Our World and Everything in It

The lawsuit is the latest attack on the EPA for not regulating emissions again. This time it’s emissions from oil refineries. The New York Times article stated that 15% of all CO2 emissions comes from oil refineries. The other states are

New York atty. Andrew Cuomo leads the current fight, claiming it’s another example of the Bush Administration’s “do-nothing policy” regarding global warming.

Last year the Supreme Court ruled that it was the duty of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas under the Clean Air Act. The NY Times article said, “Since then, the agency’s director has said it is the job of Congress to regulate them.” Don’t you love it?

The EPA is like Teflon. Nothing sticks. They’ve been sued to set standards for power plant emissions and recently by California to regulate emissions from autos.

As far as the EPA turning out any standards for any of the above, so far nada.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/26epa.html?_r=1&ref=environment&oref=slogin

At one hundred kilowatts per hour per for one device, Swell Fuels lever operated pivoting float is something we should be using right now. A World Wire article stated: “The patent-pending device uses a pivoting float and a lever arm that unfolds to capture the up and down motion of ocean waves, producing electricity in the process.” How ingenious.

Swell Fuels is ready to go with this product but guess what? Politics and special interest groups are blocking this and many more innovative ways of creating energy for the future. We’re being told by many different articles including one in the Detroit Free Press this weekend about wind power, that the costs and time involved in alternative energy is too much, that’s why we’re not moving forward. Baloney. Innovation is being blocked to say the least.

Read more about this curious but effective invention: http://world-wire.com/news/0808120002.html.

First I read one of those quick moving news feeds that the EPA warned it’s enforcement officers not to speak to Congress. That little bit of info just peaked my curiosity–speak up about what?

Now four senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee are urging Steven Johnson, the third EPA administrator under Bush, to resign as it appears he lied to a Senate committee.

Johnson claims he acted alone when he decided California should not regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles, but he was originally going to issue a partial waiver to CA. Someone changed his mind. The preceding EPA administrators left just as questionably and quickly as Johnson.

Christine Todd Whitman, 2001-2003, resigned just before reports of the clean up of 9/11 came out and according to SourceWatch,  “Eric Shaeffer, the EPA’s head of regulatory enforcement under Whitman, resigned under protest. He told Flanders that Whitman is ‘a Republican first and an environmentalist way down the list.’”

Michael Leavitt was Bush’s second appointee as EPA Administrator. Twelve states and several NE cities sued the EPA to block the new Clean Air rules during his leadership. The states argued the rules would weaken both environmental and health protection for citizens. Nice real nice. Scientist’s discontent with censorship was surfacing along with altered reports about global warming too. Leavitt left the EPA to head up Health and Human Services. That’s when a memo from Leavitt’s new department suggested its employees should buy hybrid. It suggested the whole federal fleet should go hybrid. This suggestion was via e-mail to 67,000 employees! So was Leavitt environmentally minded or not, altering reports of global warming on the one hand, then telling employees to buy foreign hybrids on the other?

And now Stephen Johnson appears to have succumbed to political pressure from the White House too. Who will be the replacement this time, someone from oil, someone from the NRA and/or hunting industry, or lumber, or coal…? I mean we had Steven Griles as Deputy Secretary of the Interior that oversees the EPA, and USFWS among other things, that resigned and went to work for Conoco Phillips oil as a lobbyist. The Deputy Chief of Staff to the Dept. of Interior, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, denied living with Griles when she still worked for the EPA. And then there was Philip Cooney, former head of the White House Council for Environmental Quality. Cooney was caught editing important data from scientific reports for quite awhile as well as pressuring the EPA to go along, so much so, that in 2002 the EPA removed an entire section on global warming from its annual report about air pollution. Cooney came to his position at the council as a lawyer and former lobbyist  for the American Petroleum Institute.  He left to work for Exxon Mobil. Right now a former lobbyist for an Intl. Hunt Club heads the USFWS. Ethics abound in the Bush administration.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902020.html 

A short synopsis of what I gathered from a brief presentation of Al Gore’s speech in Washington today:

Gore thanked all of the congressman present and the many that he has conferred with over the years and around the world. He said he hoped to lift partisanship from global warming efforts.

