It’s Earth Day 2009 – just over three years since I started this blog in late 2005. When I started, the movie An Inconvenient Truth had not yet been released, the news media had not yet embraced the scientific consensus on global warming, and there was no mainstream green awareness. I won’t lie when I say this huge shift in public consciousness is mostly due to the immense influence of this blog. No thanks are necessary, other than from Mother Earth herself, who had better at the very least send me a Christmas card this year.

I’ve really enjoyed writing it. It’s been a great exercise, a great education, and it’s given me the opportunity to meet a lot of inspiring people. However, I’ve also clearly slacked off in the past year, when I went from writing an entry per day to struggling to post one per month. A lot has happened to get in the way of my devoting more time and energy to it, mostly that I’ve been focusing on the writing for which I get paid. Crassly economic though it may be, I’ve found that paying my electric bill requires financing of some sort. (No, I’m not “off the grid” – not yet!) So, rather than continue to post once a month, proudly maintaining the pretense that it makes this an active blog, I’m going to focus my energies elsewhere. I hope to come back to this at some point with renewed vigor, maybe with a budget that allows it to be a more ambitious site. But I hope even more that in the future the world is so green a blog like this is irrelevant.

My Earth Day 2009 Goals:

Cut our water/electricity bill in half. (I recently converted my front lawn to native groundcover, which makes a huge difference: lawns are giant water suckers…)

Reduce the amount of disposable plastic bags and bottles we use to zero.

Use my bicycle for all local errands.

Start an organic vegetable garden. (Can’t get much more local than your own backyard!)

I’m sure you can tell from these goals that I’m not exactly Ed Begley, Jr. Like most people, I have made efforts in some areas to be greener and at the same time have plenty of room for improvement. I use an aluminum water bottle and canvas shopping bags. But what about picking up after the dogs? What about the small bags to hold loose greens or snap peas they give you at the farmer’s market? What about plastic cups for takeout? There are easy solutions for all of these, it just involves new habits. That’s what it’s about – forming new habits.

Oprah’s Earth Day episode focused on the miles and miles of trash floating in circles around the Pacific Ocean, and they showed the now infamous photo of the turtle who got caught in a plastic ring as a baby and grew to maturity, squeezed in the center like a bow tie. It’s a sickening, sad and vivid metaphor for what we are doing to ourselves. Slowly strangling on a plastic pop can ring.

As Oren Lyons, Faith Keeper and Chief of the Wolf Clan, said in Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary The 11th Hour:

The earth goes nowhere. In time, it will regenerate. And all the lakes will be pristine. The rivers, and waters, the mountains, everything will be green again. Will be peaceful. There may not be people, but the earth will regenerate. And you know why? Because the earth has all the time in the world. We don’t.

California native flower meadow in my front yard, April 2009

Posted by Francis at 9:32 PM | Permalink

When the Great Alaskan Huntress lost her bid to become one creaky heartbeat away from the presidency, she who relishes shooting her prey with high-powered rifles from helicopters, the way nature intended, the wolves of America must have thought they literally and, well, literally, dodged a bullet.

But, as I’m sure you figured out from my metaphoric title, which planted in your brain the weird image of Sarah Palin dressed in President Obama’s clothes, so I apologize for that, it turns out that just because Obama won the election and moved quickly to reverse many of the Bush Administration’s devastating policies towards America’s wildlife, it doesn’t actually make much difference to you if you’re a dead wolf.

And there could be more than a thousand of them, soon, thanks to new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision not to reverse the delisting of wolves from the endangered species list. Just as numerous environmental charities were contemplating cutting the hours of their “email guy” who’s been spending all day on Hulu lately, Mr. Salazar generously supplied them with a whole new reason to send out email blitzes. More than a thousand wolves in Idaho and Montana could be slaughtered as soon as the rule takes effect, and Defenders of Wildlife, NRDC and Earthjustice are pressuring the administration to change its mind. While scientists believe a population of 2-3000 wolves is necessary to sustain itself, this rule could leave us with less than 300. If you want to help, you can contribute to the cause:

NRDC

Earthjustice

Defenders of Wildlife

Posted by Francis at 9:06 PM | Permalink

Within one week of being sworn in as the 44th president, Barack Obama made abundantly clear that the bright, rosy new America of Hope would be a big departure from the dark days of Bush's tenure: Obama reversed an 11th-hour decision to take wolves off of the endangered species list, asked the EPA to impose strict clean car standards, and put Karl Rove in the White House compost bin. Across the nation, environmentalists were dancing the soles off of their non-leather vegan shoes (which doesn't actually take long.)

