Back to their old tricks

So, the election is over. Obama is the President-Elect, and gas prices are down to 1.77 or less in some places. But what about those erstwhile former players in the Presidential campaigns?
Well, while Mr. Bush is trying to push through damaging plans to log old-growth forests, and continues his attempts to undermine the endangered species act, Sarah Palin has returned home to Alaska, and continues to be the same woman we know and loathe.

Let's start with that debacle at the turkey farm, which highlights how completely clueless the woman is, not just about wildlife and compassion towards animals, but about her VERY SURROUNDINGS. It is kind of nice to know that she's slid so far down the scale now that she's doing her 'exclusive interviews' while standing in turkey manure. But no sooner has she settled in back up there in the frozen north than she's getting back to her old games.

Wild Horse Reprieve; but our work isn't done!

From the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign. I've highlighted some important points in this brief for you.

As many of you may recall, last summer BLM announced it was considering putting to death thousands of wild horses in its care, as a way to balance the books. After a massive public outcry, the decision was postponed until the next Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting. The meeting took place this past Monday, following release of a long-awaited Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the federal Wild Horse and Burro Program.

The GAO Report was a disappointment in that it failed to address the systemic problems associated with BLM's wild horse management policies, focusing instead on options available to address the glut of horses in government holding: 'euthanasia,' sale without limitation (i.e. slaughter), or release of the captive horses on some of the 19 million acres lost by the herds since passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act. The GAO merely sent BLM and Congress back to the drawing board, while failing to investigate the underlying cause of the current crisis: the unnecessary removal of thousands upon thousands of wild horses from our public lands.

At Monday's meeting, BLM Deputy Director Henry Bisson announced that any decision regarding 'euthanasia' would be postponed for a year. In the meantime, BLM will be working with Madeleine Pickens, wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, as well as other private parties, who have offered to take thousands of horses off BLM's hands into privately-run sanctuaries. Our deepest gratitude goes out to Mrs. Pickens and the other good Samaritans offering their land in this 11th hour reprieve for the horses.

A looming crisis has been averted, but many concerns remain:
- More than ever, a moratorium on round-ups is in order until actual numbers of wild horses and burros on public lands have been independently assessed, and legally-mandated range studies have been conducted.

- The BLM 'bail-out' by private parties should come with strings attached to ensure that we are not just emptying government corrals so that BLM can continue rounding up more and more horses.

- At Monday's meeting, the Advisory Board made some highly disturbing recommendations, including shipping horses abroad as 'foreign agricultural aid,' removing restrictions against slaughter for horses sold under the Burns Amendment, and extending Burns Amendment sales to younger horses and foreign markets. Death in a Canadian or Mexican slaughterhouse is no better, if not worse, than a government bullet to the head. WE MUST REMAIN VIGILANT.

The incoming Obama-Biden administration presents an opportunity toward a new beginning for the federal Wild Horse and Burro Program. Please contact the Office of the President-Elect and express your concerns and hopes for the future of our wild horses.

On behalf of America's wild horses and burros, thank you for your support,

The AWHPC Team
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
www.wildhorsepreservation.org
Click here to join our email list and receive the latest updates.

A big thanks goes out to all of the private parties who have donated time, money, and land to help these horses. However, just as the AWHPC suggests, it will all be in vain if we allow the BLM to use this 'bail out' as an excuse to round up more horses. I hope those parties have let it be known that this is a one time deal, and I hope that they will continue to put effort into encouraging the BLM to change their round-up policies, and stop the problem once and for all.

More Coyote 'problems' in Washington State

From the Seattle Times:
Coyote Presence Concerns Neighbors: Animals prowling North Spokane kill pet cat.

Get a load of this quote: "[the owners] The Wichtermans got Sylvester, a 12-year-old long-haired black-and-white cat, when he was a kitten. Tricia Wichterman said Sylvester was a tomcat who liked to be outside at night."

I'm sorry. You leave your cat out at night, I consider you to be completely at fault for his demise. Its sad, yes. But if you took proper care to make sure your cat was INDOORS in a SAFE ENVIRONMENT he would still be alive. Oh yeah, and get your pets neutered, you denizens of the land of dumbassery. Maybe it's the fact that there are little Sylvesters running around all over the neighborhood ripe for the picking that attracts the coyotes!

I also like how the cat owners stated that they were worried because the coyotes are so 'bold'. Coyotes are like that. If you knew anything about coyotes you would know this. Of course they hung around and kept coming back to where they had killed the cat, you basically took their dinner away from them and they were looking for it. Coyotes are opportunist who will eat just about anything, including Fluffy Tinkletoes, the family Persian. This does not make them evil. This makes them wild animals. So keep your pets indoors, and start making an actual concerted effort to coyote/skunk/raccoon proof your trash cans, don't leave pet food outside, and stop calling the POLICE for god's sake when you see a coyote in your yard. The police have better things to do. Rant over, and out.

Say no to Coal. Even clean coal!

From the Sierra Club:

Are you in on the truth?

Tens of thousands of people have learned the truth about coal through our new website and online video at CoalIsNotTheAnswer.org. Despite the coal industry’s $40 million slick advertising campaign to mask the harmful and polluting nature of coal fired power plants, we are just not falling for it.

Now it’s time to take the truth about coal to the masses. We are launching a public awareness campaign to rebut the coal industry’s misleading claims. And we need your help.

Click here to come up with a new slogan for coal. One that tells the truth.

The best entries will be used on our ‘truth truck’ that will a carry a mobile billboard around D.C. and straight to the coal industry’s headquarters. (Don't worry, we've made sure our campaign is carbon neutral, which is more than we can say about the coal industry!)

