While the U.S. is still talking industry friendly carbon offsets and emissions trading, a growing portion of the rest of the undeveloped world has something completely different in mind. In a nutshell, they resent us and blame the U.S. and other industrialized countries for the climate change problems they are ALREADY experiencing. Undeveloped countries will be presenting the concept of “climate debt” at the summit. They want “rich countries to pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis.” This is a radical departure from where the U.S. is right now. Heck, I’m still arguing with TEFLON COATED DENIERS that mankind is indeed producing too much pollution causing accelerated climate change. Deniers simply will not admit that maybe 7 billion people and their consumption habits like millions of food animals, and industrial pollution, plus deforestation due to population increase just might be over-polluting a closed environment no longer equipped to clean up effectively.

The article explained that the U.S. thinks of climate change as a “we” problem, but a growing number of countries view climate change as a problem created predominantly by the “few.” The coalition of Latin American and African governments stress big differences between who caused the crisis and those who suffer it the most right now.
The chief economist for the World Bank says the equation amounts to “75 to 80% of developing countries suffering the most even though they contribute collectively only about 1/3 of greenhouse gases.” The article further reported, “Developed countries, which represent less than 20 percent of the world’s population, have emitted almost 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas pollution that is now destabilizing the climate.” Yes science has a way of measuring pollution output now, where it came from, and what it costs in real money. This in and of itself should put a crimp in the deniers argument that mankind isn’t the culprit, it’s just nature. But…

So as the article stated, “Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill.” It went on to explain:

The grass-roots movement behind the proposal argues that all the costs associated with adapting to a more hostile ecology — everything from building stronger sea walls to switching to cleaner, more expensive technologies — are the responsibility of the countries that created the crisis. ‘What we need is not something we should be begging for but something that is owed to us, because we are dealing with a crisis not of our making,’ says Lidy Nacpil, one of the coordinators of Jubilee South, an international organization that has staged demonstrations to promote climate reparations. ‘Climate debt is not a matter of charity.’

The U.S. alone, which comprises barely five percent of the global population, contributes 25 percent of all carbon emissions. And while developing countries like China and India have also begun to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning goes, they are not equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed only a small fraction of the 200 years of cumulative pollution that has caused the crisis.

Did you notice that China is considered a developing country? The U.S. tends to put China up there as a super power but truth is China still has more underdeveloped rural areas of population than not. And while they may still be building coal fired plants, they are emerging as a world leader in wind and solar, and are in the midst of building the largest smart grid in the world. We gripe about lost jobs in the U.S. The politics that keeps us from moving forward for renewable energy has cost us the jobs shipped to China to produce the parts for our largest wind farm in Texas. It wasn’t just about cheaper labor or materials in this instance. We simply didn’t have the labor in place, or the manufacturing facilities.

What should really make us sit up and take notice is that the idea of “climate debt” is “supported by the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change — ratified by 192 countries, including the United States.” The framework not only asserts that “the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries,” it clearly states that actions taken to fix the problem should be made “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities.” Uh oh. They’ve got us in writing on this.

But Angelica Navarro, the chief climate negotiator for Bolivia, pushed the notion farther at U.N. climate negotiations in June in Bonn, Germany presenting the argument that not only are poorer countries already suffering the effects of climate change but in this new environmental arena they will not be able to enjoy the advantages of cheap fossil fuels in order to grow as the U.S. and other developed countries were able to do. They will bear a much higher cost burden to grow economically. But Navarro just didn’t point fingers. She presented a 3-point solution.Rich countries need to:

• Pay the costs associated with adapting to a changing climate
• Make deep cuts to their own emission levels “to make atmospheric space available” for the developing world
• Pay Third World countries to leapfrog over fossil fuels and go straight to cleaner alternatives.

Third World countries are tired of promises. They see what many of us see that the U.S. is going to stall on climate change along political lines. These countries cannot afford to wait around. And the list is growing with 49 countries taking their demands to Copenhagen in December with at least 240 environmental and development organizations calling for the same. Germany has recently acknowledged the concept of climate debt by paying Ecuador millions over a course of years to leave a huge cache of oil in the ground under Yasuni National Park part of the Amazonian rain forest. Other European countries are interested in following suit.