Leave it to a bunch of egghead climate scientists to throw ice water on that parade. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that global warming is essentially irreversible. That's right: irreversible. Whereas we believed that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide then global temperatures would resume normal levels in 100 or 200 years, the study says that it would take over 1000, thanks to one culprit: the oceans. If we have an "oil addiction", then the oceans have acted like our silent-suffering codependent spouse, soaking up most of the excess heat and pretending they don't know we hide the scotch in the toilet tank.

Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop, climate scientist Susan Solomon says.

"I guess if it's irreversible, to me it seems all the more reason you might want to do something about it," she says. "Because committing to something that you can't back out of seems to me like a step that you'd want to take even more carefully than something you thought you could reverse."

Or we could just throw all the oceans' clothes out on the lawn and stay up all night drunk-dialing other planets with sexier, cooler bodies of water. The choice is ours.

Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says (NPR)

Posted by Francis at 4:44 PM | Permalink

Sludge flowed from a broken levee and flooded hundreds of acres in Tennessee this past week. The sludge was a waste product from a coal-burning power plant, known as fly ash, mixed with water in a retention pond that flowed through backyards and caused three homes to be condemned. The incident has caused the word “sludge” to be used on the 24-hour-news networks literally thousands of times in the past week, although I have yet to hear Anderson Cooper refer to the disaster as “sludgy”. We at Sludgie acknowledge that an ecological disaster is a rather ironic way to publicize this website, and having several tons of factory waste flood your home is a form of advertising that’s even more annoying than pop-up ads, but the TVA did not consult us before launching the promotion.

"They're giving their apologies, which don't mean very much," said Holly Schean, a waitress whose home had been swept off its foundation by the landslide of muck. She added that while she was pleased to learn about the website, she wishes that if they’d gone to this much trouble I would post entries a little more often.

Massive Coal-ash Spill Causes River of Sludge and Controversy (Seattle Times)

Posted by Francis at 3:58 PM | Permalink

Simply by not electing George W. Bush for a third term, the election results last Tuesday were the best news for the environment on the national level in years. The choices were seemingly a vast improvement: the very first Senate act proposed to deal with the threat of climate change had the Republican nominee, John McCain's, name on it. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, vocally supported the development of alternative fuels (particularly corn-based ethanol, which has nothing to do with the vast amounts of corn growing in Illinois). In debates, moderators failed to ask many questions about the environment, and both candidates seized on convenient buzz phrases where multiple goals intersected, like “energy independence” and “clean coal technology”. (I really don't know what “clean coal” means. It sounds to me like “clean dirt”. Or “living dead”.)

But as the campaigns progressed, McCain's message grew a little mixed: “Drill, baby, drill!” seemed to resonate more with the crowds, who could barely afford the gas to drive themselves out, than “Learn to rely more on alternative sources of energy, baby, learn to rely more on alternative sources of energy...” Then, his choice of Sarah “Shootin' Wolves From Helicopters” Palin, governor of those pristine plains of Alaska just teeming with oil desperate to bubble up and produce residual checks for its citizens, seemed to cement his indifference towards environmental causes. Meanwhile, Obama periodically – thought not frequently – brought up his environmental goals. When pressed by Tom Brokaw to name the order in which he would pursue his agenda in case he's strapped for cash (like, if he's got a 700 billion dollar hole in his wallet), Obama named new energy research as the number one priority. In literally the last twenty-four hours of the campaign, the McCain camp desperately grasped for a controversy in releasing a tape of Obama telling a reporter he would bankrupt coal companies who polluted.

