The Asteroid called Us ... is on a collision course

by jamess

Jeff Corwin Assesses Oil Spill Damage for the WA2S

http://www.youtube.com/...

continued at Daily Kos....

Farmworkers exposed to Pesticide? No More Silent Springs

by We Want Change

When I was 16 years of age and in high school, I had an English teacher who I especially liked. She made learning fun teaching the class new words every week and making us look up their meanings so that we could use them on book report assignments. When I look back and remember what she taught and shared with me, I suspect that she was probably one of the first Environmentalists that I or my classmates were ever exposed to. Follow me below the fold for a story about how young people can be influenced to care about the environment and change the world for the better. We must never stop trying. My diary is focusing on farmworkers who have no voice against those in power who have used poisons on them as they work in the fields in the past, and who are still working today under similar dangerous working conditions. Would you work under these conditions? Stephen Colbert has a show this week in which he will be presenting a tongue-in-cheek show called "Take Our Jobs" campaign.

continued at Daily Kos....

Wild River - The Smith (photos)

by Richard Lyon

The effort to preserve wild and scenic rivers in California and elsewhere has been a major environmental battle for many years. In California the Smith River which drains the northwest corner of the Klamath Mountains is the only river that has entirely escaped being dammed. It really is wild and very scenic.

continued at Daily Kos....

The real scandal about the scandal that never was

by Laurence Lewis

It was the scandal that never was, which was the true scandal. It was one of the most shameful episodes in the annals of climate change denialism, and given the desperate efforts of the corporate interests that profit so mightily off such staggering irresponsibility, that's no mean feat. But so many traditional media outlets have become little more than propaganda arms of their corporate owners that their obscuring, obfuscating and sometimes just plain lying about the scientific facts is just more of the same. It's only the most dangerous crisis humanity has ever faced, but to them that's less important than their rapacious greed. It's time for a bloggers' ethics conference. 

The real story was that thieves hacked the private emails of respected climate scientists. That's a crime. That should have been at least part of the focus of the reporting: a false scandal was being concocted by people who were, at face value, criminals. But the larger part of the story was that it was a deliberate effort to distort and distract from the scientific facts. That, too, should have been at least part of the reporting. Instead, so many major media outlets played along, ignoring the criminality, and propagating the distortions and lies exactly as the criminals wanted. Even though the distortions and lies were easily debunked. All it took was intelligence and integrity, rarely found in the major media, although they could be found, elsewhere.

One of the best concise refutations of the false scandal came from our own DarkSyde, one of those lowly blogger types. Brian Angliss of Scholars & Rogues provided one of the best comprehensive refutations, in a series of posts: here, here, here, and here. Another of those bloggers. And a couple weeks back, Salon's Alex Pareene had what should be, but certainly won't be, the false scandal's death knell:

It was obvious to anyone who actually bothered to read the stolen "climategate" emails that they didn't actually contain anything particularly scandalous, and they certainly didn't contain anything at all that remotely called into the question the legitimacy of years of science demonstrating the effect of human activity on climate change.

But once the name "climategate" was affixed to the trumped-up non-scandal and printed in large type in a major newspaper, it didn't matter what the emails said. Not a whit. Emails, scandal, "-gate" -- there must be something to this!

There wasn't.

He points to a Newsweek article by Sharon Begley:

A lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on, as Mark Twain said (or “before the truth gets a chance to put its pants on,” in Winston Churchill’s version), and nowhere has that been more true than in "climategate." In that highly orchestrated, manufactured scandal, e-mails hacked from computers at the University of East Anglia’s climate-research group were spread around the Web by activists who deny that human activity is altering the world’s climate in a dangerous way, and spun so as to suggest that the scientists had been lying, cheating, and generally cooking the books.