So we have developed countries already paying Third World countries not to produce more fossil fuel but to preserve environmental assets like forests. Meanwhile, some U.S. citizens and of course our massively wealthy fossil fuel industry look ill prepared to except not only the blame for much of the world’s pollution but even the concept that mankind has indeed caused environmental problems at all.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30841581/climate_rage/3.

• It’s voluntary. The decision to issue loans is up to local governments
• The process for distributing loans under the bonds is also left to the local unit of government
• The loans would not exceed a 20-year re-payment period
• The interest rate on the loans would not be more than 0.5% higher than the interest rate on the bond.
• The loan is qualified through the property rather than the owner’s credit rating
• Repayment of the loan would be made through winter and summer property taxes and would remain with the property in the event of a sale.
• The loan is qualified through the property not the owner’s credit rating so that more homeowner’s and businesses would qualify.
• Homeowner’s and businesses would perform more energy improvements.
• Property owners would generate their own renewable energy
• The need for manufacturing, service, contracting, and building jobs in the green sector would increase from demand.
• This bill does not impact the state as far as money because the only caveat for property owners—no state tax credit for any of this. And the loan programs are not dependent on state budget support.

This bill could lead to property owner’s earning a percentage of all excess energy they produce beyond their own needs, as it should be. It’s one heck of an incentive to move forward on renewable energy. Germany has a solar program that is similar. The government offers cash incentives for solar or wind devices. Property owners earn a percentage of what they produce. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2007/10/germany-jump-starts-alternative-energy-push/.

 
Imagine getting money back for energy instead of paying a recurring monthly bill that restricts us from being as cool as we would like or as warm? Conservation spurs innovation. No one likes to cut back do they? We do so out of conscience. But if someone comes up with a way around it, we’re in.

Read the whole blog by Brady about the new House Bill: http://www.michiganliberal.com/diary/15764/sheltrown-to-introduce-michlib-green-energy-legislation.
http://www.mlive.com/mudpuppy/index.ssf/2009/11/michigan_rep_joel_sheltrown_to.html.

New administrator declaring that global warming pollution “endangers” Americans’ health and well being
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/04/epa-administrator-issues-proposed-ruling-on-global-warming/.

Being ordered by the courts to come up with mercury emission standards in two years.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/02/stricter-mercury-rules-on-the-way/.

Latest air study showed many U.S. cities flunking horribly
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/04/us-cities-recent-air-quality-reports%e2%80%94not-good/.

Non-existence when it comes to enforcement of the clean water act.
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/12/collapse-of-national-clean-water-act-enforcement-program/.

Plus, the largest and longest government report on the affects of global warming on the U.S. was completed and predicted bad consequences.
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/07/predictions-from-completed-government-report-on-global-warming/.

Senator Voinovich (R) Ohio and Senator Inhofe (R) Oklahoma put their request for the EPA study in writing, and although Voinovich read this request, Inhofe refused to expound on what his party wanted but reiterated it was in writing and left. The reason for leaving is that there is an (EPW) Environment and Public Works rule that at least two members of the minority have to be present before opening a markup, but it is not necessarily binding.

The funny part came when I actually listened to Senator Voinovich request the EPA do this modeling first so that Republicans can be informed with the latest reports. No wonder Inhofe didn’t want to expound. Voinovich ended up complaining about the EPA that when it did modeling before it used assumptions that were unrealistic. He said the EPA’s modeling is only as good as the assumptions built into it. What? Why would one request the EPA to do all this unnecessary work when one wasn’t satisfied with the EPA’s methodology to begin with? Is this the same type of convoluted request as wanting to be included then not showing up?