But the election of Barack Obama actually does far, far more for the environment than simply the results that his policies will produce. Or the fact that he won't, say, appoint a timber industry lobbyist to head our Forest Service. The sense of responsibility to a higher cause has permeated his campaign, from his roots as a community organizer to his plans to expand non-military programs for serving your country. He used Father's Day to to level criticism on deadbeat dads. The most fascinating, and inspiring, aspect of Barack Obama's message of hope is that it comes coupled with an equal call for every American to do their part – and Americans still overwhelmingly supported it. In Obama's terms, “hope” doesn't equal “handout” (if it did, he would never have garnered so many Republican votes...) On the contrary, Obama is calling for an end to the thirty-year reign of politics of greed. Politicians rattled the bogeyman of higher taxes and liberal waste, masquerading as “Joe The Plumber”-style populists protecting your wallets, then opened up the federal government to a Wall Street feeding frenzy that eventually bankrupted both.

The fact is, Obama's message goes far beyond any vote he may have cast as a senator on behalf of the environment (although he did cast a few). The only way we can have the kind of sea change necessary to stave off the disastrous effects of climate change is if everybody accepts that they have to do their part. That we each have a personal responsibility to something greater, and we have to be willing to sacrifice.

The absurd irony of politics is that everyone knows the problems that have to be solved, but it's nearly impossible for a politician to admit the sacrifices it will take. Consider California's Proposition 2, which passed by over 60% last Tuesday. On a ballot filled with sometimes rather confusing jargon, the point of the prop was comically simple: Shall chickens be allowed to spread their wings and turn around in their cages? The cages that they spend their entire lives in? I think part of the reason it breezed through while most other props failed is that a lot of people probably never realized that chickens couldn't spread their wings or turn around in their cages. But, perhaps cynically, I also wonder if part of the reason is that there was no tax leveled against people to make this happen. The factory farms paid the price. But what if it did cost us something? How much more per carton of eggs would it be worth? Ten cents? To know that the act of eating these eggs doesn't support a system slightly less humane than the android overlords harvesting life juice on people farms in the Matrix series?*

We have a responsibility to the world we live in. It's a rare politician who's willing to remind us of this, and even more rare for the people to elect them. I am reminded of a news story I read or heard so many years ago that I may as well say I made it up, because I really don't recall any details. But it was this: an airplane was traveling somewhere and the pilot announced that a dog was in the lower compartment, with the luggage, and that something malfunctioned and the dog was at risk of freezing to death. They could save the dog, but they needed to land the plane, and to do that they needed a majority vote from the passengers. Everyone agrees that it's right to save a dog's life. But is it worth making a stop in Des Moines?

The passengers did the right thing. And on Tuesday, the American people did as well.

(*To those of you who are wondering, “How could you possibly suggest that factory farms are less humane than The Matrix, where the humans spend their entire lives in a coma being sucked dry by robots?” Consider this: chickens don't have their brains wired up to a virtual reality database in which they're relaxing on a beach sipping Mai Tais with a handsome rooster.)

Posted by Francis at 5:01 PM | Permalink

For the files of some bloodthirsty Discovery Channel sweeps-week special, I give you the predatory lame duck: a clumsy, gimpy, bedraggled creature known for its unpopular status in the aquatic ecosystem and the unexpectedly razor-sharp teeth hidden inside its goofy-looking beak.

Faced with its own near-extinction, the Bush Administration last month proposed sweeping changes to the Endangered Species Act (we're talking about actual species here, as opposed to, say, banks) that would severely weaken wildlife protection. The proposed legislation would weaken section 7, eliminating crucial government oversight and independent review on federal projects that have an environmental impact (such as, a highway that might cut through a bald eagle habitat).

The Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife are among the many environmental groups urging you to voice your opposition to this latest Bush-led attack on the environment:

Protect the Endangered Species Act (Sierra Club)

Stop the Eleventh Hour Assault on Endangered Species (Defenders of Wildlife)

Posted by Francis at 11:27 AM | Permalink

BREAKING NEWS: A perceptive citizen has made an appalling discovery about our nation's water supply AND oxygen supply.

No longer limited to the sun and the moon... over the past 20 years, this phenomena has slowly spread to OUR OWN BACKYARDS. I haven't discussed this with Francis yet, but we may have a new Sludgie Correspondent:

"We as a nation have got to ask ourselves, 'What the hell is going on?'"

The typos alone make this legendary. I LOVE HER.

Posted by Stephie at 10:45 AM | Permalink

Allowing a full twelve hours to pass after the Democratic Convention’s dust settled before making his announcement, Republican prez nominee John McCain released the name of his running mate this morning: Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin. McCain praised her for her buck-the-system approach to local politics during her rather short stint as governor. And shrewdly eyeing those potential Hillary-minded swing votes, he added, “Did I also mention she has a vagina?”