But not only did British investigators clear the East Anglia scientist at the center of it all, Phil Jones, of scientific impropriety and dishonesty in April, an investigation at Penn State cleared PSU climatologist Michael Mann of “falsifying or suppressing data, intending to delete or conceal e-mails and information, and misusing privileged or confidential information” in February. In perhaps the biggest backpedaling, The Sunday Times of London, which led the media pack in charging that IPCC reports were full of egregious (and probably intentional) errors, retracted its central claim—namely, that the IPCC statement that up to 40 percent of the Amazonian rainforest could be vulnerable to climate change was “unsubstantiated.” The Times also admitted that it had totally twisted the remarks of one forest expert to make it sound as if he agreed that the IPCC had screwed up, when he said no such thing.

And she quotes the retraction:

The article also quoted criticism of the IPCC’s use of the WWF report by Dr Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds and leading specialist in tropical forest ecology. We accept that, in his quoted remarks, Dr Lewis was making the general point that both the IPCC and WWF should have cited the appropriate peer-reviewed scientific research literature. As he made clear to us at the time, including by sending us some of the research literature, Dr Lewis does not dispute the scientific basis for both the IPCC and the WWF reports’ statements on the potential vulnerability of the Amazon rainforest to droughts caused by climate change. . . .  A version of our article that had been checked with Dr Lewis underwent significant late editing and so did not give a fair or accurate account of his views on these points. We apologise for this.

That last section is astonishing, and demands clarification. Who was responsible for that late editing, and to what purpose? At the very least, it sounds like a case of profoundly incompetent journalism. But it seems at least as likely to have been a deliberate attempt to sabotage the truth, to concoct a false narrative, and to undermine efforts to raise the public awareness about climate change that might create the political climate necessary to deal with it. The retraction doesn't come close to going far enough, but it is a start.

The science of the issue long has been overwhelming. The international consensus of scientists leaves no doubt. But that rarely dents public consciousness the way this false scandal did. And the traditional media very much are to blame. The name "Climategate" went viral, whereas those scientific facts are pretty much ignored. Now that the truth is known, and the lies are revealed, will the traditional media begin to pay more attention to those scientific facts? We all know that the question answers itself. 

On the most important issue humanity has ever faced, one of the world's best-known newspapers was complicit in promoting lies and obfuscating the truth, becoming the Judith Millers of climate change. Many powerful media outlets played right along. Meanwhile, it was mostly left to lowly bloggers to investigate and report the reality. On this most important of issues, the difference between old media and new could not have been more explicitly delineated. In a word, it's called credibility. And despite its lack of credibility, the power of old media was revealed in Pareene's closing question:

Anyway now that The Times has corrected the record, everyone will agree to do something about carbon emissions, right?

Of course, if new media were as powerful as old, it would be impossible for politicians to avoid that question. Because the public, worldwide, wouldn't allow them to. 

continued at Daily Kos....

My 4th of July reality check

by LaFeminista

Fatimana died, we don't know what she died from yet we buried her this week, a gentle ceremony in a harsh and unforgiving landscape.

There on the edges of civilization in the heat, dust and poverty of the Air Mountains we laid her to rest, my aunt by mutual adoption left us, yet the memories of her burn strong in my heart.

I sit now in my air conditioned hotel room short hours away by our technological miracles, yet light years away in our neglect.

Fatimana, who showed so much courage to the world and had a dignity so rare upon this earth, died because she did not dare show weakness in a mans world.

May she be at peace, and her spirit glide upon the desert breeze.

continued at Daily Kos....

The ECSTASY of Growing Your Own — A DIY Garden Project

by WarrenS

E.C.S.T.A.S.Y. — End Consumption, Save The Air & Sea, Y'all!

A support group and discussion forum for those who want to kick the habits of consumption that are damaging the world we live in.

It's Independence Day!  And while I have some diaries plotted for this series that will be profound and erudite and full of depth and insight...today I'm just going to brag on my garden a little.

Our little household will never be able to get off the food grid entirely (can't grow rice in the Boston suburbs!  No room for the spaghetti trees!) but we've been getting better at it every year.

