Students Call for Clean Energy, Thank EPA

by Mary Anne Hitt

This post was co-written by Kim Teplitzky of the Sierra Student Coalition.

Yesterday, despite some fierce weather in our nation's capital, members of the Sierra Student Coalition hung bright, colorful pinwheels on Capitol Hill and in front of the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters. (Check out photos here)

The pinwheels came from thousands of college students across the U.S., all asking for clean energy and thanking EPA for its hard work over 40 years (Happy birthday, EPA!).

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Texting on the Farm: Mobile Technology Provides Farmers with Useful Information in India

by NourishingthePlanet

According to the U.N. Population Division, over 70 percent of Indians live in rural areas and over half of all Indians are farmers. Yet access to technology and information in many areas is limited, meaning farmers are often left uninformed and at the mercy of erratic weather and disease and pest outbreaks. And even in good growing conditions, farmers may not have access to price information that could help them negotiate with buyers or decide which markets to bring their products to.

But across rural India, mobile phones are quickly becoming an indispensable tool for farmers, helping to shrink the information gap.

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/...

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One More Thing to Worry About in Middle School - Energy Regulations?

by Bruce Nilles

Mary Anne Hitt, the new director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, is a new mom and has some words for those trying to greenwash schoolkids and college students:

As a new mom, I'm paying more attention these days to how big companies are trying to influence our kids. I just learned that one of the biggest blockers of climate action in the U.S. is now bringing its obstructionism to your kid's middle school classroom. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy just released an energy education guide for teachers of 5th - 8th grade.

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Village Green: Walking to School Is a No-No in Laguna Beach

by Kaid at NRDC

I gave a presentation about sustainable communities on October 6, which happened to be International Walk to School Day.  In my talk, I mentioned that, in 1973, sixty percent of American kids walked to school; by 2006, that portion had dropped to a paltry 13 percent.  I’ve written before about school sprawl and how the location and design of some schools seems explicitly designed to prevent or discourage access by foot or bicycle.

To counter this, the National Center for Safe Routes to School has sponsored a number of programs, including Walk to School Day (or, as some places called it, "Walk and Roll to School Day").

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National Parks & American Indians: Grand Canyon

by Ojibwa

American Indians have lived in and have utilized the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River for thousands of years. The Havasupai, whose farms are in the bottom of the canyon, were visited by the Spanish under the leadership of the missionary Francisco Garces in 1776. The Spanish followed a narrow trail into Cataract Canyon, a tributary to the Grand Canyon. The trail was narrow, steep, and perilous with a thousand foot drop-off. Some of Garces’ men finished the journey on their hands and knees as they were afraid to stand up. At the bottom of the canyon they encountered the Havasupai who were cultivating about 400 acres of land.

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National Parks and American Indians: Mesa Verde

by Ojibwa

Nearly a thousand years ago, Ancestral Puebloans (sometimes called Anasazi) began to construct pueblos in caves and under the rock hangings of the canyon cliffs in southern Colorado. Three hundred years later, these pueblos were abandoned because of a prolonged drought. Then in 1888, rancher Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason came across the ruins of an enormous village in the cliffs of Cliff Canyon. They named the village Cliff Palace. In exploring the area, they discovered two more large ruins which they named Spruce Tree House and Square Tower House.

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As per Meteor Blades: What I'm doing

by Guadalupe59

I wanted to write this diary when Meteor Blades originally proposed "Tell us what you're doing", but it was just too difficult at that time, so I'm glad that he asked again.

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Join more than 100 candidates in the Green New Deal Coalition

by greenferret

On July 14th, Green Change announced the campaign for a Green New Deal, a 10-point program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.

Since then over 100 candidates for elected office at all levels have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.

The Green New Deal Coalition will cut military spending, create millions of green jobs, and revive the economy by protecting the planet we depend on.

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NtP TV: Acting it Out for Advocacy

by NourishingthePlanet

Nourishing the Planet is excited to introduce a whole new way to experience innovative projects and practices that are helping to alleviating hunger and poverty around the world. A new weekly video series, NtP TV brings you images, interviews and more in-depth information about different agricultural innovation. Get to know the NtP team and the innovations we are highlighting regularly, and stay tuned for more NtP TV in the coming weeks!

In this week's episode, Nourishing the Planet Research Fellow, Molly Theobald, highlights Food and Natural Resource Policy Analysis Network's (FANRPAN) Theatre for Policy Advocacy project to explain how the organization is using theater to help improve the livelihoods of rural farmers -- especially women.

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Can Wind Power Save School Budgets?

by ManfromMiddletown

This past weekend, Laura Tyson made the case for a second stimulus in the New York Times. Things, you see, are looking down, particularly for the states. State budgets are being strained, and the prospect of teacher layoffs is a possibility without continued federal aid. Yet.....

