What Is Clean Coal?

"We will invest $15 billion a year," said President Obama in his January 24 speech to a joint session of Congress, "to develop technologies like wind power and solar power, advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more efficient cars and trucks built right here in America." He received applause for this sentiment, but there are two words in it that are up for debate: "clean coal."

Clean coal technology is an umbrella term used to describe the many methods used to try to reduce the environmental impact of generating energy from coal, a fossil fuel which, when burned, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and increases global warming, as well as sulfur dioxides which cause acid rain. In 2004, over one quarter of the world's electricity was made from coal, so any meaningful international agreement on climate change must address how we handle this fuel.

The American government has been quite keen on the concept of clean coal -- George W. Bush, Hilary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama have all lauded it. But some prominent environmentalists don't agree, arguing that it's just a mirage created by the coal industry. "There is no such thing as clean coal and there never will be," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program. "It's an oxymoron."

"I say this based on my experience as the former head of the TVA, which bought and burned more than 30 million tons of coal a year," wrote S. David Freeman, an energy policy expert who once headed the New York Power Authority, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water (DWP) in his 2007 book Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How. "I was deeply involved in the strip mining, underground mining, trucking, and most importantly, the burning of huge quantities of coal. No one who has been deeply involved with coal can rightfully say it is clean."

And now the Academy Award-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen have added their own clean coal criticism in the form of a 30-second video made for the Reality Coalition, a project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters.

Currently, there no buildings in America powered by coal plants that capture and store their global warming pollution. Until that technology exists, clean coal is just a nice idea. In fact, everything about coal is dirty -- from the extraction of it to its waste. It's the leading contributor to global warming and the dirtiest way to produce electricity.

GET INVOLVED

• Join the Reality Coalition and help them push the coal industry to come clean about dirty coal
• Sign a Sierra Club letter to President Obama urging him to adopt a clean slate energy agenda because "clean coal" is a myth
  

photo of West Virginia moutaintop coal mining courtesy nrdc_media

Fighting Where the Wild Things Are

Indo-Burma. Sundaland. Horn of Africa. The Philippines. Mesoamerica. New Caledonia. California Floristic Province. Madagascar. Wallacea. Cerrado. Succulent Karoo.

Though it sounds like a rather exotic travel itinerary, these places are a just few of the 34 biodiversity hotspots around the globe which together contain more than three-quarters of all endangered or critically endangered birds, mammals and amphibians listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

And according to a new study published by the scientific journal Conservation Biology, more than 80 percent of the
major armed conflicts in the past half-century have occurred in these threatened regions. Apparently, mankind likes to fight amongst lots of plants and animals. This doesn't just disrupt those species, but also the local, often poor, populations that depend on functioning ecosystems in order to survive.

Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit biodiversity protection group, has published some personal accounts of danger and political instability encountered by their scientists in the field who are working to protect some of these areas. From guerrilla fighting, landmine explosions and run-ins with gun runners, these conservationists have put their lives on the line trying to save some of Earth's most vital ecosystems.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition urging UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Zardari of Pakistan and Prime Minister Singh of India to create and sign a Kolahoi Accord by 2011 to stop the conflict in Kashmir to focus on saving the Kolahoi Glacier
  
• Protect an acre of rainforest for $15 through Conservation International

RELATED POSTS

• Indonesia Creates Asian Reef Conservation Group (November 24, 2008)
• Governors Sign International Climate Pact (November 23, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: It's (Not Just) the Economy, Stupid (November 4, 2008)
• What If Big Business Donated One Percent of Profits Towards Conservation? (November 3, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: Save Kolahoi, Save Kashmir (October 28, 2008)
• Saving Sumatran Forests, Keepers of Carbon (October 11, 2008)
  

photo of soldiers in Baguio City, Philippines, courtesy Daniel Y. Go

Remembering Buddha's Precious Pachyderm

Displaying a remarkably wide variety of behaviors that indicate the presence of compassion, grief, learning, memory, mothering, play, tool use, self-awareness and possibly even language, elephants are ranked right beside primates and cetaceans (whales and dolphins) when it comes to intelligence. So it's not surprising that one of Buddhism's "Seven Jewels of Royal Power" is the "Precious Elephant," which symbolizes the calm and noble strength of one who is on the path towards enlightenment.

But Laos, whose main cultural influence is the conservative Theravada Buddhism, and Vietnam, which is 85% Buddhist, have a black-market business relationship that is decimating this endangered species. Laos is the main source of illegal ivory sold in Vietnam, where prices may be the highest in the world.

According to a recent ScienceDaily article, the Vietnamese really love the stuff: A new report released by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC says that cut ivory is going for as much as $1,800 per kilo there. Though the ivory trade was outlawed in Vietnam in 1992, retailers exploit a loophole in the law which allows them to sell ivory that was obtained before the ban. They simply restock their inventory with new ivory under the pretense that it was acquired earlier. According to estimates by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), there are less than 1,000 Asian elephants remaining in the country. And the number continues to drop.

The TRAFFIC report recommends that Vietnam comply with its obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Perhaps poachers in Laos and ivory consumers in Vietnam might also remember what this noble "jewel of power" symbolizes on Buddha's path -- and realize that it loses all its strength when it's been slaughtered for its teeth.