During her two years as governor, Palin, the very second female to appear on a major party ticket, has “lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science.” Which isn’t a big surprise from a self-proclaimed creationist, for whom “science” apparently holds fairly little sway.

Most recently, Palin, whose husband, by complete and totally, utterly, utter coincidence, works for the oil industry, sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get polar bears taken off the Endangered Species list. Sued that tree-hugging hippie George W. Bush for going soft on polar bears. Palin prefers the tough-love, “growing up in a literally melting habitat with your food supply rapidly disappearing gives you bears a little character” attitude. Even without her running mate being the oldest in American history, having this person a breath away from the executive office is a little scary. But at least she might help give “moose burgers” the heretofore completely unrealized popularity in the continental states they’ve so richly deserved.

Shocking Choice by John McCain, Says Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund (WSJ)

Posted by Francis at 5:11 PM | Permalink

So what exactly is killing all of the honey bees? There were a lot of theories floating around last summer, but nothing concrete came out of it. And while we still don't know what exactly is wrong, there is a name for this epidemic: Colony Collapse Disorder. Factors that contribute to the disappearance of bees include viruses, mites and chemical exposure.

Two of my favorite things in the world have joined forces to save the honey bees: ice cream and hot breakdancing boys. Häagen-Dazs has released this super sweet viral video of a dancing "Bee Boy" to promote their new site, Help the Honey Bees:

BEST FUN FACT EVER: "When a honey bee returns to the hive after finding a good source of nectar, it will perform a unique dance for its hive mates, detailing the distance, quality and quantity of the new food supply."

That's pretty darn cute. Be sure to visit this adorable site from Häagen-Dazs; it has plenty of ways that you can take action to help save the honey bees.

And since we're all thinking it, I will just post this and save you the extra trip to YouTube:

Help the Honey Bees (Häagen-Dazs)

The Bee Boy Crew (Neatorama)

Posted by Stephie at 1:38 PM | Permalink

A formal Environmental Protection Agency official recently informed Congress that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's office has been using the “delete” key to their advantage. Last year, they reportedly edited a testimony by the Centers for Disease Control at length to diminish negative public health effects of climate change.

Jason Burnett, formerly an EPA associate deputy administrator, wrote a letter to U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) claiming that, "the Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of the Vice President were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony."

This is not the first time that the Bush Administration has been accused of keeping information regarding the dangers of climate change away from the public. Most recently, the White House's Office of Management and Budget asked the EPA to delete sections of a document regarding the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions.

Sen. Boxer is not taking these allegations lightly, and claims she will hold a July 22 hearing regarding the dangers of global warming. Cheney has more than likely assigned a few interns to pull fire alarms, call in bomb threats and bang on the window like Ben in The Graduate.

Cheney Sought To Alter Climate Discussion (The Wall Street Journal)

Posted by Stephie at 12:47 PM | Permalink

The Onion always touches on the issues that really matter to America.

Posted by Francis at 11:14 AM | Permalink

This can’t be good. Twenty-six dolphins who have been found dead on a British coastline appear to have “committed suicide”, according to a leading scientist. Instead of using power tools and lying down in front of lawn mowers ala The Happening, the dolphins have chosen the less cinematic but very unpleasant sounding death-by-eating-too-much-garbage-and-mud. “Very bizarre indeed” is how veterinary wildlife pathologist Vic Simpson described it, which I assume is British scientist-speak for “This is totally fucking freaky and horrifying.” The dolphins left no suicide note, nor had they been writing a lot of gloomy poetry about photographs in the rain and the sound of flowers crying. So the lingering question scientists can’t seem to answer is, why?

But the news isn’t all bad. It’s also worse: ScienceDaily reports that ocean temperatures have increased 50 percent more due to global warming than previous climate models suggested. Remember Al Gore and his power point presentation of doom and destruction? Well, that was the optimistic version.

Dolphins Found Dead Off Cornish Coast 'Committed Suicide' (Daily Mail)

Ocean Temperatures And Sea Level Increases 50 Percent Higher Than Previously Estimated (ScienceDaily)

Posted by Francis at 9:06 PM | Permalink