION: Poll Vault
A new poll sponsored by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies shows that a significant majority of Americans are seriously concerned about the environment and that they will be carrying those concerns into the voting booth in November. Of the 1000 people surveyed by Global Strategy Group nationwide, eighty-four percent say the environment will be a factor in their vote in November; 35% consider it a "major factor."
Read more about the poll by clicking here: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6rqr,km3,6j4b,d1v9,irqz,5w4u rsity_.html
3. TAKE ACTION: Now Playing...and Playing and Playing
In the new disaster film "The Day After Tomorrow", global warming causes a wide array of "natural" disasters throughout the world. And while the filmmakers don't take the science behind global warming seriously, neither does the Bush administration. The administration's Energy Bill, due to re- emerge this summer, will do nothing to curb global warming pollution from power plants and automobiles. Send a message to the United States Senate, telling them to take global warming more seriously than Hollywood and reject the disastrous energy bill.
Email to your Senators urging them to reject the destructive energy bill: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6rqr,km3,40io,1rou,irqz,5w4u t=curr
"In my job, I got to pick just about everybody I work with. I've been happy with my choices - although I wish someone had warned me about all of Dick Cheney's wild partying."
- President Bush last week in a speech to Louisiana State University graduates.
(1) SPRAWL: Outside the Box
(2) CLEAN AIR: Non-Scientific Method
(3) TAKE ACTION: Tell the Senate to Stop Cutting Corners on Nuclear Waste
1. SPRAWL: Outside the Box
The National Trust for Historic Preservation added Vermont to its list of America's most endangered places this week, the second time the state has made the list. The group says "behemoth stores" like Wal- Mart are threatening the picturesque villages, lush countryside and small communities of Vermont. (Imagine Bob Newhart's Stratford Inn with a cavernous superstore next door!) The state was also listed in 1993, when Wal-Mart first made plans to expand into Vermont, which at that time was the only state without one.
Read "Vermont is Endangered - Yes, the Entire State" in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6q20,km3,ky3a,jckh,irqz,5w4u
TELL FRIENDS ABOUT CURRENTS! VISIT THIS LINK: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6q20,km3,d67b,h50q,irqz,5w4u
2. CLEAN AIR: Non-Scientific Method
Chalk up another win for polluting industries over public health. The Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency recently weakened emission controls for formaldehyde emissions from plywood manufacturing plants even though new scientific studies disclosed by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health show that exposure to the chemical may lead to serious health problems including cancer. The administration disregarded those findings and instead used standards based on a report from the Chemical Industry of Toxicology, a cancer risk model about 10,000 times less stringent than traditional models.
Read the L.A. Times article "EPA Relied on Industry for Plywood Plant Pollution Rule" in Common Dreams here: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6q20,km3,bt5k,6a1a,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Tell the Senate to Stop Cutting Corners on Nuclear Waste
At nuclear plants across the country, High-Level Nuclear Waste is sitting in tanks, awaiting safe disposal. Now, instead of dealing with the issue, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress want to reclassify this dangerous material and seal off the tanks. The Senate will vote soon to stop the Department of Energy (DOE) from renaming instead of cleaning up dangerous nuclear waste.
Sign an online petition telling the Senate and DOE to stop cutting corners and start cleaning up nuclear waste: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6q20,km3,53di,c5ep,irqz,5w4u
"We know what the problems are. We know what we have to do. What he needs to do is show us the money." - Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill) comments on the Bush Administration creating a task force this week to coordinate the cleanup of the Great Lakes, the world's largest body of fresh water. Many Democrats and some Republicans want the administration to provide funding, not another report to clean up the lakes.
(1) PARTNERSHIPS: Can It
(2) WASTE: Bigger and Better
(3) TAKE ACTION: Keep Americans Safe from Mercury
1. PARTNERSHIPS: Can It
The Sierra Club is providing free pepper spray canisters for use at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks hunter education courses to promote grizzly bear recovery and to help keep backcountry recreationists safe. The sprays have proven to be an effective tool for avoiding fatal encounters between people and grizzly bears. The donation program will allow over 1,000 hunter education participants to conduct hands- on training in the proper use and safety of bear pepper spray.
Learn about the Sierra Club's Grizzly Bear Ecosystems project: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6nv7,km3,5cer,gavx,irqz,5w4u
2. WASTE: Bigger and Better
Dell and Hewlett-Packard are booting up to do their part to reduce the amount of tech trash. The nation's biggest personal computer manufacturers announced this week that they will step up efforts to support more recycling of used computers. Both say they oppose legislation that would put the financial burden of recycling on consumers and local governments. Hewlett-Packard currently recycles 100 million pounds of electronic equipment each year.
Learn more about recycling and sustainable living: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6nv7,km3,k4et,gdbm,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Keep Americans Safe from Mercury
In January 2004, the Bush administration published their ill-conceived mercury pollution plan. Even though we have the technology to reduce mercury pollution by 90% or more by 2008, the Bush administration wants to permit three times more than enforcement of the Clean Air Act allows - for decades longer. According to the EPA, one in six U.S. women of childbearing age has mercury levels in her blood high enough to put her baby at risk. That means approximately 630,000 newborns are at risk each year. The proposed rule is endangering public health by delaying cleanup up of poisonous mercury.
Urge EPA administrator Mike Leavitt to keep mercury out of our air and water: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6nv7,km3,4v5r,g0hx,irqz,5w4u
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