GET INVOLVED

• Donate to TRAFFIC to support the monitoring of the illegal ivory trade
  
• Adopt an elephant from the World Wildlife Fund
  
• Sign a petition urging the North American and European members of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to oppose the proposal to designate China as a trading partner in raw ivory
• Donate to Save the Elephants
  
• Sign a petition urging eBay to ban all ivory sales on its site

RELATED POSTS

• 2,000 Elephants Missing in Chad (December 15, 2008)
• Getting Close to the Elephants of Samburu (August 19, 2008)
• Elephant Extinction Possible by 2020 (August 3, 2008)
• Future Uncertain for Thailand's Elephants (July 31, 2008)
• Listening to the Secret Lives of Elephants (July 5, 2008)
  
• South Africa to Start Elephant Culling (May 5, 2008)
• African Conservation Gets $10 Million Gift (May 1, 2008)

photo: Alexander Klink

Blowing Noses Into Dead, Ancient Trees

They have high levels of biodiversity. They have plant species that contain valuable medicinal qualities. And they store large amounts of carbon, which helps curb global warming. They are the world's old growth forests. They have been around for centuries and we are cutting them down at an alarming rate -- much of it to wipe our bums and noses.

In Britain, they are called ancient woodlands. They are also known as virgin forests, ancient forests or primeval forests. The majority of them exist in Latin America, which has 35%, and North America, which contains 28%. Each year, Brazil clears more of these ancient trees than any other nation. North America harvests 10,000 square kilometers annually. Though the South Asia Pacific region only contains 7% of the forests, the Paradise Forests that stretch across Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands are being destroyed faster than any other on Earth.

In September, Greenpeace released photo and video footage of a massive stockpile of old-growth logs cut from the ancient Ogoki, Ontario's most ecologically valuable boreal forest. These dead trees were then manufactured into toilet paper and Kleenex by tissue giant Kimberly-Clark, as well as Cottonelle, Viva and Scott brand products to be distributed throughout North America and Europe.

Eco-friendly alternatives to Kleenex have emerged, such as Green Forest, Natural Value, Seventh Generation and 365, a signature brand of Whole Foods. "Recycled tissue products help protect ancient forests, clean water and wildlife habitat," says the Greenpeace Web site. "It's easier on the Earth to make tissues from paper instead of trees."

Gesundheit!

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Greenpeace letter to Kimberly-Clark CEO Thomas Falk that says you will not purchase Kleenex, Cottonelle or any Kimberly-Clark products as long as he continues to buy from logging operations that are environmentally destructive and socially irresponsible
• Download the Greenpeace Tissue Guide so you can purchase tissue and toilet paper that is manufactured from recycled paper -- not old growth forests

RELATED POSTS

• Ancient Forests Not Something to Sneeze At (September 18, 2008)
• Swedsh Tree May Be Oldest Living Thing (April 19, 2008)
• Canadian Logging May Explode "Carbon Bomb" (April 12, 2008)

photo of old growth European Beech forest in Biogradska Gora National Park, Montenegro courtesy Snežana Trifunović

Polar Bears Are in Serious Trouble

The Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit conservation group based in Tucson, Arizona, has produced two emotionally powerful television commercials that show the current plight of the polar bear. "We've launched two hard-hitting TV ads that depict, in no uncertain terms, global warming's effects on polar bears — and our planet," says the Center's Web site.

The ads are not easy to watch, but the situation of these iconic animals is anything but easy. It's a simple, sad story: Global warming is rapidly melting arctic ice and as a result, polar bears have no home, no food and they are drowning fast. If the current situation continues, two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be gone by 2050.

The Center is hoping to raise $10,000 by the end of this week so that they can distribute these videos on television as widely as possible. The ads are currently being shown in several major television markets, including Boston and Los Angeles. The Center's latest fund drive is to increase the distribution so that the ads can be viewed in millions of homes across America.

They are also trying to gather 50,000 signatures for a petition that will be sent to President Obama during his first 100 days to encourage him to rein in global warming and save the polar bear.

"The new Obama administration and growing public awareness of the threats of global climate change have given us an historic opportunity...to send a strong, clear message to the American public," said Kierán Suckling, the Center's Executive Director. "We can't wait to save the polar bear."

GET INVOLVED

• Help the Center for Biological Diversity raise $10,000 this week to help distribute the polar bear videos on television
  
• Sign a Center for Biological Diversity petition to President Obama during his first 100 days to encourage him to rein in global warming and save the polar bear

RELATED POSTS

• Farewell to the Polar Bears (January 14, 2009)
• Using Art to Tell the Sad Tale of Polar Bears (September 29, 2008)
• Polar Bears Swimming Miles from Coast Cause Concern (August 23, 2008)
• North Pole May Be Ice-Free in Five Years (August 12, 2008)
• Lawsuit Filed to Protect Wildlife from Oil Drilling (July 12, 2008)
• U.S. Lists Polar Bear as Endangered, But With Limits (May 16, 2008)
• Polar Bears Win Victory In Court (May 2, 2008)

photo: Alan D. Wilson

First Mammal Outside of Alaska May Receive ESA Protection

Known as the "whistling hare" for the high-pitched squeak it makes before scurrying into its burrow, the furry little pika looks like a hamster, but it's really a cousin of the rabbit.

