Another piece of Bush brush has been cleared out of the system. Bit by bit, piece by piece, the junk is being cleared away. This time it’s by a judge’s order.
A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration’s change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.
The Bush Administration had argued that the environmental impact of its forest policy could only be determined after the policy had been put into practice. For example, a decision to indiscriminately open a forest to logging could only be evaluated after the logging had taken place. By that time of course, it would be to late for the wildlife that depended on that forest for its survival.
More years ago than I like to think about, a friend and I were at a concert by a then relatively unknown band from Milwaukee. They were a fairly strange looking trio playing all-acoustic instruments with all the passion and abandon of a good punk rock band. The show was fantastic, the crowd was really in to it, in fact, it was the first time I ever saw anyone slam-dancing.
Bill was a first-year teacher at the time, and the next day at work after his last class the phone rings and he gets asked to come down to the principal’s office. Now when you’re a first year teacher, getting called to the principal’s office is nearly as traumatic as getting called down as a student, so Bill headed to the office wondering what was going on. When he got there, he found the principal and vice-principal looking at him while the principal asked “Were you really at a concert by a band called The Violent Femmes last night?” When Bill said yes, the principal pulled out his wallet, and handed the vice-principal a twenty dollar bill. It seems a couple of Bill’s students had been at the show also, and word had passed around the school, establishing his reputation as the coolest math teacher in Hastings, Minnesota.
The Femmes have continued recording and playing over the years, but nothing they’ve done has ever matched the impact of that first eponymously titled record. Here’s a couple of songs from it, “Blister In The Sun”, and “Add It Up”, that showcase the continuing popularity of their approach.
And since today is the start of the 4th of July weekend for a lot of people, here’s the Violent Femmes playing “American Music”.
A United Nations delegation will travel to Glacier National Park and the North Fork to see for itself the threats of mining and coal bed methane development could have on the Park.
Meeting in Spain last week the 21-member United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee voted unanimously to send a mission to Waterton-Glacier and the Canadian Flathead.
American and Canadian interests were in Spain last week to lobby UNESCO to list Glacier as a “World Heritage Site in Danger” — a dubious distinction as Glacier nears its 100th birthday.
Thank the National Parks Conservation Association, among others, for leading the fight on this issue. The idea that a coal mine could be built right next to a pristine river and a national park with no harm to the river or the park is fairly ludicrous. The best news so far is that all the attention seems to be causing the Canadians to re-think their position.
American scientists have long maintained that it’s not possible to have an open pit coal mine in the Flathead and not have an impact on the river. Canadian officials, at least on the federal level, appear to be softening their stance with the eyes of the world on it.
Think that human beings are the most wide-spread, dominant species on the Earth? Guess again.
Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same interrelated colony, and will refuse to fight one another.
The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.
In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the ‘Californian large’, extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan.
Not only that, but it appears that if we all wake up one day to find the ants have taken over, we’ll have only ourselves to blame.
Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.
“The enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society,” the researchers write in the journal Insect Sociaux, in which they report their findings.
However, the irony is that it is us who likely created the ant mega-colony by initially transporting the insects around the world, and by continually introducing ants from the three continents to each other, ensuring the mega-colony continues to mingle.
“Humans created this great non-aggressive ant population,” the researchers write.
The non-aggressive part is how they act towards each other, leading to the conclusion that the three colonies are all part of one big, happy ant family. The Argentine ants are well-known for attacking other species and destroying crops. Who knows, we could be next.
Sounds like a great script for one of the Sci-Fi Channel’s weekend monster movies.
I was just listening to an interview with Representative Peter DeFazio on the Thom Hartmann radio talk show. DeFazio voted against the recently passed climate bill in the House, not because he’s against doing something about climate change, but because he feels the cap-and-trade provisions in the bill don’t go far enough to regulate greenhouse gases. He also pointed out a provision in the bill that shows the insidious nature of Washington politics at its worst.
You’ll recall that after the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions after finding that they constituted a threat to the public health, the EPA was prevented from doing so by the Bush Administration. That decision was reversed by the Obama Administration, and the EPA is currently studying whether or not CO2 should be declared a public health threat, and thus regulated under the Act. There’s a strong possibility that the threat of regulation by the EPA had a lot to do with how quickly the bill made it through the House of Representatives.
Now comes the insidious part. The climate bill as passed by the House contains a provision that would halt the EPA’s study and forbid them from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. So not only was the bill compromised enough to insure our reliance on coal as an energy source, the EPA would now be prevented from doing anything about it.
That’s the way it works in Washington these days. make a public display of doing something good, while behind the scenes insuring that it will never happen. I personally was of the opinion that while the climate bill was far from perfect, it at least was a start, and by getting some legislation passed there was always the hope of improving it in the future. Now, as long as the provision restricting the EPA’s ability to act under the Clean Air Act remains in the bill, it is a prime example of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and while politicians will no doubt proclaim that they have saved the day if it passes the Senate, in reality this bill will not only fail to solve the problem of CO2 emissions, it will come darn close to insuring that the government agency with the most experience, and a legal mandate to protect the public from the dangers of pollution, will be prevented from doing so.
There may be something they overlooked, though. There was plenty of publicity given to the EPA and the Clean Air Act, but not nearly as much notice given to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, pikas, and the Endangered Species Act. And if there’s one piece of legislation that’s uncompromising in its approach to protecting the environment, it’s the Endangered Species Act.