Hundreds of comments have flooded in to the website from people telling their own story about coal. Here are a few of the most powerful:

Cathy in Ohio: I worked for a respiratory doctor and we would get coal miners in our office for treatment with black lung disease, emphysema. Poor souls had worked all their lives and basically gave their lives to that miserable coal mine. Their families felt helpless because it was the only job they knew and they worked and suffered. My utility bill was horribly expensive and they burned coal for our power and we paid dearly. There's got to be a better way for all involved.

Bill in Wyoming: I live in Wyoming, and we are coal country, and I live and breathe coal, but I do agree we have many, many options, so who will take that leap into the future? So instead of mining coal, we can get good jobs building wind turbines, solar panels, and set up incentives for research and development in alternative renewable energy sources. We can do it!

John in West Virginia: I grew up with coal in WV. For people who like to continue breathing, coal is not an answer. The strip miners are also polluting the beautiful state of my birth, making it impossible for people to live anywhere near their mining operations. Coal is part of the problem, and no part of the solution.

Real people, telling real stories about how coal affects their lives and communities. Let’s make sure that these are the types of messages that get out to the public, not the misleading sound bites the coal industry uses to mask the truth.

Submit your slogan today and let the country know what you really think of coal.

Thanks for all you do to protect the planet.

Bruce Nilles
National Director, Sierra Club Coal Campaign

I have long been on the anti-coal bandwagon, first for the health and saftey hazards of coal mining for miners, and now for the health and viability of our planet, and our economy. If you've ever been in coal country (WV, PA, etc) you've probably seen the damage done by coal mining. Slag heaps, and acres of countryside left unliveable because underground seaming (removing layers of coal from between layers of rock) has left the surface unstable and prone to caving in.

I still see no good reason why we should continue to kill workers in polluting coal mines to fuel polluting coal power plants, when we have so many better options available to us.

For more information about the evils of coal mining, visit the Stop Mountaintop Removal campaign.

Eleventh Hour Action for Wild Horses

From Front Range Equine Rescue:

The link below will give you some information about the upcoming meeting (November 17) where BLM will again promote and possibly decide its horrific plan to kill and/or sell to slaughter wild horses in government holding facilities.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27738672/

Please continue to leave messages for your Congressional representatives, call your local media and respond to “comments” on news articles on the internet. The public outcry must become deafening for our horses.

And:

This link is to the GAO (Government Acct’g office) recommendations; see the final one. Feel free to contact Robin at the number provided with your thoughts and humane recommendations. One simple solution would be to raise the nominal $1.35 per animal unit fee charged to livestock permittees on our public lands to cover the cost needed to feed wild horses (and burros) in holding facilities.

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-77#recommendations

If the cost could be raised, I'd like to then argue that Wild Horses should be allowed to roam free for the same cost! We may only have until tomorrow to sway the BLM, so make the next few hours count!

Florida Drought Restrictions tighten

Kudos to whoever wrote this article in the Tampa Tribune.
People need to learn to do their part, and the governing body needs to learn to uphold its edicts. If Bob on Palm Lane keeps watering his lawn every morning regardless of restrictions, Bob on Palm Lane needs to be held personally accountable for this water crisis.
Maybe we need special water police. Oh, I know, lets appoint a Water Czar! All joking aside, water shortage is a bad, bad thing for everyone, and everyone needs to do their part to help.

"Cape Wind" project

Grist.org is a great environmental news site I discovered through another agri-enviro blogger recently. Today browsing the 'most popular articles' list I discovered this old article and had to look into it:
RFK Jr. and other prominent enviros face off over Cape Cod wind farm.

Large scale clean energy projects like this one are the ones that really scare people. I've said before that I'm more of a proponent for personalized energy than large scale commercial energy projects. But the plain fact is we're going to need at least some of these large arrays in order to meet the energy quotas necessary to keep our homes and businesses running. So in this case the question comes down to whether or not historic Cape Cod is really off limits.

I have to argue with myself over this one. I've never actually been to Cape Cod, so I can't say exactly what the impact to the historic lighthouse views would be. Some concern has been expressed about light pollution due to the flashing lights necessary to warn away aircraft from the wind turbines...I hate light pollution. Still, to me 130 scattered wind turbines away-out-there in Nantucket Sound seems preferable to me than those ugly inland windfarms like I saw out near Palm Springs, California. California has about 13,000 or so wind turbines.
So we'll put the view aside for now, since I can't make an informed decision on that. Next of course is economic impact...will building a wind farm off the coast really put hundreds of fishermen out of work? I doubt it. Some, sure, but wind farming isn't going to stop fishing in the Sound. Already some folks such as this man in Iowa who lost other factory jobs are making a living building new green economy products such as turbine blades and solar panels.
I consider recreational boating impact to be of least concern, so I'm not even going to talk about sailing.
Now we come to the environmental impact. Even the big name enviro funds are split on this issue. The Massachusetts Audubon Society and The Humane Society are concerned about seabirds and ocean life, while World Wildlife Fund and GreenPeace have given the project their blessing. Certainly any place that is a good place to build a wind farm is going to be a place where eagles, hawks, seabirds and other avians like to circulate, and the impact on those populations needs to be weighed. Also the impact on ocean life due to the drilling and digging that will need to be done to the seabed to anchor the turbines and bury the electric cables. You can check out the Cape Wind Project FAQ for more details on these subjects.
So, in closing, this Cape Wind project sounds to me like a well planned, well thought out, and ultimately necessary step toward energy independence...pending of course the final Environmental Impact Statement.
I leave you to make your own decision.