Cold climate mammals, pikas don't hibernate. Instead, they gather fresh grass, lay them in piles to dry in the sun and then take the resulting hay back into their burrows to use as warm bedding and food.

Evolving in central Asia, these intrepid creatures took the Bering Land Bridge about 20,000 years ago during the last Ice Age to get to North America, where they live in the sides of rocky mountains in the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas.

But man-caused global warming has pushed the pika to higher and higher elevations -- up to 900 feet (275 meters) -- in search for the cooler climes it needs to survive. It takes just a few hours of exposure to temperatures of at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) for them to overheat and die. Scientists estimate that over the past century, a third of the pika population have perished due to warmer temperatures.

And now, after a long battle with several conservation groups, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has finally agreed to determine whether this tiny survivor needs some help from the Endangered Species Act, making the pika the first mammal outside of Alaska to be considered for protection due to the effects of global warming.

It's unfortunate that it takes lawsuits to get the American government to even consider these kinds of protections, but this historic development is certainly a step -- albeit slow in coming -- in the right direction. Hopefully the pika will be able to take some steps back down the mountainside before it's too late.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition by the non-profit environmental law firm EarthJustice urging the US Congress to save the pika and other wildlife threatened by global warming

  [Editor's note: Almost 47,000 people have signed this petition at the time of this post.]

RELATED POSTS

• Farewell to the Polar Bears (January 14, 2009)
• Bush Withholds Protections for Threatened Seal (December 26, 2008)
• The Politics of Protecting Species (December 17, 2008)
• In Yosemite, They're Movin' on Up (and Out) (October 15, 2008)
• Court Makes Deadline for Penguin Decision (September 13, 2008)
• Meeting a Walrus (May 25, 2008)
• Polar Bears Win Victory In Court (May 2, 2008)

photo: Susan Drackett

Heaven or Haven for Horses?

In a 1917 letter to Theodore Roosevelt, journalist, adventurer and Scottish Labour Party founder R.B Cunninghame Graham wrote, "God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses."

Graham, who passed away in 1936, may be surprised at the number of horses that have made their way to the afterlife lately -- and a surprising good lot of them are from America. The nation's mythology is intimately connected with the majestic equine -- from warfare to work, survival to friendship, it could easily be argued that the United States was built on the backs of horses.

But so many of America's wild horses have not been treated very well at all. Shipped to Mexico or Canada, they are inhumanely slaughtered for human consumption, primarily in Europe.

Thankfully, they do have some good friends in Washington. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has spoken on behalf of wild horses on public land, supporting the expansion of the Heber wild horse territory in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. Mr Grijalva also supports the strengthening of laws against horse slaughter. [Editor's note: 13.7 Billion Years endorsed Mr Grijalva as Interior Secretary; President Obama chose Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo.)].

As a senator, Vice President Joe Biden co-sponsored the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which was passed in the House but unfortunately died in the Senate during the 109th Congress.

And now, the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009 (H.R. 503), co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), is back on the legislative calendar. This is good news. If passed, it will ban the possession, shipping, transporting, purchasing, selling, delivering or receiving of a horse or horseflesh for human consumption.

Perhaps the old Scot will soon see fewer horses up in Heaven -- at least not before their time.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an In Defense of Animals letter urging the your Congressional representatives to support the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009 (US citizens only)
• Buy Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West by Deanne Stillman on Amazon.com

RELATED POSTS

• America's Dirty Little Secret (December 23, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: Raul Grijalva Should Be the Next Secretary of the Interior (December 6, 2008)
• Environmentalists Rally Behind Biden (August 26, 2008)
• Use of Lab Animals on the Rise in UK (July 26, 2008)
• America's Wild Horses in Peril (June 27, 2008)
• Thoroughbred Rescuers Face Uphill Climb (June 7, 2008)
• Kentucky Derby Horse Death Raises Questions (May 6, 2008)
• Horse Fighting in the Philippines (April 4, 2008)

photo: hismith83

The Canary in the Coal Mine Is Actually A Purple Finch

"When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all," writes Dina Cappiello in a recent Associated Press story. "It's a purple finch."

She's talking about a recent bird study of the last four decades done by the Audubon Society that yielded a grim result: Over half of the 305 bird species that were tracked are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago. The cause is global warming. The U.S. is much hotter than it used to be, so the birds don't need to go as far south.

The purple finch was the biggest mover -- it moved 433 miles north.

The study was based on 40 years of data culled from Audubon's Christmas Bird Count, an annual "citizen science" project in which tens of thousands of volunteers across the country count the number of birds they see. The count was started in 1900 by Frank Chapman of the Audubon Society as an alternative to the traditional yuletide bird hunt.