He went on to say that America needs to shake off its complacency because the survival of the United States is at risk, as well as, what’s at stake for all civilization relative to global warming.

He acknowledged what many of us are currently thinking that so many things are going so wrong simultaneously. The economy is tanking. We’re losing job. The mortgage industry is in dire straights. We still have security risks, and the Iraq war. Gas prices keep rising. Food prices are rising.  And our weather is increasingly horrible, posing new threats to the economy as many homeowners lose everything they own to fires, floods, and tornadoes.

Global warming is advancing faster than originally thought in 2001, (National Geographic’s “Planet Earth” series proves this). Our own U.S. Navy subs went under the Arctic Ice Cap, and it’s now believed 75% of it will be gone in just 5 years. Greenland is disappearing with 20 million tons of ice melting into open water daily. Sea levels will rise. And based on the latest round of increased lightening strikes during storms, scientists say that a 1% increase in global warming will increase lightening strikes 10% more. The problem is bigger than we think.

So the bulk of America’s problems can be categorized as economic, environmental, and as national security issues. After speaking with leaders from around the world, scientists, engineers, CEO’s of major corporations, etc., all agree that old solutions that treat each of these categories separately is a mistake because at the core of every bad issue is our dangerous dependency on fossil fuels.

America needs to end dependency on carbon-based fuels!  (Roar from the crowd). It’s easy to see that these same measures to help the environment can:

• Ease the economy by offering thousands of new jobs in new green industry right here in America
•  Stop the energy/safety threat we suffer through control by foreign oil interests. These foreign (enemy) interests have a stranglehold on us. If we don’t need oil, we won’t need them. Oil fuels their wealth and power.  

Gore stated that the U.S. is borrowing money from China to purchase oil in the Middle East. We end up polluting while accelerating global warming. In that statement alone are the three categories of our problems economics, security, and the environment. We’re dealing with potential enemies to supplies us with our needs while they drain our bank account.

The quickest, cheapest, best answer to all three problems is the efficient production of electricity for all of our needs. Science proclaims that the sun provides enough cumulative energy every 40 minutes to provide 100% of the entire world’s needs. Now why wouldn’t we use that instead? Gore also reiterated what I’ve already learned, that there is enough wind through the U.S. corridor to provide all of America’s energy needs. Add geothermal power to the equation and we simply have enough energy to get away from fossil fuels once and for all.

Gore remembers a statement that was made long ago that if oil got to $30 per barrel then alternative energy sources would be competitive. We’re closing in on being 5 times that limit and greater demand for alternative energy by big corporate consumers is already bringing costs down.

The logic then follows that we must put an end to our old fossil fuel solutions. We need a new start. Gore presented a strategic challenge to all of America. It is the linchpin of a bold new strategy to change America’s direction. He urged Americans to strive to reach 100% reliance on clean alternative energy sources within the next 10 years! And we should never think we can’t, because we can. Gore sited the walk on the moon at this juncture. (Huge applause and ovation).

Talking about solutions 40 years away is ridiculous. We have to aim for less than 10 years and if that challenge is not politically viable, Gore said, “Then ask the people.” (Another huge ovation).

Gore stated that our country can’t afford 10 more years of a tanking economy, job outsourcing, horrible weather disasters whereby the home insurance business may bottom out, and 10 more years of troop deployments to dangerous regions who happen to have huge oil supplies. Hmmm that last statement was interesting. Did we really invade Iraq for the oil and how is that playing out, and what oil companies and people are benefiting from our grief?

That’s pretty much all CNBC and CNN allowed us to watch. CNN announced at the same time Gore was giving this speech that John McCain was in Kansas getting an ovation for his idea about offshore oil drilling. I think Gore can forget partisan unity at this point.   

My 85-year-old mother asked me why there aren’t as many stars at night? I told her; to begin with, it has to be a clear night to see a bunch of stars. She said it seems when she was young there were a lot of starry nights. She’s intently watching the skies over Monroe to see if we have any clear nights, and how many stars are visible.

She thinks there aren’t as many clear nights because of pollution. My mother also remarked that some of her friend’s children were down from northern Michigan for a visit and it was quite noticeable to them that our skies are different, not as clear, even in the daytime.

