Unconventional Sources

To be honest, I’m not that fond of the Barn Owl Cam over at the Barn Owl Trust. I am, however, quite impressed with the important work of the Barn Owl Trust.

They work in the UK to protect barn owls there. Barn owls are decreasing in numbers as their hunting habitat is developed for human use, and the places they roost in, barns and old snags, aren’t as common as they used to be.

The Brits have also got the Barn Owl Conservation Network.

Here in the US, for more information about the barn owl, you can visit the All About Birds online guide.

According to testimony given to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs today, we can expect the amount we drive to double by 2030 if current trends continue. That’s not bad for our free time. It’s bad for the environment as well, as pollution from transportation currently accounts for 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a portion that’s rapidly increasing.

Thankfully, there are organizations that are trying to reform American transportation, promoting increased efficiency, community redesign, and increased usage of efficient modes of transportation already available: Walking, bicycling and public transportation. Among these organizations is the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy – check ‘em out.

A note that makes me wish I were in California – and that’s a rare thing:

May 11-15 is California Bike Commute Week this year. That means that you’ve got less than two weeks to prepare for that week of bike commuting, so maybe you want to get a bit of practice in – a day or two of bike commuting between then and now.

Map out you route, and take a bit of extra time, and enjoy yourself. You’ll be saving money and helping the clear the air in the process.

There’s bad news for bighorn sheep tonight, at least for the peninsular bighorn sheep that live to the south of Palm Springs in California. The Obama Administration just slashed their protected habitat to a third of its previous level.

Here are a few sources you can use to learn more about the peninsular bighorn sheep and the efforts to protect it:

- Bighorn Institute
- Center for Biological Diversity
- Desert Survivors
- Zip Code Zoo profile

They caught my attention with an article on a proposal to paint the roofs of buildings white in an effort to reflect solar radiation back into outer space as a way to combat global warming. They kept my attention with a broad variety of worthwhile environmental articles, on topics such as making pedestrian friendly roads, and the problems of transit-oriented development in Seattle. It’s a great source of environmental stories from around the world – read Planetizen, and become a planetizen.

As the economy gets worse, what we do not need more of is posturing by the national leaders in photo opportunities like the G20 summit. What we do need are strategies for learning to get by with less. Whether it’s by Bush or by Obama, stimulus is clearly targeted to help big banks and corporations. The rest of us are just supposed to live off the trickle-down kibbles from the fat cats’ banquet.

Here’s one tip: Leave your car in the driveway – or even sell it. Instead of burning up expensive gasoline every day, try using your muscles to move. Walk. Bike. Heck, skateboard.

Remember, your legs are designed to enable you to move, not just to tap acceleration and brake pedals.

While you’re at it, visit the National Center for Biking and Walking, and keep up to date with their activities in helping people promote a stronger place for pedestrians and cyclists in American communities.

It’s not just for our human economy that we need to learn to move again. Our planet’s biosphere is becoming a dangerously filthy place to live in, thanks to the pollution that comes from fossil fuels.

Get back on your feet. It’s a better way.

The American public seems to have understood: The reality is that there is no such thing as clean coal. But, have the politicians received the message yet?

Politicians, Democrats as much as Republicans, are trying to get government funding for new dirty coal burning power plants at every opportunity. To get elected officials to listen to the clean energy majority of Americans, and stop government support for dirty coal energy, citizens are going to have to speak loudly enough to counter the dollars of the coal industry’s lobbyists.

That’s just what’s going on in South Carolina, where the people say no to new to coal. It’s a simple, direct campaign: SC Says No opposes all new coal plants in the state.

Environmental protection takes on a completely new tone on the EPA fugitive page. The site is filled with the profiles of people who have committed environmental crimes and become fugitives from justice. If you’re tired of Sierra Club stories about restored marshes, these fugitives give you something a little bit more exciting to read about.

Americans’ annoyance at the proliferation of pubescent personal water craft has grown since the onset of the recession and the returned rise of energy prices. As the rest of America seeks to establish responsible energy conservation, saps on seadoos burn gasoline like it’s 1975, just to go riding around and around in circles. Jerks on jet skis pollute the air and water with their inefficient engines going just a mile or two per gallon. Egocentric, they drain the economy of its real strength, pouring dollars into preschool fantasies of listening to loud motors make a vroom vroom sound.

Public anger at the dangerous and dirty jet skis has been growing for years. More recently, there’s been a movement to ban jet skis, recognizing the unsustainability of the mostly useless mini boats.

The following video makes a personal point of criticism against the predominantly out of shape people who ride jet skis instead of exercising their own muscles:

Shell Oil is one of those corporations with a name that lends itself to activist mottos. So, the Save Our Wetlands activist web site in Louisiana seeks an end to the shell game that threatens an important storm-surge-blocking wetlands for the sake of a Shell Oil liquid natural gas plant.

To be honest, I cannot decipher any word play in the listing of Shell Oil as among the Most Wanted Corporate Human Rights Violators – because it’s in Italian.

It couldn’t be more clear, however, that Shell Oil is playing its own word games, given a recent report in Congress by Congressman Ed Markey about the way that Shell Oil advertised on TV and testified before Congress that it was working to develop solar, wind and other sustainable energy sources last year, but has since quietly announced that it won’t be spending money on those projects after all.

That’s what they call greenwashing – but there’s no way to paint a shell coated in crude oil as an ecofriendly enterprise.