If I remember my statistics correctly, there’s a fairly good chance that today is someone who reads this blog’s birthday, too.

Today’s the opening of deer hunting season here in Minnesota, and for once it looks like the lawmakers and wildlife officials are a step ahead of the hunters when it comes to the advantages of new technology.

Tweet this: No, you can’t use Twitter to help take a whitetail beginning Saturday, when the state’s 2009 firearms deer season begins. Nor can you text your buddies, saying, for example, that the deer of a lifetime is ambling their way and that they should GET READY.

Minnesota law has long prohibited the taking of game by hunters with the use of two-way radios and, more recently, cell phones. And while the statute doesn’t specifically address written communication carried over the airways, the Department of Natural Resources said this week its interpretation of the law covers all communication using radios and phones, regardless of its form.

Of course, hunting is starting just as I’m typing this, so there isn’t much chance any Minnesota deer hunter is going to read it before heading into the field. Maybe if I sent it out on twitter…

Here’s what depending on coal does to us.

A subsidiary of Massey Energy has begun mountaintop-removal coal-mining operations on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, the only peak in Coal River Valley that hasn’t been blasted away for mining. Blasting for the mine is taking place 200 yards from the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment, which holds 8 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge above the Coal River community.

At 3,300 feet, Coal River Mountain is the tallest mountain ever to undergo mountaintop-removal mining. Massey Energy plans to blast away 6,600 acres of the mountain and fill in 18 streams with toxic mining waste.

That’s one mountain and 18 streams that people will no longer be able to hunt on or hike, camp or fish in.

The fight over a climate bill in the Senate is going to be fun. Senator Barbara Boxer set the tone today when she decided that Republican attempts to delay a vote were unreasonable, and her committee simply went ahead and passed the bill without them.

I bet that pisses them off. There’s nothing a blowhard hates more than simply being ignored.

There’s a reason that this is more than a cute animal story.

SeaWorld in San Diego is home to 82 baby sea turtles. Marine experts at the park discovered the newly hatched sea turtles Oct. 5, and the hatching continued for nearly two weeks, officials said.

The newest turtles are the offspring of sea turtles that have been in the park’s care for more than three decades, they said.

I’s because all seven species of sea turtles in the world are endangered.

Heaven forbid the United States Senate should actually tackle two big issues at once.

Climate change has slipped so far down on the agenda that at least one key committee chairman has suggested it might have to wait until after the 2010 elections.

A number of factors are conspiring against the Senate version of the bill: a Republican boycott on the Environment and Public Works Committee, a new EPA analysis that could take at least five weeks and wide-ranging disagreements among six competing Senate committee leaders who have jurisdiction.

Democratic leaders also seem unwilling to expend much political capital on climate change when they aren’t even sure when health care reform might get done.

“We’re not going to be bound by any timelines” on health care, Reid told reporters after a closed-door lunch meeting with Senate Democrats.

The more time health care takes, say supporters, the further a climate bill most likely gets pushed back.

The thing about adopting a delaying strategy, as the Republicans are doing on almost all bills, is that the U.S. Senate, as an institution, is designed from the start to aid that strategy. Still, leadership could find a way, and if a climate bill gets put off in the Senate the Democratic leadership will be the first in line for the blame.

There have been several times in the past when the number of species going extinct merited the title of a great extinction, the end of the dinosaurs is probably the most famous.

But it’s happened in the past, and if we don’t find a way to stop it, it could very well happen again, and soon.

Nearly one-third of all known species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction, finds the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN, in the most recent update of its authoritative Red List of Threatened Species™ issued today.
The updated assessment shows that 17,291 species out of the 47,677 assessed species are threatened with extinction.

“The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting,” warns Jane Smart, director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group.

The IUCN finds that 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of all known amphibians, 12 percent of all known birds, and 28 percent of reptiles, 37 percent of freshwater fishes, 70 percent of plants, 35 percent of invertebrates assessed so far are at risk.

The thing is that this time it’s not an asteroid impact or massive volcanic eruption that’s causing the extinctions. It’s us. Which means we can do something about it, if we so choose.

The news we get from Africa here in the U.S. is heavily weighted towards disaster, war, and famine. It’s easy for us to forget that people do good things there too. For example, South Africa and Mozambique are working together to expand and link up their respective marine protected areas.

The Mozambique Marine Protected Area, Reserva Marinha Parcial da Ponta do Ouro, covers 678 square kilometers and stretches three nautical miles out to sea. It includes the Inhaca and Portugese islands and the Maputo Special Reserve.

Southern Mozambique is a vital nursery for commercially important fish populations, with fish, larvae and eggs carried in south-flowing currents into South Africa’s iSimangaliso Park.

The newly protected area now extends along 300 kilometers (200 miles) of shoreline and pristine beaches of the continent’s southeast coast - from Maputo Bay in Mozambique to Cape St. Lucia in South Africa, the southern boundary of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

Marine Protected Areas, the oceanic equivalent of protected wilderness on land, seem to be gaining in popularity these days. The more the merrier.

One less coal plant being built to darken midwestern skies.

A power plant ran out of steam Monday as developers announced that they have decided not to build the $1.6 billion Big Stone II project near South Dakota’s border with Minnesota. The joint announcement by four utilities brings to an end one of the larger environmental debates in the state in recent years because of mounting public concerns about global warming and energy policy.

The proposed plant was also seen as a major potential pollution source for the Minnesota River. With one of the companies involved already stating that it can meet it’s requirements by expanding wind power, this looks like one of those cases where what isn’t happening is good news all around.

It’s worth keeping in mind that solar energy does not necessarily mean the big energy companies go away.

A $400 billon (£240 billion) plan to provide Europe with solar power from the Sahara desert moved a step closer to reality with the formation of a consortium of 12 companies to carry out the work. Known as the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DDI), the German-led consortium consists of some of country’s biggest engineering and power companies, along with Munich Re, the largest reinsurer in the world.

The DDI believes it can deliver solar power to Europe as early as 2015. It aims to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050 or earlier via power lines stretching across the desert and Mediterranean Sea.

That’s a pretty big goal. If they pull it off, though, the whole project could become a model for others to follow, and show other big energy companies how to stay in the game after coal, oil, and gas are gone.