Let me describe our layout.  We live on the side of a hill.  47 steps lead from street level to our front door.  When we bought the house, the front yard was a very steep slope, covered with weeds and debris.  There is a garage at street level, inset into the hill.  When we bought the house, the garage had a peaked roof in wretched condition.

continued at Daily Kos....

BP Oil Disaster v. 2.1: Sunday Heat, Patriots!

by vets74

Following the WineRev Model, this series will provide a daily diary for posting IMAGES and VIDEOS and research findings.

"Death in the Gulf" is the real subtitle. BP and Halliburton have committed a massive ecocide.

Today's big lies from MSM and the propaganda outlets astonish. NOAA repeats its shoreline threat map, but still leaves out tropical storms:

Then CNN online:

If... tests in a 5-by-5-mile area north of the underwater gusher are successful, the massive ship could play a key role in oil cleanup efforts

The boat, which swallows water with oil then separates it, can skim about 21 million gallons of oil a day. That's at least 250 times the amount that modified fishing vessels currently conducting skimming operations have been able to contain...

The ship processes a max of 21,000,000 gallons of water. Not oil. Water.

We learned earlier that 20% of the oil spew surfaces immediately and gets blown north. 80% goes south into the Loop Current.

IMAGES and VIDEOS and research are welcome.

continued at Daily Kos....

Dawn Chorus Birdblog: Puffins in Kilts!

by matching mole

Happy 4th of July everyone.  Perhaps perversely for Independence Day I'm going to blog about birds in the United Kingdom.  And I'll come right out and say it - the title is a lie.  A shameless ploy to draw in the casual Sunday morning reader with a weakness for comical seabirds and tartan.  Puffins I have and puffins you will see in all their glory if you read on.  And Scottish puffins no less, but unfortunately bereft of kilts.  There, I've cleansed the guilt from soul.

This diary is an overview of a brief trip to the Shetland Islands I made in mid-June.  A trip I won't soon forget to a magical place.  So let's get going.

continued at Daily Kos....

Not Just a Media Clampdown on the Gulf

by scorpiorising

The addition of a $40,000 fine and felony charges for media caught closer than 65 feet to oil recovery operations, is not just a clampdown on the media, it is also a sign of growing resistance from residents and activists, everywhere.

The White House Thursday enacted stronger rules to prevent the media from showing what's happening with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast.

CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that evening, "The Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches -- 65 feet."

continued at Daily Kos....

BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 40 How To Help Special Holiday Edition

by Gulf watchers

Please rec the new Mothership #41 here. This one has expired
The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #174 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight / Peraspera
Rules of the Road

• We take volunteers for subsequent diaries in the sub diaries or ROV's as we have playfully coined them.
• Please rec this mothership diary, not the ROVs.

This Fourth of July weekend is a great time to get out and help with the efforts to protect the Gulf and the life that depends on it. We invited Pam LaPier to place her "How You Can Help" information to the mothership in the hope that it will get the attention it deserves from the visitors who haven't had an opportunity to see it.

PLEASE visit Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier's diaries to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!

continued at Daily Kos....

Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (July 4th 2010 edition)

by Neon Vincent

Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.

This week's featured story comes from IEEE Spectrum.

How to Build a Better Barbecue Pit
Engineers use technology to demystify the black art of barbecue
BY Erica Westly // July 2010

About six years ago, Bill Karau, an engineer who has worked for the U.S. Navy and Motorola, decided to build his own barbecue pit. What started as an annual barbecue tour with friends had quickly turned into a full-fledged hobby. "I’ve probably had the opportunity to eat at somewhere between 120 and 130 barbecue joints over the last decade," says the Texas native, "and one of the things we always did on these trips, in addition to sampling the meat and talking about it, is we always go visit the pit boss and look at the pit. And me being the engineering geek in the crowd, I always wanted to try to understand the science behind what appears to be a black art."

More after the jump.

continued at Daily Kos....