I state that the Republican senator’s request is unnecessary work because of the government’s recently completed and extensive global warming study that puts many parts of our country in a precarious position. And this same committee heard 54 witnesses on nine panels relative to climate change just last week. So there is already a large amount of climate change data available for review. Senator Boxer also brought in EPA officials to answer any questions the Republican senators might have. But a lot of good any of this important and recent information is when Republicans aren’t there to hear it.

Stall or no stall, the U.S. going to be surprised at the biggest gathering on climate change to date in Copenhagen this Decemeber because the scheme of things has changed. Cap and trade isn’t going to cut it anymore. There is much more at stake as the rest of the world is focusing on reparations by wealthy nations for the damage done. Stay Tuned.

Watch part of the committee meeting:

Senator Voinovich’s Request for EPA study

Aside from illness is the resident’s inability to sell their homes. One small business owner said his filters, heat boiler, and water softener got so clogged with iron they no longer worked. Who’s going to pay for that? And why has the state been so slow to do something about the ever-growing contaminated plumes infiltrating our groundwater? The article claims state officials have known about the problem for at least a decade. But the reason nothing has been done is because agriculture is the number 2 industry in Michigan employing thousands and bringing in billions.

What I don’t understand is if this industry is so profitable why don’t they put some money toward cleaning up their act? The article went on to say that the state and industry are working out the problems behind closed doors and without public input. What we have here is self-regulation that went horribly wrong. Belief in self-regulating industry comes from none other than Michigan’s Republican Senate.

I distinctly remember Michigan Democratic congress people trying to get stiffer regulations on CAFO’s in the past few years. They cited pollution of the interior of N.C. as an example of what can happen when huge industries like Smithfield Foods in that instance contaminated land, streams, and eventually the coastal waters from their practice of spraying fields with wastewater that included animal feces, blood, pesticides, antibiotics, etc. But our Senate squashed the Dem’s proposal saying the current regulations were good enough. They took the less is better route, (trusting industry), and opting to fine perpetrators when and if an “accident” happened. Only this is no accident. It’s standard practice for industry to spray their wastewater on surrounding land. What the senate proposed was: “We’ll smack them on the back of their hands, and fine them for being bad,” then back to business as usual. And the senate won.

I also wrote a blog just about a year ago that the state was cutting the DEQ, so no one would be around to monitor wetland contamination (groundwater) or pollution spills. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/09/deq-wont-be-checking-on-wetlands-or-pollution-spills-due-to-cuts/. The gist of that blog, however, was how the Republican Senate just a few months earlier fought to keep at least 25% of all of Michigan’s groundwater out of the Great Lakes Compact, and specifically out of the public’s domain. Surely they anticipated more statewide cuts in light of the economy, which would leave wetlands and/or groundwater not only unprotected but also without regulators nosing around. It was an industry’s dream scenario.

So Michigan’s Republican Senate is responsible for blocking more regulation for CAFO pollution that directly affects our groundwater, fighting to keep 25% of Michigan’s groundwater from protection under the Great Lakes Compact, and the whole time knowing full well that there would be fewer regulators on hand to monitor any violators. The citizen’s in the Freep article should be “Afraid of the Water”—very afraid. They should thank Michigan’s Senate for helping industry along.

Michigan’s Republican Senate has protected industry above the health and monetary concerns of Michigan residents more than not. This is not how government is supposed to work. We elect officials to represent us not industry. You may say the senate is only protecting jobs. At 63 billion in profits last year just for Michigan’s food industry, they can afford to be good stewards of the land that keeps them in business. Job loss is just a threat. What they really fear is profit loss. But if industry, especially the food industry, continues their practices as before, they are in essence, stupidly poisoning the ground that feeds them, and everyone else in their path.

In 2002 Alaska Growth Capital in partnership with Alaska’s Forestry Service set up a program to help rural communities in Alaska. Federal funding was leveraged to help produce a variety of forest–based goods and services to meet domestic and international needs. This program also granted loans for business start-ups. Steve Seley secured an $800,000 loan and put up $800,000 of his own money for his company’s (Pacific Log and Lumber) sawmill on Gravina Island in the Tongass. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:8LQDo7Unq4MJ:www.fs.fed.us/r10/spf/publications/spf_2002AccompReport
_finalbyUntalaso_090503.pdf+who+is+Steve+Seley+related+to+in+government%3F&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.
An odd place to plan on making money since the Tongass was protected by the roadless rule in 2002.