The situation would be even worse without the $787 billion fiscal stimulus package passed in 2009. The conventional wisdom about the stimulus package is wrong: it has not failed. It is working as intended. Its spending increases and tax cuts have boosted demand and added about three million more jobs than the economy otherwise would have......

But by next year, the stimulus will end, and the flip from fiscal support to fiscal contraction could shave one to two percentage points off the growth rate at a time when the unemployment rate is still well above 9 percent. Under these circumstances, the economic case for additional government spending and tax relief is compelling....

Two forms of spending with the biggest and quickest bang for the buck are unemployment benefits and aid to state governments.

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Energy Bookshelf: Power Hungry gushing of lies

by A Siegel

On reading the opening paragraphs of Robert Bryce's author's note, I felt a kindred soul:

.. just how lucky I am.  There is no more complex or fascinating topic than energy.  ... the scale of energy use and the complexity and the importance of the energy business are unmatched by any industry.  The study of energy includes physics, geology, chemistry, engineering, metallurgy ... the list goes on and on.  ... no matter how much I study it, I still feel like a rank amateur.  And, yet, if we are to make wise choices about energy policy, it is essential for all of us -- as voters, as owners and managers of businesses, and as policymakers -- to understand what energy is, what power is, how they are measured, and which forms of eneryg and power production make the most sense environmentally and economically.

Sadly, the material that followed this opening shattered the reverie of idyllic bonding.

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EcoJustice: Education, Empowerment and The Environment - Women Matter

by Ellinorianne

This is my first EcoJustice diary and an overwhelming thought because one of the very real impacts of environmental issues has to do with the painfully unfair way hey affect less developed nations and the poor in more developed nations.

Exploitation of resources also means the exploitation of people, their lands, cultures and very existence.  And one of the most pressing issue on resources is also the most difficult to address, population.

As anyone who has taken an environmental class knows, it's presented as the 800 pound gorilla in the room, it's that issue that no one knows how to talk about because it's tied to the very politically charged topic of choice and reproductive freedom.  

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On Doom & Hope: An Action Diary

by Maggie Pax

All the news coming out of the Gulf of Mexico is horrific. Now, in the past few days, I've been reading how various scientists are warning that we may have less than one hundred years before civilization collapses, before (perhaps) the extinction of humanity. If we let this happen, we don't deserve to call ourselves homo sapiens.  

But worse than the news about the gulf, worse than the collapse of our oil-based economy, worse than Republican victories in the fall, Worse Than Anything, is our apparently innate desire to deny the evidence, blame others, and moan that nothing can be done.

Bullshit!

It may be that damage to our planet cannot be reversed. Scotty may be right when he cries, "Captain, I canna break the laws of physics!" But sometimes, all you need is a bigger hammer.

Sometimes, a lot of little hammers will do even better.

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Introducing the Sustainability Studies blog.

by Nuisance Industry

My job's taken me away from writing on the internet much of the past year, but I drop in with online news.  Much of my past year has been spent developing an new undergraduate degree program.  It is now up and running, and (as of early June) Roosevelt University's Sustainability Studies program has a new Sustainability blog with regular updates about food, energy, water, waste, biodiversity, policy, and courses.  

Some sample topics below the fold.

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Tomorrow will be too late for the Bronx Zoo and New York Aquarium

by Eddie C

I've already written a diary called Save the Bronx Zoo Today. Now an email from the zoo points out that "Tomorrow will be too late for the Bronx Zoo and New York Aquarium." In the Bronx alone more than 800 teens are hired each year with more than 1,000 seasonal workers getting jobs at the zoo. Bloomberg who will bend over backwards to save every single job on Wall St. has already knocked city support down to $9 million last year and he thinks another 42% is feeling the bite? His answer to this threat to the Bronx economy can be seen at this NY1 report "every group has to feel the bite from budget cuts." With the proposed 50% cut from Albany that's far more than a bite. I covered as much as I could in Save the Bronx Zoo Today so now I will just copy and paste that letter below with some alternative actions.  

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Reducing Waste in Our Schools' Cafeterias

by BadRabbit

I was recently a guest blogger on Mrs. Q's "Fed Up with School Kunch" blog and cross posted it here to share with the DKos community.  Here's a link to the original blog post. http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot...

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Save the Bronx Zoo Today

by Eddie C

What a difference a year makes. About a year ago in my extremely popular  The Animals are Getting the Pink Slip (A Bronx Zoo photo and action diary) this is what big sister Moxie looked like; Yesterday I took my camera to see the three new lion cubs at the Bronx Zoo. The diary is called Friday Evening Photo Blogging: Lion Cubs Today! I can hardly tell Moxie and her mama Sukari apart but I got some great photos of Moxie playing loving sister to three 25 pound cubs. Now the stars of the zoo are  Nala, Adamma and Shani; What hasn't changed is that both Bloomberg and Paterson are still screwing the zoo and many cultural institutions. This year much harder than last. See below for what actions we the people have left.

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