What happened in Cancun: necessary but not sufficient.

by RLMiller

The UN negotiators reached a deal in Cancun very early this morning. It's being praised from virtually all angles, and it's being labeled as "modest" at the same time.

continued at Daily Kos....

We can do this

by LaughingPlanet

OK, so my previous post might have been a teeny bit alarmist. But, hey. We need a good slap in the face right now.

The good news is that those bleak scenarios need not become reality. The future has not yet been written. We are at what many call the jumping off point. We can stand on the edge of the diving board for hours, wetting ourselves, skeerd about diving in. We can succumb to cowardice & crawl backwards and give up.

OR, we can jump forward boldly and proudly. Who cares if we dive gracefully, cannonball, or belly flop? We will be in the pool where we wanted to be in the first place.

And, yes, if we don't jump in the pool, and quickly, the water will indeed rise and engulf us eventually anyway.

Hope for mankind is there to be found. Below are a few examples for those feeling exasperated and doomed. If we ramp up our efforts, the sky is the limit. Heck, we might even leave a world for our kids about which we can be proud!

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NYC Gov going "Locavore" Big Time!

by Eddie C

Today on The Leonard Lopate Show the lead story was called Feeding The Soul and for anyone seeking to restore their faith in good government, it did just that. Two guest in an interview to discuss Food Works in New York City that would have seemed an unlikely pair as recently as yesterday.

One was Chef Dan Barber who has been a great advocate in the New York area for the local food movement. The other was City Council speaker Christine Quinn. Today they were on the same page. It was amazing to hear Christine Quinn's introduction sounding more like Marion Nestle in talks about what the government needs to do, hearing a powerful politician discussing things being done now and progressive plans for a sustainable future. I've never heard such a merger of bottom up activism and top down good government action before.

The city has already moved $4.5 million in public school food spending over to local farms and is trying to change the $300,000 spent on school lettuce to money being pumped into the Rockland County farm economy and processing facilities in the economically depressed Bronx. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

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Time to Keep Fighting, Mr. President

by Michael Brune

Has someone discovered a way to travel back in time to the Bush administration? On Tuesday, the EPA asked for a one-year delay on new rules for air pollution from industrial boilers. The very next day, the agency announced it wants to wait for another half year before setting new standards for ozone smog. Both actions defy every kind of logic but one -- pandering to polluters and their scare-mongering political allies.

Barack Obama ran and was elected on a promise to protect Americans by cleaning up the air that we breathe every single day. But to clean the air, you have to get your hands dirty. If the polluters who are complaining today had gotten their way for the past 40 years, there never would have been a Clean Air Act, and millions more Americans would have been sickened or died. Many of these polluters -- and their allies in Congress -- have fought progress to improve people's health at every opportunity. We need our president to fight back.

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Blackened Pork: Liquid Coal Subsidies Sneak into Senate Tax Bill

by Target Global Warming

Is regular coal not dirty enough for you? Meet liquid coal fuel! Destructive to mine, water-intensive to manufacture, devastating to our climate at every step of the way – liquid coal is one of the world’s dirtiest fuels. Liquid coal production emits twice as much global warming pollution as gasoline & requires at least four gallons of water per gallon of fuel produced.  

Today the National Wildlife Federation has learned the Senate version of tax legislation includes subsidies for liquid coal fuels.

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Help Me Improve a Letter to Sens. Pryor and Lincoln

by sustainable

Subject: Please support Clean Renewable Energy Companies in Arkansas through the extension of Treasury Grant Program 1603 and 48c Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit because "Renewable Energy is Homeland Security"

(The following is freely ripped off, rewritten and combined from emails of suggested letters to politicians compiled by Arkansas Business Leaders for a Clean Economy and Infocast)

Dear Senator _,

I believe that Treasury Grant Program 1603 and 48c Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit are critical to the continuing development of solar power, wind power, and other forms of renewable energy, which are important to the secure economic and environmental future of the United States of America. The ability to create these clean renewable power sources, however, is being seriously threatened by the lapsing of key U.S. government supports of the Treasury 1603 (Treasury Grant) program and the 48c Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit, originating in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

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Village Green: Retrofitting a DC neighborhood for deep sustainability

by Kaid at NRDC

Having already begun a comprehensive energy and environmental retrofit of a key part of Denver’s Lower Downtown, the nonprofit organization Living City Block is now looking to do the same in a neighborhood in the heart of Washington, DC.  It is a fantastic project that stands to become a model for the greening of mixed-use urban neighborhoods across the country.

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Big Oil Praises Latest Obama Cave on EPA Regs.

by TomP

The caves keep coming.  The Obama adminstration is delaying new rules governing smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers, and keeping the Bush standards for now.  Big Oil loves it, but wants even more.  

The Obama administration is retreating on long-delayed environmental regulations — new rules governing smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers — as it adjusts to a changed political dynamic in Washington with a more muscular Republican opposition.

The move to delay the rules, announced this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, will leave in place policies set by President George W. Bush. President Obama ran for office promising tougher standards, and the new rules were set to take effect over the next several weeks.

snip

But in a striking turnabout, the National Association of Manufacturers and the  American Petroleum Institute — which have been anything but friendly to Mr. Obama — are praising his administration.

NY Times: E.P.A. Delays Tougher Rules on Emissions

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Gulf Watchers Friday - Double Inspections, For Now - BP Catastrophe AUV #439

by Lorinda Pike

You are in the current Gulf Watchers BP Catastrophe - AUV #439. ROV #438 is here.

Bookmark this link to find the latest Gulf Watchers diaries.

Please RECOMMEND THIS DIARY, the motherships have been discontinued.
   
Gulf Watchers Diary Schedule
Monday - evening drive time
Wednesday - morning
Friday - morning
Friday Block Party - evening
Sunday - morning

Part one of the digest of diaries is here and part two is here.

Please be kind to kossacks with bandwidth issues. Please do not post images or videos. Again, many thanks for this.

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I Love You But You're Full of Shi... Poop

by Jill Richardson

This diary is about the Cancun summit, saving the rainforests, the climate crisis, and Jane Goodall. I love Jane Goodall, but right now, she's full of shit. If you're one of the world's leading conservationists and you find yourself agreeing with the head of Wal-mart and the head of the World Bank on something, you need to ask yourself why whatever you're for is probably something you oughta be against. And that's where Jane Goodall finds herself right now.

Now, she's not the only one to point a finger at. There are an awful lot of total sleezebags who are all for the same thing. She's the one in the group who shouldn't be there. She's the one who oughta know better.

I'm a newbie when it comes to learning about saving the rainforests and the rights of indigenous people's in the Global South. I've only just visited the Amazon for the very first time, this year. But it doesn't take a lot of time there to learn to recognize bullshit when you see it.

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