"The important thing to remember — as we notice an absence of purple finches at our feeders — is that we are not merely witnesses of these striking shifts," concluded an editorial from the New York Times. "We are the cause of them, and it is our responsibility to do all we can to mitigate them."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an Audubon petition urging Congress to take the bird study as another reason to act on global warming

photo: Henry McLin

Britain's Toxic Garbage Illegally Dumped in Africa

With around eight million inhabitants, Lagos is Africa's second most populous urban area after Cairo. It is Nigeria's financial capital. But it is also on the receiving end of toxic British trash.

Britain has environmental laws to ensure the safe disposal of computers, televisions and other electronic gadgets -- known as "e-waste" -- which contain heavy metals, dioxins and other toxic substances.

But every year, almost a million tons of the UK's domestic electronic waste makes a 4,500-mile journey from Tilbury Docks in Essex to the massive Alaba electronics market in Lagos, where residents strip away their raw metals in poisonous environments.

Britain creates 15% of the EU's total electronic waste, and it is growing three times as fast as any other municipal source. And its recycling policy is confused, with many local authorities simply handing off the problem to sub-contractors. But trash doesn't just disappear.

"The sight of children scavenging toxic wastelands overflowing with the West's unwanted computers and televisions makes a mockery of international bans to prevent the dumping of e-waste," said a spokesman for consumer advocacy group Consumers International. "Western governments, including the UK, have shown little desire to deal with the root cause of this problem."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition urging the UK government to stop the disposal of e-waste in developing countries (UK residents)
• Find out how to recycle electronics

photo: localsurfer

Bloody Waters in the Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands lie between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Iceland and Scotland. Under Denmark's control since 1388, the Faroese voted after World War II against secession, and they have since been an autonomous province of the mother country, taking over all matters except law, defense and foreign affairs.

And they have held onto one thing dearly -- pilot whaling, an activity that the Faroese have been practicing since the 10th century.

Jet black in color, pilot whales are actually part of a genus of oceanic dolphin, but their behavior is closer to that of whales. Males can live up to 45 years, while females can live up to 60. They travel in groups of 10 to 30, while some groups can be as large as 100 individuals.

Whaling in the Faroe Islands remains unregulated by the International Whaling Commission, and as such, almost 1,000 long-finned pilot whales are slaughtered every summer. These are non-commercial hunts, meaning anyone can participate. The whales are surrounded by boats and driven into a bay from which they cannot escape. Helpless, the animals are killed using ropes and hooks -- the only tools allowed during the hunt.

The Faroese contend that the hunts is an important part of their culture. Animal conservationists argue they are cruel and unnecessary. In November, the Faroese chief medical officers declared pilot whales unfit for human consumption due to the high level of substances toxic to humans, including mercury, the pesticide DDT and PCBs.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a letter from PETA to the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands, the Faroe Islands Tourist Board and the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs urging them to immediately enforce a ban on pilot whale massacres
  

photo: AnimalCampaigns.org

Paper Tigers: Not So Eco-Friendly

According to the Climate Justice Programme, an international coalition of scientists, activists and lawyers, progress in combating climate change has fallen far short of where it needs to be.

Though they agree that "we have international agreements, more resources for scientific research leading to stronger evidence, some policy advances, a change in industry rhetoric and a certain increase in public awareness," it just hasn't been enough to raise the specter of a devastating climactic future for the planet, caused primarily by the rich world but felt mostly by the poor world.

The heat will be turned up on the debate next month, during what has been billed as "the largest mass civil disobedience for the climate in U.S. history."

The Capitol Climate Action (CCA) -- a national coalition of more than 40 environmental, public health, social justice and labor groups -- has been organizing thousands of supporters to descend on the Capitol Power Plant in Washington, D.C., on the afternoon of March 9 in a act of civil disobedience in the hopes of heightening public awareness and official action on the climate and energy crises.

From the actions of Rosa Parks to Mahatma Gandhi, non-violent civil disobedience has been an important tool for citizens seeking social change when governments have been unhelpful or when laws have been unfair -- or unenforced.

As Henry David Thoreau observed in his seminal 1849 text Civil Disobedience, "Most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."

"The field of law has, in many ways, been the poor relation in the world-wide effort to deliver a cleaner, healthier and ultimately fairer world," says Klaus Töpfer, the former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

"We have over 500 international and regional agreements, treaties and deals covering everything from the protection of the ozone layer to the conservation of the oceans and seas. Almost all, if not all, countries have national environmental laws too. But unless these are complied with, unless they are enforced, then they are little more than symbols, tokens, paper tigers."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Rainforest Action Network letter to Congress asking for public support of the Capitol Climate Action

photo: 'No Matter' Project

More Than Four Decades Later, A Portuguese Mine Still Pollutes

Portugal, 1966.

The Iberian nation was in the midst of its bloody, 13-year Guerra do Ultramar, in which its military fought the nationalist movements gaining power in their colonies in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.

In July, Portugal lost to England in the World Cup semifinal at Wembley, but went on to beat the USSR to snatch a third place title behind West Germany.

In October, the first Portuguese delegation was sent to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), a trade bloc set up for European countries who could not, or would not, join the European Economic Community (EEC).

It was also the year that Portugal's São Domingos mine, located about five kilometers from the Spanish border, was abandoned.