In 2003, Bush decided to exempt the Tongass National Forest from the 2001 Roadless Rule in the late afternoon, the day before Christmas. http://www.nativeforest.org/action_alerts/archive/wildlands_1_13_04.htm .
That’s a little curious. He also announced that he planned to allow the governors of the lower 48 states to have the last say so as to what is protected by the Roadless Rule. In short, he effectively repealed the Roadless Rule by relinguishing Federal Power over NATIONAL parks. What does a state have any business deciding what happens in a NATIONAL PARK? National parks go over state lines, and are therefore shared by other states. That would be like Michigan deciding everything to do with the Great Lakes just because we have the most shoreline.

By 2006, Steve Seley’s business, all of 23 people, was in trouble. A timber sale that was supposed to happen did not happen yet. http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/373461/gravina_island_mill
_owner_hardened_by_hardship/index.html. But a little farther on in the year, the U.S. Forest Service signed an agreement with Alaska that assures Seley’s company will get the timber sales agreement in exchange for biological data of the Tongass area. Alaska and the USFS stated: “‘This is a cooperative agreement that accomplishes two things: to provide a timber supply, and to collectively share state data on all biological information gathered and collected with the Forest Service to help rewrite the Tongass Land Management Plan,’ said Michael Menge, commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources. Oh I’m sure they would love to rewrite the plan and open up a heck of a lot more of Tongass National Park to useless logging. One of the Forest Service’s sticking points in offering sales, according to industry and state officials, is the rewrite of the plan.” http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/020506/hom_20060205005.shtml.
In the same Alaska Journal article it was noted: “Gov. Frank Murkowski’s chief of staff, Jim Clark, who was the former chief lobbyist and attorney for the Alaska Logging Association, signed the memorandums for the state, and that Jack Phelps, special projects manager for the state, is the former executive director of the Alaska Forest Association.” We can see that the state of Alaska relative to this agreement was pretty much represented by the logging industry. So we can basically say that the logging industry cut a deal with the U.S. Forestry Service to give timber sales to the logging industry while they collect biological data of the habitat in and around the Tongass. Isn’t that a little backward?

Usually data like this is collected in order to understand what and how many species and/or ecosystems will be impacted by the logging business. To log first and study the impact during or afterward is ridiculous. And do you think it’s ethical to allow members of the logging business to be the ones to collect data in the first place that might possibly influence decisions made by the USFS in the future relative to the Tongass? The data might be a little skewed in the lumber industry’s favor.

Well, I guess we’ll see because our Secy. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack agreed to a new plan using taxpayer dollars to allow logging in the Tongass basically so that Steve Seley and others like him can stay afloat. So our taxpayer dollars are financing logging that is not really needed so that small businesses in rural areas of Alaska can stay working? http://www.examiner.com/x-13344-Wildlife-Conservation-Examiner~y2009m7d27-Obama-administration-clearcutting-Tongass-National-Forest-with-taxpayer-money. A sweet deal for Steve, but why was it we didn’t bail out the auto industry? Citizens of Alaska have the 5th highest median income of all the states.

Surely keeping the Tongass in an unprotected state for 6 years to ultimately allow unnecessary logging to take place in our largest U.S. temperate rainforest is not about Steve Seley. He’s the door that just opened. The data collected about environmental impacts will more than likely be watered down in the logging industry’s favor and slowly we will destroy a rainforest for no good reason than to give someone a job. For all that I read and there is much in the articles just cited here, the Tongass area lumber cannot compete with others between the quality of wood, and the shipping distance. As taxpayers we should not be happy about this.

As the Chicago Examiner asked: Why should we care about protecting Tongass National Forest from logging?

