Could the stakes be higher?

by A Siegel

Simply put, I wish that I could say yes ... that the 2010 election does not have the potential for undermining our already horribly weak fiscal system, for deepening the incredible gap between haves and have-nots, for worsening our blind rush into the looming crash of Peak Oil, for cementing our spiraling descent into catastrophic chaos, for ...

Let me be clear, despite some tremendous appointments and some great actions, the Administration has fallen short on too many issues. In the face of the devastating situation when he entered office and the Republican "Just Say No" to everything style, the actual achievements are not to be discounted.

If, come next Wednesday, the Republicans take the House (and, even worse, the Senate) the progress since the 2008 election will screech to a halt in Washington -- on issue, after issue, after issue.  

FOR ACTION: Act Blue for Climate Heroes

continued at Daily Kos....

Stupid Goes Viral: Toomey's Not A Witch, Either

by RLMiller

They roam the once-pristine shores of Chesapeake Bay, moaning for caaasshh.

Their stupid has gone viral.

And if they win, humanity loses.

I'm tracking Climate Zombies: every Republican candidate for House, Senate, and Governor who doubts, denies, or derides the science of climate change. Today, I visit Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, where I also stumble upon a ResistNet member running for Congress: Rick Hellberg in PA-02.

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World Bank this morning: let's count the environment

by jakbeau

I hope I'm not stepping on someone's diary, but I searched the site just now for any news of the World Bank's announcement this morning that new accounting rules will be(gradually) put in place to (re) evaulate a nation's GDP.  In the future, nations may have to place the cost of environmental destruction on their books.

Robert Zoellick, president of the WB, described a situation ripe for accounting on NPR this morning when he (paraphrasing here) said, " ... for example, a developer may want to fill in wetlands, but there is a social cost to private industry.  The area will lose the protection that wetlands provide from storms, from hatcheries for fish .... et al."

The Guardian does a good job of describing what's happened at the U.N. Biodiversity Confernce in Nagoya this week, from whence the World Bank's announcement issued.

Bypassing for a brief moment the idea that nature can be quantified, this idea will, if implemented, set on its head the decades long complaint many of us have had regarding calculating the GDP.  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/...

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Great Power Race: Global College Competition, ARPA-E, and Automotive X-Prize

by gmoke

http://www.greatpowerrace.org/

The Great Power Race is a clean energy competition between students in China, India and the United States, an "open-source" campaign where participating teams are welcome to connect with other teams across the globe - collaborate, form partnerships, share information and ideas.  Presently, there are 965 competing campuses, 1008 people registered, and 671 projects going on.

From September 1 to November 12, these teams are working on climate and clean energy solution projects to earn points. The teams earning the most points in this phase will enter a final judging round from November 12 to 24.  Judging will then take place with an award ceremony broadcast from Cancun, Mexico (and the international climate conference) sometime between December 4 and 7.

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Texas' Fight Against Coal and Coal Ash

by Bruce Nilles

This is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. This piece was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Sari Ancel.

Here's lovely daydream if you're from southeast Texas: It's a warm fall afternoon and you're out fishing on the banks of the Colorado River, listening to the sounds of birds migrating south.

Unfortunately, a proposed coal-fired power plant will soon ruin that daydream. There will be no fish to catch because their habitat has long been polluted. Those birds overhead will be flying through smoke plumes from the nearby coal-fired power plant. And forget a quiet afternoon, you'll be hearing the hum of that nearby power plant.

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Village Green: A family copes with the unexpected costs of sprawl (video)

by Kaid at NRDC

Queen Creek, Arizona, is on the far southeastern fringe of metropolitan Phoenix.  According to Google Maps, it’s 38 miles and about an hour to central Phoenix by the shortest route.

The land use pattern in and around Queen Creek consists of random enclaves of newly developed leapfrog sprawl, with equally random patches of irrigated agriculture to the north and east.

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The Corporations Want their Country Back! BP funding Tea Party Climate Zombie Campaigns

by worldforallpeopleorg

BP and several other big European companies are funding the midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites who deny the existence of global warming or oppose Barack Obama's energy agenda, the Guardian has learned.

I'm sure a lawyer could tell us how that is somehow not a case of foreign corporations influencing American elections? ( They're outta be a law!) But this is worse than a corporate take-over of a nation.

This is a deliberate and knowing corporate manipulation of the gullible minds out there that buy into Rush's lies - and Inhofe's and Palin's and Beck's insanities - against the facts, to the detriment of Americans and people everywhere. You can help. Send the following facts to the climate zombie/denialist nearest you:

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The GOP has identified the number one threat to our "Fredoms"...

by Renzo Gasolini

And evidently it is fiendishly disguised as a 260 mph train

Because the Chinese have one, and we don't. And by God the Republicans are going to make damn sure it stays that way

China unveils 260mph train line

"A new high-speed rail line has been opened in China amid boasts from officials over the use of domestic technology to set world records...

...The China-made CRH380 train has been clocked at almost 262 mph - a world speed record - though it will usually operate at a maximum speed of 220 mph...

The line was opened as China prepares to have 10,000 miles of high-speed rail in operation by 2012...

Ten Thousand Miles of of High Speed Rail (HSR) by 2012? Holy fucking yikes!!

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