And while the colonial war is over, ten more World Cups have come and gone and Portugal is now a member of the European Union, the São Domingos mine -- part of the Iberian Pyrite Belt, one of the largest concentrations of sulfides in the Earth's crust -- continues to pollute rivers that flow into the Chanza Dam, the largest reservoir of drinking water in the Huelva province of Spain.

According to a recent ScienceDaily article, scientists from the University of Huelva have discovered that the mine, which opened in 1857, is still going through active chemical processes, including oxidation and the dissolving of sulfurs, all of which causes the drainage of extremely toxic waste.

Sulfides are used in a variety of products, including photocells, fungicides, industrial solvents, dyes, optical lenses and art pigments. Not drinking water.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will give all people the right to clean and accessible water
• Sign a Sierra Club petition urging the US Congress to oppose mountaintop removal mining
  

RELATED POSTS

• Ancient Water Source Key to Australia's Future (December 27, 2008)
• $700 Billion Bailout Bill Includes Tax Breaks for Dirty Fuel (October 5, 2008)
• Ecuador Grants Rights to "Mother Earth" (October 3, 2008)
• Visiting the Most Polluted City on Earth (August 8, 2008)
• Ontario Makes Landmark Forest Conservation Pact (July 23, 2008)
• Listening to the Secret Lives of Elephants (July 5, 2008)
• UN Urges Southeast Asia to Stop Deforestation (June 26, 2008)
• Massachusetts Becomes First State to Protect Ocean (June 11, 2008)

RELATED EDITORIALS

• The Shrimp Effect: Does Eating Shrimp in Canada Kill People in Myanmar? (May 8, 2008)
• Mining for Answers in the Philippines (April 6, 2008)

photo: Antonio M. Álvarez-Valero/SINC

How Much is $787 Billion?

Historically speaking, there is no single piece of American legislation that can compare in size and scope to President Obama's massive and far-reaching $787 billion economic stimulus plan. The single biggest piece of the pie -- $233 billion -- goes into tax breaks for individuals and families. The second biggest -- $106 billion -- goes to education and job training.

And there's enough set aside to make the nation's scientists and environmentalists cheer. According to a recent article in the Times UK, Obama's strong support of science has completely turned the mood of the scientific community around from the gloom of the Bush years, and it was apparent at the recent annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago. "We haven't ever seen a president talk about the role of science in our culture quite in this way before," said Sean Carroll, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin, who gave the plenary lecture at the meeting. "It's a sea change, and an inspiration."

But what's good for the planet can also be good for the economy, and this bill is looking to have it both ways: The $20 billion used to promote renewable fuel production through wind, solar and hydroelectric power, for example, aims to create half-a-million new jobs. Not too shabby. Buy a new plug-in hybrid vehicle, get a $7,500 tax credit. A great idea. Here's a look at some of the numbers.

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

• $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy production facilities: wind, solar, hydro
• $18 billion for environmental projects (pollution cleanup, flood protection, clean water programs)
• $13 billion to make public housing and federal buildings more energy efficient and weatherize one million homes
• $10 billion to modernize the electricity grid
• $6 billion to clean up nuclear weapons sites
• $4 billion for incentives to buy hybrid cars and make homes more energy efficient
• $2 billion for development of carbon "catch-and-store" system for coal plants

SCIENCE

• $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health
• $3 billion for the National Science Foundation
• $1.6 billion for the Office of Science at the Department of Energy
• $1 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• $400 million to finish various projects (e.g., radio telescope in Chile, neutrino detector in Antarctica, advanced gravity wave detectors in the states of Louisiana and Washington)
• $100 million for laboratory equipment at universities

Overall, it's an impressive bill. But will this mix of government spending, tax cuts and public works projects create jobs and spark a recovery?

"Whatever the result," says David M. Herszenhorn, reporting on the stimulus for the New York Times, "future generations will get the bill."

And just how much is $787 billion?

Mr. Herszenhorn noted the mathematical calculation that Senator David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, offered in historico-religious terms: "This is so much money that if someone had begun spending $1 million a day -- $ 1 million every day -- when Christ was born, we would not yet be in 2009 to the full cost of this bill."

Do we hear an Amen?

photo: DavidDMuir

Kepler and the Gate to the Black Forest

What happens if we find an Earth-like planet that can sustain life?

Mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler was born in 1571 in Weil der Stadt, a small German town known as "The Gate to the Black Forest." At the age of six, he saw the Great Comet of 1577. When he was nine, he witnessed the lunar eclipse of 1580. His early love of astronomy never left him. Although childhood smallpox left his hands crippled and his vision blurred, Kepler would become one of the great thinkers of the 17th-century Scientific Revolution.

Best known for his laws of planetary motion which describe the motion of the planets around the sun, Kepler also made important contributions to the science of optics, improving the design of his contemporary Galileo's refracting telescope (the Keplerian telescope).

So it's fitting that America's space agency NASA has named their new spacecraft after him. The first spacecraft able to locate Earth-size planets orbiting stars like our sun in an area where liquid water may exist, Kepler is scheduled to launch March 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

And what happens if the mission discovers a planet that could sustain life? What if the planet is already inhabited by another life form?

We will be at a gate leading to another black forest. So we can just go back to Kepler the man, who once asked, "Who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? Are we or they Lords of the World? And how are all things made for man?"