For one, this ancient, vital forest ecosystem belongs to all Americans. It’s our own 17 million acre lush, cool shaded rainforest. It is supposed to exist for all Americans for all time, not as a quick cash-cow for a few greedy businesses. There are endangered wildlife
like the Alexander Archipelago Islands Wolf, which exists nowhere else on earth, and black-tailed deer, grizzly bears, wolverines, black bears, timber wolves and bald eagles.

But oh, that’s right, Alaska aerial kills wolves and bears like they are rodents. We’re not going to get a lot of empathy for these critters out of the logging industry.

Finally this is a shady, cool, forest canopy. If it’s destroyed the area will dry out. There is a likelihood that the dried mosses, and needles could ignite no differently than down here.

Americans, the environment, the wildlife and their habitat are being swindled on this one. There is more natural resource wealth in the Tongass National Forest than will be made on lumber sales. Call your congress people before the door opens too wide on this one. It’s a real travesty.

The 25 years between 67 and 91 saw a lot of oil go into our oceans. Luckily, the past 20 years has seen a decrease in tanker spills worldwide. The Exxon Valdez was so horrible; the attention caused a marked improvement in reducing accident rates for oil tankers. Unfortunately, the concern wasn’t so much for the environment or wildlife as it was for the financial liabilities from a spill. A shame, since we know quite well that oil companies do indeed recover financially. We know what big oil’s net earnings are these days. The irony is that wildlife and the environment doesn’t seem to recover quickly at all, or ever for that matter.

Thirteen hundred miles of Alaskan coastline was spoiled from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Communities and fisheries were ruined. Four thousand otters died and at least one population of orca whales has yet to recover. Local livelihoods were destroyed, and many wildlife and fish populations are still depleted, while Alaska’s economy lost millions, according to the same newsletter.

It’s good to know we learned from that spill. Tanker spillage is drastically down but we haven’t licked the problem altogether. The same environmental research information from a consulting firm that reported tanker oil spills are way down, also said that pipelines have taken up the slack. It stated: “Since 1985, U.S. pipelines have spilled more oil than tankers and barges combined. Since 1991, pipelines have annually spilled 37 times as much as tankers. The change in the proportion U.S. pipeline spillage is largely due to the fact that since 1990, pipelines transport more oil across more miles than water carriers.” And that infrastructure is old and getting older. Luckily, we’re spilling less and less over the past two decades, but as the report went on to say:

While the statistics show encouraging downward trends, there is no room for complacency. An ill-timed oil spill that occurs in a sensitive location, regardless of spill size, can cause devastating damage to natural environments, property, and business, and, occasionally, to human lives. Aging pipeline and facility infrastructures,
as well as aging vessel fleets, may be ticking time bombs, especially as they become subjected to increasing oil throughput and transport in future years. Increased international attention to tanker safety has had a positive influence that is sorely needed in other vessel categories and for non-vessel sources, particularly pipelines.

Oil is a leaky business both on land and sea. We’re faced with more oil exploration in the sensitive areas spoken about here. In 2007, Bush lifted a longstanding executive ban on off shore oil leasing in Bristol Bay, Alaska. According to WWF’s newsletter, Bristol Bay is known as America’s fish basket that contributes $2.2 billion to the economy annually. It is near the Bering Sea, “which produces nearly half of America’s wild seafood.” Do you like seafood? Consider Gulf shrimp also, since the recent Senate version of the energy bill includes more oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. We’re messing with our food supply when we go for the crude. We endanger wild life, and the economy of the regions at risk for “oil spillage.” Right now the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia vacated Bush’s plans for oil leasing in Bristol Bay. Help keep it that way. Contact your representatives and tell them to limit oil drilling, especially in areas that have long been protected FOR GOOD REASON. Besides, we only have 3% of the world’s oil supply, and use 25%. This horse is not going to win the race this time. The math dictates we must find replacements for our energy needs or forever be dependent on nations that, well, just don’t like us.

http://www.environmental-research.com/publications/pdf/spill_statistics/paper4.pdf