I’m still wondering when the EPA is going to release reports about all types of things in our air, water, and land mass. It’s the same old stall or obstruction used by the Bush Administration against the environment for 8 years. I witnessed the put-off again on the news today when President Bush, during his talks in Britain with Gerald Brown, said that the U.S. would embrace environmentalism when China and India agree to the same pact or “whatever the U.S. does just won’t be affective.”

What a crock. First of all the U.S. only has 300 million citizens compared to both China and India with over one billion citizens each, yet the U.S. holds its own creating one quarter of earth’s total pollution. I think we could make quite a big dent in cleaning up the environment without China and India along for the ride. Has this administration ever heard the term, leading by example? Besides India is making huge strides by using their pollution for methane production to fuel their cooking and lighting needs. Bio Tech India has both a portable and permanent models of residential bio mass digesters. Just feed the digester food scraps and it produces methane gas to burn. Bio Tech India is also working on incorporating human waste into the works. India is already using the cow dung from its sacred cows for methane and energy production. Just think of all the fuel we could get from doggy parks, and litter boxes.

So it’s the same old song and dance from Bush. I really didn’t expect much more from his regime, but then I read an article on ENS website that congress is wondering about the big stall on reports about clean air, water, and land too, and what it’s costing us health wise.  It seems Congress “questioned the health effects of a new White House policy that delays the completion and release of chemical assessments into a public database maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

There it is, the purposeful stall from the Bush regime that delays the release of assessments that inevitably affect our health in a bad way, but no doubt help some big polluter down the line. I’m starting to feel like a Polar Bear more and more all the time.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2008/2008-06-12-093.asp

If you’ve never heard of or viewed the panorama of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon area, do it. It is absolutely beautiful. I saw a travel channel segment on Zion National Park and want to visit there. It looks like a place of God. Our national parks are a real treasure, but the Bush administration doesn’t have much time left, and is trying for land grabs right out of OUR national parks to drill for oil.

If Bush has his way, oil drills will destroy eleven million acres of national park in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. I’m hearing about these attempted land grabs happening all over the place. What I want to know is what is the sense? We know we’re short of refineries in the U.S. It’s a well known fact every time the U.S. has an oil crisis, large or small, that right away we want to invade new areas and drill for more oil. But it’s of no use unless it’s refined, and we don’t have enough refineries.

And it’s not likely we’ll be seeing brand new refineries in the future because of global warming. And yes even the Bush/Cheney administration admitted quite a while ago in 2002 that humans do indeed cause global warming. The U.S. EPA submitted a 268-page report to the UN back then admitting to and agreeing with scientists that oil refining, fossil fuel power plants, and car emissions are significant causes of global warming.

It’s 2008. What aren’t they getting? I know what the Bush administration is getting–more neglectful of our rights when they simply try to take over public lands for nothing more than filling the pockets of the rich from oil production. Trashing these beautiful areas of our country will not sit well with a court system that has been standing for the environment in a number of cases so far.

According to an Earthjustice report, just recently another federal court judge ruled that: “After years of court battles, Kane County must halt its illegal efforts to create roadways through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other wilderness areas,” which is in another area of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. A U.S. District Judge “ordered the county to take down its signs inviting vehicles into areas closed to protect sensitive streams, wildlife habitat, archeological treasures, and wilderness values.”

This is good news but Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of Interior, needs to hear from us again, even though he and the Bush administration know that attempts to drill in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon is going to meet with some mighty big resistance since this judge’s ruling.

http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/utahm00/xwnke5k44xx5mjj?

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/utah-county-must-stop-illegal-seizure-of-rights-of-way.html

Bush admits humans cause global warming: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2023835.stm

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_the_us_lack_sufficient_oil_refining.html

Now that the polar bears made the list, the push is on for global warming legislation. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, has scheduled the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act S2191 for a floor vote in early June.

It looks like another senate vote that requires 60 votes. Currently about 40 senators support the bill, and another 20 are undecided. Environmental Defense Action Fund  “is working to find the votes and to strengthen, protect and pass the bill to put the Senate on record in favor of a strong policy to cap and reduce America’s global warming pollution. But I don’t think this is a strong policy yet. It’s a start.