GET INVOLVED

• See what's in the sky tonight
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
• Download the new Google Earth 5.0, which now has an interactive map of the entire surface of Mars
• Join the Great World Wide Star Count
• Buy a beginner telescope from the Discovery Channel store ($99.00)

RELATED POSTS

• A Smashing Reunion for the Galaxy Twins? (February 9, 2009)
• Here Comes the Warm Jets (February 3, 2009)
  
• Famous 400-Year-Old Star Death Observed (December 7, 2008)
• Rare Star Explosion Could Be a Rosetta Stone (November 29, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama (November 17, 2008)
• Something's Out There, And We're Racing to It (November 10, 2008)
• Star Light, Star Bright, Log the First Star You See Tonight (October 21, 2008)
  
• An Eruption 165 Years Ago Signaled the Death of a Star (September 15, 2008)
• Getting Close to the Galaxy's Big Black Hole (September 7, 2008)
• Emissions 6,500 Light-Years Away Detected (September 1, 2008)
• The Most Viewed Meteor Shower Arrives (August 9, 2008)
• One Search for Extraterrestrial Life May End (July 10, 2008)
• Martian Soil Appears to Support Life, Scientists "Flabbergasted" (June 28, 2008)
  
• DNA Building Blocks Found in Meteorite Formed in Deep Space (June 24, 2008)
• Death of Star Captured for First Time (June 1, 2008)
• Astronomers Locate Youngest Planet (April 7, 2008)
  
• By-product of Life Found on Distant Planet (March 20, 2008)
• Astronomers Closer to Figuring Out Age of Universe (March 14, 2008)

image: 1610 portrait of Johannes Kepler by an unknown artist

The Ecological Price of Valentine's Day

Like lovers, roses crave warmth. So it's no surprise that 80 percent of the ones purchased in the United States are flown in from South America. Europeans get their roses from even warmer climes in Africa.

After they arrive at their entry ports, according to a recent Scientific American article, the roses are packed onto refrigerated trucks and stored in climate-controlled environments for their entire journey to the florist. So what's the carbon imprint made by the approximately 100 million roses sent on Valentine's Day?

According to Flowerpetal.com, about 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide is released in the journey from field to florist. And then there's all the harmful pesticides used on the rose bushes, and the artificial light, heat and cooling that many rose-growers need.

So what's a romantic sod to do?

Look for flowers marked "sustainable," "fair trade" and "organic" -- these versions are increasingly available at big retailers including like Sam's Club and FTD and also through Web sites like Flowerbud.com, Organicbouquet, TransFair, and 1-800-flowers. Other options: locally-grown flowers, or better yet, or a tree sapling that can take root outdoors. Supporting the environment by planting a tree instead of sending a rose? Now that's romantic.

GET INVOLVED

• "How to have an eco-friendly Valentine's Day," by Karen Cotton, eHow.com
• Search for organic flower growers on LocalHarvest.org

photo: sir_watkyn

Surfing for the Cause

Surf the Web and save the world? Sounds like an episode of Heroes, but this is the business plan of a new Web site, Bettertheworld.com. Users simply sign up for the program, pick one charity from a growing list of groups that includes World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Habitat for Humanity, Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR), Heart & Stroke Foundation, Sick Kids Foundation, Children's Miracle Network, United Way Toronto and Taking It Global.

You don't have to give money or volunteer -- you just use one or more of their Web browser tools to help generate money for your cause, such as the Better the World search tool or the Better the World sidebar tool, both of which will fit seamlessly in your Internet Explorer or Firefox window.

BTW's advertising partners pay funds according to the number of times people see their ads, so the more you surf the Web, the more money you raise for your charity. The BTW charity partners will keep you engaged with your shared cause by keeping you up to date on the progress. And, their 90/10 policy states that 10 percent of the funds raised go to keep the BTW platform running, with 90 percent going directly to the charities.

EDITOR'S NOTE: 13.7 Billion Years signed up with BTW to raise money for the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. The BTW sidebar tool is unobtrusive (it's a column on the right side of the Firefox browser window) and informative -- it shows Lewa's current goal ("Buy a fence post"), the goal amount ($20) and the current amount raised ($5.19). The sidebar tool also shows an ad, but it's an ad that is related to the charity you've chosen: "Free eco-living tips delivered M-F to your inbox -- www.idealbite.com."

GET INVOLVED

• Join Bettertheworld.com and start raising money for your favorite charity for free

RELATED POSTS

• Farewell to the Polar Bears (January 14, 2008)
• UN Climate Talks Fail (December 20, 2008)
• New Homes for Kenyan Wildlife (December 9, 2008)
• Indonesia Creates Asian Reef Conservation Group (November 24, 2008)
• Saving Sumatran Forests, Keepers of Carbon (October 11, 2008)
• Dolphins Get Much Needed Help (July 30, 2008)
• Rate of Species Extinction Highest Since Dinosaurs (May 17, 2008)
• Climate Change Threatens Australia's Animals (April 2, 2008)

AN ECO-FRIENDLY VALENTINE'S DAY

• "How to have an eco-friendly Valentine's Day," by Karen Cotton, eHow.com
• Search for organic flower growers on LocalHarvest.org

photo: alcomm

The Albatross and the Rising Sea

An allusion to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" -- a poem penned by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798 about a seaman's long ocean voyage -- the word "albatross" has come to mean a wearisome burden.