· Clean Energy Deployment Administration – provides for increased capitalization of clean energy projects;
· Oil and gas – opens portions of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, including Destin Dome, to oil and gas leasing, and establishes a one-stop permitting office in Alaska for offshore leasing in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas;
· Alaska natural gas pipeline – increases federal loan guarantee for the developers of a gas pipeline project from $18 billion to $30 billion, and allows access to the Federal Financing Bank;
· Energy workforce development – provides assistance to institutions of higher learning and community colleges that place an emphasis on energy jobs and help train the energy workers of the future;
· Energy efficiency – establishes new efficiency standards for several consumer products and makes changes that will allow standards to be updated more often and be market driven;
· Renewable electricity standard – requires utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity with renewable energy by 2021, and contains consumer off-ramps for increased costs and the opportunity to petition for a variance due to transmission constraints, includes expanded definition of biomass, eligible hydropower and removes nuclear uprates from the baseline;
· Nuclear – provides clear statement of the federal government’s support for nuclear energy, as well as encourages resolution of the spent nuclear fuel issue.
· Transmission – addresses planning and siting of electrical transmission infrastructure by encouraging states to develop plans and giving FERC backstop siting authority, ties cost allocation to benefits;
· Cyber security – increases authority for both FERC and the Department of Energy to protect the nation’s electrical grid from cyber security threats and vulnerabilities;
· Carbon sequestration – allows for indemnification of up to 10 demonstration projects;
· Modification of Section 526 – allows the government, and in particularly the military, to purchase Canadian tar sand oil.

Either the two bills will collide, and end up being much ado about nothing, or meld into a bill everyone can work with notwithstanding industry lobbyists who would like all to remain status quo even though the math doesn’t add up. We use a quarter of the world’s oil, and only have 3% of the world’s oil stores. When we get into tar sand oil, the price of producing the stuff and the pollution it produces is ridiculous to even bring up in an environmental conversation. We need to move along to sustainable, renewable energy and soon.

The idea is to use as little as necessary of the old fossil fuels in the interim process of the shift to alternatives while we concentrate on funding technology that has been squeeze played for quite awhile. And what are some of the technologies that have been held up? It’s been over a year since I blogged about Centia, a process that uses restaurant sludge grease and converts it to jet fuel and other fuels at the molecular level. http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2009/01/jet-fuel-from-animal-fats-algae-oil-via.html. This fuel can be ready to go in less than 2 years if it gets proper funding. See what I mean? What’s the stall? There is a never-ending supply of restaurant grease the way America likes to eat. And what about algae for fuel? I blogged about that too. Some mighty fine progress is being made along those lines, http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/27/15-algae-startups-bringing-pond-scum-to-fuel-tanks/, but again its overlooked in the media and subject to conservative spin that it costs too much or will cost jobs. I’ve even run across someone wondering where we’re going to grow all the algae? Duh–pond scum, some of that stuff can regenerate in 24 hours in the right bog.

I thought we knew by now that anything brand new costs more. Look at mainframe computers back in the 70’s compared to laptops, or digital watches, or radios. We can buy a digital watch or radio in the dollar store now. I bought a dollar store radio for my sister in a nursing home. I couldn’t believe the sound I got out that little plastic thing when I put the earphones on. Unbelievable.

The ingenuity of invention that transpires when something is finally unleashed from the grasp of the status quo is unbelievable and could put the U.S. in a position of industrial leadership again. And that’s how I and many others picture the future. Superceding fossil fuels isn’t a downfall, but an opportunity. We’ll be saying the word, “unbelievable” about a lot of things we invent like running our cars, and heating our homes with restaurant grease or algae, or solar, or wind. Alternative energy is a diverse and growing market. If anything our environment will be a lot quieter.

