Tuesday 3/27 – It’s a beautiful spring day! Let’s talk about the birds and the bees…

Or more specifically, how we should be protecting them.

A particular class of pesticides, called Neonics, act as a deadly nerve agent on bees, damaging their brains and crippling their ability to learn, remember and navigate. Bees aren’t the only ones at risk. Research shows that these pesticides harm birds’ navigation abilities as well, and that near-constant neonic exposure in contaminated water can cause lasting damage to aquatic ecosystems.

It’s hard to imagine our world without bees or the 30% of the food crops that they make possible. but this is already happening in countries like China. Here’s a reminder of things we currently take for granted.

There are a variety of villains in the death of our bees, and we’re the source of a number of them. Abnormally severe winters and droughts, byproducts of man-made climate change, outright kill them or destroy their habitation. Monoculture, the practice of growing single crops over large areas are creating food deserts for insects dependent on a variety of flowering plants. The proliferation of the Varroa mite, a devastating mite from Asia, and the viruses they spread, have had a major impact on the health of bee colonies. Continue reading “Tuesday 3/27 – It’s a beautiful spring day! Let’s talk about the birds and the bees…” →

Postcard Party for California District 1 on April 4th!

We will be joining a statewide effort to get out the vote in California District 1!

When: Wednesday, April 4th at 11:00AM – 2:00 PM
Where: Santino’s Pizza Parlor – 4321 Telegraph Rd, Ventura
Fun! Pizza will be provided! (A little cheese grease goes a long way toward making our postcards have that special “homey” touch!)

CD1 is LaMalfa’s district which is spread out, red, and rural. The CD1 Democratic Alliance have asked us to write postcards to their rural democratic voters, encouraging them to turn out to vote. We are not endorsing a candidate, just advocating power to the polls.

Our appeal will be directly to the voters in CA-1 – NOT mass political mailings, because all of our cards will be handwritten. Each will be a message from one voter to another. We are simply asking Americans to do that most American thing — VOTE!

Here are some tidbits from LaMalfa’s reelection site to inspire us:

“I am proud to have earned an A rating and the endorsements of the NRA and Gun Owners of America.”

“The current (immigration) policy Continue reading “Postcard Party for California District 1 on April 4th!” →

Bears Ears – 3/19 – LAST day to comment!

Stop destruction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase/Escalante.

Comments due TODAY – March 19th!

On Feb. 2nd, companies began staking mining claims on land tracts removed from Uth’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. They will get the opportunity to permanently despoil some of the most beautiful land in the country for literally a few dollars an acre.

In addition, a rider in the new appropriations bill, Sec. 433 of HR 3354, blocks the EPA from implementing, enforcing or finalizing requirements that hard rock mining sites carry insurance to cover environmental damage. This provision will likely leave cleanup costs to the taxpayers under Superfund instead of making the responsible party pay for the damage they caused. Destruction, pollution, AND corruption! Hallmarks of this administration.

Didn’t read the series? Start here and work your way backwards.

https://embed.gettyimages.com/embed/161080376?et=gOcjNJlrTSBARK50h6NdIw&tld=com&sig=3ZSuq4QkQFoGspJ3T8174q4tVBrF_inmrb2Bvhjfq6E=&caption=false&ver=2

The Denver Post … A large waste-rock pile that is part of the Commodore Mine in Creede is one of two sites the EPA would be targeting as a Superfund site. The other is the Nelson Tunnel which is nearby. (Photo By RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Continue reading “Bears Ears – 3/19 – LAST day to comment!” →

Environmental War Crimes – Part 5 – Money

A group of demonstrators, including one dressed as the Grim Reaper, march to protest the proposed resettlement of New York’s Love Canal neighborhood. In 1990, the state began selling new homes in Love Canal, a former toxic dump site whose previous residents had to be evacuated due to health hazards. (Photo by William Campbell/Sygma via Getty Images

On Monday, we started our multi-point breakdown of a singularly destructive bill – HR 3354, a legislative monster of an appropriations act, whose length and complexity hides gifts, in the form of riders, for industries and anti-environmental extremists. In Parts 1 and 2, we listed those that pose a clear threat to our health and that of our families by the removal or lessening of protections for our air and water. In Part 3, we spotlighted the ones that are focused on taking or abusing our public lands for private financial gain or on hindering their proper management. In Part 4, we focused on those that demonstrated our legislators disrespect for the our lives and health as well as that of our wildlife.