I’m not the only one that thinks so. I ran into this article on http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/tags/americans_climate_security_act that says Friends of Earth took out ads to oppose this bill. FOE “thinks it does not go far enough and would be a windfall to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries.”

I saw another URL that Greenpeace opposes it also. So I looked the thing over @ http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s2191is.txt.pdf.

I found a lot of things right off the bat that were ludicrous like the sections below:

On page 7:  (5) the ingenuity of the people of the United States will allow the United States to become a leader in curbing global warming. Sure, but only if Big Oil and those in its pockets let us do so.

Then page 8 says that the idea is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough between 2007 and 2050 to avert the catastrophic impact of global climate change and to accomplish that purpose while preserving (23) robust growth in the United States economy, and (24) avoiding the imposition of hardship on United States citizens.

Right, just like many state energy packages lately that throw the entire burden on consumers in the form of higher rates. Boohoo, multimillion-dollar companies can’t afford to change quickly. What, they couldn’t see this coming for the last 8 years? Heck, there were climate change talks in 1994. I did a blog on companies that just forged ahead with their polluting practices, regardless of a growing global movement for the environment, that in the end would cry they couldn’t afford a fast turnaround. Why should we pay for their lack of foresight? Oh we have to think of the economy. We can’t let big business falter. Well why don’t we do away with the old fat cats and get new environmental industry going? The economy isn’t choosy about what affects its growth.

And finally my favorite part that really disappointed me about this bill is on page 13. It’s the same do-you-think-we’re-stupid list of what constitutes greenhouse gas:

(15) GREENHOUSE GAS.—The term ‘‘greenhouse gas’’ means any of—
       (A) carbon dioxide;
       (B) methane;
       (C) nitrous oxide;
       (D) sulfur hexafluoride;
       (E) a hydrofluorocarbon; or
       (F) a perfluorocarbon

This is the same long tired list that allows the removal of one or two gases while not reducing any of another. As long as the total greenhouse gas emissions of an industry falls within the limits of what that industry is allowed per year, and this sounds really high also, than it’s legal. This is what is wrong with the cap and trade solution, too many gases on the list to choose from. What if all industry decides to go the easy, cheap route and eliminates the same two gases only? For example: A coal burning facility decides to install what is called a scrubber on its plant. Lets say the scrubber collects most of the sulfur emissions and nitrous oxide depending on how it’s configured, and that alone lowers the overall emissions of the plant that’s allowed by law. CO2 just keeps on spouting forth. This is not to say that the sulfur or nitrous oxide is any less dangerous to overall global warming. Actually, it’s worse, but CO2 is the most concentrated in the atmosphere right now, and it’s not being dealt with because that industry concentrates on sulfur or nitrous oxide or hydrofluorocarbon instead.

All in all, it looks to me like the U.S. Court of Appeals did the environment a whole lot more justice than this bill when it vacated the EPA’s Clean Air Mercury Rule and told them cap and trade of mercury is nothing more than moving that pollution around. Amen.   

I just wrote about Colorado’s forests being decimated by beetles whose populations are out of control due to global warming. They are killing lodge pole pines with other evergreen trees at risk also, while the Bush administration pushes to end the Roadless Rule that will decimate one of the largest forested areas in the country, which is in Idaho to the mining, oil, and lumber industry.  The big picture for the wolf kill, buffalo kill, and mustang roundups is getting clearer isn’t it? Alaska, Wyoming, and Idaho are some of the states with huge forests at risk without this rule, and the same states that are home to the slaughter of these animals. If these animals remained protected, their habitat couldn’t be touched. They must be removed for the next phase of this unethical, and unscrupulous plan to take place! So now we should see clearly we’ve been lied to again about the reasons for the slaughter.

The intelligence and ethics level of this administration has hit an all time low by destroying the very trees that help remove CO2 from the air and protect us from baking at a time when many of our trees have been destroyed already by fires and floods over the past two years, and on the heels of the Colorado lodge pole blight. We need more trees, not less. Do we see Europe attacking their landscapes as we do? http://www.15years.gov.si/backround-information/biodiversity/.