Read more about both bills:

http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=IssueItems.View&IssueItem_ID=1fbce5ed-7447-42ff-9dc2-5b785a98ad80.

http://www.pewclimate.org/acesa

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/18405

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/17/17greenwire-senate-committee-approves-broad-energy-package-9861.html

http://www.grist.org/article/broad-and-diverse-support-for-waxman-markeys-american-clean-energy-and-secu.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/17/17greenwire-senate-committee-approves-broad-energy-package-9861.html

Please read this article and know what you are eating and what that poor animal goes through in the process. Once you’ve got a grasp of what big factory farms are all about, remember that the Department of Agriculture has been turning a blind eye to them to for years. At a time when many of us are becoming more and more environmentally conscious, we know that not only preserving small farms but also helping them to flourish once again is key to getting healthier food on our plates while allowing animals a lifestyle they deserve.

In my last blog I quoted Dr. Albert Schweitzer regarding compassion for all living things, that it is the root of all ethics. Well there are far too many people in Michigan’s House of Representatives that just don’t get it. Compassion for living things, including other human beings, is drastically slipping in our so-called “Christian” country. It begins with animals.

House Bill 5127 according to the Humane Society of the U.S., grants the Department of Agriculture sole authority to regulate livestock health and welfare, and require the Department to adopt industry standards regarding the treatment of farm animals. They also preempt local ordinances or regulations regarding animal care standards for farm animals. And HB 5128 establishes an industry dominated animal care advisory council to review and establish animal care standards for farm animals.

What? The very people, the USDA, that have turned a blind eye to the abuse of farm animals relative to factory farms for years are to be in charge? After reading the link above, anyone with a conscious could not possibly allow these bills to pass. What happened in S. Carolina’s factory farms resulted in one of the largest fines for pollution by the EPA ever. It was against Smithfield Foods. The USDA knew about it, but Smithfield Foods has deep pockets. If the pollution from that Smithfield Food’s factory farm in the interior of S. Carolina made it all the way to the ocean, what are factory farms even doing in a place like Michigan surrounded by fresh water? All of us know that groundwater eventually ends up in the lakes, yet there are 2200 factory farms currently in Michigan. Now our legislature wants to water down farm animal rights and regulation by granting the USDA complete control of our farm animal’s welfare?

This is not good for farm animal’s lives, Michigan’s food supply, or our fresh water supplies. It just looks like a way to dump responsibility on an already overburdened federal agency because it’s cheaper and/or easier. Granting the USDA the right to decide what happens to cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc., is like the fox watching the henhouse again. Big corporations will lobby the USDA as they have in the past and end up with control of everything.

Monroe can call Kate Ebli about voting against these bills in the Michigan House at 517-373-2617. Your call can make a big difference to all the farm animals in Michigan, our food and dairy supplies, and our freshwater. We need to start living more compassionate lives. It’s called EMPATHY, the ability to put ourselves in another’s position, right down to animals. There is no reason for cruelty toward something innocent–ever.

But the SCI is nothing more than rich trophy hunters that seek the heads and skins of any type of animal whether endangered or not. If they had their way they would be hunting polar bears. According to Michael Satchell, a consultant to the Humane Society of the U.S., “With the help of friendly members of Congress and officials in USFWS, SCI has consistently attempted to navigate around the intent of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and import once-banned trophies of endangered and threatened wildlife. Sometimes, the club has succeeded, sometimes not.”

It’s apparent SCI believes its hunting rights are above the law and works to make sure the law goes its way. And it did when the law to allow guns in our national parks was passed. This lovely little edict I wrote about was tucked inside a totally unrelated bill. I kept asking what good guns were inside a national park except to kill the animals that are supposed to be protected there, specifically wolves.

SCI saw it the same way. SCI just announced it will throw its money and power against any type of wolf protection in the courts, and help with planned wolf hunts in the Northern Rockies according to Defenders of Wildlife. Why is this not a surprise? SCI is behind Sarah Palin’s brutal attack on wolves and bears in Alaska. My guess is the plane she did not sell on Ebay, is now employed for some of these hunting ventures. SCI is still fighting for the right to kill the imperiled polar bears! Nice bunch of guys huh? You kinda want to float them out on a piece of ice and take pot shots at em and see how they like it.

As early as this fall hundreds of wolves are on the line. Pups as young as 5 months old can be targeted in hunts approved in Idaho. Of course SCI will be there with bells on.

