A tail dragging romp through the swamps of the world
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| The view from a small window in the wall of the vast Niubizi Tian Keng in the Er Wang Dong cave system, where clouds form inside the huge spaces. Three tiny explorers can be seen negotiating the heavily vegetated floor |
Don't limit your thoughts of Daryl Hannah to her "Steel Magnolias" and "Kill Bill" roles. She is one tough debater as the shill for Big Oil finds out in their debate on CBC's "Power and Politics" today. She handles herself very well, is well-versed on the issues and makes a strong argument for the environmental side of this issue.
"I won’t do community service should that be part of my sentence. I have done community service all of my life and I have done it for love. I refuse to have community service imposed on me as a punishment. And I won’t pay a fine or allow anyone else to pay a fine for me. I won’t accept any part of electronic monitoring as I would consider that an enforced internalization of a guilt I don’t feel and don’t accept and I refuse to internalize this court’s opinion of me by policing myself."
"When an accused has been convicted of a serious crime in itself calling for a substantial sentence and when he suffers from some mental or personalty disorder rendering him a danger to the community but not subjecting him to confinement in a mental institution and when it is uncertain when, if ever, the accused will be cured of his affliction, in my opinion the appropriate sentence is one of life."
The UK-built Zephyr solar-powered plane has smashed the endurance record for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).It was launched last Friday and it's been flying for over 7 days non-stop.
"What will be most critical for Canada in terms of filling out the details of our regulatory framework will be the regulatory framework being developed in the United States.
The nature of the Canadian economy and the nature of our integrated energy markets is such that Canada and the United States need to be closely harmonized on this. If the Americans don’t act, it will severely limit our ability to act. But if Americans do act, it is absolutely essential that we act in concert with them."
U.S. cuts deal with dairy farmers to lower methane gas emission
December 16, 2009 COPENHAGEN – The United States is counting on cows to help save the planet.
U.S. Secretary Tom Vilsack announced an agreement with the American dairy industry Tuesday to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions 25 per cent by 2020, mostly by convincing farmers to capture the methane from cow manure that otherwise would be released into the atmosphere. The plan requires more farmers to buy an anaerobic digester, which essentially converts cow manure into electricity."This historic agreement, the first of its kind, will help us achieve the ambitious goal of drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions while benefiting farmers," Vilsack said at the U.N. climate talks. "(The) use of manure technology is a win for everyone."
"A key adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said yesterday that B.C. run-of-river power may yet qualify as green power.
Utilities in California are nearly all struggling to meet a requirement that 20% of their electricity come from renewable sources by 2010.
They have only months to meet the target or face financial penalties, and private-sector power producers in B.C., along with the provincial government, are urging California to expand its definition of renewable power to encompass run-of-river projects with up to 50 megawatts of capacity as part of the solution."
"We're in a recession and calling for a moratorium of the private sector of renewable energy companies would send the signal to the business community that this is not a place for them to invest in."
"CEO Donald McInnes said his company did not donate to the Liberal Party, in response to a caller on CKNW's Bill Good show this morning, but Elections BC records prove otherwise.
When asked why he made that claim, McInnes responded, "I don't consider that to be donations, that's buying a seat at a table."
"Now, aboard a specially outfitted private jet, you can travel around the world with people who work to protect Earth’s incredible diversity.
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Exxon to pay out 75% of Valdez damages
August 27, 2008SEATTLE — — Exxon Mobil Corp. [XOM-N] has agreed to pay out 75 per cent of a $507.5-million (U.S.) damages ruling to settle the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News reported on Tuesday.
Citing both Exxon and the plaintiff's lawyer, the Anchorage Daily News said the oil giant will release about $383-million for distribution to the nearly 33,000 commercial fishermen and others who sued Exxon after the worst tanker crash in U.S. history.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs think that they're entitled to interest, but after so many years of wrangling with Exxon, they filed a brief with the Supreme Court to clarify their position, said Brian O'Neill, a Minnesota lawyer who represents the plaintiffs. Last week, he described the brief they filed with the Supreme Court as "belt and suspenders.""Diverting some of it to fields began in the 1970s. Then in 1996, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement stiffened sewage treatment guidelines. This created more sludge and Ontario started recommending it for use as fertilizer for farm crops. Faced with fast-filling landfills and a U.S. border slowly closing to Ontario's waste, many municipalities accepted."Why am I suddenly reminded of the spinach and tomato recalls last year due to salmonella and e coli?
"In a move that Eileen Smith says will raise safety, odour and application standards, the government is introducing changes that will drop the requirement for a certificate of approval for sludge spreading and allow it to be handled by farmers as part of the Nutrient Management Act."In other words, certificates will no longer be publicly available to tell us what's being spread and who is spreading it.
"The White House offered embarrassed apologies to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy on Tuesday, after it had handed out an unflattering profile of him and his country’s politics.C'mon, Fratto, what's in the rest of Bush's briefing notes?
Briefing notes that were given to reporters accompanying President Bush to the Group of 8 meeting in Japan described Mr. Berlusconi as one of the "most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice."
"There was obviously a mistake and sloppy work," said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman."
White House interfered in climate testimony, ex-EPA official says
Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers
July 08, 2008WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the White House demanded that all mention of how global warming harms human health be cut from testimony to Congress last fall, a former Environmental Protection Agency official who had a key role on climate policy said Tuesday.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., charged that the new information from the former official showed that the White House and Cheney were covering up the dangers of global warming in an attempt to block the EPA from taking action.
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The former EPA official, Jason Burnett, said in a letter to Boxer dated Sunday that the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Cheney's office wanted to cut any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change from testimony to Congress last October by Julie Gerberding, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
_______________"We now know that this censorship was not haphazard. It was part of a master plan" meant to ensure that the EPA's response to a Supreme Court decision that found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants "would be as weak as possible," Boxer charged.
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In his letter, Burnett said that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had asked the staff to draft a provisional finding that greenhouse gases do endanger public welfare. Burnett sent the report by e-mail, but the White House has refused to open it. As a result, the finding isn't available to the public.
Boxer said Johnson should release the e-mailed finding and all other documents related to the EPA's conclusions about the dangers of global warming. The agency also should indicate what rules it will impose to reduce the emissions of heat-trapping gases, she said.
"If Mr. Johnson refuses to do these things I'm asking him to do, if he doesn't have the strength to do them, he should resign," Boxer said.
Exxon Valdez $2.5 bln oil spill ruling overturned
Wed Jun 25, 2008 - By James Vicini
WASHINGTON, June 25
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the record $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon Mobil Corp had been ordered to pay for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska.
The nation's highest court ruled that the punitive damages should be limited to an amount equal to the total relevant compensatory damages of $507.5 million.
In the court's opinion, Justice David Souter concluded that the $2.5 billion in punitive damages was excessive under federal maritime law, and should be cut to the amount of actual harm.
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Soaring oil prices have propelled Exxon Mobil to previously unforeseen levels of profitability in recent years, posting earnings of $40.6 billion in 2007.
It took the company just under two days to bring in $2.5 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2007.The Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound in March 1989, spilling about 11 million gallons of crude oil.
The spill spread oil to more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) of coastline, closed fisheries and killed thousands of marine mammals and hundreds of thousands of sea birds.
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When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere.
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First you should look at ways of reducing your cheating. Once you've done this you can use Cheatneutral to offset the remaining, unavoidable cheating.