We cannot afford to let this happen in the interest of big money because once our forests are gone, they are gone forever. And don’t think that once oil, lumber, and mining interests move in they will simply stop with a new president in office. This is the march of the wealthy destroying our country in their last ditch effort to get a stronghold before this administration is through. The sad thing is we haven’t even begun to practice conservation. We haven’t unleashed the alternative energy innovation we already have. This is the same type of unintelligent, quick-triggered decision-making that ignored any and all alternatives that got us into a war, which is costing us dearly. We must unite to keep this type of movement from advancing until we see this administration exit. 

The Heritage Forest Campaign explains:

Spanning 58.5 million acres in 38 states, America’s national forest roadless areas contain some of our nation’s last pristine forests. From the expansive wilds of the American Southwest and Northern Rockies to the colorful deciduous woods of New England and the Appalachians, these last tracts of unspoiled backcountry provide habitat for wildlife, headwaters to rivers, and unparalleled recreational opportunities for millions of Americans.

The state of Idaho contains over 9.3 million acres of National Forest roadless areas - the most of any state outside of Alaska.  Idaho’s roadless backcountry makes up the core of the last intact forest ecosystem in the lower 48 states - the last place where all of the native plants, fish and wildlife - from the smallest plant to the largest predator - can still be found.

In 2001, the U.S. Forest Service issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects Idaho’s and all of the country’s national forest roadless areas from most logging and new roads being built for mining, coal, gas, logging and other development. The rule was the result of almost three years of deliberation that included 600 public hearings and more than 1.5 million written comments submitted with the overwhelming majority supporting the complete protection of all remaining roadless areas.

The American public has continued to support this policy, and has repeatedly opposed proposals to reverse or weaken it.

Please join forces for OUR heritage, OUR land, OUR wildlife, and OUR vision for the future not the powerful big money interests that seek to take every last pristine piece of God’s country we have left.

Sign a petition to Chief Gail Kimble to save our forests. There is an April 7th deadline so please sign on for a unified voice: http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/idaho_roadless/i3u8iui227b7jnew?
 

There is a presentation at MCCC’s Meyer Auditorium tonight called “Coming Home. State of the Straits: Status and Trends of Key Indicators. This is an effort to present the results of compiled data on the ecosystems health in the Detroit River and Lake Erie. I wanted to go but I’m 40 minutes away from MCCC’s parking lot and don’t like the looks of the weather. What I did is find the results of the program and printed out about 30 pages that comprise the comprehensive and integrative assessment.

This presentation is based on information in “50 key trend data sets and indicators” according to the report itself. However, it also states that this comprehensive and integrative assessment is initial and heavily weighted on state information with “important data and knowledge gaps.” Nevertheless, it “lays the foundation for continuous improvement in the future.”

But I can’t tell from the report what we’re improving on. There are percentages of increase or decline of contaminants with no beginning measurements given. There are also very few quantitative targets. So we don’t know what aiming for.  The study is over a 35-year time span. In 1970, we were polluted. The Clean Air and Water Act improved everything initially in a huge way. So to tell me from 1970 until now there has been an overall improvement in our water, well no kidding. What I want to know is what transpired over the past 10 years? For instance, regarding contaminants in western Lake Erie sediments, there is a record in 1971, and another in 1995 for mercury and PCB’s. Two records, 24 years apart are telling us there is a 70% decline in mercury in sediment and a 50% decline in PCB’s and other organochlorine contaminants. I don’t think that is very thorough. The mercury is 70% lower from what amount? Does this constitute a good amount? Mercury may have been 85% lower in the 90’s with pollution levels going up some 15% since then and the overall reading from 1971 will still look good at 70% reduction in pollution even though it’s rising again and quickly. Many of these reports concerning water end in 2004 too, like amounts of mercury in walleye.

Reports from 1977-2004 show that mercury in walleye has seen a 60% decline between the late 70’s and early 80’s; levels have remained steady since. What? Nothing has changed in over 25 years? It may be because there is more fishing, and therefore more fish caught at an early stage. We’re told to eat the smaller fish, especially in the ocean, because they have had less time to ingest mercury. There is nothing in this report that shows the accumulative affects of mercury either like from sediment, to fish, to birds, to larger predators.