The hunting and killing of animals, the Endangered Species Act, and the USFWS, should be lead by science and based on scientific approaches to wildlife management, not at the whim of wealthy trophy hunters contributing to members of congress. It appears our Dept. of Interior, and USFWS is continuing to follow the lead of the Bush Administration and its all out assault on our national treasures, the animals. Wolves are meant to live and thrive and maintain a natural balance within all sorts of our ecosystems. Because they do their job well, wolves are continuously the target of hunters who claim there won’t be enough to hunt. Taking out the wolves in our national parks will cause many of the ecosystems that began to return because of the wolves’ presence to diminish once again.

We’re so busy being a superior group in the animal chain that our arrogance overlooks the great ability of nature to do a better job on many fronts. I’m sickened by those that would hunt animals that are already suffering because of mankind. What kind of soul do they, can they have? We’d be a better country if we followed the ideas of Dr. Albert Schweitzer instead of the likes of the NRA or SCI. In the aftermath of WWII many looked to Schweitzer’s philosophy for “the restoration of hope and sanity,” according to Ann Cottrell Free’s book, Animals, Nature & Albert Schweitzer.

And in 1952 Dr. Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Humanitarianism. He said in his acceptance speech: “There could be no peace, no harmony among men and nations unless prejudice and nationalism were laid aside, and all human kind recognized and embraced the universality of life—specifically, ‘all living creatures.’”

To quote Schweitzer:

“The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret….It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”

I started to write so much for congress, the USFWS, the military, our health/research agencies, but the list was just too long. Our ethics are in the tank in this country if they are supposed to be rooted in compassion, because the last time I read my mail it was an ever-growing barrage of animal rights groups screaming for help from every direction.

Michael Satchell, “A View to a Kill: How Safari Club Int’l Works to Weaken ESA Protections”, Humane Society US, undated, accessed August 2005.

Cottrell Free, Ann, Animals, Nature & Albert Schweitzer, Washington, D.C: The Flying Fox Press, 1990.

http://www.defenders.org/

Since 1975 exposure to cancer causing agents in the environment has increased. Remember the early 70’s the Clean Air and Water Act was enacted because we were polluting horribly. All the reports I’ve read say our air and water have indeed cleaned up a great deal since the early 70’s. Yet this letter states that more work related and environmental pollutants are causing the majority of cancers and that trend began in the mid 70’s. Hmmm.

The NCI still claims 94% of all cancers are caused by smoking, obesity, sun, yada, yada, yada and only 6% to environmental factors. But that consensus came from a 1981 report from Sir Richard Doll in the U.K. Here is where motive changes how we should view Sir Doll’s report. He was also a consultant for Monsanto, and the asbestos industry. Just before he died in 2002, “Doll admitted that most cancers, other than those related to smoking and hormones, “are induced by exposure to chemicals often environmental.”

This was scary stuff I was reading. We’ve been mislead for quite awhile. We are not causing our own cancers as much as we have been lead to believe. There is a list of cancers increasing at a rapid rate caused by factors not under our control. It is clear that other agencies besides the NCI need be involved in the prevention of cancer like the EPA, FDA, and OSHA. The agencies that can control the rise of preventable cancers because what we are breathing, drinking, and eating is affecting our health.

And as far as new cures for cancer, this letter had disturbing facts, but not hard to believe. I’m helping my mother through the aftermath of cancer and do not trust that the standard route works all that well either. My suspicions were confirmed when I read:

Furthermore, the NCI has touted the imminent success of new cancer treatments – promises that have seldom borne out, and which have been widely questioned by the independent scientific community. For instance, in 2004, Nobel Laureate Leland Hartwell, President of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Control Center, warned that Congress and the public are paying NCI $4.7 billion a year, most of which is spent on “promoting ineffective drugs” for terminal disease.

Well then, there you have it. Cancer is more easily preventable than cureable.

Read the very candid letter from the medical and scientific community and list of cancers on the rise and their causes:
http://world-wire.com/news/0906150001.html.