Archive for June, 2011

ALERT! Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Is Primary Forest Logging: Clearing Rainforests for Plantations Is NOT Sustainable, Members Must Stop Greenwash or Resign

By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal TAKE ACTION HERE NOW! The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) [search] brand gets 70% of its timber and pulp by greenwashing current and planned destruction of 130,000,000 hectares of primary rainforests and other old forests – an area the size of South Africa. This week - at FSC’s tri-annual General Assembly in Malaysia – the ecocidal greenwash worsens, as FSC may start certifying plantations timbers from land cleared of primary rainforests [search] as being "sustainable" as well. Being the best ecocidal rainforest destroyer is nothing to be proud of – all such deadly old forest certification schemes must stop. Please call upon all FSC members to reject the certification of primary forests by resigning immediately, as many others have recently done. Further, demand FSC immediately stop certifying primary forest logging or disband itself now during their meeting. Thank you for participating in EI's on-going global campaign to end primary forest logging, and to protect and restore old forests, as keystone responses to abrupt climate change, biodiversity loss and global ecosystem collapse.

ALERT! End U.S. FrankenTree Experiments: Genetically Engineered Trees Risky, Unnecessary and Must Be Resisted until Banned

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW! “Eucalyptus is the perfect neoliberal tree. It grows quickly, turns a quick profit in the global market and destroys the earth.” Jaime Aviles, La Jornada. Over a quarter of a million genetically altered eucalyptus trees have been incautiously approved for planting by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ultimately GE tree [search] company ArborGen plans to sell these FrankenTrees for planting across millions of hectares from Texas to Florida - undoubtedly with some sort of sustainability greenwash for biofuel, pulp and timber. You can help us stop this disaster before it is too late. These genetically modified eucalyptus trees are like the notoriously aggressively expanding Kudzu plant invaders, but explosively flammable and toxic. In the 1990s and early 2000s a similar threat in Europe was largely rebuffed through direct action – together people simply destroyed the tree saplings. Discuss Alert: http://www.facebook.com/ecointernet http://forests.org/blog

Nuclear agency head to visit flooded Nebraska reactors

Reuters: The chair of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will arrive in Nebraska Sunday to monitor preparations against Missouri River flooding at two Nebraska nuclear power plants, officials said Friday. NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko will visit the Cooper Nuclear Station south of Omaha Sunday and the Fort Calhoun plant north of Omaha Monday, said agency spokesman Victor Dricks. During both visits, Jaczko will also be talking with NRC resident inspectors-- the agency staff who work on-site every day...

Grasping Climate Change at a Garden-Plot Level

New York Times: One of the first places where Americans may notice the impact of climate change is in their own gardens and backyards, their most common point of intersection with the natural world. David Graham for The New York TimesThe conservatory at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa. On Friday, the federal government announced that it would take advantage of that connection by introducing a pilot project in concert with the American Public Garden Association to educate some 70 million annual visitors...

Growing Evidence on Climate Change Affecting U.S. Gardens and Climate – Science Now

Science Mag: Federal climate scientists are teaming up with horticulturalists to inform the public about the potential effects of climate change on gardens. Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a new partnership aimed at that goal with the American Public Gardens Association (APGA). The partnership has launched with a pilot project at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, in the form of an exhibit featuring NOAA's climate data. "There is telling evidence that...

EPA announces initiative to restore urban waterways

Reuters: Renewing urban waterways will be the focus of a new environmental initiative by the government, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday. The multi-agency program will start with a seven-city pilot program to revitalize urban waterways in under-served communities before being expanded to other cities, an EPA statement said. "There is a range of health and environmental challenges facing our urban waters today -- but each challenge is matched by an incredible opportunity to transform...

A Nuclear Plant’s Flood Defenses Trigger a Yearlong Regulatory Confrontation

Climatewire: Pictures of the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant north of Omaha, Neb., show it encircled by the swollen waters of the Missouri River, which reached a height of nearly 1,007 feet above sea level at the plant yesterday. The plant's defenses include new steel gates and other hard barriers protecting an auxiliary building with vital reactor controls, and a water-filled berm 8 feet tall that encircles other parts of the plant. Both systems are designed to hold back floodwaters reaching 1,014 feet above...

Australia’s Ningaloo coast added to Unesco’s World Heritage List

Guardian: Charles Knife gorge in the Cape Range national park, Ningaloo coast, Australia. The Ningaloo coast in Australia, a vast complex of reefs, caves, streams and shallow waters, and the Kenya lake system in the great rift valley in Africa, an area of outstanding beauty and home to 13 threatened bird species, are the latest sites to be added to the World Heritage List at the Unesco meeting this week in Paris. The Ningaloo coast in Western Australia covers 708,350 hectares of coastal waters and land,...

Ecological Internet: Continually Pushing Boundaries of Internet Use to Sustain Ecology

After inventing blogging, creating and managing Earth’s best ecology portals, including with real search engines and unsurpassed email protest capabilities; Ecological Internet very much needs your help to continue innovating on use of the Internet for ecology. We are 44% to our goal to take us to the end of the year, but still need to raise $22,000. Make your tax-deductible donation now please - Earth and you will be glad you did. Dear Ecological Internet friends, Increasingly Ecological Internet’s biocentric ecology campaigning and news sharing is taking place on Facebook and Twitter social networks (see voluminous full list of accounts and newsfeeds) and sign up if you have not yet done so. We believe our use of social networks – which allows information to flow virally from friend to friend – is increasing our effectiveness as witnessed by our recent major victory helping protect Tanzania’s Serengeti wildlife migrations from a road through its ecosystem core. Over the past year EI has developed and programmed its own unmatched Twitter and Facebook tools and methods to spread biocentric news and views regarding what is required to avoid global ecosystem collapse. As we gather and comment upon news items for our biocentric ecology ...

Danger heats up for Australia’s platypus

AFP: Global warming could shrink the habitat of Australia's duck-billed platypus by a third, researchers warned Friday, with hotter, drier temperatures threatening its survival. A confusion of bird, mammal and reptile characteristics, the timid platypus is one of Australia's most cryptic creatures, feeding at night and living in deep waterside burrows to dodge predators such as foxes and eagles. But its thick, watertight fur coat -- one of the key tools to ensuring its survival in the cool depths...