Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.
Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup.
Peruse the eKos Library to find previously listed diaries. You can also follow eKos on Twitter.
Tonight's editor: patrickz
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.
moment - what's yours? We spend a lot of time and energy wallowing through the muck here at DK, witnessing and discussing acts of oppression and incompetence. The defilements are inexhaustible. I feel it's also important to celebrate the moments of beauty and pleasure, because we're never going to get to a place where everything has been resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Conflict is an essential and intrinsic part of the human experience, but so is pleasure.
My last most beautiful moment was watching a monarch butterfly feast on swamp milkweed blossoms, in a garden that I'd helped to plant.
For a long time plant science research has been unfortunately under-funded and had less attention from the public. This had led to fewer people studying it, less tool development, less technology development, and unfortunately lost time and knowledge. Personally, I love plants and eat almost only plants. I grow them inside and outside of my house. Some of my best friends, as they say.... In fact, after an undergraduate degree in microbiology I went into a plant lab. I liked the work, but it was clear that wasn't where the funding was. So after that degree, I aimed at mammalian research for my PhD. Nevertheless, I have always been interested in a wide range of species, most of which I think are valuable in their own way on the planet--and deserve focus and funding.
Sometimes pathogens are hard to love--but may be the most crucial to understand. A particularly challenging foe could be ug99. I'll introduce you to this unfriendly little fungus that could be coming to some wheat near you.
In this weekly series we have been discussing the benefits of a vegetarian diet including: better health, frugal living, animal rights, food safety, global food crisis and the immense contribution of meat production to climate change/depletion of resources.
We are killing our planet in our quest for more oil. It is past time for us to break our addiction to oil. The simplest and most effective way to break our personal consumption of oil is to reduce our consumption of meat.
Senate Democrats this week are still discussing what should go into a catch-all bill on the oil spill, energy, and climate change. One proposal that might make it into the final bill is a carbon emissions cap on utilities. Now powerful utility companies, who contribute large sums to federal campaigns, are demanding to be exempted from existing Clean Air Act regulations on other harmful and toxic emissions (e.g. mercury and particulates), in exchange for supporting a weak carbon cap. David "Dr. Grist" Roberts referred to the proposed quid pro quo as "the scam of the decade."
My petition, the text of which is posted below, asks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to push as hard as possible for a stronger cap on carbon emissions and to oppose trading our air quality for climate progress.
This came out Monday. The follow up astonishes.
Yessirreeee....... BP went and repeated a plot twist out of Sean Connery's "Rising Sun" movie. All that's missing is a dead gal sprawled on a conference table and snips from XXX porn footage.
Still... faking a pic for BP's "Command Center" kinda takes the cake for screw-the-facts, no respect dishonesty.
BP admits they reworked a 2001 photo. Put it on their web site. (John Aravosis bagged them at AmericaBlog.) Plutocrats to the core.
Corporate Culture On Display
D'oh... &MBTF :::
Lobbyists push use of deadly asbestos in developing nations
WASHINGTON — A global network of lobby groups has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the international market for asbestos, a known carcinogen that's taken millions of lives and is banned or restricted in 52 countries, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found in a nine-month investigation.Backed by public and private money and aided by scientists and friendly governments, the groups helped facilitate the sale of 2.2 million tons of asbestos last year, mostly in developing nations. Anchored by the Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute, the network stretches from New Delhi to Mexico City to the city of Asbest in Russia's Ural Mountains. Its message is that asbestos can be used safely under "controlled" conditions.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...
Please rec the new Mothership #58 here. This one has expired.
The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #231 - It Ain't Over Yet - BP's Gulf Catastrophe David PA
Rules of the Road
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!
The multi-million dollar pipeline from Exxon-Mobil to the climate denial noise machine has continued unabated, 3 years after the company promised not to fund climate deniers any longer.
Big Business, lying?
Is anyone surprised?