The albatross is also a large seabird, one species of which -- the short-tailed albatross of the North Atlantic -- went extinct about 400,000 years ago. Now researchers studying the sedimentary and fossil record in a limestone quarry in Bermuda have discovered exactly why they disappeared -- an extreme rise in sea levels caused vital nesting sites to be submerged completely underwater.

According to a recent ScienceDaily story, Storrs Olson, a zoologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Paul Hearty, a geologist from the Bald Head Island Conservancy, have proof that during an interglacial period of the Middle Pleistocene, rapidly melting ice sheets caused the sea level to rise more than 70 feet (21 meters), a catastrophic event for the coastal wildlife.

"These findings are incredibly important and have major relevance because of their potential predictive value," said Olson, "since this sea-level rise took place during the interglacial period most similar to the present one now in progress."

The report concluded that, "with future carbon dioxide levels possibly rising higher than any time in the past million years, it is important to consider the potential effects on polar ice sheets."

Now that's an albatross around our collective neck.

GET INVOLVED

• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change

RELATED POSTS

• Lilypad: Future Ecopolis for Global Warming Refugees (Thursday, January 19, 2009)
• Pack Your Bags, We're Moving to New Zealand (October, 26, 2008)
• North Pole May Be Ice-Free in Five Years (August 12, 2008) Huge Antarctica Ice Shelf Crumbles (April 1, 2008)
• Record Glacier Melt from Climate Change (March 16, 2008)

photo: Bob McCabe

Time Magazine's "Heroes of the Environment"

In regard to climate change, one of them told the United States, "If, for some reason, you're not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us." One is a bodybuilder turned action hero turned governor.

One is an Inuit activist involved in U.N. negotiations to ban organic pollutants in the Arctic. One is a restaurateur who helped launch the American locavore movement.

One grew up poor in the Brazilian rainforest and is now her country's environment minister. One is an activist and novelist who wrote a series of award-winning books about the history of Mars from its first settlement through a complex story of war, revolution and engineered transformation into something rich and human.

They, along with many others, are changing the way we see the world, and more importantly, how best to fit into it. They are Time Magazine's "Heroes of the Environment" for 2008.

GET INVOLVED

[the following links are "citizen scientist" programs that anyone can sign up for]

• The Great Backyard Bird Count
• The Cooperative Weather Observer Program
• The Wildlife Phenology Program
• Frogwatch USA
• Project Roadkill
• Monarch Larva Monitoring Project
• Mountain Watch
• Project Budburst
• The Great Sunflower Project
• Milkweed and Nectar Plant Phenology Project
• NestWatch
• Mushroom Observer
• Firefly Watch
• Great Lakes Worm Watch
• Earthdive
  
• MonarchWatch
• World Water Monitoring Day
• Journey North
• Spider WebWatch
• Project PigeonWatch
• Did You Feel It?
• Christmas Bird Count

photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger: 2 dogs

Ashley Judd on Sarah Palin: "We Will Stop Her"

The aerial wolf killing program of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has long faced criticism from conservation groups, who argue that the practice is brutal (helpless wolf pups are executed) and unnecessary (it exists to increase the game population to boost the out-of-state hunting industry).

And now, Ashley Judd is turning up the heat on the embattled governor with the Defenders of Wildlife "Eye on Palin" campaign, a television commercial featuring the actress that will be aired during Governor Palin's visit to Washington D.C. on February 26, when she is scheduled to give a speech. Ms. Judd and Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen recently appeared on the Larry King Live show to set the record straight on Gov. Palin's aerial wolf killing agenda.

In addition to continuing her wolf killing policy, the governor has been attempting to undo Endangered Species Act protection for beluga whales and polar bears and also supports the brutal killing of female brown and black bears and their cubs.

Gov. Palin referred to the "Eye on Palin" campaign as the work of an "extreme fringe group." Mr. Schlickeisen rebutted, saying that Defenders of Wildlife was an organization that is older than her state -- and also has more members (1 million) than Alaskan residents.

"We’re not about to back down from her and I’m sure you aren’t either, wrote Ms. Judd in an email statement yesterday. "We know that the more Americans hear about her heartless animal-killing programs, the more the public recognizes that Palin is the extremist -- and her public support plummets. We’ve already gained the support of some 120 members of Congress to pass federal legislation to end her barbaric killing. And we will stop her."

GET INVOLVED

• Support Ashley Judd's "Eye on Palin" TV campaign
  
• Sign a Care2 petition urging Gov. Palin to drop the court case challenging the federal decision to protect Cook Inlet beluga whales under the Endangered Species Act
  

RELATED POSTS

• Palin Attacks Endangered Whales (January 17, 2009)
• Palin's Wolf Slaughter Reaches Record Numbers (December 31, 2008)
• Palin Rebuffed As Unique Alaskan Whales Score Major Victory (October 18, 2008)
• Conservationists Call Palin's Wolf Program "Brutal" (September 14, 2008)
• Alaska's Wolf Control Program Under Fire (August 14, 2008)

photo: smiteme

A Smashing Reunion for the Galaxy Twins?