The nation’s wildlife refuges are among the most important components of our conservation system. In many of the locales where they are located, they are a last bastion against creeping development, and provide numbers of birds and other animals a place to nest and live their lives protected from the vagaries of encroaching human civilization.
Unfortunately, not even their protected status is a complete protection. Citing “effects of climate change as well as negative side-effects of attempts to counter that change from wind farms and other renewable energy sources,” the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has published a list of the ten most endangered National Wildlife Refuges. What’s immediately striking is that there is no area of the country where even the wildlife refuges are totally safe from harm. Here’s the list.
*Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge (AK) – sea level rise and accelerated coastal erosion;
*Hawaii Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex (HI) – sea level rise and mosquito penetration from temperature rise leading to loss of endangered bird species;
*Horicon National Wildlife Refuge (WI) – wind farms and declining water quality and quantity;
*Chesapeake Marshlands Complex (MD) – erosion, nutrient build-up and sprawl;
*National Elk Refuge (WY) – Brucellosis and threat of Chronic Wasting Disease;
*Kofa National Wildlife Refuge (AZ) – power transmission corridors and game conflicts;
*Sheldon-Hart Refuge Complex (OR/NV) – mining and over-grazing by feral horses and burros;
*Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge (MN) – development and deteriorating water quality;
*San Luis National Wildlife Refuge (CA) – drought and irrigation effects; and
*Prairie Potholes Region – Small Wetlands Acquisition Program – significant loss of wetlands due to perverse federal incentives.
It’s not much of a surprise that the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge is on the list. A major portion of the refuge is actually located smack dab in the middle of the Twin Cities urban area, in fact it’s not far from the Mall of America. The refuge is ringed by housing developments, sliced up by freeways, and pollution in the Minnesota River is a long-standing problem. It’s also unique in the easy access it provides to urban residents as you can see here, here, and here.
As far as I know, there is no other large city in the country that has such a large wildlife refuge so close to its population. That’s a drawback, but also an advantage because a large number of people know and use the refuge, and that may be what will bring its plight to the attention of enough people that the necessary effort will be made to preserve this tremendous resource.
California’s request for a waiver that would allow it to set its own, more stringent standards for emissions from cars and trucks, and which had been denied under the Bush Administration, has finally been approved by the EPA. That’s pretty good news by itself, but it’s actually bigger than one state’s request, there are plenty of others lined up waiting to follow California’s lead.
The EPA’s granting of the waiver request immediately clears the way for California and 13 additional states to require reductions in tailpipe emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The Clean Air Act gives California special authority to enact stricter air pollution standards for motor vehicles than the federal government’s, but EPA must approve a waiver of federal standards before California’s rules can take effect.
When it comes to emission standards, california has kind of the same influence that Texas does in high school text books. Their decisions affect so many people that manufacturers and publishers are practically forced to adopt the state standard as a national standard. So it could very well be that the EPA’s grant of a waiver for California is in essence the first step in a stricter national standard for greenhouse gas emissions for the entire country.
Under the Bush Administration, an all-out effort was made to open up public lands for oil and gas leasing. The Obama Administration, including Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar it seems, is looking at alternatives.
Mr. Salazar, appearing in Las Vegas with Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, said that 670,000 acres of lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (an agency within the Department of the Interior) would be studied to determine whether they could support large solar power arrays.
Twenty-four tracts of land in six states — Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah — are under review. Maps of the land will be published shortly in the Federal Register.
Given the current need to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, re-build our energy infrastructure, and Obama’s desire to create green jobs to stimulate the economy, it seems pretty inevitable that some public lands will continue to be opened up to energy production. And if the choice is between ripping up the landscape in an increasingly desperate quest for more oil and covering a few thousand acres with solar panels, bring on the solar panels.
Minnesota’s gray wolves will return to the endangered species list under a settlement today between the U.S. government and several groups that fought to return the wolves to the list.
In March, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar upheld a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the species from the endangered species list in the state. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that gray wolves number about 4,000 in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and no longer needed federal help.
I’m actually kind of surprised by this. Gray wolves have made a strong comback in Minnesota over the last generation, and the method of reimbursing farmers and ranchers for livestock seemed to be working pretty well. The one explanation is they must have thought de-listing the wolves would lose in a court battle. If that’s the case, it’s definitely better to place wolves back on the list instead of starting another prolonged legal battle.
There’s a fight going on off the coast of Florida over fishing rights, but it’s not between competing fishermen, it’s human against dolphin, and it appears to be getting ugly.
Dolphins, perhaps emboldened by tourists feeding them from boats and fishermen releasing catches that don’t meet size limits, are actually snatching fish right off of fishermen’s hooks. The fishermen are taking it so seriously that there has been shooting and even pipe bombs launched at the dolphins.
The dolphins are a protected species, and one man is already serving jail time for tossing bombs at dolphins. Hell, it seems, has no fury like a fisherman robbed of his catch. But there has to be a better way, and it’s up to the people involved in Florida’s fishing and tourist industries to figure out what it is. Shooting and bombing the dolphins isn’t only an illegal solution, it’s stupid, leaving you to wonder which species, in this case, is showing the most intelligence.