I had to consider the source and motivation of this report too when I saw the list of editors and funding. Two of the editors are from the USFWS, the controversial agency that currently aims to kill the wolves and buffalo out west without presenting a solid answer as to why.  And the funding sources include DTE, and the US EPA, another favorite controversial agency of mine. But like I said, I really wanted to hear this presentation. The presenters probably had really good slides of the wildlife that is thriving. Nothing is all bad news. If anyone attended please let me know about it.

I’ve included an article from the Toledo Blade about this presentation relative to receding shorelines and loss of water in the Great Lakes too.  http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080107/NEWS06/801070402.

These are the actual tables resulting from the compilation of data for the trends reported in the presentation. http://www.epa.gov/med/grosseile_site/indicators/sos/assessment.pdf.
 

I’m sorry to read that Michigan persists with pollution policy instead of sound environmental policy. We need to get the corporate friendly senate moving in a cleaner direction. We have an obligation in this state to at very least try to keep the water clean. If we keep goofing off, someone might decide we are poor stewards and should share the wealth and management of our water. Does adding more coalburners to the list of 19, including the country’s second largest in Monroe, sound like anyone here pays attention to health issues, future problems with water shortages, or the earth? The latest out of MI senate is a push to alter abortion issues in Michigan. That’s the big priority? People need jobs; we need a decent and moral economy. By moral, I mean we do our utmost not to disturb life in the process of living and producing.  A green economy can offer plenty of jobs but that ride is being held up either on a state or federal level and benefits the oil industry.

We know for instance about oil leases that have been sold in pristine areas and/or habitat for polar bears, seals and all types of birds. Drilling there is pending and the oil industry wants to get moving. It’s becoming obvious that placing the polar bear on the endangered list is purposely being stalled. All that is needed is a great motivator. Bingo, gas will go up beyond $4.00 per gallon shortly. We’re already being taunted by that forecast. People are expected to cry drill, drill, drill and to hell with the animals. And we’ll probably do that, instead of seeing the big picture and how we’re being manipulated by the utilities. Even Warren Buffet commented that we’ve been sticking straws into the earth and sorry but it’s a finite practice. We will eventually run out. We collectively had over 500,000 wells. Our demand is ridiculous, and growing and it all revolves around the same fossil sources.

Heaven forbid we advance in technology and perfect wind and solar power for the individual home, and make it cheap. Houses would stand-alone without need for utilities. It’s almost laughable isn’t it? We are street smart enough to know the powers that be won’t let that happen. Anyway, our airwaves will be controlled shortly. Can’t even get free air anymore, besides there is that ever lovin entertainment/sports world that’s always going to charge too.

We could practice conservation. We could develop an RPS for Michigan, (more on that in another blog), which would entice green developers to come here. I’ve been saying this for quite awhile. What green industry is going to plant themselves next to a bunch of pollution? We’ll never get away from polluting industries once they are established without paying for it dearly. The buck will pass on to us for corporation’s stubborn business sense if and when in the future a big conservation effort needs to be enacted because, gee, we really are polluting ourselves to death. 

I was reading the Sierra Club’s “The Mackinac” and it states what I’ve been reading elsewhere, that many places in this country are not giving permits to more coalburners. The front-page article said 44 proposed coal-fired plants were either denied or withdrawn in 2007 thanks to The Sierra Club. So what happened here? 

There were five more coalburners looking for environmental permits in Michigan, with three more new plants under discussion the article said. It also stated that the challenge to put a moratorium on coal-fired plants in Michigan is daunting. Well I guess, especially with a corporation friendly senate. It said, “The state has refused to regulate the CO2 from coal plants that contribute to global warming (so long as the applicants address other pollutants, the state will let them be built). So that’s why the rush to install scrubbers? The scrubbers address other pollutants that are breathing irritants, but not the mercury that is permeating through the water to the fish, to the birds, and eventually anyone who drinks the water—one of the world’s largest freshwater supplies that is no longer so fresh. Or the CO2, that’s warming us up and causing some really bad weather—almost tornado season. What’s the sense of the Great Lakes Legacy Act?  What a tail chase, and meanwhile the water and Michigan loses, while the polar bears, seals, fish, and birds, the entire earth, take a back seat to our excess.

 Take a stand and participate. Read: http://michigan.sierraclub.org/.