The Milky Way is a translation of via lactia in Latin and refers to the gauzy band of white light originating from stars and interstellar matter that appears in our night sky stretching across the entire celestial sphere.

A barred spiral galaxy, the Milky Way is the galaxy we call home. Our solar system is situated on one of its spiral arms. Our sun is just one of about 400 billion stars in the galaxy. And our galaxy has a twin -- the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy to our own. We are moving towards our twin at the speed of about 100 kilometers per second. It may be a collision course.

And now we are learning more about these siblings, thanks to a team led by Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Using 10 radio telescopes located in Hawaii, across the continental United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands, they have discovered that the Milky Way is spinning 50 times faster than originally thought, giving it 50 percent more mass. And that means we'll be meeting our sister Andromeda earlier than expected. But don't worry -- that's at least a few billion years from now.

GET INVOLVED

• Support the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA)
• See what's in the sky tonight
• Download the new Google Earth 5.0, which now has an interactive map of the entire surface of Mars

RELATED POSTS

• Here Comes the Warm Jets (February 3, 2009)
  
• Famous 400-Year-Old Star Death Observed (December 7, 2008)
• Rare Star Explosion Could Be a Rosetta Stone (November 29, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama
  (November 17, 2008)
• Something's Out There, And We're Racing to It (November 10, 2008)
• Star Light, Star Bright, Log the First Star You See Tonight (October 21, 2008)
  
• An Eruption 165 Years Ago Signaled the Death of a Star (September 15, 2008)
• Getting Close to the Galaxy's Big Black Hole (September 7, 2008)
• Emissions 6,500 Light-Years Away Detected (September 1, 2008)
• The Most Viewed Meteor Shower Arrives (August 9, 2008)
• One Search for Extraterrestrial Life May End (July 10, 2008)
• Martian Soil Appears to Support Life, Scientists "Flabbergasted" (June 28, 2008)
  
• DNA Building Blocks Found in Meteorite Formed in Deep Space (June 24, 2008)
• Death of Star Captured for First Time (June 1, 2008)
• Astronomers Locate Youngest Planet (April 7, 2008)
  
• By-product of Life Found on Distant Planet (March 20, 2008)
• Astronomers Closer to Figuring Out Age of Universe (March 14, 2008)

photo: 360° panorama of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley at night. The Milky Way is visible as the arc in the center. A sailing stone is also seen below along with the tracks of other stones (Dan Duriscoe, U.S. National Park Service)

Tracking Australia's Wildlife Smugglers

It's one of the single biggest sources of criminal income in the world, but it doesn't get much press. It's animal smuggling, a global trade that rakes in $25 billion every year -- and it's putting further stress on several endangered species.

According to a recent report by BBC News, organized crime organizations are becoming increasingly attracted to this black market because of low fines and lenient prison terms compared to drugs or weapons smuggling.

"Some estimates now put the trade second to drug smuggling," the report states, "with endangered animals becoming the new blood diamonds, funding war and terror." In Nepal, India, China and many other countries, rangers are being killed for the animals they are working to protect.

BBC journalist Sharon Mascall, who is also a lecturer at the University of South Australia, spent four months following the animal smuggling trade across Australia and reported on it in a recent audio broadcast. Smuggled cockatoos, which can fetch up to $1 million, are popular the Philippines, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and the United States.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition to stop animal smuggling in Indonesia

photo of endangered black cockatoo: jsarcadia

From Snakes on a Boat to Guam's Silent Forests

A tiny, 200 square-mile island nestled low in the crescent of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, Guam is a United States territory first discovered by seafaring Indonesians around 2,000 BC. Populated mainly by Chamorros, the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, Guam has long been a tropical paradise for birds, primarily because the island has no indigenous snake population.

But in the mid-1940s, that all changed. Shortly after World War II, the brown tree snake -- a infamously invasive species -- was accidentally introduced to Guam, probably as a stowaway on a cargo vessel. Since then, it has feasted royally, predator-free, gorging its way through the extinction of 10 of the island's 12 forest bird species. The two surviving species remain in tiny numbers in controlled areas. Guam's once cacophonous forests now lie silent. But besides the loss of birdsong, there are other effects caused by the absence of birds.

Biologist Haldre Rogers from the University of Washington is studying one possible outcome -- the loss of trees. Specifically, she's comparing the forest seed dispersal in bird-free Guam with that of nearby Saipan, whose forest has birds aplenty. In Guam, the trees drop their seeds directly on the ground below the tree. But in Saipan, birds feed on the trees' fruit, then fly to new locations, defecating seeds far from their original source.

Other research has shown that seeds that fall directly under their parent tree have a higher mortality rate than those carried elsewhere by birds. So for now, thanks to a hungry stowaway snake, the future of Guam's birdless -- and birdsongless -- forests look a bit grim.

GET INVOLVED

• Support Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization that has been helping communities around the world plant trees

photo: PD-USGOV-INTERIOR-NPS