Environmental War Crimes – Part 1 – Air
Environmental War Crimes – Part 2 – Water
Environmental War Crimes – Part 3 – Land
Environmental War Crimes – Part 4 – Life

We’ve loosely organized these riders on their effects on the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. That one is listed in “Air” in our arbitrary category system, does not preclude it from harming other aspects of the environment. The gas and oil industries and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) are examples that land in every group.

Today we’re going to talk about the ones that didn’t quite fit into any one group, those that specifically loosen controls on toxins, that allow polluters to shift cleanup costs to us and “industry-friendly” riders that are truly breathtaking in the audacity of their corruption.

It’s just business! – Call to action:

Continue reading “Environmental War Crimes – Part 5 – Money” →

Environmental War Crimes – Part 4 – Life

Environmental War Crimes – Part 1 – Air
Environmental War Crimes – Part 2 – Water
Environmental War Crimes – Part 3 – Land

Although these earlier columns discuss the H.R. 3354 riders that will cause harm to wildlife as well as to humans as a side effect of their implementation, today’s column will focus on those that specifically target wildlife and the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Why are GOP legislators so cavalier with our wildlife?

Maybe they feel that wildlife, unlike cattle, oil and lumber, has no commercial value?

They are wrong.

One out of every one hundred dollars of all goods and services produced in the U.S. is due to wildlife-related recreation.

Continue reading “Environmental War Crimes – Part 4 – Life” →

Environmental War Crimes – Part 3 – Land

Caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, soon to be hosting oil drilling platforms and roads.

Environmental War Crimes – Part 1 – Air
Environmental War Crimes – Part 2 – Water

Today we see parts of our natural heritage being given away to large corporations in exchange for devoted patronage, land that will be spoiled for the public forever.

This video is just to give you a taste of the kind of corruption that’s happening right now. Bill HR 3354 just continues our losses…

Continue reading →

Environmental War Crimes – Part 2 – Water

“If you live in the United States, there is a nearly one-in-four chance your tap water is either unsafe to drink or has not been properly monitored for contaminants in accordance with federal law, a new study has found.” (nytimes)

And under the current GOP administration, it’s going to get worse.(vox)

Yesterday, we started our multi-point breakdown of a singularly destructive bill – HR 3354, a legislative monster of an appropriations act, whose length and complexity hides gifts, in the form of “riders”, for industries and anti-environmental extremists that will ultimately affect our health and that of our families.

(You can find that first installment on the 16 riders specifically allowing increases in our air pollution, here.)

Today, we’re going to talk about water.

As many as 63 million people across the US were exposed to potentially unsafe water more than once during the past decade (USAtoday). Maybe you think it’s just about Flint, that somehow more environmentally sensitive states like CA are immune…

Continue reading →

Environmental War Crimes – Part 1 – Air

The current administration has come to steal your health. They’ve come to steal your heritage and they’ve come to steal your voice as an American citizen.

It has already started, of course. Recently, Sen. Murkowski shoehorned a rider into the GOP tax bill allowing oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. And now, hidden deep in a long boring appropriations bill, are more seeds of destruction. These riders, like Murkowski’s, are so disturbing and corrupt that they couldn’t possibly succeed as bills on their own.

They are, in fact, returns-on-investments to big corporations and ideological extremists, and they will succeed by being overlooked, swept along with the weight of HR 3354, a legislative monster also known as the “Interior and Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development, Commerce, Justice, Science, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, State and Foreign Operations, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, Legislative Branch, and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2018″ Act.

And these legislators will win…

Unless we pull their toxic riders the daylight. Unless we say something against them. Loudly. And unless we defend what is rightfully ours.

Today, we’re starting a multi-part series on HR 3354 along with similar bills. We’re breaking them down into their separate poisonous parts. You’ve got your phone. You know what to do.